Cutter

Cutter (pronounced kuht-er)

(1) A person employed to cut something, applied especially to one who cuts fabric for garments.

(2) A machine, tool, knife or other device for cutting.

(3) In nautical use, a single-mast sailing vessel, very similar to a sloop but having its mast set somewhat farther astern, about two-fifths of the way aft measured on the water line.

(4) In nautical use, a ship's boat having double-banked oars and one or two lugsails.

(5) In nautical use, a lightly armed government vessel used to prevent smuggling and enforce the customs regulations (known also as a revenue cutter).

(6) In psychiatry & psychology, a patient who repeatedly inflicts self-injury by cutting their flesh, a behavior traditionally associated with negative emotions.

(7) A person employed as a film editor, the titled derived from when physical film stock was physically cut with blades and re-joined.

(8) A small, light sleigh, usually single-seated and pulled by one horse.

(9) In construction, a brick suitable for cutting and rubbing, traditionally yellow and used for face-work (also called a rubber and now mostly obsolete but still use in restoration work).

(10) In industrial meat production (in the US government’s grading of beef), a lower-quality grade between utility and canner, used mostly in processed products such as hot dog sausages.

(11) In industrial meat production, a pig weighing between 68-82 kg (150-181 lb), from which fillets and larger joints are cut.

(12) In industrial meat production, an animal yielding inferior meat, with little or no external fat and marbling.

(13) In baseball, a variation of the fastball pitch.

(14) In cricket, as "leg cutter", a ball bowled by a fast bowler using finger spin to move the ball from leg to off (when delivered to a right-handed batsman); unrelated to the cut shot ("leg cut" & "off cut") except in the adjectival sense whereby a batsman might be described as “an expert cutter”, “an inept cutter” etc.  The "off cutter" is a delivery which moves in the other direction. 

(15) In dental classification, a foretooth; an incisor.

(16) In UK prison slang, a ten-pence (10p) piece, so named because it is the coin most often sharpened by prison inmates to use as a weapon.

(17) In medical slang, a surgeon (also modified to reflect specialties, neurosurgeons being “head cutters”, thoracic surgeons “chest cutter” etc).

(18) In the slang of criminology, an offender who habitually uses balded weapons to inflict injuries (also known as “slashers”).

(19) In film & television production, a flag, plate or similar instrument for blocking light.

(20) An officer in the exchequer who notes by cutting on the tallies the sums paid (obsolete).

(21) In slang, a disreputable ruffian (obsolete).

(22) As Cutter Expansive Classification (CEC), a library classification system, now obsolete although the core structure remains the basis for the system used by the US Library of Congress.

1375–1425: From the Middle English kittere & cuttere, the construct being cut(t) + -er.  Cut was from the Middle English cutten, kitten, kytten & ketten (to cut) (the Scots form was kut & kit), of North Germanic origin, from the Old Norse kytja & kutta, from the Proto-Germanic kutjaną & kuttaną (to cut), of uncertain origin, though there may be links with the Proto-Germanic kwetwą (meat, flesh) (related to the Old Norse kvett (meat)).  It was akin to the Middle Swedish kotta (to cut or carve with a knife) (the Swedish dialectal forms were kåta & kuta (to cut or chip with a knife)), the Swedish kuta & kytti (a knife), the Norwegian Bokmål kutte (to cut), the Norwegian Nynorsk kutte (to cut), the Icelandic kuta (to cut with a knife), the Old Norse kuti (small knife) and the Norwegian kyttel, kytel & kjutul (pointed slip of wood used to strip bark).  It displaced the native Middle English snithen (from the Old English snīþan) although the German schneiden survives still in some dialects as snithe or snead.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.

A glove cutter at his bench at Omega srl Gloves (the Omega Glove Factory), Rione Sanità district, Naples, Italy.  In American Pastoral (1997), Philip Roth (1933–2018) wrote that no one was able to make gloves as well as “some small factory in Rione Sanità in Naples.”  In the 1980s, most glove production moved from Europe to the Far East and it's believed there are now fewer than a hundred master-certified glove cutters left in the world, the title formalized in seventeenth century France and conferred only after years of mentorship.

Night Suspect, a British Coast Guard Cutter in Pursuit (1958), oil on canvas by Montague Dawson (1890-1973). 

As a surname derived from occupation, Cutter emerged in the late twelfth century, based on the agent noun cutter (“one who cuts something” or “one who shapes or forms by cutting") from the verb cut From the 1630s it came to be used to describe an "instrument or tool for cutting", the use spreading as specialized tools and machines were developed.  In nautical use, beginning in 1792, it was applied to a range of small, single-mast vessels, a borrowing from the earlier use for a “double-banked boat belonging to a ship of war”, noted since 1745 and the rationale is unrecorded but it may have been either because of the similar lines of the hull or the more romantic idea of “cutting through” (moving quickly) the water.  The original ships were the “revenue cutters", lightly-armed government vessels commissioned for the prevention of smuggling and the enforcement of the customs regulations.  The use was therefore for some time restricted to vessels cutter-rigged, but the name has survived to transcend the original specification, almost all revenue ships now powered while the handful of sailed-ships are schooner-rigged.  Modifiers are used to describe various specialized tools used for cutting including biscuit cutter, cigar cutter, bolt cutter, box-cutter, gem cutter, glass cutter, leaf-cutter et al.  The original box cutters, dating from 1871, were those employees with the task of “cutting boxes” while the installed box cutters were pieces of large industrial plant, first noted in 1890; the familiar modern box cutter (hand-held bladed tool for cutting cardboard) first sold in 1944.  A cookie cutter is literally a device used to cut shapes from a sheet of pastry dough but is also used figuratively to describe to things which are un-original or un-imaginative.  Cutter is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is cutters.

