Neophyte

Neophyte (pronounced nee-uh-fahyt)

(1) A beginner or novice at something;  person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief.

(2) In the Roman Catholic Church, a novice in a religious order; a new convert or proselyte; a new monk.

(3) A person newly converted to a belief, as a heathen, heretic, or nonbeliever; proselyte.

(4) In Christianity, a name given by the early Christians (and still by the Roman Catholics), to those who have recently embraced the Christian faith, and been admitted to baptism, especially those converts from heathenism or Judaism (in most of the primitive Church, a person newly baptized).

(5) In botany, a plant species recently introduced to an area (in contrast to archaeophyte, a long-established introduced species).

1550-1460:  From the Ecclesiastical Latin neophytus (newly planted), from the Ancient Greek νεόφυτος (neóphutos) (newly planted), the construct of which was νέος (néos) (new) + φυτόν (phutón) (plant, child), the origin of which was a verbal adjective of phyein (cause to grow, beget, plant).  In the Greek used in the New Testament, the spelling was neophutos.  Neophyte is a noun & adjective, neophytic & neophytish are adjectives and neophytism is a noun; the noun plural is neophytes.

Churches and cults

In both the biblical sense of "a young scholar" and the general sense of "someone new to something", Cady Heron in Mean Girls (2004) was a neophyte.

Despite the lineage, use in English was rare prior to the nineteenth century.  The technical sense of ecclesiastical use is from I Timothy iii:6 and the general sense of "one who is new to any subject" was first recorded in the 1590s.  In early translations of the Bible, the neophyte was “a young scholar”, the implication being an “old scholar” could not be a neophyte by deferring his baptism or by long delaying his conversion to God which he had long before learned to be necessary.  As Christianity became increasingly corporatized in the search for bums on pews, view became less rigorous.  The word is also a favorite among cults.  In the symbolism of Freemasonry, the north refers to the outer or profane world and the east the inner world of Masonry; hence the cornerstones of Masonic Lodges are laid always in the south-east corner and the initiations of neophytes is always undertaken with them facing the north-east, symbolic of the position of neophytes, partly in the darkness of the former, partly in the light of the latter.

Cornerstone of a Masonic Lodge.

One of history's better known Masonic plots involves the White House's missing its cornerstone.  In October 1792, a group of freemasons assembled at a Georgetown tavern and paraded to the proposed site of the president’s mansion where they conducted certain rituals.  In one ceremony, they placed an inscribed cornerstone and then repaired to the inn to toast the event.  According to Masonic legend, some sixteen toasts were made, one consequence of which was they neglected to document the cornerstone's location.  Subsequent searches never located the stone and even when the White House underwent extensive renovations between 1948-1952 (engineers in 1948 threatened to condemn the building such was the state of structural decay) it wasn't discovered.  The post popular theory is it sits embedded between two stone walls near the Rose Garden.

Cherry

Cherry (pronounced cher-ee)

(1) The fruit of any of various trees belonging to the genus Prunus, of the rose family, consisting of a pulpy, globular drupe enclosing a one-seeded smooth stone.

(2) The tree bearing such a fruit.

(3) The wood of such a tree.

(4) Used loosely, any of various fruits or plants resembling the cherry.

(5) A bright red color; cerise (often termed cherry red).

(6) In vulgar slang (1) the hymen & (2) a female state of virginity (as in “to pop her cherry”).

(7) Something new, unused or in immaculate condition.

(8) A novice; a neophyte.

(9) In underworld slang, a first offender.

(10) In ten-pin bowling, the striking down of only the forward pin or pins in attempting to make a spare.

(11) Of food and beverages, made with or containing cherries or cherry-like flavoring (cherry pie, cherry soda, cherry bomb, cherry cola, cherry brandy et al).

(12) Of furniture, timberwork etc, items made of or covered or decorated with a veneer of wood from the cherry tree.

(13) In graph theory, a sub-tree consisting of a node with exactly two leaves.

(14) In the slang of cricket, the ball (the traditional red variety used in first-class & test matches).

