Witch (pronounced wich)
(1) A
person, historically either male or female but now especially a woman, who
professes or is supposed to practice magic or sorcery; a sorceress (especially
popular in mythology and fiction but also associated with certain societies and
historical periods and still current in some countries).
(2) In
the weird world of the "new age movement", a practitioner of a nature-based religion founded on
ancient beliefs, which honors both a male and female divine principle and
includes the practice of magic (associated especially with healing).
(3) An
informal and derogatory term for an ugly, mean or wicked old woman; a hag.
(4) Used selectively, a
fascinating or enchanting woman (usually in the (figurative) sense of "bewitching").
(5) A
person who uses a divining rod; dowser (archaic).
(6) In
the sense of "witch-hunt", an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty,
subversion, dishonesty or the like, based usually on slight, doubtful, or
irrelevant evidence.
(7) A
flatfish, Pleuronectes (or Glyptocephalus) cynoglossus, of North Atlantic
coastal waters, having a narrow greyish-brown body marked with tiny black spots. The family group is Pleuronectidae (plaice,
flounders etc)
(8) In
geometry, a certain curve of the third order, also known as versiera.
(9) In
entomology, the Indomalayan butterfly Araotes lapithis, of the Lycaenidae
family.
Pre 900:
From the Middle English wicche from
the Old English wicce (sorceress,
witch (female)), the feminine forms existing in conjunction with wicca (witch, sorcerer, wizard),
the masculine deverbative from wiccian
(to practice sorcery) from the Proto-Germanic wikkōną. Related were the West
Frisian wikje, wikke (to foretell,
warn), the Low German wicken (to
soothsay) and the Dutch wikken, wichelen (to dowse, divine). Root was the primitive Indo-European wik-néh, derivation of weyk- (to consecrate; separate); akin to
the Latin victima (sacrificial
victim), the Swedish vicka (to move
to and fro), the Lithuanian viẽkas
(life-force) and the Sanskrit विनक्ति (vinákti) (to set apart, separate out). Witch, witchcraft, witcher & witchery are nouns; witching is a verb & adjective and witchy is an adjective, the noun plural is witches.
The
homophones “witch” & “which” are yet another pair that must make those learning
English wonder how a language with so many curious anomalies became something
of the planet’s lingua franca. Which was
from the Middle English which, hwic,
wilche, hwilch, whilk & hwilc,
from the Old English hwelċ (which),
from the Proto-Germanic hwilīkaz (literally
“like what” and used in the sense of “what kind”), from hwaz. It was cognate with
the Scots whilk, the West Frisian hokker, the Dutch welk, the Low German welk,
the German welcher, the Danish hvilken, the Swedish vilken, the Norwegian hvilken and the Icelandic
hvílíkur, all of which convey the sense of the English “which”. “Which” is used (1) as an interrogative
(seeking a choice from a limited number or group implied to be a closed set),
(2) as a relative pronoun (either adding introducing clauses or referring to a whole
statement or (3) as conditional or indefinite (whichever) operator used to mean
any one or whichever option from a group.
An illustrative example was Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; Prime
Minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) leaving a cocktail party after
having been introduced to a number of visiting dignitaries from the Balkans,
confessing to his companion he’d be unlikely to recall: “which ‘vitch’ was which”. In English, the choice between “that” and “which”
often baffles but the convention is “that” is used when introducing a restrictive
(essential) clause and “which” when the clause is non-restrictive. To illustrate that (1): “The car that has the red interior is mine” (the clause identifies
which car) and (2) “The car, which has a
red interior, is mine” (identity of car already certain). However, “which vs that” is more a convention
of style than a hard grammatical “law” and a handy rule of thumb is (1) if “that”
can be removed from a sentence without compromising meaning, it should be
removed, (2) if a comma exists, use “which” and (3) if there’s no comma, used “that”. That will please most people most of the
time.
An obviously guilty witch haranguing the court, lithograph of a witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts, circa 1692.
The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) does note the generally accepted etymology is not without phonetic or semantic
difficulties and suggests some connection with the Old English wigle (divination) and wig & wih (idol), the nouns representing a Proto-Germanic wikkjaz (necromancer) (one who wakes the
dead) from the primitive Indo-European weg-yo
from weg (to be strong, be lively). That wicce
once had a more specific sense than the later general one of "female
magician, sorceress" is suggested by the presence of other words in Old
English describing more specific kinds of magical craft. “Witch
doctor” is from circa 1715; from the mid 1830s it was applied to African “healers
by means of spells & potions”, soon becoming interchangeable with “medicine
man”. The fear of
witches and witchcraft is described as wiccaphobia and neither phobia nor subject has ever
been mentioned in the APA’s (American Psychiatric Association) DSM (Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) although that’s not unusual, the
DSM not listing phobias as distinct diagnostic identities but instead providing
diagnostic criteria for categorizing phobias listed under five headings: (1) animal type, (2) natural
environment type, (3) blood-injection-injury type, (4) situational type &
(5) other types. Depending on the patient's circumstances, a clinician presumably would place their wiccaphobia in either (4) or (5).
