Exquisite

Exquisite (pronounced ek-skwi-zit or ik-skwiz-it)

(1) Of special beauty or charm, or rare and appealing excellence and often associated with objects or great delicacy; of rare excellence of production or execution, as works of art or workmanship; beautiful, delicate, discriminating, perfect.

(2) Extraordinarily fine or admirable; consummate.

(3) Intense; acute, or keen, as pleasure or pain; keenly or delicately sensitive or responsive; exceeding; extreme; in a bad or a good sense (eg as exquisite pleasure or exquisite pain).

(4) Recherché; far-fetched; abstruse (a now rare early meaning which to some extent survives in surrealist’s exercise “exquisite corpse”).

(5) Of particular refinement or elegance, as taste, manners, etc or persons.

(6) A man excessively concerned about clothes, grooming etc; a dandy or coxcomb.

(7) Ingeniously devised or thought out (obsolete).

(8) Carefully adjusted; precise; accurate; exact (now less common except as an adverb.

(9) Of delicate perception or close and accurate discrimination; not easy to satisfy; exact; fastidious (related to the sense of “exquisite judgment, taste, or discernment”.

1400–1450: From the Late Middle English exquisite (carefully selected), from the Latin exquīsītus (excellent; meticulous, chosen with care (and literally “carefully sought out”)), perfect passive participle of exquīrō (to seek out), originally the past participle of exquīrere (to ask about, examine) the construct being ex- + -quīrere, a combining form of quaerere (to seek). The construct of exquīrō was ex- +‎ quaerō (seek).  The ex- prefix was applied to words in Middle English borrowed from the Middle French and was derived from the Latin ex- (out of, from) and was from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs-.  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex-, out of, from) from the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out), the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  Exquisite is a noun & adjective, exquisiteness & exquisitiveness are nouns and exquisitively & exquisitely are adverbs; the noun plural is exquisites.

1972 Lancia Fulvia 1600 HF Series II.  

Everything about the Lancia Fulvia (1965-1976) appeared exquisitely delicate but the little machine was tough and was for half-a-decade a dominant force in international rallying.  A Lancia legend is that when the hood was opened on one of the first to reach the US, a mechanic, brought up on a diet of hefty V8s, upon seeing the tiny, 1.2 litre (75 cubic inch) narrow-angle V4 is said to have remarked: “Don’t ask me, take it to a jeweler.”

The etymology of the Latin quaerō (seek) is mysterious.  It may be from the Proto-Italic kwaizeō, from the primitive Indo-European kweh (to acquire) so cognates may include the Ancient Greek πέπαμαι (pépamai) (to get, acquire), the Old Prussian quoi (I/you want) & quāits (desire), the Lithuanian kviẽsti (to invite) and possibly the Albanian kam (I have).  Some have suggested the source being the primitive Indo-European kwoys & kweys (to see) but there has been little support for this.  The authoritative Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben (Lexicon of the Indo-European Verbs (LIV)), the standard etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European languages, suggests it’s a derivation of hzeys (to seek, ask), via the form koaiseo.  "Exquisite corpse" is a calque of the French cadavre exquis (literally “exquisite cadaver”).  Dating from 1925, it was coined by French surrealists to describe a method of loosely structured constructivism on the model of the parlour game consequences; fragments of text (or images) are created by different people according to pre-set rules, then joined together to create a complete text.  The name comes from the first instance in 1925: Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau (The exquisite corpse will drink new wine).  Exquisite corpse is noted as a precursor to both post-modernism and deconstructionist techniques.

Although not infrequently it appears in the same sentence as the word “unique”, exquisite can be more nuanced, the comparative “more exquisite, the superlative most exquisite” and there has certainly been a change in the pattern of use.  In English, it originally was applied to any thing (good or bad, art or torture, diseases or good health), brought to a highly wrought condition, tending among the more puritanical to disapprobation.  The common modern meaning (of consummate and delightful excellence) dates from the late 1570s while the noun (a dandy, a foppish man) seems first to have been used in 1819.  One interesting variant which didn’t survive was exquisitous (not natural, but procured by art), appearing in dictionaries in the early eighteenth centuries but not since.  The pronunciation of exquisite has undergone a rapid change from ek-skwi-zit to ik-skwiz-it, the stress shifting to the second syllable.  The newer pronunciation attracted the inevitable criticism but is now the most common form on both sides of the Atlantic and use seems not differentiated by class. 

The exquisite wimp: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach

Exquisite is used almost exclusively as an adjective, applied typically to objects or performances but it’s also a noun, albeit one always rare.  As a noun it was used to describe men who inhabited that grey area of being well dressed, well coiffured, well mannered and somewhat effeminate without being obviously homosexual; it was a way of hinting at something without descending to the explicit.  PG Wodehouse (1881-1975) applied it thus in Sam the Sudden (1925) and historians Ann (1938-2021) & John Tusa (b 1936) in The Nuremberg Trial (1983) found no better noun to apply to former Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, noting (as did his many enemies in the party) his feminine tastes in furnishings and propensity to pen poor poetry.  The companion word to describe a similar chap without of necessity the same hint of effeminacy is “aesthete”.  In The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992), Brigadier General Telford Taylor (1908–1998; lead US counsel at the Nuremberg Trial) wrote of him that: “at thirty-nine, was the youngest and, except perhaps for Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) and Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953; Nazi propagandist), the weakest of the defendants.  If wimps had then been spoken of, Schirach would have been so styled.”

Nazi poetry circle on the terrace at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg.

Left to right: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), Martin Bormann (1900–1945), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), and Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945)), Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany, 1936.  Of much, the other three were guilty as sin and would (at the last possible moment) commit suicide but von Schirach would survive to die in his bed at 67.  There seems no record to confirm if that bed was in a “a snow white bedroom with delicate lace curtains” as the rougher types in the Nazi Party had once derided him for having.

