Noose

Noose (pronounced noos)

(1) A loop with a running knot, as in a snare, lasso, or hangman's halter, that tightens as the rope is pulled; a device to restrain, bind, or trap.

(2) A tie or bond; snare.

(3) To secure by or as by a noose.

(4) To make a noose with or in (a rope or the like).

1400-1450: From the late Middle English nose (noose, loop), of unclear origin.  Etymologists have speculated it may be from the Old French nos or Old Occitan nous & nos (both forms known also in the descendent Provençal), the nominative singular or accusative plural of nou (knot), with the meaning shifting from the knot to the loop created by the knot, the French forms from the Latin nōdus (knot; node), from the primitive Indo-European root ned (to bind; to tie).  If that’s true, it was cognate with the French nœud (knot), the Portuguese nó (knot) and the Spanish nudo (knot).  The alternative etymology (which most authorities appear to find more convincing) is it was borrowed from Middle Low German nȫse (loop, noose, snare), also of obscure origin although it may have been derived from an incorrect division of ēn' ȫse (literally “a loop”), from the Middle Low German ȫse, from the Old Saxon ōsia, from the Proto-West Germanic ansiju (eyelet, loop).  It’s possible the Saterland Frisian Noose (loop, eyelet) & Oose (eyelet, loop) may have emerged from the same process.  In English, use of noose was rare prior to the early seventeenth century.  Although it’s a popular tale, it’s a myth a hangman’s noose always has 13 coils.  The old spelling nooze is long obsolete.  Noose is a noun & verb; nooser is a verb, nooselike & nooseless are adjectives and noosed & noosing are verbs; the noun plural is nooses.

The Nazis and the noose

Soviet cartoon: Caricature of the defendants and the anticipated Nuremberg judgment (1946) by the Soviet artists known as the Kukryniksy: Porfiry Krylov (1902-1990), Mikhail Kupriyanov (1903-1991) & Nikolai Sokolov (1903-2000).  As the trial wore on, at least two of the defendants were recorded as requesting shirts with “larger collars” and on one occasion one removed his tie, explaining it was “suddenly feeling tight”.  The famous quote “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully” appears in volume 3 of The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) by James Boswell (1740-1795) (a biography of the English writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)).

As a prelude to the main Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) of the most notable or representative Nazis, the list of two-dozen-odd defendants was assembled to be indicted variously for (1) conspiracy to commit a crime against peace, (2) planning or waging wars of aggression, (3) war crimes and (4) crimes against humanity.  Even before the trial started it was known the International Military Tribunal (IMT) enjoyed capital jurisdiction (although in his opening remarks the president of the tribunal took care to explain the legal basis of their right to impose death sentences) and the court-appointed psychologist noted from his interviews with the accused that all expected the proceedings to be nothing more than a Stalinesque “show trial” with the death penalty inevitable for all, something the assurances of their (German) defense council seemed little to assuage.  As representatives from the world’s press (not yet called “the media”) began to arrive they were reported as mostly sharing the assumption and even as the trial unfolded and the defendants came to realize that for at least some of them there was the prospect of avoiding the noose or perhaps even securing an acquittal, the straw polls among the journalists still thought the death sentence likely for the majority.

Soviet cartoon The twelfth hour of the Hitlerites by Boris Efimov (1900-2008), from the series Fascist Menagerie, Izvestiia, 1 January 1946.

The prospect of imminent death is said “to focus the mind” and among the military defendants, all more than once expressed the opinion that as soldiers, they were entitled to execution by firing squad rather than by the hangman’s noose, the gallows too associated with the fate of common criminals (although one avoided that by having hanged himself (technically by act of strangulation) before the trial began.  In the end, of those present in the dock, 11 were sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead, Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) avoiding the indignity of the noose by committing suicide, poisoning himself on the eve of his scheduled execution in circumstances which have never been clear.  Another, Erich Raeder (1876–1960; head of the German Navy 1928-1943) lodged one of the more unusual appeals after being sentenced to life imprisonment, asking that he instead receive the death penalty, life in prison apparently a worse prospect than being hanged; his appeal was declined.  Many lurid stories about the botched nature of some of the hangings circulated in the post-war years but while some might not have caused instant death, it’s unlikely any took anything like the 17 minutes it was claimed some took to die.