Cutters: Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI)

What cutters do.

Cutters are the best known example of self-harmers, the diagnosis of which is described in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI).  NSSI is defined as the deliberate, self-inflicted destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned; it includes behaviors such as cutting, burning, biting and scratching skin.  Behaviorally, it’s highly clustered with instances especially prevalent during adolescence and the majority of cases being female although there is some evidence the instances among males may be under-reported.  It’s a behavior which has long interested and perplexed the profession because as something which involves deliberate and intentional injury to body tissue in the absence of suicidal intent (1) it runs counter to the fundamental human instinct to avoid injury and (2) as defined the injuries are never sufficiently serious to risk death, a well-understood reason for self-harm.  Historically, such behaviors tended to be viewed as self-mutilation and were thought a form of attenuated suicide but in recent decades more attention has been devoted to the syndrome, beginning in the 1980s at a time when self-harm was regarded as a symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) (personality disorders first entered DSM when DSM-III was published in 1980), distinguished by suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or acts of self-mutilation.  Clinicians however advanced the argument the condition should be thought a separate syndrome (deliberate self-harm syndrome (DSHS)), based on case studies which identified (1) a patient’s inability to resist the impulse to injure themselves, (2) a raised sense of tension prior to the act and (3) an experience of release or at least partial relief after the act.  That a small number of patients were noted as repeatedly self-harming was noted and it was suggested that a diagnosis called repetitive self-mutilation syndrome (RSMS) should be added to the DSM.  Important points associated with RSMS were (1) an absence of conscious suicidal intent, (2) the patient’s perpetually negative affective/cognitive which was (temporarily) relieved only after an act of self-harm and (3) a preoccupation with and repetitiveness of the behavior.  Accordingly, NSSI Disorder was added to the DSM-5 (2013) and noted as a condition in need of further study.

KEIBA Side Cutters.

Although interest in the cutters spiked in the 1990s, papers had been published as early as the 1930s and the literature suggests something of a consensus among clinicians it should be regarded a matter of self-mutilation, such acts a form of attenuated suicide.  Accordingly, all non-fatal and deliberate forms of self-injury tended to be viewed as suicide attempts, regardless of whether there was any expressed suicidal intent and it wasn’t until the 1960s that any volume of doubt emerged.  That was significant, not only because self-injury was coming to be understood as something distinct from attempted suicide but that it implied the instance of attempted suicide was significantly overstated, something of interest to many.  This led to the coining of the novel word “parasuicide”, perhaps an indication the profession still preferred to think cutting a sub-set rather than anything distinct.

Cutters' scars, fresh & fading.

For clinicians, NSSI can at the margins be a difficult diagnosis.  To fit the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5, NSSI must be intentional and deliberate but acts sometimes occurs during dissociative episodes so a judgment needs to be made determining whether an act can be held to be intentional if the patient is detached from reality.  As a definitional matter. there’s also the issue that if the motivation is to “feel something” some degree of intentionality seems at least implied but these examples do illustrate why NSSI among those suffering an episode of dissociation need even more carefully to be assessed before a diagnosis is decided.  There’s also a threshold criterion for the injury suffered, wounds needing to be “moderately intense” to qualify, thus the exclusion of such as lip-biting, scab & skin picking, hair pulling and nail-biting, even if these injuries might demand clinical care in another context (and may well be relevant in assessment measures).  Some extent of a “destruction of body tissue” is thus required and the current DSM-5 definition specifies bleeding or bruising.  However, it’s noted in cases studies that while minor and highly normative behaviors such as lip-biting, skin picking and hair pulling are excluded: (1) When severe they may be indicative of another specific condition such as trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder) or excoriation (skin-picking disorder) rather than NSSI and (2) repeated and obsessional instances of behavior that might otherwise be considered mild and normative might appropriately be diagnosed as NSSI.

Case Fatality Rates by Suicide Method (8 indicative US states, 1989-1997)

Although the instances of death resulting from cutting are low, it’s clear many patients engage in NSSI behaviors while experiencing thoughts of suicide and while the evidence suggests many report being resigned to death as a consequence of cutting, actual suicidal thoughts and hopes for death are markedly higher in those exhibiting suicidal behaviors.  Intriguingly, it seems some may engage in NSSI as a way to avoid acting on thoughts of suicide; NSSI for these patients serving to regulate and reduce suicidal thoughts and intentions.  So it’s clear that in both thought and behavior, there’s some overlap between NSSI and suicidal thoughts meaning that even if a cutter’s injuries are (medically) minor, the condition should not be thought trivial although, for practical purposes, NSSI and suicidal behaviors need still to be categorized separately.  Cutting is also special in that it is so overt, unlike other forms of self-harm such as alcohol & drug abuse, risky behavior or neglecting to follow a prescribed treatment for a chronic condition.  There does however seem to be a pronounced co-morbidity between NSSI and eating disorders, the obvious link being a patient’s relationship with their body, NSSI being in some sense a compensatory behavior and form of self-punishment.  Data is clearly accumulating but the APA’s editorial committee seem not yet ready to make major structural changes: in the DSM-5-TR (Text Revision, 2022) although codes were included both suicidal behavior and NSSI, Suicidal Behavior Disorder (SBD) and NSSI Disorder remained in the section “Conditions for Further Study”.