Poster for the movie
Warlock (1989). In
Hollywood, warlocks are men and witches are women.
However,
although "witchcraft" and "witch" may not appear in the DSM, both terms did once
make frequent appearances in the literature of medicine and psychiatry. Historically, at least some of those accused
of practicing witchcraft in the Middle Ages and early modern period are thought
to have been experiencing conditions such as severe depression, epilepsy, or
psychosis; rather than being condemned as witches, they’d now be diagnosed with
a neurological or mental illnesses. In
the modern era, clinicians are trained to detect the difference between true psychotic
delusions (a manifestation of irrational phobias) and beliefs a product of cultural
or religious conditioning. Sometimes
seriously and sometimes less so, there have been scholars and other critics (including
ex-patients) of modern psychiatry who have compared the DSM to the old “witch-hunting”
texts, the classic example the Malleus Maleficarum. Written by German Dominican friar and inquisitor Heinrich
Kramer (circa 1430-1505), the widely-read treatise Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches, 1487), not only described
the rituals of witchcraft but was also a manual for the identification of
witches, documenting methods by which their guilt could be proven (as a prelude
to execution). Scholars now regard Malleus Maleficarum not as original but
a kind of “review of the classics” and a codification of many previous works
but the publication long exerted much influence on the witch trials of the
early modern period. Kramer was on sound
theological and political ground because early as the tenth century the Church
had published Canon Episcopi (Canon Law)
in which it was made explicit witchcraft
and magic were delusions and practitioners (or even believers) were suffering “possession
by the Devil”.
To
gain a flavour of the Malleus Maleficarum,
consider the representative extract: “What
else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary
evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a
delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted in fair colors...The word
woman is used to mean the lust of the flesh, as it is said: I have found a
woman more bitter than death, and a good woman more subject to carnal
lust...Women are naturally more impressionable...Women are intellectually like
children...She is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal
abominations...Therefore a wicked woman is by her nature quicker to waver in
her faith, and consequently quicker to abjure the faith, which is the root of
witchcraft...” One does
suspect copies of the Malleus Maleficarum
might sit well-thumbed on the bedside tables of Talibs in Kabul and ayatollahs
in Tehran. They know the old ways are
best.
The
comparison between Malleus Maleficarum
and the DSM is the claim both are guidebooks used by an elite to label and
classify nonconformity or social deviance as “abnormal” and thus to be “treated” (sometimes by incarceration). Structuralists note one interesting aspect of
this is the “imprimatur of veracity” provided by the written word, both Kramer’s
text and the DSM gaining their authority from being hefty published works. While Malleus
Maleficarum faded from use, the DSM’s seven decade evolution from DSM-I
(1952: 130 pages listing 106 mental disorders) to DSM-5-TR (2022: 1152 pages
and 298 disorders) has been one of increasing influence to the point that, in
the minds of many, it is definitive. The
“mission creep” of the DSM has attracted comment and while whether there’s now “more madness” or what there now is more readily identified and better
treated can be debated, the growth of the profession also accounts for some
of the spread, doctors sometimes in demarcation disputes about who gets to treat
whom: With each addition to the DSM the psychiatrists get to stake their claim
to another market segment and in the twenty-first century, the DSM seems as
canonical a text as was Malleus
Maleficarum in the sixteenth.
Nylon, 30 January, 2015.
In 2015, Nylon ran the story Lindsay Lohan had taken up witchcraft and wished to be consecrated by a coven as a white witch. Nylon did caution the source of the story was the National Enquirer, a publication sometimes referred to as a NRS (normally reliable source) with some irony; a representative for Ms Lohan released a statement denying she practiced witchcraft. Published
continuously since 1926, since the early 2000s the National Enquirer has been a
good source of Lohanic content, coverage extending to her weight (suggestions of anorexia during “thin phase”), driving history (patchy), being stalked by the Freemasons (verified), feuds (frequent), legal issues (since
resolved), family squabbles (legion), hair care (highly recommended), shoe & handbag
collections (much envied) and, of course, aspiration to be admitted to a coven of witches (dubious).
Women
being burned at the stake (circa 1580), engraving by Dutch illustrator Jan
Luyken (1649–1712). Widely practiced in
parts of Europe, in England, burnings at the stake tended to be restricted to
those convicted of heresy, convicted witches usually hanged (if they survived
the various "trials by ordeal" used to establish guilt).