(15) In slang, the traditionally rounded, flashing red lights used on police cars, ambulances, fire engines etc.

(16) In slang, the burning tip of a cigarette (no rare).

1300–1350: From the Middle English chery, cherie, chirie & cheri, a back formation from the from Anglo-Norman cherise (a variant of chirie and mistakenly thought to be plural), from the Late Latin ceresium & cerasium, from the Latin cerasum, from the Ancient Greek κεράσιον (kerásion) (cherry fruit), from κερασός (kerasós) (bird; cherry), and perhaps ultimately of Anatolian origin (etymologists citing the intervocalic σ as a hint of a pre-Greek origin for the word and noting also that “…as the improved cherry came from the Pontos area... the name is probably Anatolian as well”.  The word cherry originates in the northern French dialect word cherise (a variant of the standard modern French cerise), which was adopted into English after the Norman Conquest of 1066.  Because it ended in an “s”, it was taken to be a plural form and so, as a back formation, the “singular” cherry was coined.  In Old English there had been ċiris & ċirse (cherry), from a West Germanic borrowing of the Vulgar Latin word (and cognate with German Kirsch which did survive), but it went extinct after the Norman invasion, supplanted by the French word.  Cherry is a noun & adjective and cherrier & cherriest are adjectives; the noun plural is cherries.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (Uhlenhaut) coupé.  This is "red" with cherry red trim.

The factory produced only two gullwing versions of the 300 SLR (technically the W196S) and neither were ever used in competition because of the race for which they were designed (the Carrera Panamericana) was cancelled in the moral panic which followed the 1955 Le Mans disaster and in the wake of that, Mercedes-Benz also withdrew from top-flight motorsport, not returning for decades.  The two were nicknamed “red” and “blue”, an allusion to the cherry red and Prussian blue interiors (the factory insists the colors are just “red” & “blue” but “cherry” seems right and few can resist "Prussian", even if the things were built in the south).  In 2022, the “cherry red” 300 SLR coupé was sold at private auction for €135 million (US$143 million), setting the mark as the most expensive car ever.

Always choose a dark cherry.

The color cherry red is not exactly defined and even a little misleading because it’s applied usually to bright shades which others might describe as blood red (also misleading) cardinal, carmine, carnation, cerise, crimson, fire engine red, flame, flamingo, fuchsia, geranium, pillar-box red, scarlet or other imaginative forms.  It’s misleading because the fruit comes in many shades of red from bright to a shade so dark they’re actually called “black cherries”.  It’s probably only on color charts the distinction matters but what one manufacturer calls “cherry red” might be very different from the products of others.  In cricket, some get it.  Prior to the 1970s, all cricket balls were red (there are now white ones & pink ones)so the slang “cherry” was common but the New Zealand fast bowler Sir Richard Hadlee (b 1951) wasn’t content with any ball, insisting that one of the secrets to his success was when offered a choice of cherries by the umpire was not to be bothered by details like the seam (which interested so many bowlers) but to always pick “a good dark one”.  He said the darker “cherries” could be made to move much more through the air.

Lindsay Lohan in cherry-themed outfit in Get a Clue (2002).

The meaning “maidenhead, virginity” was originally US slang and in use by 1928 but some doubt the story that the source was the supposed resemblance to the hymen and suggest it was an allusion to the long-established use of cherries as a symbol of the fleeting quality of life's pleasures (and “cherry” was English underworld slang for “lovely young girl”, documents since at least 1899.  Forms of alcohol include cherry brandy and the cherry-bounce, the popular name of a cordial made from fermented cherries and known in one form or another since the 1690s.  Forms of food include just about anything possible, most famously including cherry strudel, cherry pie, cherry duck etc.  In idiomatic use, there’s “bite of the cherry” (a chance; an attempt at something), “life isn’t a bowl of cherries” (one must be realistic about the vicissitudes one will encounter in life), the cherry nose (the red noses of those too fond of strong drink), cherry on the cake (the same meaning as “icing on the cake”, (something that intensifies the appreciation of something already good), cherry-popping (to deflower a virgin), “cherry-pop” (a sweet, red-colored cordial) and to “cherry pick”(selfishly to select only the very best of something), a pejorative figurative sense dating from 1959 and based on a machine: the literal “cherry-picker” the name given to crane with a bucket for raising and lowering persons (for purposes such as pick cherries from a tree) although earlier it had been used in railroad maintenance.