Caricature of Rudolf Hess at Nuremberg (1946) by New Zealand-born UK cartoonist David Low (1891-1963).

The author Rebecca West (1892–1983) covered the trial as a journalist and wrote some vivid thumbnail sketches, noting: "Hess was noticeable because he was so plainly mad: so plainly mad that it seemed shameful that he should be tried.  His skin was ashen and he had that odd faculty, peculiar to lunatics, of falling into strained positions which no normal person could maintain for more than a few minutes, and staying fixed in contortion for hours. He had the classless air characteristic of asylum inmates; evidently his distracted personality had torn up all clues to his past.  He looked as if his mind had no surface, as if every part of it had been blasted away except the depth where the nightmares live."

The strangest case in so many ways was that of Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941).  Before the proceedings formerly commenced, the tribunal had been considering discharging Hess because it seemed clear there was sufficient doubt his mental state was adequate to ensure a fair trial.  He went to trial only after making an extraordinary admission his display of amnesia had to that point been merely “tactical” and he was quite lucid and able to understand all that was going on; at the time, it was probably the trial's most sensational event.  He’d actually achieved the very thing sought by but denied to so many defendants yet he chose instead to be tried.  His conduct thereon was just as bizarre, declining to enter a plea (his "Nein!"the court recorded as “not guilty”), often preferring to read novels rather than follow the proceedings and when his sentence was announced, he claimed not to have listened, saying, apparently without much concern, he assumed it was death.  Actually, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life and with six others entered Berlin’s Spandau Prison where he would remain until 1987 when, aged 93, he hanged himself, having fashioned a noose from a length of electrical cable.  For the last two decades, he was the sole inmate of the huge facility designed to accommodate hundreds and, having entered captivity in 1941 after his bizarre “peace mission” to Scotland, had by the time of his death been locked-up for 46 years.

Low’s take on the official German line explaining Hess deserting the German government as “madness”.  This cartoon does represent what was then the prevailing public perception of the typical behaviour expected of those in “lunatic asylums”.  Depicted (left to right) are:

Hermann Göring: Committed suicide by by crushing between his teeth an ampule of a potassium cyanide (KCN), smuggled into his cell in circumstances never confirmed, shortly before he was to be hanged after being convicted on all four counts ((1) Conspiracy to wage aggressive war; (2) Waging aggressive war; (3) War crimes and (4) crimes against humanity.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945): With his wife Eva Hitler (née Braun; 1912–1945) of a few hours, committed suicide (he by gunshot and KCN, she by KCN alone) with the tanks of the Red Army only a couple of blocks from the Berlin Führerbunker.

Dr Robert Ley (1890–1945; head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front) 1933-1945): Committed suicide by hanging (by means of suffocation) himself in his cell in Nuremberg prior to the trial after for some years have made a reasonable attempt to drink himself to death.  He died with his underpants stuffed in his mouth.

Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945): Hanged at Nuremberg after being convicted on all four counts.

Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945): With his wife (Magda Goebbels (née Ritschel; 1901-1945), committed suicide (by gunshot) in the courtyard above the Führerbunker, shortly after they’d murdered their six children.

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945): Captured by the British while attempting to escape disguised as a soldier, he committed suicide using an ampule of (KCN) he’d concealed in his mouth.

Burberry’s hoodie with noose, 2019, (left) and model Kylie Jenner (b 1997) wearing a Givenchy Noose Necklace, 2023.