The
glossary of the Laws of Ælfred (circa 890) translates the Latin necromantia (demonum invocatio) as galdre or wiccecræft and
in the Anglo-Saxon poem Men's Crafts,
wiccræft appears to mean "skill with horses" so the OED is right to note the contested history but, in the history of the British Isles, the mention in the Laws of Ælfred of witchcraft being exclusively female activity is unique although that sense clearly endured and by the early 1600s, the feminine form was so
dominant that the forms "men-witches" or "he-witches" came into use. Warlock was never a universally accepted masculine
form of witch despite the notion in modern popular culture and it’s from wicca that English ultimately gained
both wizard and wicked. Even in the
sixteenth century, the implications were blurred, Reginald Scot in his The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584)
asserting it was synonymous in the English tongue to say either “she is a witch”
or “she is a wise woman”. In the popular imagination there's still a widespread perception witches were burned at the stake and while that was the case in many places (along with other methods of dispatch), in the English-speaking world, because witchcraft was a felony in both England and the American colonies, witches were hanged and not burned. Witches’ bodies were burned in Scotland, although, just to be sure, they were first strangled to death. The confusion may have arisen because there were cases of witches being burned at the stake but that was because they'd been convicted also of heresy.
Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) has never denied practicing witchcraft (digitally altered image).
The
extended sense of “young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or manners” was in
use by at least 1740 and although that sense has been used both admiringly (of “feminine
charms) and as a warning (of the power of a seductress over men) it seems now usually
positive and of “ways & means” rather than merely the Paris Hiltonesque “hot”. It’s certainly more encouraging than the use
in the Old Testament in which appears מְכַשֵּׁפָה (mekhashshepheh, in the Hebrew the
feminine term for an “enchantress or sorceress”. The word was from the root כשף (kashaph) and used to refer to those who whispered mystic
formulas or cast spells, antics that attracted one of the more famous (and
consequential) biblical injunctions: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
(Exodus 22:18; King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611)). A similar condemnation also appears in Deuteronomy
18:10-12:
10 There
shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to
pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an
enchanter, or a witch.
11 Or a
charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all
that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these
abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
The verse “Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live” echoed through time, the Mosaic legal decree held
to command the execution of those practicing sorcery or illicit magic. In the archaic English of the KJV, “suffer” means “allow
or permit”, thus the understanding “Do not allow a sorceress to live”. However, scripture is open to interpretation and,
for thousands of years, priests, theologians (amateur & professional), lawyers
and charlatans (there’s some overlap between those categories) have done
exactly that and adding to the tangle is the history of variations in
translation and meaning-shifts in words.
In the ancient Septuagint (a translation in Ancient Greek), the Hebrew word
was translated as pharmakos (a brewer of lethal potions, drugs, or poisons)
leading some scholars argue the verse targeted “dark herbalists” (ie those who
literally mixed poisons) while others held this was metaphorical and still explicitly
proscribed (on pain of death) supernatural sorcery. The latter
(harsher) view is more in accord with the spirit of Deuteronomy in which it was
made clear all must follow the teachings in the tradition of the prophet Moses,
meaning all divination and magical techniques of enquire must be eliminated on
the grounds such things were “spiritual treason”. For the ancient Israelites, spells and magical
incantations were attempts to bypass God's authority by manipulating spiritual
forces or a summoning of pagan deities, sorcery thus a form of idolatry that
threatened the purity of the community. Of
course the commentaries have always emphasised execution of transgressors must
be judicial with the accused granted due process; neither in Exodus or Deuteronomy
is licence granted for vigilantism or mob justice.
The historical
legacy of Exodus 22:18 was profound and lingered long in Western culture. It was James I (1566–1625;King of England 1603-1625)
who commissioned the translation still influential as the KJV and he was a
religious zealot both fearful of and somewhat obsessed with the dangers in
witchcraft; translating mekhashepha specifically as “witch” reinforced the
secular laws of his time and on both sides of the Atlantic, European
inquisitors and American Puritans alike, cited Exodus 22:18 as the primary
biblical justification to hunt, torture, and execute thousands (mostly women) accused
of witchcraft. Delivered mostly by the
European colonialists, scripture (often selectively quoted) spread to other
continents and to this day, Akan Christians in Ghana justify praying for the
death and destruction of witches and wizards of the basis of “not suffering
witches to live”. In some places where the scriptural condemnation of witches became better embedded in culture than the companion notion of "due process before punishment", mobs not infrequently assemble and kill those accused of witchcraft, parts of Africa and PNG (Papua New Guinea) especially afflicted. In some cases the killings are opportunistic and based on other motives including "blood feuds" and economics, inconvenient wives sometimes murdered so a family can gain title to her land.
Peter Dutton, seemingly in one of his more cheerful moods, carrying volume one (of three) of his enemies list (volume two including a number of MFWs).
In Australia, Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal
Party 2022-2025) had something of an unfortunate history with text
messages (SMS, short message service) including sending one calling a
journalist a “mad fucking witch”.
