Peculiar

Peculiar (pronounced pi-kyool-yer)

(1) Something thought strange, queer, odd, eccentric, bizarre.

(2) Something uncommon or unusual.

(3) Distinctive in nature or character from others.

(4) Belonging characteristically to something.

(5) Belonging exclusively to some person, group, or thing.

(6) In astronomy, designating a star or galaxy with special properties that deviates from others of its spectral type or galaxy class.

(7) A property or privilege belonging exclusively or characteristically to a person.

(8) In the Church of England, a particular parish or church that is exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary or bishop in whose diocese it lies and is governed by another.

(9) In printing and typesetting, special characters not generally included in standard type fonts, as phonetic symbols, mathematical symbols etc (such as ±§¿).  Also called arbitraries.

1400-1450: From the late Middle English, from the Old French peculiaire and directly from the Latin pecūliāris (as one's own property), from pecūlium (private property (literally "property in cattle") a derivative of pecū (flock, farm animals) from pecus (cattle) (in Antiquity, the ownership of cattle was an important form of wealth).  The meaning “unusual” dates from circa 1600, a development of the earlier idiom “distinguished or special”.  The meaning "unusual, uncommon; odd" emerged by circa 1600, an evolution from the earlier "distinguished, special, particular, select" which was in use by at least the 1580s.  The euphemistic phrase "peculiar institution" (slavery; "peculiar" used here in the sense of "exclusive to the "slave states") dates from the 1830s when it was used in speeches by Southern politician John C Calhoun (1782-1850) and it was a standard part of the US political lexicon until abolition.  In ecclesiastical administration, peculiar was used in the sense of "distinct from the auspices of the diocese in which it's located".  Peculiar is a noun & adjective, peculiarize is a verb, peculiarity is a noun and peculiarly is an adverb; the noun plural is peculiars.

In the Church of England, a peculiar is an ecclesiastical district, parish, chapel or church which operates outside the jurisdiction of the bishop and archdeacon of the diocese in which they are situated. Most are Royal Peculiars subject to the direct jurisdiction of the monarch but some are those under another archbishop, bishop or dean.  The arrangement originated in Anglo-Saxon times and developed as a result of the relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet Kings and the English Church. King Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) retained Royal Peculiars following the Reformation and the Ecclesiastical Licences Act (1533), as confirmed by the Act of Supremacy (1559), transferred to the sovereign the jurisdiction which previously been exercised by the pope.  Surprisingly, most peculiars survived the Reformation but, with the exception of Royal Peculiars, almost all were abolished during the nineteenth century by various acts of parliament.  Mostly harmless among Anglicans, the concept existed also in the Roman-Catholic Church where it caused a few difficulties, usually because of bolshie nuns in convents answerable to Rome and not the local bishop.  The bishops, used to obedience, even if grudging, enjoyed this not at all.

Peculiar has a range of meanings.  One is the sense of something “uniquely peculiar to” meaning an attribute or something else shared with no other and sometimes things one thought peculiar to one thing or another are proved not so unique.  Saturn’s lovely rings were once thought peculiar to that planet but exploration and advances in observational technology meant that by the late twentieth century, it could be revealed Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune all had ring systems, all more modest than those of Saturn but they were there.  Non-realistic art has often for its impact depended on a depiction of the peculiar: blue trees, flying dogs and green people once all enough to shock.  This too can change.  Once, a painting of a black swan would have seemed peculiar because, as the Roman saying went rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno (a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan).  The accepted fact was that all swans were white.  However, late in the seventeenth century, Dutch explorers visiting what is now the coast of Western Australia became the first Europeans to see black swans and event subsequently picked up in philosophy as the “black swan moment”, referencing the implications of an accepted orthodoxy of impossibility being disproven, later developed into the “black swan logical fallacy” which became a term used when identifying falsification.

Peculiar in the sense of something bizarre: 1961 Plymouth Fury Convertible.  It must have seemed a good idea at the time and never has there been anything to suggest the designers were under the influence of stimulants stronger than caffeine or nicotine.

Sometimes something thought peculiar can be described as “funny-peculiar” to distinguish it from something disturbing: peculiarities can be thought of as perversions.  In 1906, an embittered and vengeful Friedrich von Holstein (1837–1909; between 1876-1906, an éminence grise in the foreign office of the German Empire) sent a letter to the diplomat Prince Phillip of Eulenburg (1847–1921), the man he blamed for the ending of his long and influential career:

“My dear Phili – you needn’t take this beginning as a compliment since nowadays to call a man ‘Phili” means – well, nothing very flattering… I am now free to handle you as one handles such a contemptible person with your peculiarities.”

