Tergiversate

Tergiversate (Pronounced tur-ji-ver-seyt)

(1) To change repeatedly one's attitude or opinions with respect to a cause or subject.

(2) To turn renegade; to change sides, affiliations or loyalties; to apostatize; to desert.

(3) To evade, to equivocate using subterfuge; to obfuscate in a deliberate manner.  To be evasive or ambiguous.

(4) To flee by turning one's back (obsolete).

1645-1655; From the Classical Latin tergiversātus, perfect active participle of tergiversor (to evade, to avoid, to turn one's back on) and past participle of tergiversārī (to turn one's back), the construct being tergi- (a combining form of tergum (back)) + versātus, past participle of versāre, frequentative of +‎ versor or vertere (to turn (from the primitive Indo-European root wer- (to turn; to bend))).  The Vulgar Latin was tergiversationem (nominative tergiversatio).  The original mid-seventeenth century sense of the verb tergiversate was “to shift; practice evasion” and it was used especially in a political or religious context to mean “apostatize, desert one's party”.  It’s not clear whether the verb was a directly from the Latin tergiversates or a back-formation from tergiversation.  The noun tergiversation (turning dishonestly from a straightforward action or statement; shifting, shuffling, equivocation) was in use by the 1560s, from the Latin tergiversationem (a shifting, evasion, declining, refusing), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of tergiversari.  Deconstructed, that meant literally “to turn one's back on”, thus the sense of “to evade” from tergum (the back (of unknown origin) + versare.  In the seventeenth century, there were nuances to tergiversation, on version noting the meaning: “A seeming to runne away, yet (like some cocks) still to fight, wrangling” (ie a tactic of delayed attack rather than a retreat).  Some sources list the verb tergiversate being obsolete by the twentieth century but it survived as a “decorative word” and “deliberate anachronism” before being revived because it was so useful in political commentary.  Tergiversate, tergiversated & tergiversating are verbs and tergiversation & tergiversator are nouns; the noun plural forms (tergiversations & tergiversators) are rare.

While “tergiversate” can be applied to changes of opinion or alignment in many fields, in contemporary practice it’s rare for it to be seen except when speaking of writing about politics & politicians, a rich source of mendacity and inconsistency.  So common is political tergiversation that the frequency with which it’s reported has compelled the coining or adaptation of other terms including “flip-flopping”, “turncoating”, “U-turning”, and “ratting”, some politicians known even to have embraced them.  Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in 1901 entered the UK’s House of Commons as a Tory (Conservative), having on the hustings lambasted his opponents in the Liberal Party as “prigs, prudes and faddists” and once in parliament he warmed to the topic, accusing the Liberals of “…hiding from the public view like a toad in a hole”, adding “…when it stands forth in all its hideousness we Tories will have to hew the filthy object limb from limb.”  That told the country what he must at the time have thought yet in less than three years he’d stand on the same platform and ejaculate: “I hate the Tories.  I am an English Liberal.”  Obviously that was a nailing of the colors to the mast yet by 1924, after a turbulent couple of decades, he returned to the Tory benches, all apparently forgiven (though certainly not forgotten).  Whether those tergiversations were acts of principle or a sniffing of the electoral breeze can be debated but Churchill himself took the view he’d done it all with some panache, joking in his club: “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.”

#freckles: Lindsay Lohan out shopping. Tergiversate’s origin lies in the Latin tergiversari (to turn one's back) but that sense of the word has for more than a century been extinct and it’s now a “loaded” word; a pejorative characterization rather than a neutral description.

The Athenian statesman and general Alcibiades (circa 450-404 BC) ratted more often than Churchill and did in circumstances wholly more distasteful, his allegiance shifting on several occasions during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC, fought between the Athenians and Spartans).  Historians have attributed his repeated acts of treachery not to ideological commitment or even avarice but to what a modern HR (Human Relations) department might describe as “difficulties in personal relationships” that led not infrequently to erstwhile colleagues becoming enemies.  Prominent in his native Athens where he advocated a hard line against the Spartans in both foreign policy and military matters, Alcibiades proved skilful in Masonic-like plotting and scheming but his ruthlessness made many enemies and they too proved adept at character assassination; reading the writing on the wall (about to be written in his blood) he decamped to Sparta, taking with him valuable secrets about the military plans of Athens, making him a most useful “consultant”.  However, the problem inherent in being a turncoat (however useful) is that one never is wholly trusted by ones new “friends” and this tension, coupled with Alcibiades’ clearly abrasive personality made him realise he’d do well to depart and so he did, defecting the court of the Persian Empire where he served as a strategic advisor.  However, so much had the power centres in Athens shifted that remarkably (given his history), he was recalled to military command there, serving for several years before the faction that had never forgiven him engineered his second exile to Persia.  There he was murdered, reputedly on the orders of his enemies in Sparta but there’s a long list of likely suspects.

What’s now the most frequent use of tergiversation is to refer to promises made and broken by those most notorious of tergiversators: politicians.  Although the term “law-maker” is less commonly used beyond the US, it’s a revealing way to describe those elected or appointed to legislatures and the key to why they are able to break what should be regarded as contractual promises while others doing the same thing can severely be punished.  When seeking election to what most people casting a vote would regard as a highly paid job, politicians make what are known as “campaign promises”.  The promises are an inducement to make people vote for them so they get the well paid job so what should be created is a “social contract”; upon being elected, the politician should fulfil their promises.  In that it should be no different from the furniture store advertising their “special deal” of “one coffee table, two chairs and one sofa for $1,999”; that’s what should be delivered.  Were the store to take the $1,999 and deliver only one chair and one sofa, the customer would have legal recourse.  What that might be (an order for specific performance of the contract (ie delivering the missing table and chair)); a refund; compensation for the missing items etc) might vary according to this and that but there would be come redress available and that’s because the law-makers have passed laws protecting consumers from those breaking promises.

Day of the Tergiversate (2017), directed by Alex Michael Smith (known also for Bed of Fear (2014) and Monsters of Suburbia (2019).

However, lawmakers everywhere (as far as is known) have not passed laws making political promises enforceable despite the principle being the same as the furniture store (promises made to deliver something exchange for something (money or votes).  Political scientists have noted the social contract between politician & voter conforms with the four essential element of a contract listed in every text book in the common law world: (1) Offer (a politician makes a promise in exchange for a vote), (2) Acceptance (by voting a voter in engaging in an act of “acceptance by acquiescence”), (3) Consideration (in voting the voter is “paying” the politician for their promise(s)) and (4) Certainty of terms (helpfully, political parties list their promises in the “party platform”, usually in simple, unambiguous language of the advertising slogan).  So that would appear to suggest that according to the legal principles the lawmakers impose on everybody else, the promises they made to get their well-paid jobs should at law be enforceable.  Of course they are not and the lawmakers remain free to break their promises at will.  While the politicians can argue that any voter sufficiently upset about one or more broken promises can in the next election vote for somebody else, that really doesn’t much help because (1) the politician will enjoy some years (typically between 2-8) in the high paid job they obtained by making promises that were broken and (2) the alternatives are just a likely to break promises.