Airey Neave (1916–1979) was the British military lawyer who served the indictments on the defendants at Nuremberg and in On Trial at Nuremberg (1978) he recalled the experience, cell by cell.  His first impression of von Schirach was that his appearance was “…bi-sexual and soft with thé dansant eyes [thé dansant was a dance held while afternoon tea was served and in idiomatic use “thé dansant eyes” suggested the coquettish fluttering of the lashes a flirtatious young lady might deploy]”, adding “He looked a man who might be dangerous to small boys.  At a second glance, I imagined him beneath the palms at Cannes in co-respondent shoes.”  In this context, Neave used “co-respondent” in the sense of the man cited in divorce proceedings as the one who slept with the adulterous wife and a “co-respondent shoes (or car, suit, tie etc)” were distinguished by flashiness rather than quality.

Von Schirach went on trial before the IMT (International Military Tribunal) in the first Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), an event the author Rebecca West (1892–1983) attended in her capacity as a journalist and among her impressions she wrote of him, admitting she was at first “startled” because “…he was like a woman in a way not common among men who look like women.  It was as if a neat and mousy governess sat there, not pretty but with never a hair out of place, and always to be trusted never to intrude when there were visitors: as it might be Jane Eyre.”  Although indicted also under Count 1 (conspiracy to commit crimes against peace), for his role as head (1931-1940) of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), von Schirach was convicted only under Count 4 (crimes against humanity) for his part in deporting Viennese Jews to the death camps while Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Vienna.  Cunningly, and not without ostentation, he admitted some guilt for his role in “corrupting German youth” although by that he meant the political indoctrination to which he subjected them, rather than conduct many in the Nazi party liked to hint he enjoyed with the boys under his command; however defined, it’s certain he corrupted more youth than Socrates (circa 470–399 BC).  Applying common law principles, the IMT found his actions as head of the Hitlerjugend didn’t reach the threshold of “conspiracy” and thus acquitted him on Count 1, his 20 year sentence handed down for his conduct in Vienna.  The preparation for the trial had been rushed and had subsequently discovered evidence against him been presented at the trial, doubtlessly and deservedly he’d have been hanged.  Had that sentence been imposed, whether like Göring he’d have followed Socrates and taken hemlock will never be known.

Exquisite: A style guide

Lindsay Lohan in a Gucci Porcelain Garden Print Silk Gown with an all-over Dutch toile in blue and white, high ruffled collar and bib, flared sleeves, pussy bow and a blue and red patent leather belt around a high waist, Savoy Hotel, London, June 2017.

The gown was said to have a recommended retail price (RRP) of Stg£4,040 (US$7300).  The occasion was the launch of the charitable organization One Family, dedicated to combating child trafficking.  While there was a fussiness about the detailing, the quality of the construction was obvious and successfully to use, at this scale, a pattern of this intricacy is not easy and demands a skilled eye.  On the move, it swished around nicely and although the whims of critics can be hard to predict, on the night, most seemed to like this and it was a perhaps welcome relief from the expanses of skin of the "naked dress" movement, then beginning to dominate red carpets.

Designers find inspiration where it's found: Four dinner plates from Wedgewood's Enoch "Countryside Blue" collection, circa 1967.

Within the one critique, the word exquisite can appear, used as a neutral descriptor (an expression of extent), a paean to beauty and even an ironic dismissal.  A gown for example can be “exquisitely detailed” but that doesn’t of necessity imply elegance although that would be the case of something said to be an “exquisite design”.  That said, most were drawn to the Lindsay Lohan's Gucci gown in some way, the references to Jane Austen (1775–1817) many (although historians of fashion might note Gucci’s creation as something evocative more of recent films made of Ms Austen's novels than anything representative of what was worn in her era) and the fabric’s patterning & restraint in the use of color produced a dreamily romantic look.

Anonymuncule

Anonymuncule (pronounced uh-non-uh-monk-u-elle)

An insignificant, anonymous writer

1859: A portmanueau word, the construct being anony(mous) + (ho)muncule.  Homnuncle was from the Latin homunculus (a little man), a diminutive of homō (man).  Anonymous entered English circa 1600 and was from the Late Latin anonymus, from the Ancient Greek ᾰ̓νώνῠμος (anṓnumos) (without name), the construct being ᾰ̓ν- (an-) (“not; without; lacking” in the sense of the negating “un-”) + ὄνῠμᾰ (ónuma), an Aeolic & Doric dialectal form of ὄνομᾰ (ónoma) (name).  The construct of the English form was an- +‎ -onym +‎ -ous.  The an- prefix was an alternative form of on-, from the Middle English an-, from the Old English an- & on- (on-), from the Proto-Germanic ana- (on).   It was used to create words having the sense opposite to the word (or stem) to which the prefix is attached; it was used with stems beginning either with vowels or "h".  The element -onym (word; name) came from the international scientific vocabulary, reflecting a New Latin combining form, from Ancient Greek ὄνυμα (ónuma).  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns to denote (1) possession of (2) presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance or (3) relation or pertinence to.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example, sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The Latin homunculus (plural homunculi) enjoyed an interesting history.  In medieval medicine, it was used in the sense of “a miniature man”, a creature once claimed by the spermists (once a genuine medical speciality) to be present in human sperm while in modern medicine the word was resurrected for the cortical homunculus, an image of a person with the size of the body parts distorted to represent how much area of the cerebral cortex of the brain is devoted to it (ie a “nerve map” of the human body that exists on the parietal lobe of the human brain).  Anonymuncule is a noun; the noun plural is anonymuncules.

Preformationism: Homunculi in sperm (1695) illustrated by Nicolaas Hartsoeker who is remembered also as the inventor in 1694 of the screw-barrel simple microscope.