Unfortunately, he sent the "MFW text" to the target of his thoughts (Samantha Maiden (b 1972)) but, fortunately, the witch worked for Liberal Party supervisor Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) and thus had to cop it sweet which,
with some aplomb, the witch did, even complimenting Mr Dutton for having been a
minister who had made "a great contribution to government" (one way of
putting things). Mr Dutton's SMS was
especially interesting because there's an extensively documented library of the
links between Freemasonry and witchcraft and, despite many opportunities, Mr
Dutton has never denied being a Freemason. Whether it can be said Mr Dutton’s truly made "a great contribution to government" (examples don't readily come to mind), in coining “mad fucking witch” he certainly made a notable contribution to the political lexicon and, unlike most of what he said and did over his well-remunerated decades in public life, the phrase proved enduring, albeit as an “unintended consequence”. Hopefully, Dutton fangirl Samantha Maiden will one day publish Peter Dutton: The Man, the Myth, the Legend (illustrated) and all his great contributions finally will be documented.
In Australia, MFW (Mad Fucking Witches) is a political
pressure group targeting media figures usually described as “right wing” and although
the label can be misleading, those attracting the attention of the MFW
generally are port of the “populist vibe”, a movement not sympathetic to the “progressive”
issues though the preserve of the (again nominal) “left wing”. The MFW approach comes from the playbook of
BDS (boycott, divestment & sanctions, the
original a Palestinian-led global campaign, launched in 2005 as a
kind of “commercial intifada” using non-violent economic, cultural, and
political pressure to protest against Israel's occupation of what it defined as “Arab
lands”, discrimination against Palestinian citizens and denial of the rights of
refugees (from the wars of 1948, 1967 etc) to return) community and their preferred tactic since
2016 has been the “collective boycott”, a technique in which companies
are pressured not to advertise on programmes or outlets that have attracted
their disapproval. So it’s an attempt at
a kind of censorship but the MFW’s stated position is those using the media to
advocate, support or at least “dog whistle” world views such as “sexism, racism,
homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of hate and bigotry” should
not tolerated and have no right to claim the protection of the liberal concept
of “free speech”. Potential MFW supporters should note the coven's position is both men and women can be consecrated as witches and it'll be interesting to see if a kind of “anti-MFW” emerges from the “manosphere” (a MFW enemy) as the “Mad Fucking Warlocks”. On X (previously known as Twitter), #witches-vs-warlocks would be a battle worth following; Andrew Tate
III (b 1986), described as the manosphere's "high priest of toxic
masculinity", currently has pressing legal issues with which to deal but
maybe one day he'll have time to devote to attacking the MFWs.
MFW merchandise. Rupert Murdoch too has feelings and must find the T-shirts hurtful. Those concerned should send him an appropriate
emoji.
Presumably
the MFW wouldn’t claim the quote attributed to French philosopher Voltaire
(François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it” is “wrong” but, on the basis “one has to draw the line somewhere” (a
dictum with a long history in “free speech” matters), would maintain it is “wrong”
for corporations financially to support individuals or media outlets
disseminating “hate
speech”. Actually, the quote
was a paraphrase of Voltaire’s views on the principle of freedom of speech and
was coined by Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868–1956, who used the pseudonym Stephen “S.G.”
Tallentyre), appearing in her book The
Friends of Voltaire (1906); whether that history is enough for the coven to
deny Ms Hall the status of “honorary MFW” isn’t something
discussed on their website (on which is merchandise available, including the “Fuck Murdoch”
T-shirts made famous by #MeToo activist Grace Tame (b 1994 and at least a MFW
fellow-traveller)).
The MFW
will not be unaware of analysis suggesting at least some of the “hate
spewing” commentators choose their content not out of political conviction but
merely because it has proved the most lucrative and happily they’d shift to
broadcasting something diametrically different if that path proved to be the “money
trail”. The outlets are in the business of producing a product (their audience) to sell (to advertisers) and if a bigger audience could be produced by running recordings of a philosopher and archbishop discussing the existence of God than what's generated by conspiracy theories and rants about this & that (immigrants, trans-people etc), that's what would be run. However, the MFW is a coven of structural
functionalists for whom motivation is irrelevant and what matters is content:
“Every single
advertiser who pays advertising dollars to a company which spreads dangerous
anti-science rhetoric, hate speech, fake news and lies is complicit in the
spread of that information … their responsibility is to ensure their money only
goes to media organisations with morals and a social conscience.” Pleasingly for pattern theorists (harder than it sounds), both Donald
Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) and the MFW seek to eradicate “fake
news” although while some of their methods may be similar, the definitions and
targets differ. The MFW has pledged also
to “rid the
world of authoritarianism”, possibly with Mr Trump in the coven’s
collective thoughts.
The MFW doesn't issue a “call to arms”; the coven calls witches: “To your brooms”.