The roll-call of tergiversating politicians is of course long and rarely noble; sometimes the consequences have for decades rippled.  Overturning long-standing party policy, Tory Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850; Prime Minister of the UK 1834–1835 & 1841–1846) had to rely on the support of the Whig opposition to in 1846 repeal the UK’s protectionist “Corn Laws”, triggering the “free trade” squabbles which would for decades rage.  A most unusual reform by a Tory administration (it benefited the poor and cost the rich!); shortly after that his ministry fell and Peel would never again hold office.  Still, he’s remembered because of another of his innovations lent his names to two of the original slang terms for police constables: “Peelers” and “Bobbies”.

Front page of Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York Post, 27 June 1990.  The editors of Mr Murdoch's tabloids prefer punchy words like “lied” to decorative forms like “tergiversated”.

George H.W. Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; VPOTUS 1981-1989 and POTUS 1989-1993) might have got away with breaking his “…no new taxes” promise had it been an anodyne line of electoral orthodoxy buried somewhere in the Republican’s 1988 manifesto but he made the mistake of standing at rallies and loudly declaring: “Read my lips: no new taxes”, probably the most widely televised fragment of the campaign and greeted always with resounding applause.  It must at the time have seemed a good idea and probably it was; certainly nobody doubts Mr Bush really believed what he was promising and few politicians could convey sincerity like him.  Unfortunately, economic conditions worsened and by 1990 he took the decision to raise taxes in an attempt to “reign in” the growing deficit.  This was the era before Dick Cheney (1941-2025; VPOTUS 2001-2009) helpfully explained: “Deficits don’t matter”, a new (at least temporary) orthodoxy explaining why the US deficit is now nudging US$40 trillion which, although only a few dozen Elon Musks (b 1971), is a big number.  In 1990, Mr Bush preferred to avoid what he might once have called “voodoo economics”, stuck to the text books and raised taxes, something which contributed to Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) winning the “It’s the economy stupid” 1992 presidential election, voters, however unhappily, receiving a free copy of crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).

Many economists at the time commended Mr Bush for breaking his promise but there weren’t many of them and there were many more angry voters.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) found the electorate more forgiving of him breaking the promise made in the 1932 campaign to “cut federal spending by 25%”.  Instead, he embarked upon the “New Deal” and while some economists have argued all that “tax & spend” churn delayed economic recovery, the many who at the time benefited from the stimulus weren’t inclined to decline support because of FDR’s broken promise.  As ever, “it’s the economy stupid”.  Now of course, in the time of the US$40 trillion deficit, it’s different and the shadow since 1987 cast by the “Greenspan put” (recessions ultimately reducible to “rich people losing money” the solution of celebrity economist (a rare breed) Dr Alan Greenspan (1926-2026; chairman of the Fed (US Federal Reserve) 1987-2006) being to “give them money”) grows ever longer.  In a sense, that has removed from the US political debate much of the need for politicians to make promises about taxes or spending because they know that while the Fed’s mechanism to “create money” may be different from the Nazi-era “wizardry” of Dr Hjalmar Schacht’s (1877–1970; president of the Reichsbank 1923-1930 & 1933-1939), “Mefo bills” (promissory notes, drawn upon the artificial company Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft (Metallurgical Research Corporation), the “bottom line” outcomes are strikingly similar.  How long this system can be sustained has attracted comment, the Dick Cheney faction in one corner and in the other, those saying “It’s the stupid economy”.

“Core” and “non core” promises explained.  Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011. 

A breathtakingly audacious “justification” of breaking election promises was in 1996 coined (apparently on-the-spot so he gets points for that) by John Howard (b 1939; prime minister of Australia 1996-2007).  When challenged by a journalist over having blatantly just broken several promises made during the election campaign only a few months earlier, Mr Howard constructed a new theory, one previously unknown to political science and never codified even by such cleverly wicked chaps as the Florentine diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469–1527), the “Welsh wizard” David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) or the truly evil Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), none of whom were ever much bothered by the notion of “keeping promises”).  What Mr Howard extemporized was that election promises can be categorized into “core” pledges that must be kept, and “non-core” pledges able to be broken or amended (also an interesting distinction).  That really would have been a most useful contribution to democratic theory had Mr Howard explained things prior to the election and listed his party’s “core” and “non-core” promises in the manifesto thus.  Unfortunately, his concept appeared only after the promised had “done the job” and elected him.  So, given the cynicism in the “core” vs “non-core” dichotomy he retrospectively applied, one might have thought the electorate might have punished Mr Howard but he went on to win another three elections (holing office for more than a decade and becoming the country's second-longest serving leader), the voters apparently concluding that even though he’d broken his promises, at least he’d had the chutzpah to come up with an even bigger lie in justification.  Never forgetting their convict origins, Australians can’t help but admire successful skulduggery and Mr Howard was a “conviction politician”; never was it said of him he was one of those “who lacked the courage of his lack of convictions”.

In modern use the understanding of “tergiversation” has shifted from its origin in the Latin tergiversari (to turn one's back) and while more than “flip-flop”, “U-turn” or “lie”, generally it’s now used to convey the idea of evasion, duplicity, abandonment of a previously held position, shifting a previously expressed stance for mere expediency or base self-interest; most associated with politicians it thus carries connotations of bad faith or basic dishonesty.  “Tergiversation” is thus a “loaded” word; a pejorative characterization rather than a neutral description.  Even for politicians however there can be good reasons to break promises.  Although phrases in the vein of “When someone persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?” usually are attributed to the English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), there’s no evidence he ever used those words but the sentiment certainly exists in his writings including: “The company must maintain constant vigilance and revise preconceived ideas in response to changes in external situations” and “The inactive investor who takes up an obstinate attitude about his holdings and refuses to change his opinion merely because facts and circumstances have changed is the one who in the long run comes to grievous loss.”

Chopstick diplomacy.

Comrade Zhou Enlai (1898–1976; premier of the People's Republic of China (PRC) 1949-1976, left), Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974) (centre) and comrade Zhang Chunqiao (1917–2005, right) at the welcome banquet for President Nixon's visit to the PRC, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 26 February 1972.

