Genius

Genius (pronounced jeen-yuhs)

(1) An exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as applied to creative and original work in science and art.

(2) A person having such capacity.

(3) As applied collectively, usually to a nation or period, a descriptor of characteristics said to have produced something exceptional.

(4) The guardian spirit of a place, institution etc (now rare), derived from Roman mythology, the guiding spirit who attends a person from birth to death.

(5) In Islamic (Arabic) mythology (as jinn or genie), a demon (often plural).

1350–1400 (for its adoption in English; 1640s for its modern sense): From the Middle English, from the Latin genius (inborn nature; a tutelary deity of a person or place; wit, brilliance) from gignere (to beget) or gignō (to beget, produce) from the Old Latin genō from the primitive Indo-European root ǵenh & gen(e)-yo- from gene- (give birth, beget) with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.  The sense of "characteristic disposition" of a person is from 1580s, the modern meaning "person of exalted natural mental ability" was first recorded in the 1640s.  In English, as in the French genie and the German Genius & Genie, the “talent” senses of genius were likely influenced by the Latin ingenium (innate quality, nature, character, temperament, talent, intellect).  Ingenium supplied both ingenious and engine, its stem sharing a parent in genius’s gignere.  That French derivative, genie, was used to translate the jinn in the English translation (1706-1721) of the One Thousand and One Nights (أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ‎ (Alf Laylah wa-Laylah), the collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age; this was because of its resemblance in sound and, to some extent, sense.  Genius is a noun & adjective and geniusness is a noun; the noun plural is geniuses when applied to people and genii when otherwise used.

Evolution of genius

Over two millennia the meaning of “genius” shifted from a guiding spirit which lived in everyone to a description of the intellectual brilliance known only to a few.  The idea began in Ancient Rome; a person’s “genius” dictated their unique personality and disposition but it was more than a thousand years before the word came to be used to describe not a spirit inspiring a talent but also the talent itself.  In Antiquity, every person had a genius, a kind of guardian spirit who guided them from birth to death. The male genius was a kind of incarnation of Jupiter, the chief male deity; the female, Juno.  Places (genius loci), objects, events, and institutions also had their own genii, and Romans would propitiate their genii at important moments in their lives.

A scoop from Just Jared.

When first used in English, people still spoke of “having a genius” but as more rational understandings of mental ability evolved, it became increasingly common to describe them as “being a genius”.  The two meanings ran in parallel for centuries and echoed the Christian concept of guardian angels.  The “good” spirit was called the bonus genius (1606), the bad the malus genius (1538), giving rise to the seventeenth century “evil genius”, conceived originally as a malevolent spirit which tries to make someone do evil and the evil genius persists and remains prevalent among both historians (it does seem often applied to certain figures in the Third Reich (1933-1945)) and popular culture.  In English, the early use of genius as a label tended to favor poets, the most popular writing of the age.  Poet and scholar Philip Sidney (1554-1586) wrote that poetry “…must not be drawn by the ears: it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead, which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it.”  It later became used about great composers and authors although some thought it might be too liberally applied, essayist and playwright Joseph Addison (1672–1719) noting in 1711 there “...is no character more frequently given to a writer, than that of being a genius. I have heard many a little sonneteer called a fine genius.”  Now, the best footballer, tennis player etc might often be called "a genius" although there is the occasional echo of the ancient tradition: an exceptional goal or point might be described as an "act of genius".  

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) on Twitter 6 January 2018.

In the modern age, it’s applied to scientists, artists and, perhaps sometimes hyperbolically, to some of the better backs (though of course never the forwards) in rugby.  In 2018, Donald Trump tweeted he was not merely a genius but “…a very stable genius”.  Reaction was mixed but as a title it tempted Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker (b 1984) & Carol Leonnig (b 1966) who in 2020 published A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America.  It focused on the first three years of his presidency, a period during which things seemed at the time to be a bit erratic but was tranquil compared with what was to follow.  Three years to the day after the famous tweet, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol Building in Washington DC in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.  As a coda, Rucker & Leonnig in 2021 published I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year.

Puffer

Puffer (pronounced puhf-er)

(1) A person or thing that puffs.

(2) Any of various fishes of the family Tetraodontidae, noted for the defense mechanism of inflating (puffing up) its body with water or air until it resembles a globe, the spines in the skin becoming erected; several species contain the potent nerve poison tetrodotoxin.  Also called the blowfish or, globefish.

(3) In contract law, the casual term for someone who produces “mere puff” or “mere puffery”, the term for the type of exaggerated commercial claim tolerated by law.

(4) In cellular automaton modelling (a branch of mathematics and computer science), a finite pattern that leaves a trail of debris.

(5) In auctioneering, one employed by the owner or seller of goods sold at auction to bid up the price; a by-bidder (now rare, the term “shill bidders” or “shills” more common).

(6) In marine zoology, the common (or harbour) porpoise.

(6) A kier used in dyeing.

(8) In glassblowing, a soffietta (a usually swan-necked metal tube, attached to a conical nozzle).

(9) Early post-war slang for one who takes drugs by smoking and inhaling.

(10) In mountaineering (and latterly in fashion), an insulated, often highly stylized puffy jacket or coat, stuffed with various forms of insulation.