US Coast Guard Legend Class National Security Cutter.

Mason

Mason (pronounced mey-suhn)

(1) A person whose trade is building with units of various natural or artificial mineral products, as stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or tiles, usually with the use of mortar or cement as a bonding agent.

(2) A person who dresses stones or bricks.

(3) A clipping of Freemason (should always use an initial capital but frequently mason and variations in this context (masonry, masonism etc) appear; a member of the fraternity of Freemasons.

(4) To construct of or strengthen with masonry.

1175–1225: From the Middle English masoun & machun (mason), from the Anglo-Norman machun & masson, from the Old French masson & maçon (machun in the Old North French), from the Late Latin maciō (carpenter, bricklayer), from the Frankish makjon & makjō (maker, builder; to make (which may have some link with the Old English macian (to make)) from makōn (to work, build, make), from the primitive Indo-European mag- (to knead, mix, make), conflated with the Proto-West Germanic mattijō (cutter), from the primitive Indo-European metn- or met- (to cut).  Etymologists note there may have been some influence from another Germanic source such as the Old High German steinmezzo (stone mason (the Modern German Steinmetz has a second element related to mahhon (to make)), from the primitive Indo-European root mag-.  There’s also the theory of some link with the seventh century Medieval Latin machio & matio, thought derived from machina, source of the modern English machine and the medieval word might be from the root of Latin maceria (wall).    From the early twelfth century it was used as a surname, one of a number based on occupations (Smith, Wright, Carter etc) and the now-familiar use to denote “a member of the fraternity of freemasons” was first recorded in Anglo-French in the early fifteenth century Mason is a noun & verb, masonry & masonism are nouns, masoning is a verb, masoned is an adjective & verb and masonic is an adjective; the noun plural is masons.

The noun masonry was from the mid-fourteenth century masonrie, (stonework, a construction of dressed or fitted stones) and within decades it was used to describe the “art or occupation of a mason”.  It was from the fourteenth century Old French maçonerie from maçon.  The adjective Masonic was adopted in the 1767 in the sense of “of or pertaining to the fraternity of freemasons” and although it was early in the nineteenth century used to mean “of or pertaining to stone masons”, that remained rare, presumably because of the potential for confusion; not all stonemasons would have wished to have been thought part of the order.  The stonemason seems first to have been used in 1733.  An earlier name for the occupation was the fifteenth century hard-hewer while stone-cutter was from the 1530s (in the Old English there was stanwyrhta (stone-wright).  The US television cartoon series The Simpsons parodied the Freemasons in well-received episode called Homer the Great (1995) in which the plotline revolved around a secret society called the “Stonecutters”.  Dating from 1926, Masonite was a proprietary name of a type of fiberboard made originally by the Mason Fibre Company of Mississippi, named after William H. Mason (1877-1940 and a protégé of Thomas Edison (1847-1931) who patented the production process of making it.  In 1840, the word enjoyed a brief currency in the field of mineralogy to describe a type of chloritoid (a mixed iron, magnesium and manganese silicate mineral of metamorphic origin), the name honoring collector Owen Mason from Rhode Island who first brought the mineral to the attention of geologists.

The Mason jar was patented in 1858 by New York-based tinsmith John Landis Mason (1832–1902); it was a molded glass jar with an airtight screw lid which proved idea for the storage of preserves (usually fruits or vegetables), a popular practice by domestic cooks who, in season, would purchase produce in bulk and preserve it using high temperature water mixed with salt, sugar or vinegar.  The jars were in mass-production by the mid-1860s and later the jars (optimized in size to suit the quantity of preserved food a family would consume in one meal) proved equally suited to the storage and distribution of moonshine (unlawfully distilled spirits).  Much moonshine was distributed in large containers (the wholesale level) but the small mason jars were a popular form because it meant it could be sold in smaller quantities (the retail level) to those with the same thirst but less cash.

A mason jar (left), Mason jar with pouring spout (centre) and mason jar with handle (right).

For neophytes, the classic mason jar can be difficult to handle either to drink from or to pour the contents into a glass.  Modern moonshine distillers have however stuck to the age-old jar because it’s part of the tradition and customers do seem to like purchasing their (now lawful) spirits in one.  South of the Mason-Dixon Line, “passing the jar” is part of the ritual of the shared moonshine experience and, being easily re-sealable, it’s a practical form of packaging.  To make things easier still, lids with pourers are available (which true barbarians put straight to their lips, regarding a glass as effete) and there are also mason jars with handles.

The Mason-Dixon Line and the Missouri Compromise Line.  

The Mason-Dixon Line was named after English astronomers Charles Mason (1728–1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733–1779) who between 1763-1767 surveyed the disputed boundary between the colonial holdings of the Penns (Pennsylvania) and the Calverts (Maryland), one of the many boarders (New South Wales & Victoria in Australia, Kashmir in the sub-continent of South Asia et al) in the British Empire which were ambiguously described (or not drawn at all) which would be the source of squabbles, sometimes for a century or more.  The line would probably by history have little been noted had it not in 1804 become the boundary between "free" and "slave" states after 1804, New Jersey (the last slaveholding state north of the line) passed an act of abolition.  In popular use “south of the Mason-Dixon Line” thus became the term used to refer to “the South” where until the US Civil War (1861-1865) slave-holding prevailed although, in a narrow technical sense, the line created by the Missouri Compromise (1820) more accurately reflected the political and social divisions.