From this incendiary note ensued a series of legal proceedings exploring the allegations of “unnatural conduct” (homosexual activity) levelled against Prince Phillip, proceedings which involved a roll-call of characters, many with motives which went beyond their strict legal duty and a few with their own agendas.  The matter of Phili’s peculiarities was of great significance, not merely because homosexuality was punishable under the criminal code (although the statute was rarely enforced) but because the prince had for decades been the closest friend of the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Emperor & King of Prussia 1888-1918).

Technical

Technical (pronounced tek-ni-kuhl)

(1) Belonging or pertaining to an art, science, or the like.

(2) Something peculiar to or characteristic of a particular art, science, profession, trade etc.

(3) Using terminology or treating subject matter in a manner peculiar to a particular field, as a writer or a book.

(4) Skilled in or familiar in a practical way with a particular art, trade etc, as a person.

(5) Of, relating to, or showing technique.

(6) A descriptor of something technically demanding or difficult.

(7) Designed or used for technically demanding sports or other activities.

(8) In education, appertaining to or connected with the mechanical or industrial arts and the applied sciences.

(9) So considered from a point of view in accordance with a stringent interpretation of rules; existing by virtue of a strict application of the rules or a strict interpretation of the wording (a technical loophole in the law; a technical victory etc)

(10) Concerned with or dwelling on technicalities.

(11) In the jargon of financial markets, having prices determined by internal, procedural, speculative or manipulative factors rather than by general or economic conditions.

(12) In association football (soccer), as “technical area”, a defined area adjacent to the pitch, reserved for coaching and support staff.

(13) In sport, as technical foul, a type of offence which, while not involving contact with another player, is a deliberate attempt to commit an offence designed to create an advantage for the perpetrator's team, usually to prevent an opponent from scoring; also called the professional foul.

(14) In boxing, as “technical knock-out (TKO)”, a rule under which the referee (and in some contests an officially appointed physician) can stop the fight and declare a winner if a fighter s judged unable safely to continue (the equivalent of the old hors de combat (out of the fight) from the chivalric code).

(15) In aviation movement management, as “technical stop”, a landing used (1) for refueling, (2) to make unexpected critical repairs or (3) in any case where there’s a need to make an emergency landing.

(16) A re-purposed light pick-up, adapted as a mobile weapons platform and widely used by militaries, paramilitaries, insurgents and irregular combatants, mostly in Africa, the Middle East and West Asia.

1610-1620: From the Latin technicus (skilled in a particular art or subject), from the Ancient Greek tekhnikos (of art; systematic), from τέχνη (tékhnē) (skill, art, craft) + -icus (the suffix added to a noun, adjective, verb etc, to form an adjective).  The construct in English was technic + -al.  The –al suffix is from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjective suffix -ālis, or the Old & Middle French –el & -al.  The Latin form was probably from the Etruscan genitive suffix –l, the i-stem + -cus, occurring in some original case and later used freely.  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós), the Proto-Germanic -igaz , the Old High German and Old English -ig, the Gothic –eigs and the Proto-Slavic –bcb which has long since become a nominal agent suffix but appears originally to have served adjectival functions.

Technically adept: Lindsay Lohan using digital devices.

The wide original meaning sense narrowed by the early 1700s to a focus on the mechanical arts, as distinct from literature or high culture, a division which informed the binary system of education in the West for centuries and remains influential today.  The first use to describe the offence in sport was recorded in the rules of basketball in 1934 although as early as 1921, boxing had allowed the “technical knock-out” to decide bouts and the first known use of the abbreviation TKO is attested from 1940.  The first recorded “Technical difficulty” appeared in print in 1805.  The rare adjective atechnical meaning "free from technicalities" is from 1889.  Technicality, which now has a generally negative association, was originally neutral, meaning merely "that which is peculiar to any science, the evolution of the meaning shift noted from 1828 when it was used in the sense of "technical character or quality".  The noun and adjective “untechnical” is an informal construction, used often as a self-descriptor by those challenged by the complexities of modern phones and such.  Technical is a noun & adjective, technicalness is a noun and technically an adverb; the noun plural is technicals.

Retrospectively named “technicals” from the two world wars.