(11) As Clyde puffer, a type of cargo ship used in the Clyde estuary and off the west coast of Scotland.

(12) In electronics and electrical engineering, a type of circuit breaker.

(13) A manually operated medical device used for delivering medicines into the lungs.

(14) As puffer machine, a security device used to detect explosives and illegal drugs at airports and other sensitive facilities.

(15) In automotive engineering, a slang term for forced induction (supercharger & turbocharger), always less common than puffer.

In 1620–1630: A compound word puff + -er.  Puff is from the Middle English puff & puf from the Old English pyf (a blast of wind, puff).  It was cognate with the Middle Low German puf & pof.  The –er suffix is from the Middle English –er & -ere, from Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (The Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  Added to verbs (typically a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb) and forms an agent noun.  The original form from the 1620s was as an agent noun from the verb puff, the earliest reference to those who puffed on tobacco, soon extended to steamboats and steam engines generally when they appeared.  The sense of "one who praises or extols with exaggerated commendation" is from 1736, which, as “mere puff” or “mere puffery” in 1892 entered the rules of contract law in Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company (1892, QB 484 (QBD)) as part of the construction limiting the definition of misrepresentation.  The remarkable fish which inflates itself in defense was first noted in 1814, the meanings relating to machinery being adopted as the industrial revolution progressed although the more virile “blower” was always preferred as a reference to supercharging, puffer more appropriate for the hand-held inhalers used by those suffering a variety of respiratory conditions. 

Puffer Jackets and beyond

Calf-length puffer coats.

The first down jacket, a lightweight, waterproof and warm coat for use in cold places or at altitude and known originally as an eiderdown coat, appears to be the one designed by Australian chemist George Finch (1888-1970) for the 1922 Everest expedition but a more recognizable ancestor was the Skyliner, created by American Eddie Bauer (1899-1986) in 1936, his inspiration being the experience of nearly losing his life to hypothermia on a mid-winter fishing trip.  Using trapped air warmed by the body as a diver’s wet suit uses water, Bauer’s imperative was warmth and protection, but he created also a visual style, one copied in 1939 by Anglo-American fashion designer, Charles James (1906-1978) for his pneumatic jacket, the Michelin Man-like motif defining the classic puffer look to this day.

Lindsay Lohan in puffer vest with Ugg boots, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2013 (left) and in puffer jacket, New York City, 2018 (right).

It was in the late 1940s it began to enjoy acceptance as a fashion item, marketed as evening wear and it was sold in this niche in a variety of materials until the 1970s when a new generation of synthetic fibres offered designers more possibilities, including the opportunity to create garments with the then novel characteristic of being simultaneously able to be bulky, lightweight yet able to retain sculptured, stylized shapes.  These attributes enabled puffer jackets to be made for the women’s market, some of which used a layering technique to create its effect and these were instantly popular.  Although initially in mostly dark or subdued colors, by the 1980s, vibrant colors had emerged as a trend, especially in Italy and England.  By the twenty-first century, although available across a wide price spectrum, the puffer as a style cut across class barriers although, those selling the more expensive did deploy their usual tricks to offer their buyers class identifiers, some discrete, some not.

The puffer started life as a jacket and it took a long time to grow but by the 2000s, calf-length puffers had appeared as a retail item after attracting comment, not always favorable, on the catwalks.  Although not selling in the volumes of the jackets, the costs of lengthening can’t have been high because ankle and even floor-length puffers followed.  Down there it might have stopped but, in their fall 2018 collection released during Milan Fashion Week, Italian fashion house Moncler, noted for their skiwear, showed puffer evening gowns, the result of a collaborative venture with Valentino’s designers.  Available in designer colors as well as glossy black, the line was offered as a limited-edition which was probably one of the industry’s less necessary announcements given the very nature of the things would tend anyway to limit sales.  The ploy though did seemed to work, even at US$2,700 for the long dress and a bargain US$3,565 for the cocoon-like winter cape, demand was said to exceed supply so, even if not often worn, puffer gowns may be a genuine collector’s item.

A Dalek.

It wasn’t clear what might have been inspiration for the conical lines although the ubiquity of the shape in industrial equipment was noted.  It seemed variously homage to the burka, a sculptural installation of sleeping bags or the stair-challenged Daleks, the evil alien hybrids of the BBC's Dr Who TV series.  It also picked up also existing motifs from fashion design, appearing even as the playful hybrid of the mullet dress and a cloak.

A monolith somewhere may also have been a reference point but the puffer gown was not stylistically monolithic.  Although to describe the collection as mix-n-match might be misleading, as well as designer colors, some of the pieces technically were jackets, there were sleeves, long and short and though most hems went to the floor, the mullet offered variety, especially for those who drawn to color combination.  Most daring, at least in this context, were the sleeveless, some critics suggesting this worked best with gowns cinched at the middle.

By the time of the commercial release early in 2019, solid colors weren’t the only offering, the range reflecting the influence of Ethiopian patterns although, in a nod to the realities of life, only puffer jackets were made available for purchase.  Tantalizingly (or ominously, depending on one’s view), Moncler indicated the work was part of what they called their “genius series”, the brand intending in the future to collaborate with other designers as well as creating a series of Moncler events in different cities, the stated aim to “showcase the artistic genius found in every city”.  The venture was pursued but in subsequent collections, many found the quality of genius perhaps too subtly executed for anyone but fellow designers and magazine editors to applaud.  The shock of the new has become harder to achieve.