Because of the association with suicide, slavery and the history of lynching in the century after the US Civil War (1861-1865), the noose can be a controversial thing if invoked in an insensitive way.  Controversy though is just another technique to be weaponized when there’s the need to generate publicity and in the fashion business, it’s no longer enough to just to design something elegant or otherwise pleasing to the eye because it will barely be noticed on the catwalk and probably won’t make the magazines or become clickbait.  Thus the temptation to try to shock which will guarantee the desired publicity, the added attraction being the certainty the will do its job then quickly subside.  The Givenchy Noose Necklace model Kylie Jenner wore in January 2023 at Paris Fashion Week had been see before, causing a bit of a stir on the catwalk in 2021 when it was used in the fashion house’s Spring/Summer 2022 show.  Then, on cue, The Guardian called it out as “blatantly offensive”, guaranteeing even wider coverage although Givenchy solved the short-term problem by responding to the paper’s request for a comment with an Élysée-like “The house does not have an official response on this”.  They may have learned that in such matters apologies probably make things worse from Burberry’s "We are deeply sorry for the distress caused by one of the products that featured in our Autumn/Winter 2019 collection”, issued after being condemned for showing a hoodie with a noose.

Lace

Lace (pronounced leys)

(1) A net-like, delicate & ornamental fabric made of threads by hand or machine and formed historically from cotton or silk (modern forms also using synthetics), woven almost always in an open web of symmetrical patterns and figures .

(2) A cord or string for holding or drawing together (shoes, garments, protective coverings etc) as when passed through holes in opposite edges.

(3) An ornamental cord or braid, especially of gold or silver, used to decorate military and other uniforms, hats etc.

(4) A small amount of alcoholic liquor or other substance added to food or drink.

(5) A snare or gin, especially one made of interwoven cords; a net.

(6) In the illicit drug trade, to add a (usually) small quantity of another substance to that being offered for sale (also sometimes deliberately undertaken by users for various purposes).

(7) To fasten, draw together, or compress by or as if by means of a lace.

(8) To pass (a cord, leather strip etc) through holes usually intended for the purpose.

(9) To interlace or intertwine.

(10) For decorative purposes, to adorn or trim with lace.

(11) To lash, beat, or thrash.

(12) To compress the waist of a person by drawing tight the laces of a corset (used descriptively with undergarments like shapewear which don’t use laces).

(13) To mark or streak, as with color.

(14) To be fastened with a lace:

(15) To attack (usually verbally but the term is rarely applied to physical violence), often in the form “laced into”.

(16) As the acronym LACE, Used variously including the liquid air cycle engine (a propulsion engine used in space travel), the Luton Analogue Computing Engine (a computer used by the UK military) and the Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (a research project conducted on the final Apollo Moon mission).

1175–1225: From the Middle English noun lace, laace, laz & las (cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk etc), from the Old French laz & las (a net, noose, string, cord, tie, ribbon, or snare), from the Vulgar Latin lacium & laceum, from the Classical Latin laqueum from laqueus (a noose or snare).  The Latin was the source also of the Italian laccio, the Spanish lazo and the English lasso, a trapping and hunting term, probably from the Italic base laq- (to ensnare) and thus comparable with the Latin lacere (to entice).  The verb was from the Middle English lasen & lacen, from the Old & Middle French lacer, lacier, lasser & lachier (which endures in Modern French as lacer), from the Latin laqueāre (to enclose in a noose, to trap).  Derived forms have been coined as required including enlace, lace-up, lacemaker, laceman, self-lacing, unlace, re-laced & well-laced although de-laced seems to be exclusive to the IT industry where it has a specific application in video displays (interlaced, non-interlaced and all that).  Lace is a noun & verb; lacer is a noun, lacing is a verb, lacelike & lacy are adjectives and laced is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is laces.

Vulcan Surprising Venus and Mars in Bed before an Assembly of the Gods (1679), oil on canvas by Johann Heiss (1640-1704).

The metal net weaved by the god Vulcan was in renaissance art called “Vulcan’s lace”, reflecting the general use to describe snares, fish nets etc and vividly it was described in both the Odyssey (the Greek text from the eighth or seventh century BC attributed to Homer) and Ovid's (the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) Metamorphoses (Transformations; 8 AD).  The god Helios had happened upon the gods Venus and Mars in a passionate, adulterous liaison and he rushed to inform god Vulcan of his wife's faithlessness.  Enraged, Vulcan forged a net of bronze so fine it was invisible to the naked eye and carefully he place the lace over Venus’ bed so he could entrap the lustful pair at their next tryst.  It didn’t take long and thus ensnared, Vulcan called upon all of the other Olympians to witness the scene, the cuckolded Vulcan making his case before his peers.