The tank came into use during World War I (1914-1918) but before that, lighter vehicles (cars and trucks) were adapted for military purposes featuring heavy duty components, armor and increasingly, mounted weapons.  There were the first “armored cars” and literally they were exactly that, the heaviest, most sturdy cars then in manufacture with armor plates welded on in the spots thought most vulnerable.  They proved invaluable in the exercise of many tasks including communications, border raids and reconnaissance and among the most famous was the Rolls-Royce adapted for the purpose by TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia; 1888–1935).  Lawrence was enchanted by the thing, trusting in its life-saving robustness and faithful reliability, regretting only its thirst for petrol and propensity to chew through tyres.  From the Great War, the armored car evolved in parallel forks, one as a purely military vehicle with accommodation for sometimes a dozen troops, heavily armored but fitted usually only with light caliber, defensive weapons, the other light, essentially unarmored but heavily gunned and relying on its speed and maneuverability as the second element of for its defense.  The latter are probably best remembered in the form of the Jeeps the British used in the North African campaign, fitted with heavy machine-guns, mounted to be fired by a gunner standing, they carried a crew of three and were equipped with extra fuel, ammunition, water and little else.  In that form they proved ideal for long distance reconnaissance sweeps and what became known as “hit & miss” operations, fuel dumps among the popular targets.  The British army thought of them in much the same was the Admiralty once viewed the use of light cruisers, noting the compelling similarities between the behavior of the desert sand with that of the oceans.

A classic technical from the 1980s war between the Soviet occupation forces and the Afghan mujahideen.  Not until the 1990s would the term "technical" become common.

The inheritors this tradition are the “technicals”, the light pick-ups used as a platform for anything from general purpose machine guns (GPMG), Rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and (on the machines with a heavier chassis) even 4 inch (105 mm) howitzers.  The most commonly accepted origin for the use of the term in this context lay in the Somali Civil War which began shortly after the collapse of the Somali state in 1989.  Because so many restrictions were imposed on non-governmental organizations (NGO), they weren’t able to adopt their usual protocols for obtaining security contractors so they contracted with local warlords and their militia, the payments disguised as “technical assistance grants”.  These protection forces quickly took to the Japanese pick-ups which had proven their durability in mining and agriculture (the Toyota Hi-Lux the classic example) and had before been used in Africa as weapons platforms, the term “technical” soon transferring from the purchase orders to the vehicles.  Ideal for purpose in a battle between warlords, they’re highly vulnerable to attack (from land, air & water) by any conventionally equipped military but the view seems to be the personnel are expendable and in places like London & Washington DC, the generals have always been impressed that those who want them seem never to find significant obstacles in replacing their fleets of technicals.  Interestingly, and highly unusually among the military when discussing materiel, technical seems always to be pronounced with its three syllables and never clipped to "tech", presumably because the shortened form already has such a well-established pattern of use in all the armed services.    

The Mada 9, Afghanistan’s first “indigenously developed supercar”.

For adaptation as technicals, the various flavors of Toyota pick-ups have long been the favorite mount throughout Africa, the Middle East and West Asia and impressed by the build quality, reliability & robustness, the Afghan Taliban recently choose to use a Toyota Corolla engine to power what they described as Afghanistan’s first “indigenously developed supercar”.  Provisionally known as the Mada 9 (apparently an engineering code-name), the plan is to name the production version the “Black Swan”, an allusion to the shock Europeans felt when explorers reached the shores of what is now Western Australia and it became known not all swans were white.  Since then, the “black swan moment” has been used in university departments as diverse as philosophy and business to illustrate the dangers of making assumptions.  The Mada 9 was built by a company called Entop, the development taking five years and the efforts of some 30 engineers and designers from the Afghanistan Technical Vocational Institute.  While it looks the part, given it’s powered by the modest 1.8 litre (110 cubic inch) four-cylinder engine from Toyota’s mass-produced family hatchback, the performance is not going to match similarly styled vehicles which traditionally have been equipped with bigger eight, twelve and even sixteen-cylinder power-plants.  However, the Taliban are thinking ahead and in its existing form, the Mada 9 exists essentially as a “proof-of-concept” platform, the plan being to add an electric power-train.

Sidewinder

Sidewinder (pronounced syde-whine-der)

(1) A North American rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes), also known as the horned rattlesnake and sidewinder rattlesnake, a venomous pit viper species belonging to the genus Crotalus (rattlesnakes) and found in the desert regions of the south-western United States and north-western Mexico. 

(2) An air-to-air missiles of US design.

(3) In nautical use, a type of middle-distance deep-sea trawler widely used during the 1960s and 1970s.

(4) In slang, a person thought untrustworthy and dangerous.

(5) In the slang of hand-to-hand combat, a heavy swinging blow from the side which disables an adversary (now rare).

(6) In the slang of baseball, a pitcher who throws sidearm.

(7) In the slang of certain photographers, a certain aspect used to photograph certain models in certain dresses or tops.