Demon

Demon (pronounced dee-muhn (U) or dee-mon (non-U))

(1) An evil supernatural spirit; devil or fiend; an evil spirit resident in or working for Hell; a devil; a false god or idol; a Satanic divinity.

(2) An evil passion or influence.

(3) A most wicked, cruel or malevolent person; also (in weakened sense) a mischievous person, especially a child.

(4) A person who is extremely skillful in, energetic at, or devoted to a given activity, especially a sport.

(5) Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or noting a demon.

(6) In computing, a part of a computer program, such as a help facility, that can run in the background behind the current task or application, and which will only begin to work when certain conditions are met or when it is specifically invoked; often styled daemon.

(7) A person's fears or anxieties (always in the plural and usually in the form “haunted by their demons” or “facing their demons”).

(8) In Greek mythology, a tutelary deity or spirit intermediate between the major Olympian gods and mankind, especially a deified hero or the entity which supposedly guided Socrates, telling him what not to do.

(9) In the thought experiments of both physics and philosophy, a hypothetical entity with special abilities postulated for the purposes required.

(10) A person's inner spirit or genius; a guiding or creative impulse (archaic).

(11) In card games, a type of patience or solitaire played in the UK & US.

(12) Any of various hesperiid butterflies of the genera Notocrypta and Udaspes.

Circa 1200-1250: From the Middle English demon (an evil spirit, malignant supernatural being, an incubus, a devil), from the Medieval Latin dēmōn, daemōn & daemoniumm (lar, familiar spirit, guardian spirit), from the Ancient Greek daimónion (thing of divine nature (though when used by Jewish and Christian writers: “evil spirit”)), neuter of daimónios, from δαίμων (daímōn) (deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity) and in both the Greek and Latin, the meanings sometime extended to souls of the dead and “one's genius, lot, or fortune”.  Ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European dai-mon (divider, provider (of fortunes or destinies)) from the root da (to divide).  The alternative spellings daemon & daimon was used in specialized senses and remain a favourite of the modern gaming industry; daimon was a transliteration of the Greek daimōn which was deployed to avoid the post-classical associations of demon (often in the adjectival form daimonic).  The demoness (female demon) dates from the 1630s.  Demon is a noun; the noun plural is demons.

Crooked Hillary Clinton depicted as a demon (believed to be digitally-altered image).

The malignant sense existed in English from the start because the Greek word was used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek translations and the Vulgate (the principal Latin version of the Bible, prepared mainly by the theologian Saint Jerome (circa 344-Circa 420) in the late fourth century, and (as revised in 1592) adopted as the official text for the Roman Catholic Church) for "god of the heathen, heathen idol" and also for "unclean spirit".  This was also part of the Jewish tradition where authors had used the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim (lords, idols) in the Septuagint and in Matthew 8:31 there appears daimones, translated as deofol in the Old English & feend or deuil in the Middle English.  A more evocative word in the Old English word was hellcniht (literally "hell-knight").  The inherited sense from the Ancient Greek (supernatural agent or intelligence lower than a god; a ministering spirit) appeared in English from the 1560s, written variously as daemon or daimon.  The meaning "destructive or hideous person" is from the 1610s and as "an evil agency personified" (ie the demon drink), from 1712.  In another sense in late fourteenth century English, the “Demon of Socrates” was a daimonion (a divine principle or inward oracle) although his accusers (and later the Church Fathers) represented this otherwise.  The Demon Star (1895) is Algol (variable star (Beta Persei)) in the constellation Perseus, documented in the late fourteenth century, which translates literally as "the Demon" from the Arabic al-ghul (the demon), from which is derived the modern ghoul.  It corresponds, in modern representations of the constellation, to the gorgon's head Perseus holds, but probably it was so called because it visibly varies in brightness every three days, which sets it apart from other bright stars.  In one of the most famous fragments of English verse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) Kubla Khan (1798), there are the lines:

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

The noun demonarchy (rule or dominion of demons) first appeared in the 1640s while the noun demonology (the study of demons or beliefs about demons) had appeared in both secular and church documents as early as the 1590s, the related terms of the discipline being demonologer & demonological.  The adjective demonic (also daemonic) (devilish, of the nature of or pertaining to a demon), from the Latin daemonicus dates from the 1660s while demonical (from the Old English glossed daemonicus with deofelseoc (devil-sick) was from later in the century.  The adjective demoniac (possessed by a demon, insane) was from circa 1400 but several decades earlier there had been the noun demoniak, (one who is possessed, a lunatic), from the Late Latin daemoniacus, from the Greek daimoniakos (possessed by a demon), from diamond.  From the 1640s the adjective was used in the sense of "of or pertaining to demons or spirits" while by 1820 this had extended to a rather softened "devilish"; the related forms were demoniacal & demoniacally.

Lindsay Lohan in demonic pose to celebrate her twenty-third birthday, 2009.