It was in that spirit Richard Nixon, who had built a political career on his virulent anti-communism and support for the renegade province of Taiwan, switched to achieve a détante with the PRC (People’s Republic of China, the old “Red China”) and ultimately grant diplomatic recognition.  That was quite a switch and one at the time only someone with his solid anti-communist credentials could have achieved; while his motivations weren’t wholly pure, he did understand the geopolitical environment he and Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977) were confronting was very different to that which a generation earlier had existed for Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; POTUS 1953-1961) and John Foster Dulles (1888–1959; US secretary of state 1953-1959).  Most historians have since seen the shift as an inevitable strategic adaptation to Cold War realities rather than mere tergiversation but they’re not as forgiving of all adaptations to changed circumstances.  In his pre-political life, Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) would probably not ever have been labelled a “liberal” but his public positions on at least some issues would suggest he was sympathetic to some liberal positions including gun control and the right to abortion (“pro-choice” in the US discourse).  What can’t be denied is that since the 1980s the spate of mass shootings (many of them in schools) means “circumstances have changed” yet Mr Trump is now a most doughty opponent of any attempt to strengthen gun control in the US (although in NYC’s Trump Tower a “No Carry” policy strictly is enforced).  This isn’t exactly the sort of “change of opinion”  Keynes had in mind but rather what David Stockman (b 1946; Director of the US OMB (Office of Management and Budget) 1981–1985) called “The Triumph of Politics”, the sub-title of his 1986 book the explanatory: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.  A quick learner, Mr Trump found at least some of the techniques in property development were transferable to electoral politics: Results matter and don’t be too bothered by principles.

Bombast & Bluster

Bombast (pronounced bom-bast)

(1) Speech deemed pompous for the occasion or context; pretentious or grandiloquent language.

(2) Cotton or cotton wool (archaic).

(3) Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments or upholstery; padding.

1560-1570: A corruption of the earlier bombase (raw cotton), from the Old French bombace (cotton, cotton wadding), from the from the Medieval Latin bombācem, accusative of the Late Latin bombāx (cotton; linteorum aut aliae quaevis quisquiliae (towels or any other rubbish (rags))), a corrupted variant use of bombyx (silk; silkworm (which in Medieval Greek came to mean “cotton”)), from the Ancient Greek βόμβυξ (bómbux) (silkworm) and perhaps connected with both certain oriental words and the Middle Persian pambak (cotton), possibly related to a primitive Indo-European root meaning “to twist, wind”.  From the same source came the Swedish bomull, the Danish bomuld (cotton) and, (via Turkish forms), the Modern Greek mpampaki, the Rumanian bumbac and the Serbo-Croatian pamuk.  The German Baumwolle (cotton) is thought likely to be the Latin word altered by folk-etymology to look like “tree wool”.  Both the Lithuanian bovelna and the Polish bawełna are partial translations from the German.  The earliest known appearance in print of the adjective bombastic was in 1704.  The synonyms include fustian, grandiloquence, purple prose, overblown, pretentious and the now obsolete aureation.  Bombast is a noun, verb & adjective, bombaster & bombastry are nouns, bombastic & bombastical are adjectives and bombastically is an adverb; the noun plural is bombasts.

In English, the word “bombase” was used of raw cotton as early as the 1550s and the sense of “stuffing and padding for clothes or upholstery” would have begun as the verbal shorthand of tailors, seamstresses and artisans making clothing, furniture and such.  Remarkably quickly, the idea of what was done with chairs and garments (padding them out) was co-opted to mean “pompous, empty speech”, that sense in use as early as the 1580s.  The idea was just as cotton (soft, loose, insubstantial) was used to “swell” clothing or upholstery to provide the illusion of something more substantial, so it was used of speech and writing judged as “swollen by extravagant sentiments and expressions which add nothing to the meaning”.  The old press baron Lord Beaverbrook (Max Aitken, 1879-1964) used the term “highfalutin nonsense” whenever he detected bombast in anything his editors were proposing to publish.

Volkswagen Super Beetle Cabriolet by Karmann: 1978 (left) & 1977 (right).  The taillights were dubbed "elephant's feet" and were that large to comply with US regulations which demanded certain dimensions and luminosity from both the rear and side-views.  They proved popular with third-party builders, especially those in "neo-classical" business making bodies using the motifs of the inter-war years.  Some cars are described as "bombastic" (a view one suspects based often on perceptions of the typical owner) but that was never applied to the modest Beetle.  There was though much bombast in the soft-top which to this day remains one of the industry's most impressive.  

Shaming what UK manufacturers offered even in their more expensive ranges, classic Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle 1938-2003) Cabriolets manufactured between 1949-1980 by coachbuilder Karmann featured a commendably heavy, weatherproof, multi-layered folding soft-top roof.  An intricate construction of structural steel, shaped timber members, vinyl and safety glass, the bombast was a rubberized horsehair (with some later variants).  Close to two inches (50 mm) thick and affording what was by convertible standards outstanding sound insulation and weather-proofing, the factory used a “sandwich” design in which the materials were arrayed in three distinct functional layers: (1) The outer layer originally was a heavy-duty Pinpoint vinyl (a two-ply composite featuring a PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) with a cotton sateen inner backing) although there was for years the option of canvas and Mohair and canvas was used for the later runs.  (2) The bombast was the “insulation padding”, a thick matting originally only of rubberized horsehair although this later was augmented by a reinforcing of coconut fibre and burlap with late build examples switching to a dense, foam rubber. (3) The headliner (inner layer) was a soft-to-touch, full-length inner canopy that hid the mechanism, emulating the look in a closed vehicle; it was made from either perforated vinyl (usually white or off-white) or a cotton-mohair fabric.  Unlike many convertibles in the era (including Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz which used discoloration-prone Perspex), the Karmann cabriolets included a solid frame holding a tempered safety glass window and from 1968 this included a integrated electric defroster wire grid.

Also by extension, “fustian” was used as a synonym, that being a type of cloth that lend garments a “stiff expansive character”, the similarity to “fuss” & “fuss” thought to have added to the appeal.  In English, “fustian” proved adaptable.  Originally, it was a coarse fabric made from cotton and flax but in modern use, while the texture is emulated, it’s now usually made with twilled wool, cotton or a cotton-linen blend.  The nature of the fabric made it suitable for furnishings such as bedspreads and many garments including skirts, coats and jackets and a specific variant with a short pile (almost always in sombre shades) is used still for menswear.  The noun fustian was from the Middle English fustian (of the fabric), from the Old French fustaine & fustaigne (persisting in modern French as futaine), from the Medieval Latin fūstāneum, from the (pannus) fūstāneus or the (tela) fūstānea, thought to be a reference to “Fustat, locality of Cairo” although this is contested.  Fustat (Al-Fustat) became the first Islamic capital of Egypt and its outgrowth was the origin of modern Cairo.  In commerce, the use of fustian (based on the texture rather than the materials) extended to a whole class of fabrics including corduroy and velveteen and there was also the now rarely seen alcoholic concoction so named (also in older guides as “rum fustian”).  That was a hot drink made variously with beer, gin, sherry or white wine (and often probably what conveniently fell to hand) to which was added egg yolk, lemon and spices (doubtlessly there were many variations).  There has been speculation about how the drink picked up the fabric’s name with suggestions including something to do the color or the nature of the mix being “rough”.  Fustianists & fustianism are nouns, fustianize is a verb and fustianed is an adjective; the noun plural is fustianists.