1875: A creation of US English to describe the small horned rattlesnake found in the south-west near the border with Mexico, the construct being the adjective side + the agent noun of wind, so called in reference to its "peculiar lateral progressive motion".  The first known use was in an 1875 US Army report detailing the zoology of the western US.  Dating from 1888, there are also references to the snake as the "sidewiper".  Side was from the Middle English side, from the Old English sīde (side, flank), from the Proto-Germanic sīdǭ (side, flank, edge, shore), from the primitive Indo-European sēy- (to send, throw, drop, sow, deposit).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Siede (side), the West Frisian side (side), the Dutch zijde & zij (side), the German Low German Sied (side), the German Seite (side), the Danish & Norwegian side (side) and the Swedish sida (side).  As an adjective (as in sidewinder) it's used to mean (1) being on the left or right, or toward the left or right; lateral & (2) indirect; oblique; incidental.  The construct of winder was wind + -er and was from the Middle English wynder, from the Middle English wynd & wind, from the Old English wind (wind), from the Proto-West Germanic wind, from the Proto-Germanic windaz, from the primitive Indo-European hwéhtos (wind), from hwéhts (wind), from the present participle of hweh- (to blow).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Sidewinder is a noun; the noun plural is sidewinders.

A sidewinder taking lunch (left) and sidewinding (right).

The snake’s common name, sidewinder, alludes to its unusual form of locomotion, which is thought to give it traction on windblown desert sand, but this peculiar specialization is used on any substrate over which the sidewinder rapidly can move. As its body progresses over loose sand, it forms a letter J-shaped impression, with the tip of the hook pointing in the direction of travel.  The species is nocturnal during hot months and diurnal during the cooler times of its activity period, which typically extends from November to March (though often longer in the southern part of its range, subject to seasonal variation).

The AIM-9x Sidewinder and the Vympel K-13

AIM-9x Sidewinder Air-to Air missile being launched.

The AIM-9x Sidewinder is a short-range air-to-air missile developed by the US Navy which entered service in 1956.  One of the most widely used missiles, it equips both western and (notionally) non-aligned air forces as well as (indirectly), the many nations which use the Soviet-era Vympel K-13, a reverse-engineered clone.  More than 110,000 Sidewinders have been produced and it’s considered outstanding value for money, being one of the less expensive weapons of its type.  Aside from cost, it owes its longevity to a simple, easy-to-upgrade design, long shelf life, robustness and famously high reliability; the US military say it’s possible the Sidewinder will remain in service until late this century, the one basic design might thus endure over one-hundred years.  One of the early mass-produced guided missiles, the Sidewinder name was selected in 1950 because the venomous snake uses infrared sensory organs to hunt warm-blooded prey.  The Sidewinder was first developed by the US Navy (USN) and later adopted by the US Air Force (USAF), both branches still using what is essentially the same design, the critical components of which are (1) an infrared homing guidance section, (2) an active optical target detector, (3) a high-explosive warhead and (4) rocket propulsion.  The attraction of infrared units is their low-cost, ease of maintenance and the ability to be used day and night.  According to the 2021 fiscal year Department of Defense (DoD) budget, AIM-9x Sidewinders are costed at around US$430,000 for Navy use & US$472,000 for the Air Force, the difference accounted for by the cost of the mounting system which attaches to and aircraft’s hard-points.  The DoD’s numbers are not necessarily accurate but the comparative values are probably at least indicative.

The rollerons on the fins of the early AIM-9.

Although in production since 1956, the Sidewinder is now a much changed device, product development meaning parts interchangeability between an original and one from the 2020s is limited to the odd screw.  In that, the missile can be compared to something like the Volkswagen Beetle in that while the first in 1938 and the last in 2003 were recognizably related and conceptually the same (rear-mounted air-cooled flat-four engine, rear-wheel drive (RWD), separate chassis etc), the only mechanical carry-overs would be some of the nuts & bolts.  In the 1950s, the technology to permit the Sidewinder's fins to act as self-stabilizer didn't exist.  While it would have been possible to build an electro-mechanical device which could fulfil the function, it would have been prohibitively large and heavy and, when subject to the stresses of launch, anyway too fragile to provide the reliability the military required.  Instead, "rollerons" were fitted to the tips of the fins.  Rotating at 100,000 rpm, these provided gyroscopic stabilization, a solution similar to that adopted by the Germans for their big World War II (1939-1945) ballistic missile (The Aggregat 4 (A4), better known as the V2 (or V-2) (Vergeltungswaffe (Retaliation (ie vengence) Weapon 2)) although being bigger and flying for a greater distance in a more complex trajectory, the V2 was fitted also with controllers on the rocket engine's vanes which compensated dynamically for directional variations.  The issue of directional stability was the most challenging aspect of the V2's development. 

Lindsay Lohan sidewinder shots, 2007.  Where possible, photographers like to take both SFW (suitable for work, left) shots and NSFW (not suitable for work, right) shots so they have product for both market niches.  Paul Smith shot these as part of a sequence at the General Motors Annual Ten Event Fashion Show, Los Angeles, February 2006.