The verb demonize (also demonise) (to make into a demon (literally or figuratively)) dates from 1778, either as a construct built from the noun or from the Medieval Latin daemonizare, all influenced by the Greek daimonizesthai (to be under the power of a tutelary deity) and the sense in the New Testament of "to be possessed by a demon”, the related forms demonized, demonizing & demonization all in use by the late eighteenth century.  The noun Pandæmonium (pandemonium the modern form) was in 1667 coined by John Milton (1608-1674) in Paradise Lost as the name of the palace built in the middle of Hell (the high capital of Satan and all his peers and the abode of all the demons), the construct being the Greek pan- (all) + the Late Latin daemonium (evil spirit) from the Greek daimonion (inferior divine power) from daimōn (in the sense of lesser god).

The Dodge Demons

The 1969 Dodge Swinger 340 (left), a platform familiar in Australia where it was produced (1969-1971) in a variety of configurations including a two-door hardtop (a 1971 VG Regal 770 (centre)) and four-door sedans (a 1971 long-wheelbase VIP (right)).

The Dodge Dart of the mid 1960s was a compact (in US terms) economy car which fulfilled its role well, lasting indeed until the late 1970s when it turned out to be in many ways superior to its ill-fated replacements.  However, an unusual conjunction of economic, legislative and demographic factors in the late 1960s made the Dart an ideal platform for a cheap muscle car which could easily and quickly be built from the corporate parts bin.  Its humble origins were never entirely disguised and it always lurked behind the sturm und drang of the bigger, more illustrious models like the Charger, Challenger and Daytona but as a bargain-priced muscle car, it deserved success.  Dodge had tentatively dipped the Dart’s toe into the muscle car waters in 1967 when it introduced the Dart GTS which, fitted with a 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) V8 performed admirably given its modest specification but it the next year it became available with a new 340 cubic inch (5.5 litre) V8 which, thought under-rated at 275 (gross) horsepower, was one of the best units of the era.  Able in most cases to match the performance offered by much of the bigger-engined competition, reviews were positive and in 1969 a separate line called the Swinger 340 was released, a package which convinced Dodge to abandon its brief flirtation with overkill, not renewing the availability of the 383 & 440 cubic inch (6.3 & 7.2 litre) V8 engines in the platform.  The big-block engines were really suitable only for a drag strip, the lighter 340 a better idea.

1971 Dodge Demon 340.

Demon decal with demonic pitchfork.

In 1971, the Dart received an additional body style, borrowed from their corporate companion Plymouth which had added the Duster coupé as a stylish addition to the Valiant line, their equivalent of the compact Dart.  However, Dodge’s marketing people in the early 1970s either smoked too much weed or didn’t get out enough because shortly after flirting with the idea of adding statutory grape to their paint colour charts, they decided to call their new high-performance compact the Demon.  That upset the Christian lobby, influential even then but remarkably, the marketing department was going to use the name Beaver until more worldly types told them about its use in slang.  The churches weren’t best pleased about Demon but, given the scriptural basis, they relented despite the cartoon devil on a decal stuck to the fenders.  The churches, not impressed with a marketing strategy which seemed to support the Antichrist weren’t convinced by the explanation that it was all about a play on words (Come in for a Demon-stration) and continued to protest.  Dodge persisted and although denied statutory grape, buyers could choose lurid colors like Go-Green and Citron Yella while for those intent on building the quickest version possible, there was the Demon Sizzler package which bundled a number of dress-up and high performance options.  It was a good combination at a low price but it was out-sold by the mechanically identical Plymouth Duster 340s possibly because the Christian lobby had actually organized the preaching of sermons condemning Dodge as doing the Devil’s work so in 1973 the Demon nomenclature (and the offending cartoon) was dropped, the thing re-branded to the bland Dart Sport, a line which ran for three years (although the once virile 340 would be detuned and then replaced with a much milder 360 cubic inch (5.9 litre) unit.  The Christian lobby thus claimed the demon’s scalp although they never managed to veto Dodge’s use of Swinger and today, the 1971 & 1972 Demon 340s are sought-after.  Production numbers were never high (10,098 & 8,700 respectively) and give its cheap, disposable nature, and the buyers attracted to such things over the decades, attrition rates were high and survivors are few although, as just about everywhere in the muscle car ecosystem, there’s a minor industry in creating clones.

Demon redux: 2018 Dodge Challenger Demon.  The yellow plastic guard on the leading edge of the front splitter was attached at the factory to deter damage during transport to dealerships.  The instruction was to remove them prior to sale but they picked up a cult following and many buyers insisted they be retained.

Chrysler reprised the Dodge Demon name in 2018 (and Swinger in 2022) apparently with little theological opposition.  The engine used in the new Demon was an evolution of the 376 cubic inch (6.2 litre) Hemi V8 which, in 2017’s Challenger Hellcat, was rated at 707 horsepower.  With production limited to 3300 units, the 2018 Demon used a supercharged Hemi which produced 808 hp but an optional package boosted that to 840.  So equipped, the Demon would cover a standing quarter-mile (400m) in 9.65 seconds at 140 mph (225 km/h) and cost was a remarkably modest US$86,091 including the optional package which, while not entirely suitable for driving on public roads, was completely street-legal.  It included a number of features which hinted at its real purpose, including the passenger and rear seats being no-cost options and, most intriguingly, a high-output mode which both increased power and disabled the cabin air-conditioning, routing its cooling flow instead to the induction system, a device that lowered the intake temperature by 18-odd degrees, thereby gaining a few more horsepower.  Although tuned for quarter-mile sprints and thus limiting top-speed to about 170 mph (270 km/h), it could be geared for top end performance and would easily exceed 200 mph (320 km/h).