Of course
companies have for a long time been using either the withdrawal of advertising or
the threat to do so as a weapon (sometimes deployed with subtlety, sometimes
not) to influence “coverage of products” and governments have not been above
directing their advertising to publications thought “sympathetic”. There are terms for those methods but the MFW
is an interesting case-study of the way blogs, social media and such have
created a kind of “equivalency” between the new “micro-operations” and media
outlets with storied histories in some cases dating back centuries. What makes the MFW campaign(s) structurally
different is they’re often focused on the “old media” of radio and terrestrial television,
technologies possible only because they are licenced (by governments) exclusively
to use a publicly-owned resource (the airwaves) and conditions are imposed on
those so licenced, including the general concept of “responsible” use; many
individuals and some institutions have views on the parameters of “responsible”
(some even codifying things) and the MFW’s strident position is just one of
many. One “codified” document in
Australia is commercial radio’s 31-page Code
of Practice, a work highly-detailed, frequently ignored and often
interpreted on the basis of: “Can we get away with it?” The MFW have noted this and claim they exist
only because the outlets refuse to “regulate themselves” and “regulators failing to discharge their statutory
duties”. Although there is
something of the now familiar “agree with us or we’ll cancel you” approach
about the MFW, many wish them success, not because they find their targets a political
threat but because they’re such ghastly vulgarians.
Witches and ditches
Early
Reader’s paperback edition of the children's book The Witch of the Ditch by by Steven Butler, illustrated by Nigel
Baines. The early reader series uses a hybrid
format in being “stepping stones” designed for children transitioning from
picture books to text, the method being associative (illustrations the young reader
can identify orally, presented alongside the relevant written word(s)). Appropriately deconstructed, the book is a tale of
political conflict, triggered when one witch (Hag of the Crag) moves in next
door to another (Witch of the Ditch). As
is notorious, there is in every town room only for one witch so things are not
going to go well. Politicians may be tempted
to mine The Witch of the Ditch in the
quest for new 3WSs (three word slogans) because that's how political discourse is now
done and they’ll find encouraging the publisher’s blurb noting the title is for
a “Reading
age: 5-7 years”, about the level of comprehension they appear to
think most voters have attained.
Described by
the manufacturer as “The fastest way to drill”, CEA’s Ditch Witch
JT21 replaces the previous JT20, the design improvements said to have been “engineered with
direct input from contractors and drillers in the field.” Drills of all types (from the smallest able
to put holes in nano-sized objects to the largest used to carve through solid granite
when excavating tunnels) are arranged in classes and CEA claim the JT21 “sets a new
benchmark for performance, speed, and control in compact drilling”,
its “35% faster
carriage speed” able to operate at a “blazing 215 feet (66 metres) per minute”,
making it “the
fastest drill in its class”.
One measure likely novel to those familiar with HP (horsepower) in other
contexts is the concept of DHP (downhole horsepower), a measure of the specific
efficiency delivered at the critical point (the drill bit); in that it’s
analogous with RWHP (rear-wheel horsepower), the traditional metric used by dynamometers
quantifying power and a measure more indicative of performance potential than
GHP (gross horsepower, what a engine generates in its raw configuration) or NHP
(net horsepower, measured with an engine’s accessories attached). Certainly the Ditch Witch’s stated ratings (21,000
lbs of pullback, 20,000 lbs of thrust, and 2,250 ft-lbs of torque) sound
impressive. The JT21 is also a most
modern machine, featuring VAM (Virtually Assisted Make-up, a software-driven
pipe handling apparatus that renders redundant floats or sensors). Pleasingly for those brought up on video
games, the JT21 is controlled by a multimode joystick and LCD (liquid crystal
display) interface.
In “Ditch Witch” CEA came up with a catchy
name, one that would have appealed to word-nerd Winston Churchill (1875-1965;
UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), had there not been a need for
secrecy. The World War II (1939-1945)
era White Rabbit No. 6 was an “trench digging” engineering project co-ordinated
by the British Admiralty although, as a security measure, the official
code-name was changed to “Cultivator No. 6” to make it sound less mysterious
and more like just another a piece of agricultural equipment. It was a military
trench-digging machine, an example of the adage “generals are always preparing to fight the last war” and although
designed exclusively for army use on (and at least partially under) land, it
came under the auspices of the RN (Royal Navy) because it was one of the many “good
ideas” from the brain of Churchill who, between the outbreak of war in 1939 and
his assumption of the premiership some months later, served as First Lord of
the Admiralty (the RN’s political head). Trenches and artillery had been the two
dominant features of World War I (1914-1918) and Churchill had spent some
months (1915-1916) in one of the former under fire from the latter while
commanding a battalion; before the implications of mechanization and the
German’s Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics were apparent, he assumed the new
war in France would unfold something like the old, thus the interest in
something which would “revolutionize trench warfare”.
Trench warfare however wasn’t repeated so
White Rabbit No.6 was soon realized to be already obsolete so the project was
abandoned and although the most fully developed of the prototypes did perform
according to the design parameters, whether it would have been effective
remains doubtful; remarkably, work on these things wasn’t wholly abandoned
until 1942. The “White Rabbit” project
codes came from Churchill’s sense of humor, his ideas flowing, as he said: “like rabbits I
pull from my hat” and he supported many, some of which were of great
military value while others, like the “floating
runways” (artificial icebergs made with a mixture of shards of timber &
frozen water), were quixotic. The
gestation of the White Rabbit was also an echo of World War I when, in an
earlier incarnation as First Lord, Churchill had instructed the Admiralty to
begin development of the first “tank”.