The use of Sidewinders in dog-fights between Chinese and Taiwanese (from the renegade province of Taiwan) pilots during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) was the first use of air-to-air guided missiles in combat and the Vympel K-13 (NATO reporting name: AA-2 (Atoll)) was reverse-engineered (ie pirated) by the Soviet Union, using a Sidewinder launched from a Taiwanese F-86 Sabre during the Crisis which became lodged, unexploded, in the fuselage of a Chinese MiG 17.  The MiG landed safely and although Sino-Soviet relations weren’t at the time ideal, some sort of deal was done between Peking and Moscow which resulted in the missile being delivered to Soviet weapons scientists who deconstructed and replicated it, allowing the Vympel to enter the arsenals of Warsaw Pact nations.  The USSR had something of a tradition of doing this with Western hardware (their Boeing B29 clone legendarily almost identical to Boeing’s original) and the Chinese soon became masters of the technique.  By 1961 the K-13 was in full-scale production and so diligent were the Soviets in their duplication that even the part-numbers stamped on the components were replicated.

In February 2023, the Sidewinder was briefly in the news after one was used by a USAF F-16 fighter to shoot down the balloon which infamously penetrated US airspace.  Depending on whose story one prefers, it was either a weather research device operated by Chinese meteorological authorities or a spy system run by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) to gather data for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  Most observers not in fear of being sent to a re-education camp seem to tend to the latter but for the USAF it wasn’t that important; pilots just like shooting stuff with sidewinders.  Targeted at an altitude around 20,000 feet (6000 m), the balloon was brought down in the vicinity of Lake Huron above over Michigan and was the third such airborne object shot down in a three-day span, all at the time believed to be linked with the CCP.  Once the thing was downed, one of the main interests to those examining the wreckage was to work out how a relatively large object could have evaded the surveillance of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which uses visual contact, radar, and other tracking systems.

1997 Dodge Dakota Sidewinder Concept.

The Dodge Dakota Sidewinder was a one-off concept displayed at 1997’s SEMA Convention in Las Vegas.  It used a 640 hp (477 kW), 490 cubic-inch (8.0 litre) V10 Viper (LA) engine and was said to be capable of 170 mph (274 km/h) although it wasn’t clear whether this was (1) worked out on the back of an envelope, (2) calculated by computer simulation or (3) verified by some intrepid test driver.  Like most of Detroit’s more fanciful creations, it never reached production although Chevrolet later picked up the idea for their retro-styled SSR (Super Sport Roadster) pickup truck (2003-2006) which featured a retractable hard-top and between 2004-2006 Dodge did install the a 505 cubic inch (8.3 litre) version LA V10 in their Ram pick-up truck.  One of the crazier trucks and very much in the tradition of their 1964-1966 D-100 pick-up which used the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Wedge V8, the limited-production V10 SRT-10 is still much in demand in the collector market.

Impeach

Impeach (pronounced im-peech)

(1) To accuse (a public official) before an appropriate tribunal of misconduct in office.

(2) In law, as “to impeach a witness”; to demonstrate in court that a testimony under oath contradicts another testimony from the same person, usually one taken during deposition.

(3) To bring an accusation against; to call in question; cast an imputation upon:

(4) In British criminal law, to accuse of a crime, especially of treason or some other offence against the state

(5) In the US and some other jurisdictions, to charge (a public official) with an offence committed in office.

(6) To hinder, impede, or prevent (archaic).

(7) To call to account (now rare).

1350–1400: From the Middle English empechen & enpeshen, from the Anglo-French empecher (to hinder) from the Old French empeechier from the Late Latin impedicāre (to fetter, trap, entangle or catch), the construct being im- + pedic(a) (a fetter (derivative of pēs (foot))) + -ā- (a thematic vowel) + -re (the Latin infinitive suffix) and cognate with French empêcher (to prevent); The most usual Latin forms were impedicō & impedicāre.  Impeach is a verb, impeachment & impeachability &  are nouns, impeaching & impeached are verbs and impeachable & impeachmentworthy are adjectives (although not all authorities acknowledge the latter as a standard form); the noun plural is impeachments.

An English import the Americans made their own 

Although most associated with the US where the constitution permits the House of Representatives to impeach government officials (most notably the president) and send them for trial in the Senate, the concept of impeachment is a borrowing from the procedures of the UK Parliament.  Always a rare mechanism, impeachment was first used in England in 1376 with the last UK case in 1806 and while technically extant, is probably obsolete although it’s not unknown for relics of the UK’s long legal past occasionally to be resuscitated.  What is more likely is that matters once dealt with by impeachment would now be brought before a court although most historians and constitutional lawyers seem to believe it remains part of UK constitutional law and abolition would demand legislation.  That was exactly what select committees recommended in 1967 and again ten years later but nothing was done and despite the New Labour government (1997-2010) imposing some quite radical structural changes on the legal system, the mechanism of impeachment remained untouched.  In September 2019, it was reported that opposition politicians in the House of Commons were considering impeachment proceedings against Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) "on charges of gross misconduct in relation to the unlawful prorogation of parliament", as well as his threat to break the law by failing to comply with the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (which required the prime-minister in certain circumstances to seek an extension to the Brexit withdrawal date of 31 October 2019).  Mr Johnson survived that one though it proved a temporary reprieve for his premiership.