Train of lace wedding gown.

Because of the method of construction, the word lace evolved by the turn of the fourteenth century to describe “a net, noose or snare”, simultaneously with it coming to mean “a piece of cord used to draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing”, a concept which survives in the modern shoelace although in Middle English it was used most frequently in the sense of “a cord or thread used particularly to bind or tie”.  It was used of fishing lines and (especially poetically) of the hangman’s rope and noose, the struts and beams used in architecture, and in the sixteenth century “death's lace” was the icy grip said to envelop the dying while “love’s lace” was the romantic feeling said to cloak youth enchanted with each other.  By the 1540s, improved technology meant increased production of “ornamental cords & braids” which influenced the meaning “fabric of fine threads in a patterned ornamental open net” becoming the predominant use of the English word and the trend continued because by the late nineteenth century a review of catalogues revealed dozens of varieties of commercially available lace.  Noted first in 1928 was an interesting use as an adjective of “lace-curtain” as a piece of class snobbery; it meant “middle class” or “lower-class with middle-class pretensions”) although it was often used in US cities of Irish-Americans, so it may also be thought both an ethnic and anti-Catholic slur.

Casting a practiced eye: Lindsay Lohan assessing a lace-up boot.

The verb developed from the noun and emerged so closely most etymologists consider it a concurrent form, the original sense being “fasten clothing etc with laces and ties”, a direct adoption of the sense of the Old French lacier “entwine, interlace, fasten with laces, lace on; entrap, ensnare” developed from the noun las or laz (net, noose, string, cord).  From the early fourteenth century it was oral shorthand meaning “tighten (a garment) by pulling its laces” and by at least the late sixteenth century (though probably earlier) it conveyed the idea of “adorning with lace”, applied both to furniture and fashion.  The meaning “to intermix (one’s coffee etc.) with a dash of liquor (typically brandy or whisky)” emerged in the 1670s, a product doubtlessly of the spike in popularity of coffee houses.  That sense was originally used also of sugar (from the notion of “to ornament or trim something with lace” while the meaning “beat, lash, mark with the lash” dates from the 1590s, the idea being the pattern of streaks left by the lash; from the early nineteenth century this idea was extended also to verbal assaults (usually as “laced into).  With his punctilious attention to such things, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) noted “laced mutton” was “an old word for a whore”.  The most enduring use is probably the shoelace (also as shoe-lace although the old form “shoe string” seems to be extinct). The “length of lace used to draw together and fasten the sides of a shoe via eyelets”, the noun dating from the 1640s.  Also extinct is another older word for the thong or lace of a shoe or boot: the Middle English sho-thong which was from the Old English scoh-þwang.

1997 Toyota Century V12.

Cars sold on the Japanese domestic market (JDM) are famous for frequently being adorned with what are known as Japanese car seat doilies.  While most are mass produced from modern synthetics and appear in things like taxis, some used in up-market cars are genuine hand-made lace.  Interestingly, while Toyota created the Lexus brand because of the perceived “prestige deficit” suffered by the Toyota name in overseas markets, for decades the Century (sold only in the JDM) has been supplied to the Imperial household.

Lindsay Lohan in lace top, 2004.