That literary use is thought likely based on fustian fabrics being used to make cushions, pillowcases (ie things associated with “padding or stuffing), the adjectival use in literature an attributive figurative use of the noun; it suggested (usually disapprovingly) words were inflated, pompous or pretentious (ie bombastic) and there was as late as the mid-seventeenth century the parallel sense of “incoherent or unintelligible speech or writing; gibberish, nonsense”.  Literary critics (a most judgmental lot), of course liked to apply “fustian” to anything they deemed “a bit too purple” and probably, at least mentally, kept lists of offenders but poets and authors could be just as bitchy about their literary colleagues, although Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735) was a tribute to his subject’s many achievements and a memorial of their friendship, prompted by the news the physician John Arbuthnot (circa 1667–1735) was on his death-bed:

The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year:
He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:

Although the use of “he” does suggest Pope may have had in mind a certain writer, scholars believe he was presenting a sequence of composite caricatures of the kinds of “bad poets” he thought were a plague on the language, their sins including plagiarism, being shameless translators for hire, being so muddle-minded as never to attain meaning and producing lines so inflated (fustian) that they ceased even to be “bad poetry” and became “manic prose”.  As was at the time wise for satirists, Pope often deliberately would avoid explicitly identifying his targets although knowing readers would have seen through the thin disguises; “reading between the lines” as useful then as it is now in certain countries, some even “democracies”.  His views on the use of language are however crustal clear and “sublimely bad” is a fine phrase, suggesting a writer's failures might be so spectacularly ghastly they achieve a kind of perverse grandeur, the notion he would, three years hence, return to in the mock critical treatise Peri Bathous or, Of the Art of Sinking in Poetry (1728).  In that, he assured readers he would “…lead them as it were by the hand… the gentle downhill way to Bathos; the bottom, the end, the central point the non plus ultra [nothing further beyond], of true Modern Poesy!”  Unfortunately, by the twentieth century and beyond, students of the “sublime in the ridiculous” had become victims of “the curse of plenty” but Pope can’t be blamed for that; he did his bit.

The literary term bathos (from the Ancient Greek βάθος (bathos) (depth) is used of types of writing which may include the bombastic.  Bathos is attained when a striving at the sublime, over-reaches and “topples into the absurd”, a classic collection of the bathetic was published in The Stuffed Owl (1930), compiled by the English authors Dominic Bevan “D.B.” Wyndham Lewis (1891–1969) & Charles James Lee (1870–1956).  Lewis should not be confused with the English painter, writer & critic (Percy) Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), best remembered for his seminal contribution to short-lived Vorticist movement in art that was extinguished by the blast of World War I (1914-1918).  Although the usual suspects from poetaster’s (bad poets) role of infamy appear in The Stuffed Owl including the American Julia Ann Moore (1847–1920) and Scotland’s notoriously inept William McGonagall (1825-1902), Lewis & Lee didn’t defer to reputations or the canon and among the entries were lines by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), William Wordsworth (1770–1850), Lord Byron (1788–1824), John Dryden (1631–1700), Robert "Rabbie" Burns (1759–1796) and Robert Browning (1812–1889). Curiously, while the noun bombaster (a bombastic speaker or writer) exists, there’s no such thing as a bombastee (one compelled to listen to read the words of a bombaster).

I Am Charlotte Simmons (20004) by Tom Wolfe (1930–2018), a hefty 688 pages, it "won" the Literary Review's 2004 Bad Sex Award but was said to be a favorite of George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009) so there was that.

Lewis & Lee took to their work with a light touch.  Rather than condemnation, it was admitted: “Bad verse has its canons, like good verse” and the selection of the “bad” was no less difficult than the challenges in assembling the “best” for a more conventional anthology.  As their argument went, “good” bad Verse has “an eerie, supernal beauty comparable in its accidents with the beauty of good verse” and it was likely as difficult to write a genuinely “good” bad poem as it is to write a good poem.  That was a generous view but there was also an audience for the bad, William McGonagall often engaged to give recitals of his work, always including the infamous The Tay Bridge Disaster (1880), its place in literary history assured by appearing usually in lists of the “worst ever poems”.  That “monetizing of awfulness” happens also in music.  The Portsmouth Sinfonia (1970-1979) was an English orchestra open to “musicians” with neither skill nor training and their idiosyncratic performances were well attended, as were those of Florence Foster Jenkins (1868–1944).  Ms Foster Jenkins (who was first married at 15, the age of consent in Pennsylvania then ten despite it being north of the Mason-Dixon Line) was rich enough to indulge her hobby which was singing Opera and that she did, giving public performances so awful that word spread and most were sold-out.  In literary use, there was also (between 1993-2019) the “Bad Sex Award”, described by organizing committee as “Britain’s most dreaded literary prize”.  Conferred every winter by the London-based Literary Review, it was awarded to the author judged to have penned the worst sex scene published in the previous twelve months.  It was established in 1993 by the magazine’s former editor, Auberon Waugh (1939–2001).

1938 Mercedes-Benz 320 (W142, 1937-1942) Cabriolet B in a factory promotional image.  As well as the upholstery, the folding soft-top contained horse-hair bombast. 

European manufacturers and coach-builders used “cabriolet” to distinguish certain convertibles from the more rakish, sporty roadsters although the English had to be different and decided they were DHCs (drop-head coupés) which meant a convertible version of a FHC (fixed-head coupé).  Cabriolets were for decades a fixture in the catalogues (low-priced vehicles as well as the better-remembered exotics) but in the late 1920s (with typically Teutonic attention to detail), Daimler-Benz codified the naming conventions for cabriolets built by Mercedes-Benz:

Cabriolet A: A cabriolet with two doors and room for two passengers.

Cabriolet B: A cabriolet with two doors and room for four or five passengers, fitted with a rear-quarter window for the rear seat.

Cabriolet C: A cabriolet with two doors and room for four or five passengers with no rear quarter window.

Cabriolet D: A cabriolet with four doors and room for four to six passengers.