The word “tank” was adopted to create the impression the project was
about “water tanks” and while it may seem strange to put admirals in charge of
what was so obviously a “land weapon”, it was the navy that possessed the
expertise in fabricating similar devices (the gun turrets used on warships) and
the boat-sized engines that would be used to propel them.
Tony Abbott
(b 1957; Prime Minister of Australia 2013-2015) rarely saw a 3WS he didn’t like
and, in 2011, apparently had no compunction in being photographed in front of a
placard with the words “Ditch the Witch”, the occasion a “No Carbon Tax”
protest, called after Julia Gillard (b 1961; Prime Minister of Australia
2010-2013) had announced such a tax would be imposed, despite having earlier
promised there’d be no such tax. Clearly it must have been a "non-core promise", another Australian contribution to political jargon. Also
displaying the depth of the Australian linguistic imagination (if not grasp of
the rules of punctuation) was one reading “Juliar….Bob Browns [sic] Bitch”. The construct of Juliar was Ju(lia) + liar (alluding
to the broken promise) and “Bitch” a reference to the allegation her government
was too inclined to be influenced by the Green Party, then led by Dr Bob Brown
(b 1944; senator for Tasmania (Australian Greens) 1996-2012, Green party leader
2005-2015). “Bitch” was also a slur, a snide
comment on Dr Brown’s homosexuality.
Mr Abbott's combination of relentless negativity and repetition of 3WSs (three word slogans) contributed to his resounding victory in the 2013 general election although, in office, the results were mixed and it ended badly. Recently resurrected as the Liberal Party's federal president (the institution's third “Lazerus with a triple bypass” after Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; Prime Minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) and John Howard (b 1939; Prime Minister of Australia 1996-2007)), Mr Abbott unquestionably was one of history's most effective leaders of the opposition but as Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) remarked of Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895): “He was essentially a opposition politician and behaved as such even when in government”. With his long experience in the cabinets of two of the UK's more faction-ridden post-war Labour governments, of such matters, Jenkins was a fair judge. It was Lord Randolph who made famous the dictum “The duty of an opposition is to oppose” but he proved neglectful in adhering to the obvious corollary defining the role of a government. When in opposition, Mr Abbott followed the dictum with an unmatched muscular efficiency (during all those years he trained to be ordained a priest, the Jesuit monsignors drummed into him the Catholic Church's world view (“thou shalt not”)) and even after he elected not to follow the calling, the lesson never departed his soul. Mr Abbott as federal president of the party that axed him from the leadership before he'd completed a single term will be watched with interest by many, dread by some and quiet terror by those clinging to marginal seals (the latter now a big number). In the pre-penicillin age, Lord Randolph died a dreadful death and whether Mr Abbott proves the Liberal Party's political penicillin will be determined by the patient's fate.
“Witch
Doctor” was for several successful seasons campaigned in drag racing by Dr Keith
Garner (b 1935), a Cherokee, Iowa-based physician.
A 1970 Ford Torino Cobra, it was ordered from
the factory explicitly configured to optimize performance over quarter-mile
(402 metres) runs: 429 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Super Cobra Jet V8 (J-code), C6
automatic transmission & 3.91 Drag Pack 9 inch rear end (V code). The styling cues were “borrowed” by Ford
Australia for the two-door hardtop version of the Falcon (XA, XB & XC,
1972-1979), the lines proving aerodynamically efficient on even the fastest circuits. Unfortunately, the second generation Torino (1970-1971), while untroubled on drag strips where speeds didn’t
exceed 125 mph (200 km/h), on the big NASCAR (National Association for Stock
Car Auto Racing) ovals where 200 mph (320 km/h) routinely was approached, the shape induced
unexpectedly high drag, despite looking sleeker than its slab-sided predecessor
(1968-1969); where possible, racing teams opted to run the old body.
In this, Ford was a victim of circumstances. The plan had been to produce a run of 1970 Torinos with aerodynamics optimized for the ovals (as had been done with the previous generation (the 1969 Torino Talladega and corporate stablemate Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II)) and three prototypes were built but the NASCAR regulators, not best-pleased their series for "showroom stock cars" (although it had been more than a decade since teams had used cars close to that) was being "gamed" by manufacturers, changed the rules, rendering the so called "aero cars" uncompetitive by limiting them to a 305 cubic inch (5.0 litre) engine displacement while allowing the others to use the full 430 (7.0). Visually, although highly effective, the modifications appearing on the Talladega & Cyclone Spoiler II were quite modest (as were those applied in 1969 on the Dodge Charger 500 that triggered the "aero wars") and had the manufacturers continued to exercise restraint and limit the changes to some subtle "tweaks", NASCAR might have allowed the fun to continue. However, after the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona and 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird appeared with extravagant appendages front and rear (the elevated rear wings so high literally they could be used to hang washing out to dry), the rule-makers cracked down, ending the first round of the "aero wars". Interest in aerodynamics would within a few years return but this time for everything on the production line as manufactures pursued every course to reduce fuel consumption.