The adjective lace-up dates (adj.) from 1831 and was originally a cobblers’ description of boots, directly from the verbal phrase “lace up”; in the mid-twentieth century it was re-purposed in the form “laced-up” to imply someone was “repressed, overly conservative and restricted in their attitudes” the notion being of someone (a woman of course” who never “loosened her stays” with all that implies, the significance being the use emerged decades after corsets had ceased to be worn, the suggestion being a throwback to what were imagined to be Victorian (nineteenth century) attitudes towards personal morality.  This adaptation of lace wasn’t entirely new.  The early fifteenth century adjective “strait-laced” referenced stays or bodices “made close and tight” which was originally purely descriptive but soon came to be adopted figuratively to suggest someone “over-precise, prudish, strict in manners or morals”.  The adjective lacy (which differs from lace-like in that the former references extent, the latter resemblance) and dates from 1804; it’s wholly unrelated to the given name Lacey (which although technically gender-neutral is now conferred predominately on girls and was of Old French origin meaning “from Lacy (or Lassy)” and was originally the surname of French noblemen, the De Lasi, from the Normandy region; it reached the British Isles during the Norman conquest (1066).  The trade of laceman (one who deals in laces) was known since the 1660s while the necklace (“a flexible ornament worn round the neck”) was first so described in the 1580s although such things had been worn by both men & women for thousands of years.  A gruesome use emerged in Apartheid era South Africa during the 1980s where “necklacing” was a form of extrajudicial summary execution which involved drenching a car tyre in a mixture of oil and petrol (or pure diesel) and forcing it around a victim's chest and arms, then setting it alight.  Although never officially condoned by the African National Congress (ANC), it was widely used in black townships as a form of public execution of black Africans suspected of collaborating with the white minority government.  Victims were said to have been “necklaced” and the practice spread elsewhere in Africa, to South Asia and the Caribbean.

Real Housemom’s Irish Coffee Royale

Ingredients

2 oz brandy or cognac
2 oz Irish cream
4 oz brewed coffee (served strong)
Granulated sugar crystals (optional and nor recommended)

Instructions

Warm brandy and Irish cream in small saucepan over low heat, then combine with coffee.  A small amount of sugar can be added but there is sweetness in the Irish cream and the sugar tends to detract from the taste.  The difference between an Irish coffee and a coffee royale is that the former is laced with Irish Whiskey, the latter with brandy or cognac.

Whisk

Whisk (pronounced wisk or hwisk)

(1) To move with a rapid, sweeping stroke.

(2) To sweep (dust, crumbs etc, or a surface) with a whisk broom, brush, or the like.

(3) To draw, snatch or carry etc; a generalized term meaning to move or do something nimbly or rapidly (often as “whisked away”, “whisked off” etc).

(4) To whip (eggs, cream etc.) to a froth using a whisk or other beating device.

(5) The an act of whisking; a rapid, sweeping stroke; light, rapid movement.

(6) As whisk broom, a device topped with a small cluster of grass, straw, hair or the like, used especially for brushing.

(7) A kitchen utensil, in the form of a bunch of (usually metal wire, plastic strands or (in the Far East) bamboo) loops held together in a handle and used for beating, blending or whipping eggs, cream; making souffles etc.  Modern whisks can also be electro-mechanical and “non-stick” whisks use a Teflon coating.

(8) The by-product of something which has been “whisked away”.

(9) A special plane used by coopers for evening a barrel’s chimes (the curved, outermost edge or rim at the top and bottom ends of the barrel, typically wider and thicker than the rest of the staves (the vertical wooden planks that form the sides)).

(10) In fashion, a kind of cape forming part of a woman's dress (sometimes detachable).

(11) In some card games, the act of sweeping the cards off the table after a trick has been won.

1325–1375: From the Middle English & Scots wysk (rapid sweeping movement), from the earlier Scots verbs wisk & quhisk, from the Old English wiscian (to plait) & weoxian (to clean with brush), from a Scandinavian source comparable to the Old Norse & Norwegian visk (wisp), the Swedish viska besom & wisp (to whisk (off)) and the Danish visk & viske (to wipe, rub, sponge) and related to the Middle Dutch wisch, the Dutch wis, the Old High German wisken (to wipe) & wisc (wisp of hay), the German Wisch, the Latin virga (rod, switch) & viscus (entrails), the Czech vechet (a wisp of straw), the Lithuanian vizgéti (to tremble), the Czech vechet (wisp of straw) and the Sanskrit वेष्क (veṣka) (noose) all thought from the Proto-Germanic wiskaz & wiskō (bundle of hay, wisp), from the primitive Indo-European weys- or weis (to turn; to twist).  The un-etymological wh-, noted since the 1570s, probably developed because it was expressive of the sound typically generated by the act of “whisking” something; the same evolution was noted in whip and the onomatopoeic whack and whoosh.  The device used in preparing food (implement for beating eggs etc) was first documented as “a whisk” in the 1660s although cooks had presumably been using such things for many years.  The verb developed in the late fifteenth century, the transitive sense from the 1510s while the familiar meaning “to brush or sweep (something) lightly over a surface” dates from the 1620s.  Whisk & whisking are nouns & verbs and whisked is a verb; the noun plural is whisks.