Cabriolet F: A cabriolet with four doors, built on an extended wheelbase, usually for state or formal use with room for six or more passengers.

The jump in the factory's designations from "D" to "F" obviously skipped "E" and because that didn't seem the German way of doing things, there was speculation another type of open coachwork had been planned but which was never built because of the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945).  That's not impossible (some records were lost during the war) but the archives for the period have revealed nothing which supports the theory and the sometimes repeated assertion the "Cabriolet F" label was an allusion to "Führer" (the car's most infamous customer) is simply wrong because the designation was first used in the 1920s, prior to the Nazis gaining power and creating the Third Reich (1933-1945).  Quite what would have been the configuration of the allegedly “missing Cabriolet E” is purely speculative and those who have written on the subject have concluded it’d likely have been either (1) a four-door body distinguished only from a Cabriolet D by a longer wheelbase or different side-window treatment or (2) the intended differentiation of a Cabriolet F without the rear-quarter window (as some were built but never uniquely designated).

Bombast, in its original sense, could prove fatal.

Bomb-blasted: the Mercedes-Benz 320 Cabriolet B in which SS-Obergruppenführer (General) Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) was being driven on the day of the assassination attempt.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) had in 1938 appointed Baron Konstantin von Neurath (1873–1956; Foreign Minister of Germany 1932-1938) as Reichsprotektor (a sort of proconsul (from the Latin prōconsul, a shortened form of prō consule (one acting on behalf of the consul))) of occupied Bohemia and Moravia (a region of Czechoslovakia).  Hitler did not make the appointment because of any great regard for the baron’s administrative or diplomatic skills but because (1) he wanted the more obsequious Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) as his cipher in the Foreign Ministry and (2) he thought von Neurath’s reputation in international circles as a “moderate” would mollify the outrage expressed about the brutish and cynical tactics employed by the Nazis in their takeover of the Czech lands.  To an extend the political window dressing worked, not because von Neurath’s delegated rule was benign but because news of much of what was being done was suppressed and international attention had already turned to events elsewhere as concerns grew over Hitler’s next target.

With the outbreak of World War II, von Neurath’s regime became harsher with an increased rate of imprisonment in concentration camps, more executions and less restrained persecution of Czech Jews (the last measure not wholly without support from sections of Czech society).  However, bloody though it was, what the Reichsprotektor did was mild compared with what was done in other conquered territories (notably Poland and later in the Soviet Union when the Nazis turned to genocide as a “final solution”) and, not best pleased, late in 1941 Hitler appointed SS General Reinhard Heydrich as von Neurath’s nominal deputy although Heydrich assumed full executive authority, leaving the Reichsprotektor as a figurehead, the Nazis assuming his veneer of (relative) respectability remained useful.  Hitler knew the murderous Heydrich would not be troubled by the notions of humanity or residual decency that had constrained von Neurath and he wasn’t disappointed in his latest appointment for within days martial law had been imposed on the protectorate with thousands and arrested and hundreds executed.  When Hitler wanted something done, if possible, he’d allocate the task to the SS.

The SS (ᛋᛋ in Armanen runes; Schutzstaffel (literally “protection squadron” but translated variously as “protection squad”, “security section" etc)) was formed (under different names) in 1923 as a Nazi party squad to provide security at public meetings (then often rowdy and violet affairs) and was later re-purposed as a personal bodyguard for Hitler.  The SS name was adopted in 1925 and during the Third Reich the institution evolved into a vast economic, industrial and military apparatus more than a million strong to the point where some historians (and contemporaries) regarded it as a kind of “state within a state”.  The Waffen-SS (armed SS (ie equipped with military-grade weapons)) existed on a small scale as early as 1933 before Hitler’s agreement was secured to create a formation at divisional strength and growth was gradual even after the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 and it was the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 which triggered the Waffen-SS’s expansion into a multi-national armoured force with over 800,000 men under arms.  As well as the SS’s role in the administration of the many concentration and extermination camps, the Waffen-SS was widely implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Konstantin von Neurath.  At the first Nuremberg Trial (1946-1946) he received a 15 year sentence but was released in 1954 because of ill health, dying within two years.  Had Heydrich lived to be tried, he'd have been hanged.

Just as Heydrich understood Hitler’s language, so the Czechs understood his and rapidly the once troublesome protectorate was pacified.  Heydrich was however there not merely to impose and maintain order but also to ensure the agricultural and industrial capacity efficiently was exploited to benefit the German economy and war machine; rapidly his “carrot & stick” approach produced dividends with production rising and resources re-allocated within the Czech economy towards the needs dictated by Berlin.  Heydrich proved remarkably successful in his role, his “cut the head off the snake” (ie identifying and what would now be called “neutralizing” those likely to be troublesome) approach ending acts of sabotage or other resistance while his increases in the allocation of food and consumer goods to the population resulted in a workforce which, it not exactly “happy”, was at least compliant and productive.  Having witnessed the crackdowns and collective punishments that had characterized the early days of his rule, the Czech population had little taste for resistance, knowing retribution would be swift, brutal and widespread, meaning the place soon became peaceful.  Heydrich however regarded his tactics as a temporary measure and planned with the end of the war to engage in wholesale ethnic cleansing to “Germanize” the whole region.

That goal was known to Czech resistance based in London and for reasons both political and military, wished to do something to encourage acts of disobedience, despite knowing the consequences that would be visited upon the population.  The British authorities did nothing to discourage this view and believed resistance in occupied territories was a vital element in their plan to “set Europe ablaze” with ferment against Nazi rule.  Accordingly, a team of London-based Czech assassins was assembled and smuggled back into Prague with the audacious plan to assassinate Heydrich.  Code-named Operation Anthropoid (a word translated variously as (1) a non-human creature with some of the physical characteristics of a human or (2) a creature with the characteristics of an ape), Heydrich made their task easier because, so assured did he think was his pacification of his domain that routinely he was driven to his office in an un-armored, open-top car with no escort or security detail.

The aftermath.   A 320 Cabriolet B reputed to be this car now sits in a museum in Denmark.