Like astrology, alchemy once enjoyed a position of orthodoxy among scientists and it was the alchemists who first popularized homunculus, the miniature, fully formed human, a concept with roots in both folklore and preformationism (in biology. the theory that all organisms start their existence already in a predetermined form upon conception and this form does not change in the course of their lifetime (as opposed to epigenesis (the theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed)).  It was Paracelsus (the Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance Theophrastus von Hohenheim (circa 1493-1541)) who seems to have been the first to use the word in a scientific paper, it appearing in his De homunculis (circa 1529–1532), and De natura rerum (1537).  As the alchemists explained, a homunculus (an artificial humanlike being) could be created through alchemy and in De natura rerum Paracelsus detailed his method.

A writer disparaged as an anonymuncule differs from one who publishes their work anonymously or under a pseudonym, the Chicago Tribune in 1871 explaining the true anonymuncule was a “little creature who must not be confounded with the anonymous writers, who supply narratives or current events, and discuss public measures with freedom, but deal largely in generalities, and very little in personalities.”  That was harsh but captures the place the species enjoy in the literary hierarchy (and it’s a most hierarchal place). Anonymuncules historically those writers who publish anonymously or under pseudonyms, without achieving renown or even recognition and there’s often the implication they are “mean & shifty types” who “hide behind their anonymity”.

Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics (1996), before and after the lifting of the veil.

Some however have good and even honourable reasons for hiding behind their anonymity although there is also sometime mere commercial opportunism.  When former Time columnist Joe Klein (born 1946) published Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics (1996), the author was listed as “anonymous”, a choice made to avoid the political and professional risks associated with openly critiquing a sitting president and his administration.  Primary Colors was a (very) thinly veiled satire of Bill Clinton’s (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) 1992 presidential campaign and offered an insider's view of campaign life, showing both the allure and moral compromises involved.  By remaining anonymous, Klein felt more able candidly to discuss the ethical dilemmas and personal shortcomings of his characters, something that would have been difficult has his identity been disclosed, the conflicts of interest as a working political journalist obvious.  Critically and commercially, the approach seems greatly to have helped the roman à clef (a work of fiction based on real people and events) gain immediate notoriety, the speculation about the author’s identity lying at the core of the book’s mystique.  Others have valued anonymity because their conflicts of interest are insoluble.  Remarkably, Alfred Deakin (1856-1919; prime minister of Australia 1903-1904, 1905-1908 & 1909-1910) even while serving as prime-minister, wrote political commentaries for London newspapers including the National Review & Morning Post and, more remarkably still, some of his pieces were not uncritical of both his administration and his own performance in office.  Modern politicians should be encouraged to pursue this side-gig; it might teach them truthfulness and encourage them more widely to practice it.

For others, it can be a form of pre-emptive self defense.  The French philosopher Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778) wrote under a nom de plume because he held (and expressed) views which often didn’t please kings, bishops and others in power and this at a time when such conduct was likely to attract persecution worse than censorship or disapprobation.  Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880) adopted the pseudonym George Eliot in an attempt to ensure her works would be taken seriously, avoiding the stigma associated with female authorship at the time.  George Eliot’s style of writing was however that of a certain sort of novelist and those women who wrote in a different manner were an accepted part of the literary scene and although Jane Austen’s name never appeared on her published works, when Sense and Sensibility (1811) appeared its author was listed as “A Lady”.  Although a success, all her subsequent novels were billed as: “By the author of Sense and Sensibility”, Austen's name never appearing on her books during her lifetime.  Ted Kaczynski (1942-2023), the terrorist and author of the Unabomber Manifesto (1995) had his own reasons (wholly logical but evil) for wanting his test to be read but his identity as the writer to remain secret.

Deserved anonymuncule: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach

Exquisite is used almost exclusively as an adjective, applied typically to objects or performances but it’s also a noun, albeit one always rare.  As a noun it was used to describe men who inhabited that grey area of being well dressed, well coiffured, well mannered and somewhat effeminate without being obviously homosexual; it was a way of hinting at something without descending to the explicit.  PG Wodehouse (1881-1975) applied it thus in Sam the Sudden (1925) and historians Ann (1938-2021) & John Tusa (b 1936) in The Nuremberg Trial (1983) found no better noun to apply to former Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, noting (as did his many enemies in the party) his feminine tastes in furnishings and propensity to pen poor poetry.  The companion word to describe a similar chap without of necessity the same hint of effeminacy is “aesthete”.  In The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992), Brigadier General Telford Taylor (1908–1998; lead US counsel at the Nuremberg Trial) wrote of him that: “at thirty-nine, was the youngest and, except perhaps for Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) and Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953; Nazi propagandist), the weakest of the defendants.  If wimps had then been spoken of, Schirach would have been so styled.”

Nazi poetry circle on the terrace at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg.

Left to right: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), Martin Bormann (1900–1945), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), and Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945)), Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany, 1936.  Of much, the other three were guilty as sin and would (at the last possible moment) commit suicide but von Schirach would survive to die in his bed at 67.  There seems no record to confirm if that bed was in a “a snow white bedroom with delicate lace curtains” as the rougher types in the Nazi Party had once derided him for having.

Airey Neave (1916–1979) was the British military lawyer who served the indictments on the defendants at Nuremberg and in On Trial at Nuremberg (1978) he recalled the experience, cell by cell.  His first impression of von Schirach was that his appearance was “…bi-sexual and soft with thé dansant eyes [thé dansant was a dance held while afternoon tea was served and in idiomatic use “thé dansant eyes” suggested the coquettish fluttering of the lashes a flirtatious young lady might deploy]”, adding “He looked a man who might be dangerous to small boys.  At a second glance, I imagined him beneath the palms at Cannes in co-respondent shoes.”  In this context, Neave used “co-respondent” in the sense of the man cited in divorce proceedings as the one who slept with the adulterous wife and a “co-respondent shoes (or car, suit, tie etc)” were distinguished by flashiness rather than quality.