Variations on a theme of whisk.

Whisk is (almost) wholly unrelated to whisky & whiskey.  Dating from 1715, whisky was a variant of usque,an abbreviation of usquebaugh, from the Irish uisce beatha (water of life) or the Scots Gaelic uisge-beatha (water of life), ultimately a translation of the Medieval Latin aqua vītae (water of life (originally an alchemical term for unrefined alcohol)).  The form whiskybae has been obsolete since the mid eighteenth century.  The Scots and Irish forms were from the Proto-Celtic udenskyos (water) + biwotos (life), from biwos(alive).  The Old Irish uisce (water) was from the primitive Indo-European ud-skio-, a suffixed form of the root wed- (water; wet); bethu (life), from the primitive Indo-European gwi-wo-tut-, a suffixed form of gwi-wo-, from the root gwei- (to live). The noun plurals are whiskies & whiskeys.  Although iskie bae had been known in the 1580s, it appears unrelated to usquebea (1706), the common form of which was uisge beatha which in 1715 became usquebaugh, then whiskeybaugh & whiskybae, the most familiar phonetic form of which evolved as “usky”, influencing the final spellings which remain whisky & whiskey.  Wisely, the Russians avoided the linguistic treadmill, the unchanging vodka freely translated as “little water”.  The exception was the “whisky”, a small carriage (technically a “light gig” to coach-builders) which was from the verb whisk, the idea being something in which one was “whisked quickly around” the lightweight carriages being faster than most.  Chefs also caution home cooks not to confuse “whisky butter” (A concoction made of whisky, butter & sugar) with “whisked butter” which is butter which has been whisked.

Lindsay Lohan Oreos

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998).

Whether it was already something widely practiced isn’t known but Lindsay Lohan is credited with introducing to the world the culinary novelty Oreos & peanut butter in The Parent Trap.  According to the director, it was added to the script “…for no reason other than it sounded weird and some cute kid would do it."  Like some other weirdnesses, the combination has a cult following and for those who enjoy peanut butter but suffer arachibutyrophobia (the morbid fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth), Tastemade have provided a recipe for Lindsay Lohan-style Oreos with a preparation time (including whisking) of 2 hours.  They take 20 minutes to cook and in this mix there are 8 servings (scale ingredients up to increase the number of servings).

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (plus more for dusting)
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
1 ¼ cups unsalted butter (at room temperature)
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Filling Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup unsweetened smooth peanut butter
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of kosher salt (omit if using salted peanut butter)

Filling Instructions

(1) With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, the butter & peanut butter until creamy.

(2) Gradually add powdered sugar and beat to combine, then beat in vanilla and salt.

Whisking the mix.

Instructions

(1) Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

(2) In small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder & salt.

(3) In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Mix in the vanilla extract. With the mixer running on low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until just combined (it should remain somewhat crumbly).

(4) Pour mixture onto a work surface and knead until it’s “all together”; wrap half in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator.

(5) Lightly dust surface and the top of the dough with a 1:1 mixture of cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

(6) Working swiftly and carefully, roll out dough to a ¼-½ inch (6-12 mm) thickness and cut out 2 inch (50 mm) rounds.  Transfer them to the baking sheets, 1 inch (25 mm) apart (using a small offset spatula helps with this step). Re-roll scraps and cut out more rounds, the repeat with remaining half of the dough.

(7) Bake cookies until the tops are no longer shiny ( about 20 minutes), then cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack completely to cool.

(8) To assemble, place half the cookies on a plate or work surface.

(9) Pipe a blob of filling (about 2 teaspoons) onto the tops of each of these cookies and then place another cookie on top, pressing slightly but not to the extent filled oozes from the sides.