Standing
with Mr Abbott, Liberal Party luminaries Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Mirabella presumably
regarded the words “witch” & “bitch” as “political” rather than
“sexist”. That view wasn’t shared by Ms
Gillard who later remarked: “I wasn't shocked that some people had those sentiments…”
but was, “…shocked
that it was so visibly called forth into the public debate and that it didn't
get the sort of odium from mainstream commentators that it should have.” The signage also rated a mention in her
strident “misogyny speech”, delivered
in the parliament on 9 October 2012 as a reaction then opposition leader Mr Abbott
accusing her of sexism. Actually, she
“had a bit of previous” with sexism (notably the “mincing poodle” affair) but
the speech was a good performance and around the planet it went viral. At the time of the “Ditch the Witch” rally,
Ms Gillard of course received the expected support from her ALP (Australian
Labor Party) party colleagues although Ms Bishop and Ms Mirabella seem to have been
unmoved. One at the time vocal in her
condemnation of the signage was Penny Wong (b 1968), then serving in the
Gillard cabinet and, as a woman, she would be expected to be sensitive to hints
of misogyny. Ms Gillard of course had only
that to resort to when weaponizing “an identity” whereas Wong could play (1)
“the woman card”, (2) the “race card” (being of part-Asian extraction) or “the
gay card” (being a lesbian). Still her
support must have been appreciated as gesture of feminist solidarity. Unfortunately, Ms Gillard’s problems got worse
and the rest of the country noticed; so did her party colleagues and, in a
leadership spill in June 2013, she lost the leadership, Ms Wong among those
voting for the alternative. Feminist
solidarity goes only so far when there’s the threat of a big pay cut and the
loss of perks.
Two of the terms most often used in food safety labelling
are “Best
before” & “Use by”.
A “Best before” (sometimes as “Best by”) date is an indication the item
should be consumed before this date because beyond that point its qualities (flavour,
textures, freshness etc) will be less than optimal. In most cases, it should still be “safe” to
consume the item (especially if from the “dry goods” class such as pasta)
although if too many days have elapsed it’s recommended carefully to inspect
(visually or by olfaction (ie the “sniff test”)) prior to use. A “Use by” date is prescriptive rather than
advisory and food should not be consumed after this date. Even if within the date, items requiring refrigeration
or other storage protocols should also be subject to the informal tests if the
end-date is close or spoilage is suspected.
Once the date has passed, the item should be disposed of.
Like comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet
leader 1924-1953), Mt Abbott spent some years in a seminary training for the
priesthood, though both left the calling, comrade Stalin because he found another
god and Mr Abbott because he judged himself unsuitable for the priestly
job-description, concluding he’d never achieve the required KPIs (Key
Performance Indicator); after entering parliament, it took not long for his
colleagues (more so than his opponents) to dub him with the sobriquet “the mad monk”). In the general election on 7 September, 2013
Mr Abbott achieved an impressive victory, gaining a majority in the House of
Representative of 30 seats. It would
have be greater still had the ALP (Australian Labor Party) not some three
months earlier knifed party leader (and prime minister) Julia Gillard, replacing her with Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957,
prime minister of Australia 2007-2010 and June-September 2013). There was a nice political symmetry to that
because in 2010 it had been her who knifed him; they’re good haters in the ALP
and although selective, their memories can be acute. Had she remained as prime minister, all the
indications are Mr Abbott’s margin of victory would have been greater still; while
the country had little appetite for a Rudd 2.0 administration, collective
hatred for Gillard 1.0 had become visceral.
So, while the defenestration didn’t save the ALP from a crushing defeat,
it could have been worse and politics is the art of the possible. Unfortunately, what in office should have
been Abbott Government 1.0 turned out to be Abbott Opposition 1.1 and some
two-thirds into what (on paper) should have been the first of at least two
terms, his colleagues concluded his “Best before” date was 7 September, 2013
and his “Use by” date expired on 15 September, 2015.
In both
parties, taking the axe to the leader (sort of) fixed some things but in the
last two decades the quality of the ALP’s leaders has been “patchy” and where
there have been periods of success, that’s an indication more of the parlous
quality of the opposition than an endorsement of their dynamic qualities or
intellectual punch. For the Liberals, it’s
been at least as bad. Other than the
briefly hopeful intervals between 2008-2009 & 2015-2018 when Malcolm Turnbull
(b 1954; prime minister of Australia 2015-2018) was (sort of) in charge, the
party has been led by right-wing fanatics, religious weirdos and soft-drink
salesmen (there’s a bit of overlap because some enjoyed a dual function).