Rodomontade

Rodomontade (pronounced rod-uh-mon-teyd, rod-uh-mon-tahd, rod-uh-muhn-tadh or roh-duh-mon-teyd.

(1) Vainglorious boasting or bragging; pretentious, bluster.

(2) To boast; to brag.

1605–1615: From the Middle French rodomontade, the construct being the Italian Rodomonte (name of the boastful Saracen king of Algiers in the Italian Renaissance epic poems Orlando innamorato (1483-1495) and its sequel Orlando furioso (1516–1532)) + the Middle French –ade (the suffix used to form nouns denoting action, or a person performing said action), from the Occitan -ada, from the Latin -ata.  In dialectal Italian the name means literally “one who rolls (away) the mountain” (clipped also to “roll-mountain”).  As a verb in the sense of “boast, brag, talk big” it was in use by the 1680s and as early as the 1590s rodomont was used to mean “a braggart”.  Rodomontade is a noun, verb & adjective, rodomontador is a noun and rodomontaded, rodomontading are verbs; the noun plural is rodomontades.  The adjective rodomontadish has been used but is listed as non-standard.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

The epic poem Orlando innamorato (known in English also as “Orlando in Love) was written by the Italian Renaissance author Matteo Maria Boiardo (1440-1494 and published between 1483 (the first two books) and 1495 (third book, the three concurrently issued as a complete edition)).  The “sequel” was Orlando furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando) by Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) which appeared first in 1516, the complete work published in 1532.  It was a continuation of Boiardo's unfinished work and in its settings and characters shares some features with the eleventh century chanson de geste (literally “song of heroic deeds”, from the Latin gesta (deeds, actions accomplished)), a medieval narrative (usually in the form of an epic-length poem) which is among the earliest forms of French literature) La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland).  La Chanson de Roland was a chivalric romance and tells the tale of the death of Roland (circa 740-778), the Frankish military leader under Charlemagne (748–814; (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814).

Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

It was never a common word bit now it’s vanishingly rare and appears usually only when referring to certain politicians.  In the nineteenth century the spelling “rhodomontade” was more common, reflecting the pronunciation then often used in English and dictionaries still list “rodomontade” & “rhodomontade” as acceptable spellings while noting the latter is archaic.   As a literary term it can be applied to a style which is inflated, bombastic and generally meretricious in its quest for the exotic.  In the poems, the Saracen king Rodomonte was a brave and honorable warrior but also bombastically boastful.  Of politicians described thus, there’s not of necessity any implication of honor, just the boasting and bluster, often in the most grandiloquent of terms.  The comparative is “more rodomontade”, the superlative “most rodomontade” and, as a modifier, it can be used in the form “rodomontade behaviour” although some suggest this is clumsy.

Donald Trump, mid-rodomontading.

Rodomontade would seem an ideal word to use in the era of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; president elect 2024) but, acquaintance with epic poetry of the Italian Renaissance being hardly mainstream, the utterances once so described will now be better understood as “Trumpisms”.  Mr Trump is certainly given to the rodomontadish and seems willing to concede that while George Washington (1732–1799; first president of the United States, 1789-1797) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; US president 1861-1865) might have been his equals, he’s better than any of his other 43 predecessors.  His boasts have included:

“I am a genius and a very stable genius”.
“I would give myself an A+.”
“I did the biggest deal ever done in the history of our country yesterday in terms of trade — and probably other things too, if you think about it.”
“This is the biggest deal there is, anywhere in the world by far.’’
“I think we've done more than perhaps any president in the first 100 days.”
“My administration has accomplished more than virtually any administration in the history of our country”.
“I am one of the best presidents”.
“My presidency has been a tremendous success despite significant opposition and I have unparalleled achievement.”

Simile, Metaphor & Analogy

Simile (pronounced sim-uh-lee)

(1) A figure of speech expressing the resemblance of one thing to another of a different category usually introduced by as or like.

(2) An instance of such a figure of speech or a use of words exemplifying it.

1393: From the Middle English simile, from the Latin simile (a like thing; a comparison, likeness, parallel), neuter of similis (like, resembling, of the same kind).  The antonym is dissimile and the plural similes or similia although the latter, the original Latin form, is now so rare its use would probably only confuse.  Apart from its use as a literary device, the word was one most familiar as the source of the “fax” machine, originally the telefacsimile and there was a “radio facsimile” service as early as the 1920s whereby images could be transmitted over long-distance using radio waves, the early adopters newspapers and the military.

The simile is figure of speech in which one thing is explicitly compared to another, usually using “like” or “as”; both things must be mentioned and the comparison directly stated.  For literary effect, the two things compared should be thought so different as to not usually appear in the same sentence and the comparison must directly be stated.  Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) thought a simile “…to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject." but many long ago became clichéd and far removed from nobility.