Von Schirach went on trial before the IMT (International Military Tribunal) in the first Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), an event the author Rebecca West (1892–1983) attended in her capacity as a journalist and among her impressions she wrote of him, admitting she was at first “startled” because “…he was like a woman in a way not common among men who look like women.  It was as if a neat and mousy governess sat there, not pretty but with never a hair out of place, and always to be trusted never to intrude when there were visitors: as it might be Jane Eyre.”  Although indicted also under Count 1 (conspiracy to commit crimes against peace), for his role as head (1931-1940) of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), von Schirach was convicted only under Count 4 (crimes against humanity) for his part in deporting Viennese Jews to the death camps while Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Vienna.  Cunningly, and not without ostentation, he admitted some guilt for his role in “corrupting German youth” although by that he meant the political indoctrination to which he subjected them, rather than conduct many in the Nazi party liked to hint he enjoyed with the boys under his command; however defined, it’s certain he corrupted more youth than Socrates (circa 470–399 BC).  Applying common law principles, the IMT found his actions as head of the Hitlerjugend didn’t reach the threshold of “conspiracy” and thus acquitted him on Count 1, his 20 year sentence handed down for his conduct in Vienna.  The preparation for the trial had been rushed and had subsequently discovered evidence against him been presented at the trial, doubtlessly and deservedly he’d have been hanged.  Had that sentence been imposed, whether like Göring he’d have followed Socrates and taken hemlock will never be known.

The "poet manqué" is a term related to anonymuncule.  A poet manqué is an aspiring poet who never produced a single book of verse (although it’s used also of an oeuvre so awful it should never have been published and the poetry of someone Baldur von Schirach comes to mind).  The adjective manqué entered English in the 1770s and was used originally in the sense of “unfulfilled due to the vagary of circumstance, some inherent flaw or a constitutional lack”.  Because it’s so often a literary device, in English, the adjective does often retain many grammatical features from French, used postpositively and taking the forms manquée when modifying a feminine noun, manqués for a plural noun, and manquées for a feminine plural noun.  That’s because when used in a literary context (“poet manqué”, “novelist manqué” et all) users like it to remain inherently and obviously “French” and thus it’s spelled often with its diacritic (the accent aigu (acute accent): “é”) although when used casually (to suggest “having failed, missed, or fallen short, especially because of circumstances or a defect of character”) as “fly-half manqué”, “racing driver manqué” etc), the spelling manque” is sometimes used.

Manqué (that might have been but is not) was from the French manqué, past participle form of the sixteenth century manquer (to lack, to be lacking in; to miss), from the Italian mancare, from manco, from the Latin mancus (maimed, defective), from the primitive Indo-European man-ko- (maimed in the hand), from the root man- (hand).  Although it’s not certain, the modern slang adjective “manky” (bad, inferior, defective (the comparative mankier, the superlative mankiest)), in use since the late 1950s, may be related.  Since the 1950s, the use in the English-speaking world (outside of North America) has extended to “unpleasantly dirty and disgusting” with a specific use by those stationed in Antarctica where it means “being or having bad weather”.  The related forms are the noun mankiness and the adverb mankily.  Although it’s not an official part of avian taxonomy, bird-watchers (birders) in the UK decided “manky mallard” was perfect to describe a mallard bred from wild mallards and domestic ducks (they are distinguished by variable and uneven plumage patterns).  However, it’s more likely manky is from the UK slang mank which was originally from Polari mank and used to mean “disgusting, repulsive”.

No poet manqué:  In January 2017, Lindsay Lohan posted to Instagram a poem for her 5.2 million followers, the verse a lament of the excesses of IS (the Islamic State), whetting the appetite for the memoir which might one day appear (hopefully "naming names").  The critical reaction to the poem was mixed but the iambic pentameter in the second stanza attracted favorable comment:

sometimes i hear the voice of the one i loved the most
but in this world we live in of terror
who i am to be the girl who is scared and hurt
when most things that happen i cannot explain
i try to understand
when i'm sitting in bed alone at 3am
so i can't sleep, i roll over
i can't think and my body becomes cold
i immediately feel older.....
 
than i realise, at least i am in a bed,
i am still alive,
so what can really be said?
just go to bed and close the blinds,
still and so on, i cannot help but want to fix all of these idle isis
minds
because,
there has to be something i can figure out
rather than living in a world of fear and doubt
they now shoot, we used to shout.
 
if only i can keep trying to fix it all
i would keep the world living loving and small
i would share my smiles
and give too Many kisses

Decadence

Decadence (pronounced dek-uh-duhns or dih-keyd-ns)

(1) The act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay.

(2) Synonyms: decline, retrogression, degeneration

(3) Moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.

(4) Unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.

(5) The decadent movement in literature (often with an initial capital and extended sometimes to the visual arts).

1540–1550: From the early fifteenth century French décadence, from the Medieval Latin dēcadentia (decay), from the Late Latin dēcadent-, stem of dēcadēns (falling away), the present participle of the Vulgar Latin dēcadere (to fall away; to decay), an etymologically restored form of the Latin dēcidere (to fall away, fail, sink, perish”), the construct being de- (apart, down) + cadere (to fall (from the primitive Indo-European root kad- (to fall)).  The meaning “process of falling away from a better or more vital state” dates from the 1620s while the use to define epochs is traced by some historians to the sense used of “decadent” in 1837 by Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): “…in a state of decline or decay (from a former condition of excellence)”, decadent from the from French décadent (a back-formation from décadence).  The use to refer (disparaging) the perceived corruption of literary values began in the 1850s and thirty years later was common in both French and English criticism.  The addition of the sense of decadence being “a form of self-indulgence” seems not to have emerged until the late 1960s when it was applied (negatively) to the counter-culture but modern commerce soon re-packaged to use it of products marketed as “desirable and satisfying”; creamy desserts were often so labeled and the cake “Chocolate Decadence” became a generic term, the recipes varying greatly in detail.  Originally, the term “decadence” was used of “a period of historical decline, particularly of empires or civilizations” but, from the late nineteenth century, it shifted to become a literary & artistic word describing a movement and later a type of moral or cultural behavior, particularly human behavior that is seen as self-indulgent or excessive.  Finally, it became the name of a chocolate cake, something (vaguely) linked to association philosophers and historians would make between the decline of civilizations declined from periods of greatness into moral and structural decay, often with a focus on materialism and indulgence.  Decadence & decadency are nouns, decadent is a noun & verb and decadently is an adverb; the noun plural is decadences.