Although the Sturm und Drang of Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) unprecedented two impeachments was entertaining for political junkies, as a spectacle the two trials were muted affairs because the verdicts were both predictable.  Under the US Constitution, the House of Representatives has the “sole Power of Impeachment” (essentially a form of indictment in other proceedings) while the Senate is vested with “the sole Power to try all Impeachments”.  An act of impeachment requires only a majority vote on the floor of a House but conviction in the Senate demand “the concurrence of two thirds of the members present”.  Given the numbers and the state of partisan which these days characterizes the two-party system, nobody in Washington DC believed there was even a vague prospect of Mr Trump being convicted.  Still, the dreary, confected, set-piece speeches on both sides were like slabs of raw meat thrown to the attack dogs watching Fox News and NBC so in that sense it was a kind of substitute for what the Founding Fathers might have hoped would have been the standard of debate in the Congress, 250-odd years on.  In an ominous sign, the Republicans have since made attempts to stage a retaliatory impeachment trial of Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) despite knowing there is no prospect of a conviction.  Political scientists have expressed concern this may be a harbinger of something like the situation is some countries (such as Pakistan & Bangladesh (the old West & East Pakistan)) where it is almost a form of ritualized revenge to pursue one's predecessor through the courts, jailing them if possible.  The hope is that such a culture might be peculiar to the Trump era and something less confrontation might emerge when he leaves the stage although, what he has threatened in a second term does sound like he has vengeance on his mind.

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

The best impeachment in the US was the one which never was, the one Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) avoided by resigning the presidency on 9 August 1974.  That an impeachment became inevitable was Nixon’s own fault.  The evidence of those acts of Nixon which met the standard of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” existed only on the tapes which came to the knowledge of those investigating the White House’s involvement in the Watergate affair only through a chance remark by an aide; prior to that the existence of the president’s recording mechanism had been restricted to a small circle around Nixon.  There was a wealth of other material which hinted or suggested there may have been unlawful acts by Nixon but what was lacking was what came to be called the “smoking gun”, the undeniable proof.  That proof was on the tapes and as soon as knowledge of them became public, Nixon should have destroyed them and the ways and means existed close to home.  Even in oppressively hot Washington summers, Nixon would have the air-conditioning turned high to provide a wintery ambiance and have a log fire burning in the fireplace, close to which he would sit while writing his noted on yellow legal pads; it was a lifelong habit.

Washington Post 7 August 1974.

The tapes should have been tossed into that fire and that would have solved the problem, a smoking tape no smoking gun.  It would of course have created other problems but they were political and could be handled in a way legal difficulties could not.  However, as soon as the tapes were subpoenaed they became evidence and their destruction would have been an obstruction of justice or worse.  Nixon had a narrow window of opportunity and didn’t take it, apparently convinced the doctrine of executive privilege would operate to ensure he wasn’t required to surrender the tapes to the investigators although in some of his subsequent writings he also maintained he genuinely believed they contained nothing which could cause him problems.  Given he genuinely would have had no knowledge of what exactly was on the tapes, that is at least plausible but all the material since published suggests his opinion of the protection executive privilege affords a president was the critical factor.  As it was the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) limited the application of the doctrine and compelled Nixon to hand over the tapes.

New York Times, 9 August 1974.