A mason’s mark etched into a stone (left) and and image created from one of the registers of mason’s marks (right).

A mason's mark is literally a mark etched into a stone by as mason and historically they existed in three forms (1) an identifying notch which could be used by those assembling a structure as a kind of pattern so they would know where one stone was to be placed in relation to another, (2) as an mark to identify the quarry from which the stone came (which might also indicate the type of rock or the quality but this was rare within the trade where there tended to be experts at every point in the product cycle) and (3) the unique identifying mark of the stonemason responsible for the finishing (rather in the manner of the way the engineer assembling engines in companies like Aston Martin or AMG stamp their names into the block).  With the masons, these were known also bankers’ marks because, when the payment was by means of piece-work (ie the payment was by physical measure of the stone provided rather than the time spent) the tally-master would physically measure the stones and pay according to the cubic volume.  Every mason, upon their admission to the guild would enter into a register their unique mark.

Reinhard Heydrich (second from left, back to camera) conducting a tour of the SS Freemasonry Museum, Berlin, 1935.

Freemasonry has always attracted suspicion and at times the opposition to them has been formalized.  As recently as the papacy of Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958), membership of Freemasonry was proscribed for Roman Catholics, Pius disapproving of the sinister, secretive Masons about as much as he did of communists and homosexuals.  In that he was actually in agreement with the Nazis.  By 1935, the Nazis considered the “Freemason problem” solved and the SS even created a “Freemason Museum” on Berlin’s Prinz-Albrecht-Palais (conveniently close to Gestapo headquarters) to exhibit the relics of the “vanished cult”.  SS-Obergruppenführer (Lieutenant-General) Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) originally included the Freemasons on his list of archenemies of National Socialism which, like Bolshevism, he considered an internationalist, anti-fascist Zweckorganisation (expedient organization) of Jewry.  According to Heydrich, Masonic lodges were under Jewish control and while appearing to organize social life “…in a seemingly harmless way, were actually instrumentalizing people for the purposes of Jewry”.  That wasn’t the position of all the Nazis however.  Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) revealed during the Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) that on the day he joined the party, he was actually on his way to join the Freemasons and was distracted from this only by a “toothy blonde” while during the same proceedings, Hjalmar Schacht (1877–1970; President of the German Central Bank (Reichsbank) 1933–1939 and Nazi Minister of Economics 1934–1937) said that even while serving the Third Reich he never deviated from his belief in the principles of “international Freemasonry”.  It’s certainly a trans-national operation and the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or has never denied being a branch of the Freemasons.

In an indication they'll stop at nothing, the Freemasons have even stalked Lindsay Lohan.  In 2011, Ms Lohan was granted a two-year restraining order against alleged stalker David Cocordan, the order issued some days after she filed complaint with police who, after investigation by their Threat Management Department, advised the court Mr Cocordan (who at the time had been using at least five aliases) “suffered from schizophrenia”, was “off his medication” and had a "significant psychiatric history of acting on his delusional beliefs.”  That was worrying enough but Ms Lohan may have revealed her real concerns in an earlier post on twitter in which she included a picture of David Cocordan, claiming he was "the freemason stalker that has been threatening to kill me- while he is TRESPASSING!"  Being stalked by a schizophrenic is bad enough but the thought of being hunted by a schizophrenic Freemason is truly frightening.  Apparently an unexplored matter in the annals of psychiatry, it seems the question of just how schizophrenia might particularly manifest in Freemasons awaits research so there may be a PhD there for someone.

The problem Ms Lohan identified has long been known.  In the US, between 1828-1838 there was an Anti-Mason political party which is remembered now as one of the first of the “third parties” which over the decades have often briefly flourished before either fading away or being absorbed into one side or the other of what has for centuries tended towards two-party stability.  Its initial strength was that it was obsessively a single-issue party which enabled it rapidly to gather support but that proved ultimately it’s weakness because it never adequately developed the broader policy platform which would have attracted a wider membership.  The party was formed in reaction to the disappearance (and presumed murder) of a former Mason who had turned dissident and become a most acerbic critic and the suspicion arose that the Masonic establishment had arranged his killing to silence his voice.  They attracted much support, including from many church leaders who had long been suspicious of Freemasonry and were not convinced the organization was anything but anti-Christian.  Because the Masons were secretive and conducted their meetings in private, their opponents tended to invent stories about the rituals and ceremonies (stuff with goats often mentioned) and the myths grew.  The myths were clearly enough to secure some electoral success and the Anti-Masons even ran William Wirt (1772-1834 and still the nation’s longest-serving attorney-general (1817-1829)) as their candidate in the 1832 presidential election where he won 7.8% of the popular vote and carried Vermont, a reasonable achievement for a third-party candidate.  Ultimately though, that proved the electoral high-water mark and most of its members thereafter were absorbed by the embryonic Whig Party.

Tyrannicide

Tyrannicide (pronounced ti-ran-uh-sahyd or tahy- ran-uh-sahyd)

(1) The act of killing a tyrant.