It went through me like an armor-piercing shell.
Slept like a log.
Storm in a tea cup.
Blind as a bat.
Dead as a dodo.
Deaf as a post.

Metaphor (pronounced met-uh-fawr)

(1) A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.

(2) Something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.

1525-1535:  From the Middle French métaphore & the (thirteenth century) Old French metafore from the Latin metaphora, from the Ancient Greek μεταφορά (metaphorá) (a transfer, especially of the sense of one word to a different word; literally "a carrying over”), from μεταφέρω (metaphérō) (I transfer; I apply; I carry over; change, alter; to use a word in a strange sense), the construct being μετά (metá) (with; across; after; over) + φέρω (phérō, pherein) (to carry, bear) from the primitive Indo-European root bher- (to carry; to bear children).  The plural was methaphoris.  In Antiquity, for a writer to be described in Greek as metaphorikos meant they were "apt at metaphors”, a skill highly regarded: “It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of the poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars" (Aristotle (384-322 BC), Poetics (circa 335 BC)).

The words metaphor, simile and analogy are often used interchangeably and, at the margins, there is a bit of overlap, a simile being a type of metaphor but the distinctions exist.  A metaphor is a figure of figure of speech by which a characteristic of one object is assigned to another, different but resembling it or analogous to it; comparison by transference of a descriptive word or phrase.  It’s important to note a metaphor is technically not an element or argument, merely a device to make a point more effective or better understood.  It’s the use of a word or phrase to refer to something other than its literal meaning, invoking an implicit similarity between the thing described and what is denoted by the word or phrase.  It has certain technical uses too such as the recycling or trashcan icons in the graphical user interfaces (GUI) on computer desktops (a metaphor in itself).  The most commonly used derivatives are metaphorically & metaphorical but in literary criticism and the weird world of deconstructionism, there’s the dead metaphor, the extended metaphor, the metaphorical extension, the mysterious conceptual metaphor and the odd references to metaphoricians and their metaphorization.  Within the discipline, the sub-field of categorization is metaphorology, the body of work of those who metaphorize.  

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Richard II (circa 1594), Act 2 scene 1.

Analogy (pronounced uh-nal-uh-jee)

(1) A similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based:

(2) A similarity or comparability.

(3) In biology, an analogous relationship; a relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations, people, or objects, especially when used as a basis for explanation or extrapolation.

(4) In linguistics, the process by which words or phrases are created or re-formed according to existing patterns in the language.

(5) In logic a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects.

(6) In geometry, the proportion or the equality of ratios.

(7) In grammar, the correspondence of a word or phrase with the genius of a language, as learned from the manner in which its words and phrases are ordinarily formed; similarity of derivative or inflectional processes.

1530-1540: From the Old French analogie, from the Latin analogia, from the Ancient Greek ἀναλογία (analogía), (ratio or proportion) the construct being ἀνά (aná) (upon; according to) + λόγος (logos) (ratio; word; speech, reckoning), from the primitive Indo-European root leg- (to collect, to gather (with derivatives meaning “to speak; to pick out words”).  It was originally a term from mathematics given a wider sense by Plato who extended it to logic (which became essentially “an argument from the similarity of things in some ways inferring their similarity in others”.  The meaning “partial agreement, likeness or proportion between things” fates from the 1540s and by the 1580s was common in mathematics; by the early seventeenth century it was in general English use.  The plural is analogies and the derived forms include the adjective analogical and the verbs analogize & analogized.  In critical discourse there’s the “false analogy” and the rare disanalogy.

An analogy is a comparison in which an idea or a thing is compared to another thing that is quite different from it, aiming to explain the idea or thing by comparing it to something that is familiar.  Further to confuse, metaphors and similes are tools used to draw an analogy so an analogy can be more extensive and elaborate than either a simile or a metaphor.

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), The Day Is Done (1844).

“They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water.”

George Orwell (1903-1950), A Hanging (1931).

The Mean Girls mall scene, at the water hole in the jungle clearing where the “animals gather when on heat”.

Similes, metaphors & analogies are used frequently as devices in fiction including in Paramount Production’s Mean Girls (2004) and the similes were quite brutish including “You smell like a baby prostitute”; “She's like a Martian”; & “Your face smells like peppermint”.  The metaphors were obvious (this was a teen comedy) but worked well.  The “Plastics” implied the notion of things artificial, superficial, and shiny on the outside but hollow inside while “Social Suicide” would to the audience have been more familiar still.  The idea of the “Queen Bee” (a metaphorical position of one individual as the centre of the hive (school) around which all dynamics and activities revolve) was one of several zoological references.  The idea of it being “…like a jungle in here” was a variation of the familiar metaphorical device of comparing modern urban environments (the “concrete jungle” the best known) with a jungle and in Mean Girls stylized depictions of wild animals do appear, the school’s mascot a lion, a link to the protagonist having come from the African savanna.  There was also the use of a malapropism in the analogy “It's like I have ESPN or something”, the novelty being it used an incorrect abbreviation rather than a word.  The Mean Girls script is not the place to search for literary subtleties.

Of Pluto

The New Zealand physicist Lord Rutherford (1871-1937), who first split the atom (1932), explained its structure by drawing an analogy with our solar system.  Rutherford always regarded physics as the “only true, pure science” while other disciplines were just expressions of the properties or applications of the theories of physics.  In 1908, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “…for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances.”  It was said he was amused by the joke.