The related adjective deciduous was from the Latin dēciduus (falling down or off), from dēcidō (fall down) and is now most familiar from the arboreal branch of biology where it describes trees which shed their leaves (variously in winter, the fall (autumn) or the dry season.  However, in the technical language of anatomy it’s used of body parts which fall off or are shed, at a particular time or stage of development (ie not the result of injury or disease) and more generally can be used figuratively of things transitory or ephemeral, this mostly as a literary device.  Obviously also related is the noun decay, from the Middle English decayen & dekeyen (to decrease, diminish), from the Anglo-Norman decaeir (to fall away, decay, decline), from the Vulgar Latin dēcadere.  Decay describes the process or result of being gradually decomposed; rot, decomposition and is widely used of qualities such as (1) a deterioration of condition; loss of status, quality, strength, or fortune, (2) civic, societal or moral decay and (3) systemic decay.  It was also once used of overthrows of governments and even now has a technical meaning in computer programming.

Lindsay Lohan arriving at the Maddox Gallery to attend the Tyler Shields (b 1982) Decadence exhibition private view, London, February 2016.

Despite the spelling, unrelated is the noun “decade”.  Decade (the spelling decad long obsolete) was from the Middle English decade, from the Old French decade, from the Late Latin decādem ((set of) ten), from the Ancient Greek δεκάς (dekás), from δέκα (déka) (ten).  In English, the reference to a “span of ten years” was originally a clipping of the phrase “decade of years”, that seeming tautology existing because over the centuries there have been also “decades of soldiers” (ie ten men), “decades of days” (in history a period of ten days, particularly those in the ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and French Revolutionary calendars, “decades of books” (a work in ten parts or books, particularly such divisions of Roman historian Livy’s (Titus Livius; 59 BC–17 AD) Ab Urbe Condita (literally “From the Founding of the City” and in English usually styled as History of Rome), “decades of prayers” (in the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church, a series of prayers counted on a rosary, typically consisting of an Our Father, followed by ten Hail Marys, and concluding with a Glory Be and sometimes the Fatima Prayer), “decades of stuff” (things which existed as a group, set or series of ten),  The dominant, modern sense of “a period of ten years” dates from the seventeenth century while the notion it “usually” is one beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in 9” was (more or less) formalized in the nineteenth.  In technical use “decade” has been re-purposed in some specialist fields including the Braille language (to refer to the various sets of ten sequential characters with predictable patterns), electronics (of devices or components used to represent digits and physics & engineering (of the interval between any two quantities having a ratio of 10 to 1).

For what most people do most of the time, a decade is “a period of ten years beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in 9” (ie the 1980s, 1990s etc) bit it remains correct that a decade can be any period of that duration (such as 1994-2003).  May style guides don’t approve of this, not because it’s technically wrong but because it can tend to confuse if things are not carefully phrased.  That seems wise advice although the suggestion terms like decennium or decennary can be a substitute for “non-standard” ten-year periods is unlikely to catch on.  Words nerds note that the computation protocol for something like “the 1970s” is xxx0-xxx9 whereas for “real” decades it’s xxx1-xxx0, following the practice for centuries and millennia, something which creates the certain anomalies because there was no “year 0”, the Western calendrical shifting directly from 1 BC to 1 AD.  “Decadence” and “decade” do however sometimes mix: the Japanese term Lost Decade (失われた10年) (Ushinawareta Jūnen) coined in the late 1990s to describe the period of national economic stagnation in precipitated by the collapse of the asset price bubble (notably Tokyo commercial floor-space) which began in 1990.  The phenomenon though endured and economists responded in subsequent decades by adding 失われた20年(lost 20 years) and 失われた30年 (lost 30 years).  The 2020s are showing little indication of a return to high growth and given Japan’s structural challenges (debt rations and an aging & declining population, there’s an expectation 失われた40年 will appear in the late 2020.

The other chocolate cake: Chocolate Decadence Soap by Heritage Downs: Aus$6.50 (inc GST) per cake; the gift for the chocaholic who has everything.

In the history of art or literary theory, “decadent” was in the nineteenth century iused to describe a period during which the output was “qualitatively in decline” compared with the (perceived) excellence of a former age.  Historically, it was applied to the Alexandrine period (300-30 BC) the period after the death of Augustus (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (known also as Octavianus (Octavian)); 63 BC-14 AD, founder of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD) and first Roman emperor 27 BC-14 AD).  In modern use it’s applied to the late nineteenth century symbolist movement in France (the poetry a particular target).  The movement emphasized the autonomy of art (exemplified in the contemporary phrase l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake), the need for sensationalism & melodrama, egocentricity, the bizarre or (wholly or partially) artificial, and the superior “outsider” position of the artist who was “in” yet not quite unambiguously “of” society; a critic rather than a participant (which of course was a reference to middle-class (or bourgeois society).  What is now classified as “decadent” poetry was preoccupied with personal experience, self-analysis, perversity, the suffering of artists and elaborate and exotic sensations.

View of Amalfi (1844), pencil, ink & water colour by John Ruskin (1819-1900).