(10) Refrigerate for a few minutes to allow the filling to firm up.  Store in an air-tight container in refrigerator.

The manufacturer embraced the idea of peanut butter Oreos and has released versions, both with the classic cookie and a peanut butter & jelly (jam) variation paired with its “golden wafers”.  As well as Lindsay Lohan’s contribution, Oreos have attracted the interest of mathematicians.  Nabisco in 1974 introduced the Double Stuf Oreo, the clear implication being a promise the variety contained twice crème filling supplied in the original.  However, a mathematician undertook the research and determined Double Stuf Oreos contained only 1.86 times the volume of filling of a standard Oreo.  Despite that, the company survived the scandal and the Double Stuf Oreo’s recipe wasn’t adjusted.

Scandalous in its own way was that an April 2022 research paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids wasn’t awarded that year’s Ig Nobel Prize for physics, the honor taken by Frank Fish, Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji & Atilla Incecik, for their admittedly ground-breaking (or perhaps water-breaking) work in explaining how ducklings manage to swim in formation.  More deserving surely were Crystal Owens, Max Fan, John Hart & Gareth McKinley who introduced to physics the discipline of Oreology (the construct being Oreo + (o)logy).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism etc).  Oreology is the study of the flow and fracture of sandwich cookies and the research proved it is impossible to split the cream filling of an Oreo cookie down the middle.

An Oreo on a rheometer.

The core finding in Oreology was that the filling always adheres to one side of the wafer, no matter how quickly one or both cookies are twisted.  Using a rheometer (a laboratory instrument used to measure the way in which a viscous fluid (a liquid, suspension or slurry) flows in response to applied forces), it was determined creme distribution upon cookie separation by torsional rotation is not a function of rate of rotation, creme filling height level, or flavor, but was mostly determined by the pre-existing level of adhesion between the creme and each wafer.  The research also noted that were there changes to the composition of the filling (such as the inclusion of peanut butter) would influence the change from adhesive to cohesive failure and presumably the specifics of the peanut butter chosen (smooth, crunchy, extra-crunchy, un-salted (although the organic varieties should behave in a similar way to their mass-market equivalents)) would have some effect because the fluid dynamics would change.  The expected extent of the change would be appear to be slight but until further research is performed, this can’t be confirmed.  The 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will (as a webcast) happen on Thursday 14 September 2023, at 18:00 pm (US eastern time).

Thug

Thug (pronounced thuhg)

(1) A cruel or vicious ruffian or robber; a violent, lawless person (applied almost always to men).

(2) One of a former group of professional robbers and murderers in India, known as the Thuggee, who strangled their victims; one of a band of assassins formerly active in northern India who worshipped Kali and offered their victims to her (sometimes initial capital letter).

(3) In domestic horticulture, an over-vigorous plant that spreads and dominates the flowerbed.

(4) A wooden bat used in the game of miniten, fitting around the player's hand. 

1810: From the Hindi ठग (thag) (used variously to mean swindler; fraud; rogue; cheat; thief), from the Ashokan Prakrit & Marathi ṭhagg & thak (cheat; swindler), from the Sanskrit स्थग (sthaga) (cunning, fraudulent, to cover, to conceal) hence स्थगति (sthagati) (he/she/it covers, he/she/it conceals) from the Proto-Indo-Aryan sthagáti from the primitive Indo-European (s)teg (to cover with a roof).  Thug is a noun & verb, thuggery, thuggism, thuggishness & thugness are nouns, thuggish & thuglike are adjectives and thuggishly is an adverb; the noun plural is thugs.

Thugs under the Raj

Like much colonialism, the Raj was a pretty thuggish business so the antics of the thuggees should at least have been recognizable to the British.  Although known since 1810 as the Thuggees (soon clipped by the colonial administrators to "thugs"), there had been marauding gangs of thieves and murderers who plied their trade along the transport corridors between Indian towns for centuries, the correct Indian name for which was phanseegur (from phansi (noose)), their nefarious activities described in English as early as circa 1665 (and in Hindi texts, from the thirteenth century).

Depiction of Raj-era Thuggees enjoying their work.