Black Cherry Strudel

To ensure the finest product, pâtissiers often insist on using only fresh fruit but canned or frozen black cherries work equally well in strudels and can be much easier to work with because there’s no need to macerate the fruit which may instead immediately be cooked.  This recipe can also be used with sour cherries in which case the lemon juice is omitted in favor of 150 g (¾ cup) of sugar.  It can be served warm or cold according to preference and the variations are many; the cranberries and almonds can be replaced with other dried fruits and nuts and there are the purists who insist on nothing but black cherries (although a few do add apricot brandy).  Traditionally, it’s served with a dollop of thickened cream.

Ingredients

800 g (3½ cups) fresh black cherries, cleaned and pitted
100 g (½ cup) granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A dash of cinnamon
Juice and zest of 1 organic, un-waxed, scrubbed lemon
60 g (½ cup) dried cranberries
50 g (½ cup) slivered almonds
6 large sheets strudel or filo pastry
1 egg whisked with 1 tablespoon milk or water for brushing
Icing sugar for dusting

Instructions

Preparation: Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).  Line a baking tray (or sheet) with baking (parchment) paper.

Cook cherry filling: In a small bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons of sugar and cornstarch until no lumps of cornstarch remain.  Add the cherries and the remaining sugar into another bowl and allow them to let macerate for an hour (it will take this long for the sugar to draw some liquid from the fruit).  Add the cherries, cranberries, almonds, cornstarch mixture, vanilla extract, cinnamon, lemon zest and juice into a saucepan and simmer over medium-high heat until the mixture starts to thicken, which should take 7 to 10 minutes.  Set the mix aside to cool to room temperature.

Roll strudel (pastry): Place the sheets of strudel or filo pastry on a clean, dry tea-towel (one with some embossing does make rolling easier).  Arrange the cherry filling lengthwise on the pastry leaving a 25 mm (1 inch) border along bottom and sides and then fold in the edges.  Use the tea-towel to lift and roll the pastry tightly, enclosing all the filling.  Tuck the ends in and transfer the strudel seam-side down onto the prepared baking tray.  If using filo pastry, brush each sheet with melted butter to prevent it drying out during the cooking.

Bake strudel:  Brush the top of the strudel with egg wash and bake for 25-35 minutes, until the pastry has become golden brown and obviously flaky.  Slice the strudel while still warm and dust with icing sugar; it’s traditionally served with custard, ice cream or a dollop of thickened cream.

Lede

Lede (pronounced leed)

(1) In hot-print typesetting, a deliberate misspelling of “lead”, created to avoid the possibility “lead” being used as text rather than being understood as an instruction.

(2) In journalism, a short summary serving as an introduction to a news story, article or other copy.

(3) In journalism, the main and thus the news item thought most important.

(4) A man; a person (and many related meanings, all obsolete).

Mid twentieth century:  An altered spelling of lead (in the sense used in journalism: “short introductory summary”), used in the printing trades to distinguish it from the homograph lead (in the sense of the “thin strip of type metal for increasing the space between lines of type” which was made of lead (pronounced led (rhyming with “dead”)) and use in this context has always been was rare outside the US.  The historic plural form (Middle English) was lede but in modern use in journalism it’s always ledes.