Genuinely a
piece of Australian political history, the “Ditch the Witch” 3WS in 2026 made
an unexpected return the streets of Melbourne, appearing on the sides of trucks trundling through the suburbs. The target this time was Jacinta Allan (b
1973; premier of Victoria since 2023), the lucky recipient of the poisoned
chalice of the state’s premiership, handed to her after the retirement of the
long-serving Daniel Andrews (b 1972), premier of Victoria 2014-2023. Several political junkies have been compiling
reports with calculations attempting to work out just how much public money has
been squandered / stolen / misappropriated / wasted (the terms vary with the
author) during the life of the Andrews/Allan government. While not all the various “incidents” suggest
dishonesty (some being mere incompetence), the alleged losses variously are in
the thousands, millions or billions. Ms
Allan has made little attempt to address substantive matters (such as the
rising state debt) but was most vociferous in her objection to the revival of
the “Ditch the Witch” 3WS with her scowling visage appended; within 48 hours
the offending images had been banished from the streets although whether that
was achieved with threats, persuasion or the premier casting a spell isn’t
certain. In an indication her government
had a focus on “high priority issues”, it was announced Aus$134,000 (US$95,000)
had been allocated to erect a bronze statue of Mr Andrews.
Despite the
impression created by popular culture (especially film & television), the “witch
= female, warlock = male” thing is quite modern and thus historically misleading;
Ms Gillard and Ms Allan are clearly very modern, thus their equating “witch”
with “woman” and its use as a slur as sexism. For most of the history of the English
language, a “witch” could be male or female although the record does suggest women
were more often accused of witchcraft, while “warlock” often was not applied to
male witches. In the Old English (certainly
before circa 1000), the most common forms were wicca (male practitioner of witchcraft) and wicce (female practitioner) both from the same Germanic root; by
the late Middle English (and after the Norman Conquest (1066), gradually the forms
merged in pronunciation, the spelling shifting to reflect this, “witch” coming
to denote either sex. That’s why there
came to be no need for a separate masculine noun.
Macbeth and the three witches (1760), oil on canvas by Francesco
Zuccarelli (1702-1788). Completed during the artist's “first English period” (1752-1762), historians
believe this to be the first European painting depicting theatrical characters
in a landscape and in From Rococo to
Revolution: Major Trends in Eighteenth-Century Painting (1966), English art
historian Sir Michael Levey (1927–2008; director of the National Gallery
1973-1986) notes the work as a fine example of “the beginnings of the Neo-Gothic under the
influence of the theory of the sublime.” When writing The
Tragedy of Macbeth (Macbeth,
circa 1606) William Shakespeare (1564–1616) had no doubts witches were women.
In the Laws
of Ælfred, witchcraft explicitly was singled out as a woman's
craft, the practitioners of which were not welcome to live among the Western
Saxons but that can’t have been persuasive and it’s clear from later legal and
theological writings (fields in which there was long cross-fertilization) that
men were a capable as women of practicing witchcraft (the English Witchcraft Act (1604) refers only to
“any person”). Those accused (and
sometimes executed) overwhelmingly were women and the numbers in Europe were
striking (albeit with wide regional variations), the margin over decades
sometimes as skewed as 90-10% F-M. Of course
these are raw numbers from the surviving historic record so while there’s
(probably not unreasonably) now the perception women disproportionately were
targeted for prosecution, it’s not impossible there simply were more women than
men practicing witchcraft. Popular
culture is just as divergent from history in the evolution of “warlock”. Warlock was from the Old English wǣrloga (oath-breaker;
traitor; deceiver) and was related to the notion of “belie one's pledge” rather
than magic spells but because of the Biblical association of “deceiver” with
Satan, in certain medieval religious texts, wǣrloga was used to mean “the Devil”.
The origin of “warlock” being equated with “man practising witchcraft” seems to
be in early sixteenth century Scots English but even there it was never the
standard form with the church and court records of the time listing men so
accused as “witches”, as was the case in England and Wales. Charmingly, literary historians trace the
emergence of “warlock” meaning “a male witch” to the rise of Gothic novel, a
form which enjoyed a spike in popularity between the 1760s and 1820s; witches
were mentioned in Gothic novel and Warlocks were not but from those beginnings
came the “ghost” & “horror” genres and historians have concluded the Victorian
writers, mining the occult, folklore, medievalism, picked-up “warlock” for no
better reason than it sounded archaic and had the “picturesque” quality novelists
like. From this improbable beginning,
“warlock” became vested with an almost wholly bogus “history” readers allowing
themselves to be convinced stretched back a thousand years or more. Victorian novels were however a niche and
what’s thought most to have reinforced the popular perception was twentieth
century cinema, an industry which cemented the witch/warlock dichotomy, adhered
to in fantasy fiction, role-playing games, comics and popular culture of all
forms.