In France the exemplar of decadence was the poet & critic Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) whose book of lyric poetry Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil; the first version published in 1857) is regarded still a manifest of the movement (though some conservative critics prefer “cult”) and the deconstructions who trace the changes in tone (he continued to add material until his death) regard it as something of a “journal” of the times.  In English translation, Les Fleurs du mal is some 300 pages and, in the way of the movement, the poetic forms are not “traditional” and some of the imagery is as suggestive as the thematic motifs of eroticism, suffering, sin, evil and death which will delight some and repel others and the latter wishing to explore the movement might find more accessible the novel À rebours (Against the Grain (published also as Against Nature); 1884) by the French author & art critic Joris-Karl Huysmans (pseudonym of Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (1848–1907)); it’s a slimmer volume which English poet & critic Arthur Symons (1865–1945) would later describe as the movement’s “breviary” (in this context “a brief summary”).  There were many notable figures who devoted their lives to proving their allegiance to this aesthetic cult and the preoccupation with decay, ruins sadness and despair was appealing to nihilists and neo-Romantics, linked even with twentieth century German fascism which was styled (however misleadingly) as a revival of purity and a return to Classical roots.  It never caught on in quite the same way in the English-speaking world the influences are clear in the work of “excessively civilized” & “troubled” figures like the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and English aesthete John Ruskin.

Chocolate Decadence Cake by Vegan Peace (Striving towards peacefully sharing our Earth).

Ingredients (wet & dry to be mixed separately)

1½ cups whole wheat pastry flour (or gluten-free all-purpose flour) (dry).
1 cup organic white sugar (not powdered) (dry).
3 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted if lumpy (not Dutch process cocoa) (dry).
1 level teaspoon baking soda (dry).
¼ teaspoon sea salt (dry).
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (wet).
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (wet).
1½ cup oil (sunflower, non-virgin olive, melted coconut, or safflower) (wet).
1 cup chocolate soymilk (wet).

Freaky Frosting Ingredients

5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon non-hydrogenated margarine.
2¼cups plus 4 teaspoons organic powdered (confectioner's) sugar.
5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cocoa powder (sifted if lumpy).
2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
Pinch of sea salt.
½ cup chocolate soymilk.

Directions

(1) Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C).

(2) Oil 9 x 9 inch (230 x 230 mm) pan or a dozen muffin cups.

(3) Mix wet & dry ingredients separately ensuring each is lump-free and well-mixed.

(4) Gently combine wet-mix & dry-mix do not “over-mix” (the batter will at this point taste strange but this will disappear in the baking process.

(5) Pour mix into oiled baking pan or muffin cups and bake until the point where a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean (ie no trace of liquid or semi-liquid batter).  For cupcakes, this should take about 20 minutes; for the pan between 30-40 minutes.

(6) Remove from oven and allow cake to cool before frosting.

Frosting Directions

(7) Using electric beater, whip margarine in a large bowl until fluffy (do not over-whip.

(8) Slowly add in remaining ingredients one at a time, in the order listed.  Beat at high speed until very fluffy, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of bowl as needed.

(9) Refrigerate frosting until cake has cooled.

(10) Frost cake, ideally after allowing frosting to warm to room temperature before serving cake.  A chocolate decadence may be decorated with edible flowers, raspberries, strawberries, chocolate shavings or whatever else seems to suit.

Aesthetic

Aesthetic (pronounced es-thet-ik or ees-thet-ik (mostly non-US))

(1) Relating to the philosophy of aesthetics; concerned with what is regarded as attractive and what is not.

(2) Relating to the science of aesthetics; concerned with the study of the mind and emotions in relation to the sense of beauty.

(3) Having a sense of the beautiful; characterized by a love of beauty (and, used loosely: “good taste”).

(4) Relating to, involving, or concerned with pure emotion and sensation as opposed to pure intellectuality.

(5) The philosophical theory or set of principles governing the idea of beauty at a given time and place.

(6) A particular individual’s set of ideas about style and taste, along with its expression:

(7) An individual’s (or a collective’s) set of principles or worldview as expressed through outward appearance, behavior, or actions.

1798: From the mid-eighteenth century German Ästhetisch or the German-derived French esthétique, from the New Latin, ultimately from the Ancient Greek aisthetikos (pertaining to sense perception, perceptible, sensitive perceptive and (of things) perceptible), the construct being aisthēt(ḗs) (aesthete) + -ikos (-ic), from aisthanesthai (to perceive (by the senses or by the mind), to feel, from the primitive Indo-European awis-dh-yo-, from the root au- (to perceive).  The ikos suffix was from κός (kós) with an added i, from i-stems such as φυσι-κός (phusi-kós) (natural), through the same process by which ῑ́της (ī́tēs) developed from της (tēs), occurring in some original case and later used freely.  It was cognate with the Latin icus and the Proto-Germanic igaz, from which came Old English iġ (which in Modern English ultimately was resolved as y), the Old High German ig and the Gothic eigs.  The historic alternative spelling is æsthetics, still see in the odd literary novel.  Derived forms include the adjectives nonaesthetic (which if hyphenated seems to be used as a neutral descriptive and if not, as a critique) & pseudoaesthetic (which is always in criticism).  Aesthetic is a noun & adjective, aesthete & aestheticism are nouns and aesthetically is an adverb; the noun plural is aesthetics.

The noun aesthete (person of advanced and fine artistic sensibilities) dates from the early 1880s and was from Ancient Greek αἰσθητής (aisthētḗs) (one who perceives), the construct being aisthē- (variant stem of aisthánesthai (to perceive)) + -tēs (the Greek noun suffix denoting agent).  It was a Victorian back-formation from aesthetics and there no exact synonym, the closet being “connoisseur” but it conveys a slightly different implication and the derived noun hyperaesthete is used sometimes as a term of derision directed at the “excessively civilized”.  The rarely used alternative spellings esthete & æsthete are now used only as literary devices and are otherwise obsolete.  Aesthete is a noun and aesthetic is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is aesthetes and the idea long predates the word, descriptions of such figures appearing (sometimes as slurs hinting at a lack of manliness) in texts from Antiquity and aesthetician (professor of taste) was in use by 1829, aestheticist by 1868.  The original edition (1911) of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COD) noted that in English university slang the opposite of an aesthete was a “hearty”, the former tribe devotes of John Ruskin (1819–1900), the latter lot lusting after a rugby blue.