On 27 May, 1942, the two Czech operatives waited at a corner where the Mercedes-Benz cabriolet had to slow to negotiate a tight turn and although mechanical failures meant Operation Anthropoid didn’t go to plan, the wounds which finally killed Heydrich were inflicted by a grenade.  The tossed grenade actually missed ending up in the rear compartment where the target was sat and instead exploded outside, just ahead of the right-side rear wheel.  What happened was shrapnel from the device passed through the cushion of the rear seat and entered Heydrich’s torso and it’s believed it took with it some of the horsehair used as the upholstery’s bombast.  The most common theory to account for his death (nine days after the blast) is the horsehair caused a systemic infection, trigging sepsis and putting his body into shock.  For the Czechs, the consequences were severe with the deaths and deportations in the thousands and never again did the Czechoslovak government-in-exile order such an operation.  In his honor, the programme to exterminate Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied Poland was named Aktion Reinhard (Operation Reinhard) and this was the start of what came to be called “the Holocaust”.  The circumstances of the loss of a man he regarded as “irreplaceable” appalled Hitler who found inexplicable the idea his representative would travel around occupied territory unescorted and in an un-armored, open-top car.  Accordingly, Mercedes-Benz was commissioned to build a run of armoured sedans to be allocated to the Nazi party.  This included the last 20 770Ks (W150, 1938-1943) and 37 two-door 540Ks (W29, 1936-1940) built on the already completed chassis and delivered between 1942-1944.

Bluster (pronounced bluhs-ter)

(1) Noisy, swaggering, empty threats or protests; inflated talk (often in the phrase “bluff and bluster”).

(2) Boisterous noise and violence.

(3) Of the wind, noisy; gusty; tumultuous.

(4) To speak or say loudly or boastfully

(5) To act in a bullying way

(6) To force or attempt to force (a person) into doing something by behaving thus

1520-1530: From the Middle English blusteren (aimlessly to wander about), the modern sense perhaps gained from the Middle Low German blustern & blüstern (to blow violently) (which may be compared with the later Low German blustern & blistern).  The obviously related words were blow and blast and it seems likely there was some connection with the East Frisian blüstern (to bluster), the Old Norse blāstr (blowing, hissing) and the Saterland Frisian bloasje (to blow) & bruusje (to bluster).  In English, the use in the context of the weather had emerged by at least the 1540s and the sense of bluster being “a storm of violent wind” (directly from the circa 1400 verb) was in general use by the 1580s.  The meaning “noisy, boisterous, inflated talk” appeared in print in 1704 but may long have been in oral use.  The adjective blustery dates from the 1730s and seems to be used first of persons in the sense of “noisy, swaggering” and may not have been applied to the weather (rough & stormy) for some decades.  Bluster is a noun & verb, blusterer, blusteration & blustrification are nouns, blustering is a noun, verb & adjective, blustered is a verb, blustersome, blusterous, blustery & blustery are adjectives and blusterously & blusteringly are adverbs; the noun plural is blusters.

Wind-blown: Lindsay Lohan at the beach on a blustery day.

Blustering was in use by the 1510s to imply “someone stormy or tempestuous” and by the 1650s it was applied to “boastful, swaggering people”.  In the (possibly co-authored) Pericles, Prince of Tyre (circa 1608), William Shakespeare (1564–1616) uses blusterous: “Now may your life be mild, for a blusterous birth had never babe!” (Act 3, Scene 1) and of course in Coriolanus and Sir John Falstaff he created archetypes of the loud, swaggering blustering character.  Bluster’s synonyms include boast, brag & rant.  There are a remarkable number of phrases meaning much the same thing as “all bluff and bluster” (full of talk but lacking substance) including: “all bark and no bite”, “all foam, no beer”, “all fur coat and no knickers”, “all garnish and no meat”, “all hat and no cattle, “all icing, no cake”, “all lime and salt, no tequila”, “all mouth and no trousers”, “all shot, no powder”, “all show, no go, “all sizzle and no steak and “all talk and no action”.

Bombast and bluster are much associated with politicians although, if anything, those tendencies are now seen less as the trend from at least the mid-twentieth century has been towards simplicity and repetition (the most effective form clearly believed to be the 3WS (three word slogan)).  In political rhetoric however, bombast and bluster did have a long and sometimes ignoble history and among critics the terms often were used interchangeably because, despite the subtle differences in meaning, very often there’d be elements of both in the one speech.  They are different faults: Bombast refers to inflated, grandiose, pompous language. The criticism is that the speaker's words are overly elaborate or impressive-sounding relative to their actual substance; after listening for a while to some of Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) carefully crafted phrases, Aneurin “Nye” Bevan (1897–1960) responded by saying: “The majesty of his words conceals the poverty of his thoughts.”.  Bluster is different in that it refers to loud, aggressive, boastful, or threatening talk, often with the implication there is more noise than action.  Bluster is a label applied to the speaker's swaggering manner rather than their vocabulary or phraseology.  So, bombast is a thing of style & language while bluster is about tone and attitude but there are many instances of speeches contain both bombast (grandiose language) with bluster (aggressive attitude); the preferred collective term is “hot air”.  That of course reflects the different etymology, bombast (originally “padding or stuffing” in its figurative sense meaning “stuffed excessively with words” while bluster (originally of stormy wind conditions) suggesting “noisy or overbearing speech”.  So, in as few words as possible: bombast is verbal inflation; bluster is verbal intimidation.

Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) at the UN, September 2025.

Mr Trump often is described as “bombastic” but that really is a misuse, albeit a common one among those commenting on politics and politicians.  Whether or not one concurs with his views, Mr Trump usually expresses himself in commendably succinct terms which readily can be understood by most, eschewing the use of long, unusual or obscure words.  It’s an example of how the meaning of bombast has shifted but what critics really mean to say is Mr Trump is inclined to bluster and prone to exaggerate; he does not however “pad out” his sentences with decorative phrases or words inserted mere to prove his erudition.  Instead, his language is direct and simple and while someone like the classically educated Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) sometimes couldn’t resist delighting at least some in his audience with the odd linguistic flourish, Mr Trump likes simple, punchy words and some fragments from his address to the UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) in September 2025 illustrate his approach: “One year ago, our country was in deep trouble.  But today, just eight months into my administration, we're the hottest country anywhere in the world, and there is no other country even close.”; “This is the greatest administration in US history.  We have strongest borders, military and relationships around the world.”; “What is the purpose of the United Nations?  It has such tremendous, tremendous potential.  But it's not even coming close to living up to that potential.  For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly-worded letter and then never follow that letter up.  It's empty words and empty words don't solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action.”; “Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements.”; “Europe has to step it up.  They can't be doing what they're doing.  They're buying oil and gas from Russia while they're fighting Russia.  It's embarrassing to them.”; “Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often it's actually creating new problems for us to solve.  The best example is the No. 1 political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It's uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined.  Your countries are going to hell.”; “Climate change is the greatest con job ever.  If you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”  There are grounds on which Mr Trump can be criticized but he uses plain, simple words and his meaning is always clear and that approach may be compared with that of Kamala Harris (b 1964; VPOTUS 2021-2025), his opponent in the 2024 election and it wasn't only Fox News that liked to describe her speech as a “word salad”.  In fairness, what Ms Harris did wouldn’t have met the clinical threshold of what in psychiatry used to be called schizophasia (a severe form of disorganized speech consisting of a confused, unintelligible mixture of seemingly random, unconnected words and phrases; while the words themselves may be grammatically correct, they lack logical or semantic meaning, making the speech impossible for a listener to understand) but it could be a challenge to gain meaning from her words.  At least Joe Biden (b 1942; VPOTUS 2009-2017 and POTUS 2021-2025) had an excuse for his mumbling and incoherence; he was senile.