With the release of the “smoking gun tape” which contained recordings proving Nixon was implicated in the cover-up of the involvement in the Watergate break-in by staff connected to the White House, his support in the Congress collapsed and those Republican representatives who previously had refused to vote for impeachment switched sides and the same day, after sounding out the numbers in the Senate, a delegation of senior Republican senators told the president he would be convicted and by a decisive margin.  What was revealed on the tapes was enough to seal his fate but the verdict of history might have been worse still because To this day, mystery surrounds one tape in particular, a recording of a discussion between Nixon and HR Haldeman (1926–1993; White House chief of staff 1969-1973) on 20 June 1972, three days after the Watergate break-in.  Of obviously great interest, when reviewed, there was found to be a gap of 18½ minutes, the explanations offered of how, why or by whom the erasure was effected ranging from the humorously accidental to the darkly conspiratorial but half a century on, it remains a mystery.  Taking advantage of new data-recovery technology, the US government did in subsequent decades make several attempts to “un-delete” the gap but without success and it may be, given the nature of magnetic tape, that there is literally nothing left to find.  However, the tape is stored in a secure, climate-controlled facility in case technical means emerge and while it’s unlikely the contents would reveal anything not already known or assumed, it would be of great interest to historians.  What would be even more interesting is the identity of who it was that erased the famous 18½ minutes but that will likely never be known; after fifty years, it’s thought that were there to be any death-bed confessions, they should by now have been heard.  Some have their lists of names of those who might have "pressed the erase button" and while mostly sub-sets of Watergate's "usual suspects", one who tends not to appear is Nixon himself, the usual consensus being he was technically too inept to operate a tape machine though it's not impossible he ordered someone to do the deed.  However it happened, the suspects most often mentioned as having had their "finger on the button" (which may have been a foot-pedal) are Nixon's secretary and his chief of staff. 

On 8 August 1974, Nixon resigned his office, effective the next day, saying in conclusion during his nationally televised speech:

To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.

Herblock's (Herbert Block; 1909–2001) Watergate affair-era take on Richard Nixon's then novel position on the presidency and the US Constitution, Washington Post, 13 March 1974.  The cartoon has been noted by some in the light of Donald Trump's comments about the extent of presidential immunity.

Enclave & Exclave

Enclave (pronounced ahn-kleyv (U) or en-klave (non-U))

(1) A country or (especially), an outlying portion of a country, entirely or mostly surrounded by the territory of another country.

(2) In casual use (and as a quasi-technical term in demography and sub-strains of applied geography), any (usually) small, distinct area or group enclosed or isolated within a larger one.

(3) By extension, in politics, sociology etc, non-physically defined subsets of a whole; a group that set off from a larger population by its characteristics or behavior.    

(4) To isolate or enclose (especially territory) within a foreign or uncongenial environment; ie by an act of enclaving to created something enclaved.

(5) In pathology, a detached mass of tissue enclosed in tissue of another kind.

(6) In computer operating systems, an isolated portion of an application's address space which places certain restrictions on access by code outside the enclave (not to be confused with a sandbox (of which one or more enclaves may be a part.

(7) In geology, an aggregate of minerals or rock found inside another larger rock body.

1868: From the Middle French enclave, a noun derivative of enclaver (to enclose), from the Old French enclaver (to inclose, lock in), from the unattested Vulgar Latin inclāvāre (to lock in), the construct being in- + clave.  The prefix in- from the Proto-Italic en-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥- (not), a zero-grade form of the negative particle ne (not) and akin to ne-, nē & nī).  Clave was from clavis (key), from the Proto-Italic klāwis which was either (1) a secondary i-stem derivation of the primitive Indo-European kleu- & klēu (nail, pin, hook (the old instruments (ie bars & bolts) used to secure the doors of primitive structures)) from which Classical Latin also gained clāvus (nail), an inherited Indo-European word originally denoting an instrument for unlocking doors or (2) a loanword from the dialectal Ancient Greek κλᾱϝίς (klāwís) (in the Classical: κλείς (kleís)), from the same primitive Indo-European root.  Enclave is a noun, enclaved & enclaving are verbs and enclavish is the (rare) adjective; the noun plural is enclaves.

In political geography, the use to describe a "small portion of one country which is entirely surrounded by the territory of another" dates from 1868 in English but it had been in use in French since the mid-fifteenth century as a derivative of the thirteenth century verb enclaver which had since the late 1400s been a technical term in property law describing “a parcel of land surrounded by land owned by a another which could not be reached for its exploitation in a practical and sufficient manner without crossing the surrounding land”.  The legal mechanism to resolve this was what was called “servitude passage for the benefit of the owner of the surrounded land”, a device which was essentially a personal easement.  The word was first used in international law when the Treaty of Madrid was signed in 1526 and enclave came to be applied to just about any legally defined territory surrounded by land under other ownership, proving popular in English and many other languages although, under the Raj, "pocket" tended to be used instead and British geographical were also called detachments within the UK while the Colonial Office invented “detached dominions”.  In the Church of England, where the same concept existed as ecclesiastical districts, parishes, chapels or churches which operated outside the jurisdiction of the bishop and archdeacon of the diocese in which they were situated, the canon lawyers invented “the peculiar”.

As used to describe a segmented memory space in computer operating systems, enclaves are regarded by some as synonymous with sandboxes but the two constructs have separate purposes.  An enclave is created by an application as a memory space protected from the rest of the application yet if a call is made into the enclave, it remains able to access all memory used by the application; this is a deliberate aspect of the design.  Those requiring bi-directional exclusivity need to run their enclave (and in most cases thus the application) inside a sandbox, sonthing which obviously limits functionality in a production environment.