The historic use has been obsolete since the late sixteenth century.  The Middle English lede & leode (variously: man; human being, person; lord, prince; God; sir; group, kind; race; a people, nation; human race; land, real property, the subjects of a lord or sovereign; persons collectively (and other forms)) were connected to three closely related words (1) the Old English lēod (man; chief, leader; (poetic) prince; a people, people group; nation), (2) the Old English lēoda (man; person; native of a country (and related to lēod)) and (3) the Old English lēode (men; people; the people of a country (which was originally the plural of lēod)).  Lēod was derived from the Proto-West Germanic liud & liudi, from the Proto-Germanic liudiz (man; person; men; people), from the primitive Indo-European hléwdis (man, people) from hlewd- (to grow; people).  The bafflingly large array of meanings of lede in the Middle English is perhaps best encapsulated in the phrase “in all lede” (all the world).  It was related too to the Northumbrian dialectical form lioda (men, people) and was cognate with the German Leute (nation, people) and the Old High German liut (person, people), from the primitive Indo-European root leudh- (people), the source also of the Old Church Slavonic ljudu and the Lithuanian liaudis (nation, people).  Care must be taken if using lede in Sweden.  In the Swedish, lede was from the nominal use (masculine inflection) of the adjective led (evil), used in the synonym den lede frestaren (the evil tempter), understood as “the evil one, the loathsome or disgusting one; the devil, Satan”.

In modern use, lede was a deliberate misspelling of lead, one of a number of words created so they could be used in the instructions given to printers while avoid the risk they might appear in the text being set.  Lede could thus be used to indicate which paragraphs constitute the lede while avoiding any confusion with the word “lead” which might be part of the text to appear in an article.  The other created forms were “dek” (subhead or sub-heading (modified from “deck”)), hed (headline (modified from head)) and kum (used as “lede to kum” or “lede 2 kum” (a placeholder for “lead to come”)).  The technical terms were of some significance when the hot-typesetting process was used for printing.

It’s not clear when lede came into use in the printing trades, the dictionaries which maintain a listing are not consistent and the origin is suggested to date from anywhere between 1950-1976.  The difficulty is determining the date of origin is that the documents on which the words (lede, dek, hed, kum) appeared were ephemeral, created to be used on the day and discarded.  Lede move from the print factory floor to the newsroom to become part of the jargon of journalism, used to describe the main idea in the first few lines of a story, a device to entice a reader to persist (the idea of click-bait nothing new).  In much of the English-speaking world, the word in this context is spelled “lead” but lede remains common in the US.  In either form, it’s entered the jargon, the phrase "to bury the lede" meaning “unwittingly to neglect to emphasize the very most important part of the story (about an editor’s most damning critique) and “if it bleeds it ledes” means a dramatic story, preferably with explicit images, will be on the front page or be the first item of a news bulletin.

Beyond journalism, lede is sometimes used.  An auction site might for example have a “lede photograph”, the one which is though the most tempting and this attract the biggest audience (ie more click-bait).  In general use, it’s probably not helpful and likely only to confuse.  Henry Fowler (1858-1933) would doubtless have included its general use among what in his Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) he derided as a “pride of knowledge”: “...a very un-amiable characteristic and the display of it should sedulously be avoided” and to illustrated his point he said such vanities included “didacticism, French words, Gallicisms, irrelevant allusions, literary critics’ words, novelty hunting, popularized technicalities, quotations, superiority & word patronage.”  Ones suspects that outside of the print-shop, little would Henry Fowler have tolerated lede.

Others agree, suggesting the old sense from Middle English is now used only as a literary or poetic device and it’s otherwise the sort of conscious archaism of which Henry Fowler disapproved, a thing used only to impress others and beyond that, the modern form should never travel beyond wherever as a form of jargon it makes sense.  Still, there were word nerds who though it might have a future.  The US author William Safire (1929–2009) seemed to find hope in its prospects and even coined “misledeing” which might be tempting for editors searching for novel words with which berate neophyte writers.

Breakaway

Breakaway (pronounced breyk-uh-wey)

(1) An act or instance of breaking away; secession; separation.

(2) A departure or break from routine or tradition.

(3) A person, thing or institution which breaks away.

(4) An object, used in theatrical productions as a prop, constructed easily to break or fall apart (also used to describe costumes designed quickly to be change and thus easily removed), especially upon impact; by extension, anything deliberately constructed of lightweight material or in such a way as to shatter or come apart easily, sometimes as a safety feature.