(2) A person who kills a tyrant.

1640-1650: From the French tyrannicide, from the Latin tyrrannicīdium & tyrannicīda, the construct being tryant +‎ -cide.  Tryant was from the Middle English ttyraun, tiraunt, tyrant & tyrante, from the Old French tyrant, constructed with the addition of a terminal -t to tiran (from the Middle French tyran (a tryant or bully), from the Latin tyrannus (despot (source also of the Spanish tirano and the Italian tiranno)), from the Ancient Greek τύραννος (túrannos) (usurper, monarch, despot) of uncertain origin but which some have speculated may be a loan -word from a language of Asia Minor (perhaps Lydian); some etymologists compare it to the Etruscan Turan (mistress, lady (and the surname of Venus)).  The evolutionary process was via a back-formation related to the development of French present participles out of the Latin -ans form, thus the unetymological spelling with -t arose in Old French by analogy with present-participle endings in -ant.  The feminine form tyranness seems first to have been documented in 1590, perhaps derived from the Medieval Latin tyrannissa, although whether this emerged from courtiers in palaces or husbands in more humble abodes isn’t recorded.  The plural was tryants.

In Archaic Greece, tryant was a technical rather than a casually descriptive term, applied to a usurper (one who gains power and rules extra-legally, distinguished from kings elevated by election or natural succession), something discussed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in his landmark The Social Contract (1762) in which he noted “they applied it indifferently to good and bad princes whose authority was not legitimate”.  It’s now used to describe a despot; a ruler who governs unjustly, cruelly, or harshly and, by extension, any person in a position of authority who abuses the power of their position or office to treat others unjustly, cruelly, or harshly.  In Greece, a ruler (tyrannical or otherwise) was variously the archon, basileus or aisymnetes; an unjust ruler or superior is typically now called autocrat, dictator, despot or martinet.  What Rousseau didn’t dwell on was that while in the Greek tradition, the word was not applied to old hereditary sovereignties (basileiai) and despotic kings, it was used of usurpers, even when popular, moderate, and just (the most celebrated in the surviving histories being Cypselus of Corinth in the seventh century BC) but, presumably by unfortunate association, it soon became a word of reproach in the modern sense.  A hint of this may be found in the way in Greek theatre of the fourth century BC, cherished pathos in regard to tyrannicide.  The noun plural was tyrannicides.

The suffix –cide was from the From Middle French -cide, from the Latin -cīda (cutter, killer), from -cīdium (killing), from caedō (to cut, hew, kill) and was a noun-forming suffix denoting “an act of killing or a slaughter”, “one who kills” or “one who cuts” from the appropriate nouns stems.  In English, the alternative form was –icide.

Tyrannicide is a noun.  The adjective tyrannous (of tyrannical character) was from the late fifteenth century whereas the now more common adjective tyrannical dates from the 1530s from the Classical Latin tyrannicus (arbitrary, despotic), from the Ancient Greek tyrannikos (befitting a despot) from tyrannos.  The adjectival variation tyrannic was used in this sense from the late fifteenth century and the companion adverb was tyrannically.  The adjective tyrannicidal was a creation of the mid-1800s which gained a new popularity in the next century when examples abounded.  The late fourteenth century noun tyranny (cruel or unjust use of power; the government of a tyrant) was from the thirteenth century Old French tyranie, from the Late Latin tyrannia (tyranny), from the Ancient Greek tyrannia (rule of a tyrant, absolute power) from tyrannos (master).

The tyrannosaurus (carnivorous Cretaceous bipedal dinosaur) was named in 1905 and came to public attention the following year when US paleontologist, geologist (and enthusiastic eugenicist) Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857–1935) who coined the term, published his research in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, the construct being the Ancient Greek tyrannos + -saurus (from the Ancient Greek σαῦρος (saûros) (lizard, reptile)).  The now familiar abbreviation T-Rex appears not to have been used before 1970 when it was adopted as the name of a pop-group.  In the avian branch of zoology, tyrant birds are members of the family Tyrannidae, which often fight or drive off other birds which approach their nests which seems a bit of a slur.

In the early days of Antiquity, tyrannicide was a part of the political process and rather than being thought of as what would now be called a “criminal” act, it was just another method of transferring power.  As societies evolved and recognizable civilizations emerged from competing cultures, attitudes did change and tyrannicide began to be regarded as a form of murder which might be self-justifying depending on the context and the degree of tyranny eradicated although Aristotle did distinguish between those who committed tyrannicide for personal gain and those (rare) disinterested souls who did it for the good of the community.

However intricately philosophers and legal theorists added the layer of nuance, tyrannicide (many of which were of course also acts of regicide ("the killing of a king" (used also for assassinated queens, ruling princes etc) or "one who does the killing", from the Latin rēgis (king (genitive singular of rēx)) +‎ -cide (killer), patterned after suicide, tyrannicide etc) remained a popular and expedient way to hasten dynastic or political change.  It could be said the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) and established the principle that the religion a ruler choose to adopt for himself and his nation was a purely internal matter and not one to be changed by foreign intervention, represented the beginning of an international law which would come to outlaw the assassinations of rulers, tyrants or not.  That however is a retrospective view and not one at the time discussed.