Enclave and exclave are distinct in legal definition and geographical consequence but in idiomatic or metaphorical use, enclave is used almost exclusively as a descriptor of anything where the idea is of something small surrounded by a larger whole.  It’s applied especially in economic and social demography (white enclave; Chinese enclave etc).   

Exclave (pronounced eks-kleyv)

(1) A portion of a country geographically separated from the main part by surrounding foreign territory.

(2) An outlying, detached portion of a gland or other part, as of the thyroid or pancreas; an accessory gland.

1885-1890: Modeled on enclave, the construct was ex- + -clave.  In Middle English, the prefix ex- was applied to words borrowed from Middle French.  It was from the Latin ex- (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out) and was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) and the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  In English, the x in ex- sometimes is elided before certain constants, being reduced to e- (eg ejaculate), almost always to ensure spelling aligns with pronunciation.

In political geography, enclaves are territories (sometimes a disconnected part of a larger territory) wholly surrounded by another state or political entity and the edges need not be land borders, enclaves existing sometimes within territorial waters.  There are also semi-enclaves which differ from enclaves in that they possess (at least in part) a coastline which constitutes an un-surrounded sea border, thus providing and outlet to international waters.  Depending on historical circumstances, enclaves and semi-enclaves can be independent states or remote parts of sovereign states.

An exclave is that part of a state geographically separated from the main part by surrounding alien territory (which may be more than one foreign entity) and exclaves are in some cases also enclaves.  A pene-exclave is a part of the territory of one country that can be conveniently approached only through the territory of another country.  Pene- is from the Latin paene (almost).

At the international, national and sub-national level, there are literally hundreds of enclaves and exclaves, illustrative examples including:

Vatican City, an enclave surrounded wholly by Italy and in its modern form a creation of the Pacta Lateranensia (the Lateran Pacts of 1929), the most significant part of which is remembered as the Lateran Treaty which resolved many of the issues which had existed between Rome and the Holy See since the unification of Italy (1861-1871), one celebrated consequence of which was popes no longer living in self-imposed captivity in the Vatican.

The rather unimaginatively named  Australian Capital Territory (ACT), site of Canberra, the country’s artificially created capital, came about because during the debates in the 1890s about the idea of federating the six colonies as the Commonwealth of Australia, it became clear that the two largest states, New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, would never accede to either becoming the national capital.  Accordingly, it was agreed the new capital would be located not less than 100 miles (160 km) from the NSW capital (Sydney) and that the Victorian capital (Melbourne), would be the seat of government until the new city was built.  Thus some sheep country was carved from NSW to become the ACT and there, Canberra was built.  It’s very hot in summer, very cold in winter and otherwise unremarkable other than having over the years soaked up extraordinary amounts of money.   

Just east of the exclave of Andorra, the little Spanish town of Llivia lies some two kilometres (1¼ miles) from Spain’s border, surrounded completely by France, thereby making it both enclave and exclave, depending on whether one views the place from Madrid or Paris.  The stranger arrangement exists by virtue of the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), when Spain ceded certain territories to France but the words in the document specified that only villages were to be transferred.  Llivia had long been gazetted as a town so remained Spanish.

In the narrow technical sense Alaska is a pene-exclave because although it cannot be reached overland except by transiting through Canada, it can be reached by sea or air because its coastline leads to international waters.  Alaska ranks with the Louisiana Purchase (in which the US in 1803 purchased from the French land equivalent to about 20% the size of the modern contiguous 48 states for less than US$20 per square mile) as the greatest real estate deals of all time.  The US in 1867 purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million and during the twentieth century, there was much buyer’s remorse.

The medieval walled city of Dubrovnik sits on Croatia, Adriatic coast in the region of Dalmatia.  Laid siege to for seven months during the first of the Balkan wars which followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, the city was heavily shelled but in the late 1990s extensive repair work was undertaken with the assistance of overseas funding.  The southern-most part of Croatia's Dubrovnik-Neretva County, which includes Dubrovnik, is cut off from the rest of the country by a sliver of the neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, the 20-kilometre zone created in 1699 as a buffer zone between Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

Suddenly the world's most famous exclave (though many refer to it as an enclave which, in the sociological sense, it is), Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, is part of Russia.  Historically, it’s best remembered as a part of Prussia but, in the way Europe for centuries did things, its national identity has often changed.  It was known as Konigsberg German rule and was the site of an extraordinarily expensive (and militarily ineffectual) propaganda film produced by the Nazis towards the end of World War II.  It became part of the USSR in 1945 where it remained until Lithuanian independence in 1991 turned it into an exclave of Russia and to most it remained obscure until the invasion of Ukraine.