(5) In ice hockey, a sudden rush down the ice by a player or players in an attempt to score a goal, after breaking clear of defending opponents.

(6) In various codes of football, a run by an offensive player breaking through the defense for a long gain.

(7) In basketball, a term for the fast break.

(8) In rugby union, two forwards positioned at the side of the scrum (also called flankers).

(9) In Australian rural slang, an animal that breaks away from the herd or flock or a synonym for a stampede of a number of beasts.

(10) In Australian geographical slang, an eroding steep slope on the edge of a plateau; an escarpment; a channel of floodwater that has burst from its usual course; or the track or channel eroded by the water (archaic).

(11) Of, relating to, or being that which separates or secedes.

(12) In horse racing, a premature start.

(13) In bicycle racing, a individual or group of riders which has gone ahead of the peloton (the main group).

(14) In the entertainment industry, enjoying sudden & rapid popular success as a result of one role, release etc (archaic, now called “break-out”).

(15) In geopolitics, a sometimes used alternative descriptor for the renegade province of Taiwan. 

1885–1895: A noun & adjectival form based on the (verb) phrase “break away”.  Break was from the Middle English breken, from the Old English brecan (to break), from the Proto-West Germanic brekan, from the Proto-Germanic brekaną (to break), from the primitive Indo-European breg- (to break).  Away was from the Middle English away, awey, awei, oway, o wey & on way, from the Old English āweġ & onweġ (away), the original form being on weġ (on one's way; onward; on), the construct being a- (on) +‎ way (a road; direction).  It was cognate with the Scots awa & away (away), the Old Frisian aweg & awei (away), the Saterland Frisian wäch & wääge (away), the Dutch weg (away), the German weg (away), the Danish væk (away) and the Swedish i väg (away; off; along).

The phrase “break away”, in the sense "disengage oneself abruptly, escape" dates from the 1530s.  The late nineteenth century breakaway was used to describe physical objects, especially specifically engineered theatre props.  The use in sport was noted first in 1906 while the hyphenated break-away seems initially to have been used to describe those individuals associated with breakaway movements but a convention of use never emerged.  The use to describe splinter groups or anything schismatic began in the adjectival sense in the 1930s and was so joined by the noun and in that context the synonyms include breakup, separation, defection, dissension, disunion, division, parting, rift, rupture, schism, split, disaffiliation, & splinter group.

All Blacks vs the Barbarians, Cardiff Arms Park, 1973.

Rugby Union is noted, inter alia, for some inconsistencies in the names applied to positions.  The reasons for this are historical as the game’s origins lie in the early nineteenth century at a time when communication was slow and irregular between the parts of the British Empire (and the US) where it was played.  Nomenclature thus evolved in bubbles (as did some rules) and it seems that in Australia and New Zealand, the terminology could differ even between provinces.  Despite professionalism, some of the differences persist to this day which is why mysterious terms like “second five-eight” and “wing three quarter” still sometimes baffle neophyte audiences.  The breakaway is now more commonly called the “flanker” and there are blindside flankers (No 6) and openside flankers (No 7), the distinction being that the No 7 attaches (loosely) to the scrum on whichever side is further from the nearer touchline.  Breakaways are there to tackle the opposition and hopefully steal the ball and, although not tightly bound to the scrum, do contribute to its rigidity by applying lateral force.  The breakaways are the most obvious variation from the formation used in the breakaway (the split from rugby union dating from 1895) code of rugby league which otherwise uses the same positions and field placements, although, reflecting the later, more codified origin, the terminology tends to be more consistent between nations.

Breakaways: GAFCON and the Diocese of Southern Cross.

Belonging to a long tradition of splits, squabbles, schisms and general fissiparousness in Christianity and other faiths, congregations of Australia’s breakaway faction of the Anglican Church this week began meeting in suburban clubs and halls.  Modest though the surrounds might have been, the turbulent priests are not all that lonely in their walk, joining the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), an umbrella breakaway group dividing the Anglican Church in many countries.