Ms Andrea Ivanova who is pursuing (from head to toe) a particular aesthetic.

For specific purposes, estheticians can induce localized instances of angioedema (in pathology, a swelling that occurs just beneath the surface of the skin or mucous membranes).  Ms Andrea Ivanova (b 1998), a student from the Bulgarian capital Sofia, has had over twenty injections of hyaluronic acid in her quest to have the world’s plumpest lips but, seeking additional fullness, indicated recently she intends to pursue another course of injections.  Ms Ivanova is also a collector of Barbie dolls, the aesthetic of which she admires, and these are said to provide the inspiration for some of the other body modifications and adjustments she's undertaken.  Like the lips, other bits remain a work-in-progress, Ms Ivanova documenting things on Instagram where she enjoys some 32K followers.

The alternative spelling esthetic began life as one of those Americanisms which annoy some but it reflected simply the wholly sensible approach in US English that it’s helpful if spelling follows pronunciation.  However, in the early twentieth century the US cosmetic surgery industry (even then inventive and profitable), re-purposed the word; linguistic differentiation to create product differentiation: “esthetic surgery”, the business of performing surgery for aesthetic purposes rather than reasons strictly medical or reconstructive and the most significant figure in this was the German-Jewish cosmetic physician Jacques Joseph (1865–1934), now remembered as the “father of modern cosmetic surgery”.  Under the auspices of first the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS, 1931) and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS, 1967), the business of esthetic surgery has since boomed and related (even if remotely) professions such as nail technicians, the lip-plumpers and the body-piercers also append “esthetic” to their advertising; the first “estheticians” were the skin care specialists (exfoliation, massage, aromatherapy, facials and such) but the title soon proliferated.  

A classic reference which can be read for pleasure (by word nerds).

JA Cuddon (1928-1996) was a writer of extraordinary range and one of the great characters of twentieth century literary life in England and while some of his works sold more, none have been of more enduring than his typically comprehensive and amusing Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, first published in 1977 by Penguin and the entry on aestheticism is typical of his style, beginning with the observation the term was “'pregnant' with many connotations” before exploring the history.  In English, “aesthetic” first came into wider use after appearing in translations of the work of the German philosopher of the Enlightenment Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) although the original use was in the classically correct sense “science which treats of the conditions of sensuous perception” and Kant’s use had been an attempt at reclamation on behalf of academic philosophy in reaction to his fellow German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten (1714–1762) heretically using it in his Aesthetica (1750) to mean “criticism of taste”, something which so appealed to English speakers it became (despite the doughty scholarly rearguard) after the 1830s (in the wake of the Romantic poets) the dominant meaning, freeing the word from the jealous grasp of the philosophers.  This was cemented by the literary critic Walter Pater (1839–1894 and one of the century’s most exquisite stylists of language) who in 1868 applied it to the l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake) movement, a place which proved its natural home.  The English academic polymath William Whewell (1794–1866) had suggested callesthetics for “the science of the perception of the beautiful” but that never caught on.  The shift is illustrated by the track of the adjective which was in 1798 was recorded to mean “of or pertaining to sensual perception” while by 1821 there was the parallel “of or pertaining to appreciation of the beautiful.”

Cuddon defined an aesthete as “one who pursues and is devoted to the 'beautiful' in art, music and literature” while aestheticisrn was the “term given to a movement, a cult, a mode of sensibility (a way of looking at and feeling about things) in the nineteenth century [which] fundamentally… entailed the point of view that art is self-sufficient and need fulfil no other purpose than its own ends. In other words, art is an end in itself and need not be (or should not be) didactic, politically committed, propagandist, moral - or anything else but itself; and it should not be judged by any non-aesthetic criteria such as whether or not it is useful).”  Cuddon reminded his readers that Kant as well as Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832), Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) & Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805) were all in the vanguard of the l'art pour l'art “movement or cult”, arguing “art must be autonomous”, the political implication being “the artist should not be beholden to anyone.  From this, in turn, it followed that the artist was someone special, apart, from others and from this came the post-Romantic idea of the artist as superior to ordinary mortals”, a view which infected many who concluded they deserved to be judged on the basis of being artists, rather than by virtue of the art they produced.  In the dark mist of late Romanticism, this had a certain appeal but it cumulated in post-modernism and while it’s true that even in the nineteenth century high art there really wasn’t one agreed construct of the aesthetic, by the late twentieth century there were so many that Cuddon was probably right in suggesting it was the “long-term result of Romantic subjectivism and self-culture; of the cult of the individual ego and sensibility.”

Cuddon detected “a widespread disenchantment in the literature of the aesthetes, and especially in their poetry” which he contrasted with the popular novelists of the era such as early realists like Charles Dickens (1812–1870) or Émile Zola (1840–1902).  The poets showed a “tendency to withdrawal or aversion”, aspiring to “sensuousness and to what has become known as ‘pure poetry'” and while that was criticized by figures as diverse as Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister 1868 & 1874-1880) and Karl Marx (1818-1883), at “its best, aestheticism was a revitalizing influence in an age of ugliness, brutality dreadful inequality & oppression, complacency, hypocrisy and Philistinism.  It was a genuine search for beauty and a realization that the beautiful has an independent value.  At its worst it deteriorated into posturing affectation and mannerism, to vapid idealism and indeed to a kind of silliness which is not wholly dead.”  Cuddon was writing in the mid-1970s and it’s doubtful anything he saw in the last decades of his life much changed his mind.