Palindrome

Palindrome (pronounced pal-in-drohm)

(1) A word, line, verse, number, sentence etc, reading the same backward as forward.

(2) In biochemistry, a region of DNA in which the sequence of nucleotides is identical with an inverted sequence in the complementary strand.

1638: From the Ancient Greek παλίνδρομος (palindromos) (running back again; recurring, literally “literally "a running back”) the construct being πάλιν (pálin) (again, back) + δρόμος (dromos) (direction, running, race, racecourse).  Pálin was from the primitive Indo-European kwle-i-, a suffixed form of the root kwel- (revolve, move round) (kw- becomes the Greek p- before some vowels.  The word palindrome was first published by Henry Peacham (1578-circa 1645) in The Truth of Our Times (1638).  Although derived from the Greek root palin + dromos, the Greek language uses καρκινικός (carcinic, literally “crab-like”) to refer to letter-by-letter reversible writing.  The related palinal (directed or moved backward, characterized by or involving backward motion) dates from 1888.  The noun palinode (poetical recantation, poem in which the poet retracts invective contained in a former satire) dates from the 1590s and was from either the sixteenth century French palinod or the Late Latin palinodia, from the Greek palinōidia (poetic retraction), again from pálin; the related form were palinodical & palinodial.  The word palinode was sometimes applied to the apologies artists and others in the Soviet Union were compelled to publish, often after being accused of formalism or something just as heinous.  Palindrome & palindromist are nouns, palindromic is an adjective and palindromically is an adverb; the noun plural is palindromes.

Pierre Laval (1883–1945; Prime Minister of France 1931-1932, 1935-1936 & de facto prime minister in the Vichy Government 1942-1944).

Even before he spent the final years of his political career as a senior official in the collaborationist regime of Vichy France under Marshal Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), the palindromic Laval was already notorious for his dubious financial dealings while in government and being a party to the Hoare–Laval Pact (1935), concocted with the then British Foreign Secretary Samuel “Slippery Sam” Hoare (1880-1959) with which the pair sought to end the tiresome Second Italo-Ethiopian War (the last of the colonial land-grabs in the era of European colonization) because it was “bad for business”.  Something of a precursor to the 1938 Munich Agreement in which the UK and France acquiesced to the Nazi’s dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in exchange for what, delusionally, they believed would be Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) final territorial claim in Europe, what the Hoare–Laval Pact offered was a partition of Abyssinia, something that, in retrospect, would have been merely the first step to Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) absorbing the whole country as a colony of Imperial Italy.  Even for the by then jaded people of France and the UK the cynicism was too blatant and the reaction when the details were made public compelled the dismissal of both ministers.

Sir Samuel Hoare ice-skating, October 1935.

An expert skater, Hoare broke his nose while skating in Switzerland at the time of the furore surrounding the Hoare-Laval Pact; in editorial offices around the world, photographs were captioned: “Hoare skating on thin ice”.  When told of the broken nose, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) responded: “Pity it wasn't his neck.”  Meeting his unhappy ex-minister after his dismissal, George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) (who had urged the British government to endorse the pact) tried to cheer him up by repeating a joke doing the rounds of the London clubs: “No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris.”  He was disappointed when Sir Samuel didn’t laugh.

In the way things are done in politics, after serving their brief time in the penalty box (sin-bin in some sports), both made comebacks although Laval's ended not well.  Slippery Sam found a niche as the UK's ambassador to Spain (1940-1944) where his talents proved invaluable for his dual role (bribing generals and persuading Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) not to get too involved in the war).  Created Viscount Templewood upon his return to the UK, he was an active member of the House of Lords and wrote a number of books but his later life was lived in the shadow of the 1930s, remembered always as one of the 15 “guilty men” portrayed in the 1940 book of the same name, co written by three politically-aligned journalists (Frank Owen (1905-1979, Liberal), Michael Foot (1913-2010, Labour) and Peter Howard (1908-1965, Conservative).  Hoare’s own memoir of the 1930s (Nine Troubled Years (1954)) was an apologia for the appeasement policies of the decade and although if sympathetically read (those were, as he said, “troubled years”) his “guilt” emerges somewhat mitigated, his reputation never recovered.

Otto Abetz (1903-1958; de facto German ambassador to Paris 1940-1944, left) shaking hands with Marshal Pétain (right), Paris, November 1941.

Pétain had little faith in the arrangements his regime negotiated with the Germans honored, telling colleagues after one meeting: "It will take six weeks to work out all the details and six months for the Germans to forget all about them."  Because Berlin didn't formerly created diplomatic relations with France after the defeat in 1940, Otto Abetz was never properly credentialed as ambassador but wholly he discharged the duties.  His great nephew is Eric Abetz (b 1958; Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022, Treasurer of Tasmania since 2024).

Laval, sniffing the winds of French defeat in 1940, became a convinced fascist, serving in the Vichy regime between July 1940-August 1944 variously as vice-president of the Council of Ministers and head of government.  He fled to Spain after the Liberation of France but was extradited and put on trial for plotting against the security of the state and collaborating with the Nazis; found guilty, he was executed by firing squad in October 1945.  Old Marshal Pétain fared a little better.  Although also sentenced to death for his role during the occupation, Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969), then serving as Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, couldn’t bring himself to sign the death warrant for one of the country’s heroes of World War I (1914-1918) and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, officially on the grounds of “age”.

Perhaps surprisingly, the longest known palindromic word is not German despite their fondness for lengthy compounds.  According to the Guinness Book of World Records the record is held by the 19 character saippuakivikauppias which is Finnish for “a travelling salesman who sells lye (caustic soda)”.  It’s said not often to come up in conversation and seems to exist only a curiosity used in lists of long palindromes where it's the undisputed number one.  In English, palindromes of a few characters are common but examples with more than seven letters are rare.  Tattarrattat (the sound made by knocking on a door), as it’s usually spelled, has 12 characters but is a bit of a fudge because it’s also an onomatopoeia so some lexicographers insist it doesn’t count.  Also cheating but clever is the 11 letter aibohphobia meaning a fear of palindromes, the construct being the suffix -phobia written in reverse + phobia.  Adding to the charm is that while doubtlessly a non-existent condition, it's suspected there are anyway a few of those in the literature of psychiatry; certainly there's a goodly number in the many "phobia lists".  From India, there's kinnikinnik, a smoking mixture of bark & leaves (but no tobacco).  English’s longest “real” palindrome appears to be detartrated, the past participle of detartrate (to remove tartrates (salts of tartaric acid)), especially from fruit juices and wines, in order to reduce tartness or sourness).  Not only is it a real word but it describes a common process in the industrial production of foods and beverages.