This image includes Pluto as a planet.  Historically, the Galileian satellites of Jupiter were initially called satellite planets but were later reclassified along with the Moon.  The first observed asteroids were also considered planets, but were reclassified when became apparent how many there were, crossing each other's orbits, in a zone where only a single planet had been expected.   Pluto was found where an outer planet had been expected but doubts were soon raised about its status because (1) it was found to cross Neptune's orbit and (2) was much smaller than had been the expectation.  The debate about the status of Pluto went on for decades after its discovery in 1930 and the pro-planet faction may have become complacent, thinking that because Pluto had always been a planet, it would forever be thus but, after seventy-six years in the textbooks as a planet, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 voted to re-classify Pluto as a dwarf planet on the basis that the icy orb failed to meet a set of criteria which the IAU claimed had for decades been accepted science.

To be a planet, the IAU noted, the body must (1) orbit a star, (2) be sufficiently massive to it pull itself into a sphere under its own gravity and (3), “clear its neighbourhood” of debris and other celestial bodies, proving it has gravitational dominance (cosmic hegemony in its sphere of influence by political analogy) in its little bit of the solar system.  Pluto fails the third test.  Because it orbits in the Kuiper Belt (a massive ring of asteroids and planetoids that stretches beyond the orbit of Neptune), Pluto is surrounded by thousands of other celestial bodies and chunks of debris, each exerting its own gravity.  Pluto is thus not the gravitationally dominant object in its neighborhood and therefore, not a planet and but a dwarf (a sort of better class of asteroid).  The IAU’s action had been prompted by the discovery in the Kuiper Belt of a body larger than Pluto yet still not meeting the criteria for planethood.  Feeling the need to draw a line in the sky, the IAU dumped Pluto.

However #plutoisaplanet is a thing and Pluto’s supporters have a website, arguing that while it’s universally accepted a planet should be spherical and orbit the Sun, the “clearing the neighbourhood” rule is arbitrary, having appeared only in a single paper published in 1801.  The history is certainly muddied, Galileo having described the moons of Jupiter as planets and there are plenty of other more recent precedents to suggest the definitional consensus has bounced around a bit and there are even extremists really to accept the implications of loosening the rules such as the moons of Earth, Jupiter and Saturn becoming planets.  Most however just want Pluto restored.

The most compelling argument however is that the IAU are a bunch of humorless cosmological clerks, something like the Vogons (“…not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous.”) in Douglas Adams' (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992) and that Pluto should be restored to planethood because of the romance of the tale.  Although lacking the lovely rings of Saturn (a feature shared on a smaller scale by Jupiter, Uranus & Neptune), Pluto is the most charming of all because it’s so far away; desolate, lonely and cold, it's the solar system’s emo.  If for no other reason, it should be a planet in tribute to the scientists who, for decades during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, calculated possible positions and hunted for the elusive orb.  In an example of Donald Rumsfeld's (1932–2021; US secretary of defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) “unknown knowns”, the proof was actually obtained as early as 1915 but it wasn’t until 1930 that was realized.  In an indication of just how far away Pluto lies, since the 1840s when equations based on Newtonian mechanics were first used to predict the position of the then “undiscovered” planet, it has yet to complete even one orbit of the Sun, one Plutonian year being 247.68 years long.

Muse

Muse (pronounced myooz)

(1) To think or meditate in silence, as on some subject; to meditate upon.

(2) To gaze meditatively or in wonder (archaic though used still in poetry).

(3) A state of abstraction (archaic).

(4) Thoughtfully to comment or ruminate upon some topic.

(5) In Classical Mythology, originally the goddesses of song, meditation & memory, but latterly and more commonly as the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who presided over various arts.

(6) The goddess or the power regarded as inspiring a poet, artist, thinker, or any goddess presiding over a particular art (sometimes lowercase); just about any source of inspiration.

(7) The genius or powers characteristic of a poet (always lowercase).

(8) As the acronym MUSE (Mainstream US English), the strain of US English considered to be standard or unmarked by dialectal variation in pronunciation, syntactic structures, or vocabulary, used in the mainstream news media and taught in (almost all) schools.

(9) A bar or poet (obsolete).

(10) A gap or hole in a hedge or fence through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset (rare though the concept is now often part of road or railroad construction as under or overpasses for the use of wildlife).

1300–1350: From the Middle English muse & musen (to mutter, gaze meditatively on, be astonished), from the Middle French muser, from the Old French (which may have been influenced by the Medieval Latin mūsus & mūsum (snout)).  The fourteenth century verb muse (to reflect, ponder, meditate; to be absorbed in thought) has a murky history, one strain of etymological thought being it was based on the idea of “standing with one's nose in the air” or even “to sniff about” (in the manner of a dog which has lost the scent), thus the link to muse (muzzle) from the Old French & Classical Latin mūsa (snout) of unknown origin.  The fourteenth century noun muse (one of the nine Muses of classical mythology) was from the Old French Muse and directly from the Classical Latin mūsa, from Ancient Greek Μοῦσα (Moûsa) (a muse (also music, song)), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European root men- (to think).  The sense of (an inspiring goddess of a particular poet (with a lower-case m-)) dates from the late fourteenth century.  Synonyms of the verb include brood, cogitate, consider, contemplate, deliberate, dream, feel, meditate, moon, percolate, ponder, reflect, revolve, roll, ruminate, speculate, think, weigh, chew over & mull over