The Thuggees roamed the country in bands of a few to some dozens, often disguised as peddlers or pilgrims, gaining the confidence of other travelers who, opportunistically, they would strangle with a scarf, an unwound turban or a noosed cord; the shedding of blood was rare.  While the motive of many was mere plunder, some practiced a certain religious fanaticism, the victims hidden in graves dug with consecrated tools, a third of the spoils devoted to the goddess Kali, worshiped by the gangs.  Under the Raj, the Thuggees were regarded a threat to internal security and from the early 1830s were subject to crackdowns by civil and military authorities; by the century's end, they’d ceased to exist.  Thug’s meaning-shift to the generalized sense of "ruffian, cutthroat, violent lowbrow" began in 1839 and was in use throughout the English-speaking world by the early twentieth century.  In the US, thug became associated with racism, used as a racist epithet applied specifically to African American men to portray them as violent criminals and when used thus, substituted for other racist slurs even by the 1930s were (at least outside the South) becoming socially unacceptable.  However, in what’s became known as "linguistic reclamation" a sub-set of the African American community adopted the word as an identifier, especially in some forms of popular music.

Peter Dutton, who has never denied being a Freemason.

In politics, the label "political thuggery" is liberally applied and while it’s usually a figurative reference, it’s not impossible Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018) was thinking literally when he described Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) as “a thug”.  Such use isn’t new, the left-wing press in the UK fond of calling former Conservative Party cabinet minister Norman Tebbit (b 1931) a “Tory thug” which was a little unfair although his demeanour did little to discourage such an appellation.  It’s not always figurative and “political thuggery” can be used of the aggressive or violent tactics employed to secure some political end and this can extend to killings, in some places at scale.  One popular form is to “outsource” the dirty work by having mobs attack opposition rallies or meetings as well as the disruption effect this can provoke the impression one’s opponents are associated with violence, something especially easy to engender if there’s a compliant media anxious to support the campaign.  However, if some prominent figure is murdered, this tends to be called a “political assassination” and because of the potentially bad publicity, it’s a last resort; political thuggery is best when it stops short of murder.  Less bloody but still within the thuggish rubric are electoral dirty tricks including branch-stacking, ballot stuffing, electoral tampering or any amount of deceptive advertising although it’s debatable if all forms of disinformation can truly be called political thuggery because propaganda can mislead while still being truthful.  Usually as clandestine as any operation is the practice of unlawful surveillance or espionage which can extend to wiretapping (including the modern digital equivalent) or infiltration of the organizational structures of one’s opponents and this can require some finesse so thuggery sometimes is a delicate business.  Delicate too is corruption and bribery which is practiced as widely as it is because few tactics are as effective.

Enjoying her work, Lindsay Lohan swings the hammer, New York, 2014.  In 2025, her technique was adopted by some of those attacking random Teslas, the targets apparently thought a satisfactory proxy for Elon Musk (b 1971).  Impressionistically (and predictably), it appears the panels of the Tesla Cybertruck (sold since 2023), most made with a stainless steel alloy, are more resistant to impacts than the company's other models which use a thinner gauge and softer aluminium-alloy.   

In March 2014, Lindsay Lohan was part of a stunt staged as a protest against the cancellation of the CBS sitcom (situation comedy) How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014 and HIMYM to the fans), the concept to destroy a car (decorated in a “HIMYM theme”) using sledge hammers.  The car used was a first generation Volvo V70 Station Wagon (1996–2000 and a companion model to the S70 Sedan) and it’s not clear if there was any significance in the choice of a Volvo or it was just within the project’s budget but it was wise not to have used one of the earlier 140 (1966-1974), 164 (1969-1975) or 240/260 (1974-1993) series Volvos which looked something like the stonework Freemasons would once have rendered when they worked with masonry rather than plotting and scheming; taking to any of those with a sledgehammer would be as likely to damage the tool as the car.  As it was, the less sturdy V70 suffered badly and given the enthusiasm with which Lindsay swung her sledgehammer, it was obviously a task she relished.  Thanks to the Murdoch press, we now know visiting excessive violence upon a Volvo can constitute “thuggery”.