Announced on an auspicious date.

On 2 February 2020, Lindsay Lohan (b 1986), in a now deleted Instagram post, for the first time publicly acknowledged her relationship with Bader Shammas (b 1987), a group photograph from Dubai, including the couple and her sister Aliana (b 1993), captioned: "@aliana lovely night with sister and my boyfriend bader💗".  The couple would later marry.  2 February 2020 (02-02-2020) was the twenty-first century’s only eight-digit global palindrome (ie it works with either the MM-DD-YYYY or DD-MM-YYYY convention).  The last eight-digit global palindrome happened 908 years earlier on the even more numerically symmetrical 11 November 1111 (11-11-1111) and the next one will be 908 years hence on 3 March 3030 (03-03-3030).  Six and seven digit palindromes are more common.

Palindromic sentences are often created and these are judged not by length but by their elegance which is why “never odd or even” often is cited as an example.  Leigh Mercer (1893–1977) was a word nerd and recreational mathematician who devised the classic "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!" and this approach was in the 1980s taken to its logical extreme in two novels, Satire: Veritas (1980, 58,795 letters) by David Stephens and Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo (1986, 31,954 words) by Lawrence Levine, both said to be palindromically perfect and wholly nonsensical.  Shorter, but of admirable clarity, are the many baptismal fonts in Greece and Turkey which bear the circular 25-letter inscription NIYON ANOMHMATA MH MONAN OYIN (Wash (my) sins, not only (my) face).  This appears also in several English churches.  Originally specific to poetry, a palindromic verse (one reading the same forwards or backwards) was in literary criticism described as cancrine, from the Latin cancer (crab) + -īnus (the suffix added to a noun base (especially a proper noun) to form an adjective in the sense of “of or pertaining to”), the notion being “cancrīnus”, the image based on most species of crab being able to walk sideways (both left & right).  In general use, by extension, the world came to be used to mean “reading something backwards”.

Sixteenth century German "oath skull" on which defendants swore their oaths in the Vehmic courts (the Vehmgericht, Holy Vehme or Vehm, the alternative spellings being Feme, Vehmegericht & Fehmgericht), a tribunal system established in Westphalia during the late Middle Ages.

Created essentially because of the inadequacies of the official justice system, they're now often referred to as "proto-vigilante" courts but for centuries they filled a niche before they came increasingly to be associated with injustice and corruption before finally being abolished in 1811, a half-decade after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the source of their original authority.

In linguistics, these “grid of letters” are called “acrostics”.  Acrostic was from the Middle French acrostiche & acrostique (persisting in modern French as acrostiche) and its etymon the Late Latin acrostichis, from the Ancient Greek ἀκροστιχίς (akrostikhís), the construct being ἄκρο- (ákro-) (the prefix indicating, inter alia, the extremity or tip of something) + στῐ́χος (stĭ́khos) (row or file of soldiers; line of poetry, verse) (ultimately from the primitive Indo-European steyg- (to climb, go)).  They remain still a popular form for the “word puzzles” appearing in the surviving newspapers and magazines.  In verse, an acrostic is a poem in which the initial letters of each line make a word or words when read downwards (the mesostich (middle) or telestich (final) letter of each line might also be used) whereas in prose the first letter of each paragraph or sentence might make up a word.  It’s speculated the earliest acrostic may have been created as a mnemonic device and used as a tool to aid oral transmission and most of the acrostics in the Old Testament are of the alphabetical or abecedarian (in this context “a work which uses words or lines in alphabetical order”) kind.  For poets however it may have been just an intellectual exercise (or perhaps “a gimmick” if not well-received by certain critics).  Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) used a simple acrostic device in ABC, a twenty-four stanza poem in which the first letter of the first word in each stanza is the appropriate letter of the alphabet, from A to Z.  The dramatist Benjamin Jonson (circa 1572–circa 1637) in his Argument (prefacing The Alchemist (1610)) used an acrostic verse (“argument” a technical term meaning “the abstract” or “plot summary”).

The palindromic (or “all-round”) acrostic seen on the oath skull is known as the “Sator square” or the “Cirencester word square” because a copy was in 1868 discovered on a painted wall plaster in what is now Victoria Road in the English town of Cirencester in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire.  At the time of the inscription, during the Roman occupation of Britain, the settlement was called Corinium.  The best documented of the early examples was one etched onto a wall in the doomed city of Herculaneum, the conclusion of most being Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas should be understood as “The sower, Arepo, makes the wheel work”), the trick being it can be read vertically, horizontally, or in the diagonal.  Known also as pentacles, the “SATOR” was the most commonly found in the Western Esotericism of late antiquity, used by Kabbalists, Gnostics, alchemists and other pre-medieval mystics in the creation of magic spells, amulets, potions etc and were thus often seen in the shops of apothecaries.  For deconstructionists, the translations are:

sator: sower/planter
tenet: he/she/they/it holds/has/grasps/possesses
opera: work/exertion/service
rotās: wheels

There has been speculation about the meaning of this pentacle, some a little fanciful and it’s not impossible things were made up just to fit, rather as "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" was coined to use each letter in the alphabet and "DICK HOOD DID EXCEED" serves no purpose other than to appear the same if inverted and viewed in a looking glass.

ROTAS
OPERA
TENET
AREPO
SATOR

The one on the skull was a second form, copied from an Egyptian papyrus of the late fourth or early fifth century AD:

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

Among professionals and amateurs alike, there has been much debate about the possible meaning(s) and although there are a number of permutations, most hint at something like “the sower Arepo holds the wheels carefully”, indicating the care required when sowing the seeds for next season’s crop.  The form may however in some places have been vested with magical or religious significance.  In sixth century Ethiopia, the five words (corrupted to Sador, Alador, Danet, Adera and Rodas), were used as the names of the five nails of Christ's Cross.  In France, the word square was known to have been used as a form of lucky charm and reputedly, one fortunate inhabitant of Lyon was cured of madness by eating three crusts of bread (each inscribed with the square) while making five recitations of the Pater Noster in remembrance of the five wounds of Christ and the five nails.  Presumably encouraged by such an event, Spanish and Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries took these charms to South America where they were said variously to protect folk from snake bites and aid childbirth.