The noun musing (act of pondering, meditation, thought) emerged at much the same time as a verbal noun from the verb.  The noun museum was first used in the 1610s to describe the university building in Alexandria and was from the Latin museum (library, study), from the Ancient Greek mouseion (place of study, library or museum, school of art or poetry (originally “a temple or shrine of the Muses”).  The earliest use in reference to English institutions was in the mid-seventeenth century when it was applied to libraries (in the sense of collections of books, documents and other manuscripts) for scholarly study (1640s) while the modern idea of a physical "building or part of a building set aside as a repository and display place for objects relating to art, literature, or science" dates from the 1680s.  Muse is a noun & verb, muser & musing are nouns, musing is a verb museful an adjective and musingly & musefully are adverbs; the noun plural is muses.

Portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton (circa 1782) by George Romney.  Emma Hamilton (1765-1815) was the mistress of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson (1758-1805) and muse of the portraitist, George Romney (1734-1802).

The acronym MUSE (Mainstream US English) seems first to have appeared in 1997 and describes what used to be called GA (General American), the unofficial standard accent of the United States.  It’s essentially the accent of much of the Midwest and the West and remains by far the most frequently heard on US broadcast news (regardless of political leanings or affiliation).  It’s thus something of an unofficial standard but does differ from the previous “prestige accent”, the so-called “trans-Atlantic” which was clipped and precise but without the exaggerated form of the UK’s RP (received pronunciation).  The critique of MUSE is that (MUSE) is often treated as morally superior, a view which of course implies negative perceptions of “non-standard languages”, a process of stigmatization which perpetuates dialect discrimination which can result in the disparagement or other mistreatment of users of non-standard varieties.  The acronym MUSE is merely descriptive among academics in the field but is politically divisive in that it’s thought by many as the superior accent in a hierarchy (an idea familiar in the UK) in which the regional forms (such as the Southern Accent) or those influenced by ethnic identity (such as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)) are thought deviations from what is defined as “correct”.  A similar political movement is now promoting Ebonics (the construct a portmanteau of ebony + phonics which originally referenced the languages spoken by the descendants of slaves in the Caribbean, and North America but which was in the 1970s appropriated by African-American academic psychologist Professor Robert Williams 1930-2020), a defined sociolect of what technically is a sub-set of African-American English as an equally legitimate form of the language.  The dialect certainly differs from standard American English and its adoption as a political marker reflects the strain of multi-stranded separatism which now characterizes the positions taken by activists.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens because Ebonics is an example of how English has in the past evolved and, under the Raj, the British noted the adaptations their colonized peoples made to English and even adopted some of the words or expressions which proved useful.  Identity politics have of course evolved since the Raj and there’s now a view that to plunder something like Ebonics for the odd handy phrase would be an act of cultural appropriation and use must remain exclusive to people of color.

Lindsay Lohan, MUSE Magazine photo-shoot, January 2010.

Amuse (to divert the attention, beguile, delude) was a mid-fifteenth century verb from the Old French amuser (fool, tease, hoax, entrap; make fun of (literally "cause to muse" (in the sense of being distracted from some useful purpose)), the context being a- (from Latin ad- (through; towards), but here thought a causal prefix) + muser (ponder, stare fixedly).  This original sense in English is technically obsolete but echoes of the meaning live on in critiques the more serious-minded sometimes make of the more banal examples of popular culture.  For most of the eighteenth century, the word assumed the usual meaning “to deceive or cheat by first diverting attention”; the modern “bemuse” thus retaining something of the old meaning.  In the Ancient Greek amousos meant "without Muses (and hence "uneducated"), another connection some like to link to popular culture.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noted “amuse” was never used by Shakespeare, indicating it wasn’t in widespread use before the seventeenth century.

In Classical Greek Mythology, the original three goddesses were Aoede (song), Melete (meditation), and Mneme (memory) but later writers fleshed-out the roll-call and scholars consider the standard canon to be the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who presided over various arts: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (lyric poetry), Euterpe (music), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (religious music), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy).  In Roman mythology the Camenae were goddesses thought originally water deities, inhabiting a sacred grove and spring located outside the Porta Capena (gate in Rome's Servian Wall).  They were believed imbued with magic powers which could cure ailments and prophesy the future so in Roman religious rituals, the Camenae were offered libations of water and milk and it was the poet Quintus Ennius (circa 239–circa 169 BC) who identified them with the Muses; there they’ve remained.

Marilyn Monroe 1962 (left) & Lindsay Lohan 2011 (right).

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) has since her death been a visual muse for many in popular culture including Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Cynthia Sherman (b 1954), Richard Avedon (1923–2004), James Rosenquist (1933–2017), Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) & Richard Pettibone (b 1938), all of who followed their pursuit with a seriousness quite unfairly never afforded to her acting while she was alive.  Lindsay Lohan twice made a muse of Marilyn Monroe, in 2008 & 2011 reprising two of her photo sessions.