GAFCON’s core objections are to the “revisionist interpretations” of the Bible by Anglican bishops, a slippery slide of “heresies” which have permitted the ordination of women, the blessing of same-sex marriages and a permissive attitude towards divorce.  Accordingly, the Diocese of Southern Cross was recently launched at a GAFCON conference in Canberra, the announcement made by its new bishop, Glenn Davies (b 1950; Archbishop of Sydney 2013-2021), the Anglican church’s former archbishop of Sydney.  In a statement which was a lament rather that a celebration, the bishop noted it was “…a sad day, in many ways”, adding that “…if the leadership would repent and turn back to the teachings of the bible, we wouldn’t need the Diocese of Southern Cross. I’d shut it down and come back.”  He denied procuring worshipers from other congregations, saying “I’m not luring people in, I’m not recruiting; I’m providing a safe haven and they can come to me.”

The way things used to be done.  St George's Anglican Church, Beenleigh, Queensland, Australia.

The Australian event is the latest expansion of a movement that is dividing the communion in many countries with rebel dioceses having already been formed in North America, South America, Africa and Europe and there are many who concede the schism has already evolved to the point where it must be acknowledged there are now two Anglican Churches in the US.  The nature of religiosity among Christians in Australia is however different from the US experience, both qualitatively and quantitatively.  Anglicanism was between white settlement in 1788 and the twenty-first century, at least nominally, most numerous denomination in Australia but the most recent census data revealed Anglican affiliation dropped more than any other religion in the past five years, from 3.1 to 2.5 million people, almost one in five and fewer than 10% of the population now self-identify as Anglican.  Of this declining sect of Christianity, many predict the breakaway Diocese of Southern Cross will grow but it’s unlikely to assume the critical mass such movements can attain in Africa and the Americas, simply because there simply aren’t enough folk who take religion that seriously.

The new way.  The first service of the Diocese of Southern Cross was held in a meeting room of the Beenleigh RSL (Returned Services League) & Golf Club.

 The breakaway GAFCON is not a new formation.  The culmination of the internal stresses visible in the Anglican communion since the 1968 Lambeth Conference, GAFCOM coalesced over three conferences held between 2008-2018, convened by conservative Anglican bishops and leaders concerned about the establishment’s positions on issues such as the ordination of women, secularism, HIV/AIDS , the matter of gay clergy and marriage equality.  Provocatively held one month prior to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, GAFCON made clear it existed because of heresy, the revisionist "false gospel" which since the 1960s had become part of Anglican orthodoxy, claiming it denied the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and promoted a corrosive cultural relativism which accepted a "variety of sexual preferences and immoral behavior as a universal human right".  These matters had been debated by the factions for years but it was the consecration of the confessed (and non-celibate) homosexual Vicky Gene Robinson (b 1947; Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire 2004-2013) as a bishop by the Episcopal Church in the US which induced the conservative faction be explore an institutional formation, either to “march through the institution” or form a separate church, depending on how the numbers fell.

As things turned out in 2008, it seemed clear a takeover wasn’t (yet) a practical proposition but that GAFCON would continue as a concept.  What was decided was to create in North America, where the threat seemed greatest, a kind of parallel church, an ecclesiastical structure which would cater for conservative Anglicans, a mechanism possible the communiqué asserted because the Archbishop of Canterbury is not a pope and his recognition of an institution is not required to secure a presence within the Anglican Communion.  In a nice touch, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was called "a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer”.  Lambeth Palace, predictably, while noting the breakaway’s position was fraught with theological and structural difficulties, otherwise did nothing.  Schisms sometimes flourish, sometimes fade away, sometimes are re-absorbed by the establishment and sometimes cause wars.  With the Lambeth Conference having just concluded, attention will now turn to at least three of those options.

The word “breakaway” can be used of used of Hollywood starlets who wish to break away from the innocent persona of their youth (left), chocolate bars with a wafer centre (a la the Kit Kat) (centre) and devices designed to break away from their connection at a certain stress point (right).