Deconstructing the Lindsay Lohan aesthetic

PinkMirror is a web app which helps users optimize their facial aesthetics, using an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to deconstruct the individual components an observer’s brain interprets as a whole.  Because a face is for these purposes a collection of dimensions & curves with certain critical angles determined by describing an arc between two points, it means things can be reduced to metrics, and the interaction of these numbers can used to create a measure of attractiveness.  Pinkmirror cites academic research which confirms a positive canthal tilt is a “power cue” for female facial attractiveness and while it’s speculative, a possible explanation for this offered by the researchers was linked to (1) palpebral (of, pertaining to, or located on or near the eyelids.) fissure inclination being steeper in children than adults (classifying it thus a neonatal feature) and (2) it developing into something steeper still in females than males after puberty (thus becoming a sexually dimorphic feature).  Pinkmirror notes also that natural selection seems to be operating to support the idea, data from Johns Hopkins Hospital finding that in women, the intercanthal axis averages +4.1 mm (.16 of an inch) or +4^o, the supposition being that women with the advantage of a positive medial canthus tilt are found more attractive so attract more mates, leading to a higher degree of procreation, this fecundity meaning the genetic trait producing the characteristic feature is more frequently seen in the population.  Cosmetic surgeons add another layer to the understanding, explaining the canthal tilt is one of the marker’s of aging, a positive tilt exuding youth, health, and exuberance where as a line tending beyond the negative is associated with aging, this actually literally product of natural processes, the soft tissue gradually descending under the effect of gravity, as aspect of Vogue magazine’s definition of the aging process: “Everything gets bigger, hairier & lower”.

The Pinkmirror app exists to quantify one’s degree of attractiveness.  It’s wholly based on specific dimension and thus as piece of math, is not influenced by skin tone although presumably, its parameters are defined by the (white) western model of what constitutes attractiveness.  Users should therefore work within those limitations but the model would be adaptable, presumably not to the point of being truly cross-cultural but specifics forks could certainly be created to suit any dimensional differences between ethnicities.  Using an industry standard known as the Photographic Canthal Index (PCI), one’s place on Pinkmirror’s index of attractiveness is determined by the interplay of (1) Nose width, (2) Bi-temporal to bi-zygomatic ratio, (3) chin length, (4) chin angle, (5) lower-lip height & (6) eye height.

Lindsay Lohan scored an 8.5 (out of 10), was rated as “beautiful” and found to be “very feminine, with great features of sexual dimorphism”, scoring highly in all facets except lower lip height and eye height.  Her face shape is the heart, distinguished by a broad forehead and cheekbones, narrowing in the lines of down to the jaw-line, culminating in a cute pointy chin.  Pinkmirror say the most attractive face shape for women has been found to be the triangle, scoring about the same as the oval while the heart, round, diamond, rectangle and square are also attractive to a lesser degree.  Within the app, pears and oblongs are described as “not typically seen as attractive” and while the word “ugly” isn’t used, for the unfortunate pears and oblongs, that would seem the implication.

Other aesthethetics

A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.

The mysterious “experimental aesthetics” is a discipline in psychology taking “a subject-based, inductive approach to aesthetics”; it was founded by German physicist and experimental psychologist Gustav Fechner (1801–1887) who had a background in psychophysics before changing direction so experimental aesthetics is the second oldest research area in psychology.  It is a field of study which investigates how individuals perceive and evaluate aesthetic experiences using empirical methods, merging principles and techniques from psychology, neuroscience and the arts to understand the underlying mechanisms of aesthetic appreciation and creativity.  Essentially, it was the examination of the way people perceive beauty, art and design, and how they form aesthetic judgments, the resulting metrics gleaned from measuring sensory processes, cognitive mechanisms and emotional responses.  Given these things are inherently hard to quantify in a way which is both statistically sound and has some meaning, what Fechner was attempting was really quite adventurous and those who have continued his work have produced something sprawlingly interdisciplinary, involving collaborations between psychologists, neuroscientists, artists, designers, and philosophers, all with their own traditions of measurement. From this interplay emerged the sub-field of neuroaesthetics which focuses on the neural basis of aesthetic experiences, something made possible by the development of various brain imaging techniques like Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the electroencephalogram (EEG).  Being academics who publish, experimental aesthetics has also yielded theoretical models, the most pleasing of which is the “processing fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure” which explores what contributes to the ease with which information is processed in the human mind, a significant factor in the way people experience beauty.

In the same vein as ethnomusicology (the study of non-Western musical forms), ethnoaesthetics is the study or description of “the aesthetics specific to or adopted by a particular culture”.  Perhaps surprisingly, both continue to be used although some might consider them at least microaggressions which can be read as implying a cultural hierarchy and even if not, it certainly suggests “separate but equal”, a concept with its own troubled history.  Phonoaesthetics is the study of the aesthetic properties of sounds, particularly in the context of language. The phono- prefix (relating to sound) was from the Ancient Greek φωνή (phōnḗ) (voice, sound).  The word φωνή primarily referred to articulated human or animal sounds in contrast to ἠχή (from which is derived “echo”) which referred to sounds in general.  Phonoaesthetics involves the analysis of how certain sounds, words, or phonetic patterns are perceived as pleasing or displeasing to the ear, the field combining elements of linguistics, psychology, and aesthetics to explore the sensory and emotional responses elicited by different sounds.  If ever you’ve wondered why a word like “succulent” is so “delicious” to say, phonoaesthetics has the answer.  The inherent beauty or appeal of sounds exists both in isolation and within linguistic structures, most obviously in the phonemes, syllables & prosody but there are also associative factors; a word with a positive association can impart pleasure and that experience can exist across a culture or be specific to one individual.  Somaesthetics is an interdisciplinary field that studies the body (soma, from the New Latin, from the Ancient Greek σῶμα (sôma) (body) as both a site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning.  Not taken seriously by all critics, it’s seems essentially the “New Age” with an academic gloss.