Nor would legal niceties have been likely much to influence those who would wish to kill a tryant, some of whom have even claimed some justification under natural law.  Whether Brutus (85-42 BC) ever uttered the phrase Sic semper tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) after stabbing Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) or not (as the historian Plutarch (46-circa 122) maintained), it resonated through history, John Wilkes Booth, noting in his diary that he shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" after killing Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; US president 1861-1865) in 1865.  History doesn’t record if the words were on the lips of those who either attempted or succeeded in dispatching Adolf Hitler (1944), Benito Mussolini (1945), Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García (1956), the Dominican Republic’s dictator Rafael Trujillo (1961), South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee (1979), President Anwar Sadat of Egypt (1981), Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah (1996) & Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (2011), but it can be imagined they weren’t far from the assassins’ thoughts.

International law did however evolve to the point where the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons was presented in 1973, coming into force in 1977 and eventually ratified by 180 countries.  Although the convention was inspired by a spike in the assassination of diplomats in the early 1970s, the protection was extended to tyrants, the wording of the relevant clause being in Article 1a which declared that the ranks of “internationally protected persons” included:

A Head of State, including any member of a collegial body performing the functions of a Head of State under the constitution of the State concerned, a Head of Government or a Minister for Foreign Affairs, whenever any such person is in a foreign State, as well as members of his family who accompany him.

While it’s true Libya’s ratification of the convention didn’t save Colonel Gaddafi from becoming a victim of tyrannicide, he would at least have died knowing he was being assassinated in contravention of a UN convention.  Whether Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) was either explicitly calling for or hinting that an act of tyrannicide should be visited upon Vladimir Putin excited much interest recently when the US president labeled his Russian counterpart as a “butcher” who “cannot remain in power”.  It certainly could be construed as a call for Mr Putin’s “removal”, despite the White House in recent weeks having repeatedly emphasized that regime change in Russia is not US policy.  “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” Mr Biden said at the end of his speech in front of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, an unscripted sentiment he apparently added in the heat of the moment.

Methods of tyrannicide vary: this is the kiss of death.

It took only minutes for the White House damage-control team to scramble, playing down the remarks with a Kafkaesque assertion that the president “was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change” but was instead making the point that Putin “…cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”  Within the Washington DC’s Capital Beltway the internal logic of the distinction makes complete sense, the White House insisting, a la the Barry Goldwater (1909–1998; Republican presidential candidate 1964) school of clarity of expression that what matters is not what Mr Biden says but what he means and they’re here to explain that.  Perhaps the staff should give Mr Biden a list of helpful ways of advocating tyrannicide.  Arthur Calwell (1896–1973; Leader of the Australian Labor Party 1960-1967) didn’t escape controversy when he called for “the visitation of the angel of death” upon the tyrannical Archbishop Daniel Mannix (1864–1963; Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne 1917-1963) but it was more poetic than Mr Biden’s efforts and Calwell, if accused of advocating tyrannicide, could point out he was calling merely for episcopicide (the killing of a bishop, the construct being the Latin episcopus (bishop in a Christian church who governs a diocese), from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos) (overseer), the construct being ἐπί (epí) (over) + σκοπός (skopós) (watcher, lookout, guardian) +‎ -cide), something with a long if not always noble tradition.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (b 1962; US secretary of state since 2021), noted for his precision of oral expression, followed up by saying it wasn’t the intention of Mr Biden to topple Mr Putin.  “The president made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else” Mr Blinken said while speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday, adding that “the US did not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else”.  It’s “… up to the people of the country in question… the Russian people”.

Given the context of Mr Biden’s speech, it wasn’t difficult to understand why it aroused such interest.  Earlier, he’d called the invasion of Ukraine an act of aggression “… nothing less than a direct challenge to the rule-based international order established since the end of World War II” and that the valiant resistance of the Ukrainian people was a “battle for freedom” and the world must prepare for a “long fight ahead”.  “We stand with you,” he told Ukrainians in the speech which had begun with the famous words of the Polish Pope Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005): “Be not afraid”, a phrase associated with a earlier call for regime change within the countries of what was then the Warsaw Pact.  In remarks addressed directly to citizens of Russia, he added: This war is not worthy of you, the Russian people”.

The Kremlin’s displeasure at the remarks was soon expressed, prompting the White House cleaners to explain that what Mr Biden said was not what he meant and by Sunday the president appeared to be back on-message.  When asked by a reporter if he was calling for regime change in the Kremlin, he answered: “No”.

Forms in English constructed with the suffix –cide.

Boutique

Boutique (pronounced boo-teek]

(1) A small shop, especially one that sells fashionable clothes and accessories or a special selection of other merchandise.

(2) Within a larger store, a small specialty department.

(3) As a modifier, any (usually small(ish)) business offering customized service (boutique law firm; boutique investment house; boutique winery etc).

(4) In informal use, a small business, department etc, specializing in one aspect of a larger industry (such as the “mining sector analysts”, “transport sector analysts” etch within a financial services research organization).

(5) Of, designating, denoting or characteristic of a small, specialized or exclusive producer (sometimes of the bespoke) or business (either attributive or self-applied).

1767: From the French boutique, from the Middle French, probably from the Old Provençal botica & botiga, from the Latin apotheca (storehouse), ultimately from the Ancient Greek apothēkē (apothecary) (storehouse).  The original meaning in the 1760s was “a small retail outlet (shop) of any sort” boutique, an inheritance from the fourteenth century French source and it wasn’t until the early 1950s it assumed the still familiar sense of “trendy little shop selling fashion items”.  The link with the mid-fourteenth century noun apothecary lay in its sense of “shopkeeper”, the notion of one being a place where is stored and sold “stores, compounds & medicaments (what is now described variously as “a pharmacy: or “chemist shop”) emerged quickly and soon became dominant.  The word was from the French apothicaire, from the Old French apotecaire, from the Late Latin apothecarius (storekeeper), from the Latin apotheca (storehouse)m from the Ancient Greek apothēkē (barn, storehouse (literally “a place where things are put away”)), the construct being apo- (away) + thēkē (receptacle (from a suffixed form of primitive Indo-European root dhe- (to set, put)).  The same Latin word produced French boutique, the Spanish bodega and the German Apotheke; the cognate compounds produced the Sanskrit apadha- (concealment) and the Old Persian apadana- (palace) and one quirk was that had the usual conventions been followed, the Latin apotheca would have emerged in French as avouaie.  The French masculine noun boutiquier (the plural boutiquiers; the feminine boutiquière) translates as “shopkeeper, storekeeper”.  Boutique is a noun & adjective and boutiquey & boutiquelike are adjectives; the noun plural is boutiques.  Of the adjectival use (resembling or characteristic of a boutique (however defined), the comparative is “more boutiquey”, the superlative “most boutiquey”).

Lindsay Lohan at the Singer22 boutique (described as the company’s “flagship store”), Long Island, New York, March 2011 (left) and at the opening of the Philipp Plein (b 1978) boutique, Mykonos, Greece, June 2019 (right).  Among fashion retailers, the term “boutique” is used both of high-end designer outlets and mass-market, high volume operations.  What the word implies can thus vary from “exclusive; expensive” to “trendy, edgy, celebrity influenced” etc.

Modern commerce understood the linguistic possibilities and that included the portmanteaus (1) fruitique (the construct being fruit + (bout)ique) (a trendy (ie high-priced) fruit shop in an area of high SES (socio-economic status)) and (2) postique (the construct being post(al) +‎ (bout)ique).  Originally, postique was a trademark of the USPS (US Postal Service) but it came to be used of retail stores selling items relating to postal mail (stamps, stationery and such).  One interesting trend in middle-class retailing has been the niche of the “boutiquey” stationery shop where the focus is on elegant versions of what are usually utilitarian office consumables; impressionistically, the client base appears almost exclusively female.  The “e-boutique” is an on-line retailer using the term to suggest its lines of garments are targeting a younger demographic.  The term “boutique camping” (services offering “going camping” without most of the discomforts (ie with air-conditioned tents, sanitation, running hot water etc) never caught on because the portmanteau “glamping” (the construct being glam(our) + cam(ping)) was preferred and, as a general principle, in popular use, a word with two syllables will tend to prevail over one with four.

By the 1970s, the term “boutique” had spread in fashion retailing to the extent it was part of general language; it tended to be understood as meaning “exclusive, small-scale fashion stores” which were in some way niche players (more on the cutting edge of design, specializing in a certain segment et al) in a way which contrasted with the large department stores.  The word gained a cachet and by the 1980s the “boutique hotel” was a thing, probably meaning something like “We are not the Hilton”.  That may be unfair and the classic boutique hotel was smaller, sometimes in some way quirky (such as being in a heritage building) and not necessarily cheaper than the major high-end chains.  The advertizing for boutique hotels often emphasized “individuality” rather than the “cookie-cutter” approach of the majors although the economics of running a hotel did conspire against things being too different and the standardization operations like Hilton or Hyatt offered around the world was a genuine attraction for many and not just the corporate clients.  Additionally, what the majors had done was raise the level of expectation and there was thus a baseline of similarity on which boutique players had to build.  Some successfully marketed the “difference” but structurally, there are more similarities than differences.  In the 1990s, the metaphorical sense was extended to just about anything in commerce which could be marketed as “specialized” although initially the most obvious differentiation was probably that the operations so dubbed tended to be “smaller and not part of a large multi-national”.  Thus appeared boutique law firms, boutique investment house, boutique wineries, boutique architects and such.

Boutique Hotel Donauwalzer, Hernalser Gürtel 27, 1170 Wien, Austria.

Although the use of the descriptor “boutique” didn’t become mainstream until the twenty-first century, “boutique” car manufacturers have existed since the early days of the industry and there have been literally hundreds (some of which didn’t last long enough to sell a single machine) and while a few endured to become major manufacturers or be absorbed by larger concerns, most fell victim either the economic vicissitudes which periodically cull those subsisting on discretionary expenditure or in more recent decades, the increasingly onerous web of laws and regulations which consigned to history the idea of "real" cars emerging from cottage industries.  Today, there are boutique operations and they tend to be either (1) parts-bin specialists which combine a bespoke body and interior fittings with components (engines, transmissions, suspension) from the majors or (2) those who modify existing vehicles (Ferraris & Porsches especially favored) with more power, bling or a combination of both.  Either way, the price tag can reach seven figures (in US$ terms).

The established high-end manufacturers noted the industry and although many had long offered customization services, the approach is now more institutionalized and exists as separate departments in separate buildings, there to cater to (almost) every whim of a billionaire (since the expansion of the money supply in the last quarter century they’re now a more numerous and still growing population).  The way the cost of a Porsche, Bentley or Ferrari can grow alarmingly from the list price (and these are not always the fiction some suggest) as the options & “personalizations” accumulate has attracted some wry comment but it’s not something new and the values are relative:  In the late 1960s, a Chevrolet Camaro might be advertized at around US$2800 but by the time the buyer had ticked the desired boxes on the option list, the invoice might read US$4400 or more.  Compared with that, adding US$55,000 in different paint, leather and wheels to a US$350.000 Ferrari starts to make LBJ era Detroit look like a bunch of horse thieves.

Monteverdi’s boutique Swiss concern

Peter Monteverdi (1934–1998 (and believed not in the lineage of Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)) was a successful Swiss businessman and a less than successful race driver.  He was also one of the many disgruntled customers of Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) and one of several inspired by the experience to produce cars to compete with those made by Il Commendatore.  For a decade between 1967-1976, his eponymous manufacturing concern (unique in Switzerland) produced over a thousand big, elegant (and genuinely fast) coupés, convertibles and sedans, all with the solidly reliable drive-train combination of Chrysler’s 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8, coupled usually with the TorqueFlite automatic transmission and unlike some of the less ambitious boutique players in the era, Peter Monteverdi included engineering innovations such as the DeDion tube rear suspension (which had the advantage of keeping the rear wheels parallel in all circumstances, something desirable given the torque of the 440 and the tyre technology of the era).  In the post oil shock world of stagflation, it couldn’t go on and it didn’t, the last of the big machines leaving the factory in 1976 although Monteverdi did follow a discursive path until production finally ended in 1982; by then it was more (lawful) “chop shop” than boutique but those ten golden years did bequeath some memorable creations:

1970 Monteverdi Hai 450 SS.

The Lamborghini Miura (1966-1973) had fundamental flaws which progressively were ameliorated as production continued but the design meant some problems remained inherent.  People who drove it at high speed sometimes became acquainted with those idiosyncrasies but for those who just looked at the things forgave it because it was stunning achievement in aggression and beauty; it validated the notion of the mid- engined supercar.  Noting the Miura and the rumors of a similar machine from Ferrari (the prototype of which would be displayed at the 1971 Turin Auto Show and be released two years later as the 365 GT4 BB (Berlinetta Boxer the cover-story for the “BB” dsignation, the truth more exotic)), Peter Monteverdi built the Hai 450 SS (painted in a fetching “Purple Mist”) which created a sensation on the factory’s stand at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show.  “Hai” is German for “shark”; the muscular lines certainly recall the beasts  and the specification meant it lived up to the name.  Powered not by the 440 but instead Chrysler’s 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Hemi V8 (a version of their NASCAR racing engine tamed for street use) and using a ZF five-speed manual gearbox, the claimed top speed was a then impressive 180 mph (290 km/h), some 6-8 mph (10-13 km/h) faster than any Ferrari or Lamborghini and although the number seems never to have been verified, it was at least plausible.  Tantalizing though it was, although orders were received (the price in the UK was quoted at Stg£12,950, some 20% more than a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow), series production was never contemplated and Peter Monteverdi was quoted explaining his reticence by saying “This car is so special you can’t deliver it to everybody.” So although over the years four were built (two with significant differences in mechanical specification) it was only the original prototype which ended up in private hands, the others retained by the factory (displayed at the Monteverdi museum in Binningen, Basel-Landschaft until it closed in 2016).  For trivia buffs, the Hai was the only car powered by a Street Hemi ever to have "factory-fitted" air-conditioning. 

1975 Monteverdi Palm Beach.

By 1975 it was obvious the writing was on the wall for the way things had been done in the era of US$2 a barrel oil but the Palm Beach, shown at that year’s Geneva Motor Show was a fine final fling.  The factory had had a convertible in the catalogue for years but the Palm Beach was different and rather than being a Monteverdi Berlinetta with roadster coachwork (as the appearance would suggest), it was based on the older High Speed 375 C platform with which the company had built its reputation.  It was thus the familiar combination of the 440 and TorqueFlite and the styling updates were an indication of how things would have progressed had events in the Middle East not conspired against it.  Although promotional material was prepared for the show and even a price was quoted (124,000 Swiss Francs), the Palm Beach remained an exquisite one-off.

Monteverdis in the last days of the big blocks: 375/4 (front), 375/L (centre) and Palm Beach (rear).

Others in the trans-Atlantic ecosystem offered four-door sedans including Facel Vega, Iso and De Tomaso but none offered a 7.2 litre big-block V8 or rendered it in such a dramatic low-slung package as the Monteverdi 375/4.  First shown at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show, production didn’t begin until the following year but the big machine made an impression on the press; big and heavy though it was, the aerodynamics must have been better than a first glance would suggest because testers who took it to Germany to run on the Autobahn (really its natural environment), found it would run to a genuine 144 mph, (232 km/h), out-pacing even the Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 which had for some time reigned as the fastest four door (although the fastest of the Maserati Quattroportes might contest that).  Regular production of the 375/4 ended in 1973 although it remained available on special order with some demand from the Middle East (where the price of fuel was wasn’t much thought about when filling up) and it’s believed as many as 34 had been built when the last was delivered in 1975.  The last of them looked as good as the first although it wasn’t as fast, the later 440s detuned to meet US emission control rules although 120 mph (195 km/h) was still possible.