Alarum

Alarum (pronounced uh-lar-uhm or uh-lahr-uhm)

(1) An archaic variant of alarm, especially as a call to arms.

(2) In literary classification, a work written in the form of a warning.

(3) In the form “alarums and excursions”, a stage direction used in Elizabethan theatre (used only in the plural).

1585–1595: From the Middle English alarme & alarom, from the fourteenth century Old French alarme, from the Old Italian all'arme (a call to arms (literally “to the arms”) and understood in translation as “arm yourselves and prepare for battle!”), from the Latin arma & armorum (arms, weapons) (from which English ultimately gained armory).  The Old Italian all'arme was a contraction of the phrase alle arme, alle a contraction of a "to" (from the Latin ad) + le, from the Latin illas, the feminine accusative plural of ille (the) coupled with arme, from the Latin arma (weapons (including armor), literally "the tools or implements (of war)”), from the primitive Indo-European root ar- (to fit together).  Beyond purely military use, the interjection (which had once also been spelt all-arm) came by the late sixteenth century to be a general to be both a “warning of any danger or need to arouse” and the device generating the sound.  From the mid-fifteenth century it had conveyed a “state of fearful surprise" while the weakened sense of “apprehension or unease” dates from 1833.  In England, alarm clocks were first available in the 1690s and they were described as A Larum Clocks.  Alarum is a noun, the present participle is alaruming, the past participle alarumed; the noun plural is alarums.

The phrase alarums and excursions (used only in the plural) was a stage direction used in Elizabethan theatre drama.  It instructed the actors to create a scene suggesting military action, either by having them march across the stage, blowing bugles and beating drums or, as the script directed, performing fragments of a battle or other engagement.  In idiomatic use, it came to be used to allude to (1) the sounds and activities associated with the preparations for war and (2) by extension, any noisy, frantic, or disorganized activity.  Alarum is the old spelling of the modern alarm (as a noun or a verb) which has in literary classification retained a niche as a deliberate archaism, probably because it’s one of those words (like aroint) which endures because it appears in the works of Shakespeare.  There’s also some history of alarum as a poetic device where it’s deployed when the cadence requires “alarm” to be pronounced with a rolling "r" (although it’s not known if this was the practice in Middle English (and Shakespeare’s placement gives no clue).  Other than the technical uses describe, alarum has no use in modern English and if used as a substitute for alarm it will either confuse or be treated as a spelling mistake (which of course it is).  In the classification of non-fiction, an alarum is a work written as a warning.  It can be in the form of a polemic, a history or any other form and the label alarum is thus both a category and a sub-category applied to other classifications.  In this the label can work as something like the apologiae sometimes appended (not always with the agreement of the subject) to biographies of the living or the memoirs of the dead.

A classic example of the alarum is Friedrich von Hayek’s (1899–1992) Der Weg zur Knechtschaft (The Road to Serfdom (1944)), a book which warns that the inevitable consequence of governments controlling an economy through central planning is a tyrannical dictatorship and the sacrifice of individual freedom.  His thesis was widely read but gained renewed attention in the 1980s when an interpretation of the neo-liberal economic model he advocated was implemented in both developed and emerging economies with results good and bad.  What was unfortunate however was the impression that many politicians seemed to be acquainted only with the simplified edition issued in 1945 by the US magazine Reader's Digest, a version designed for those without formal training in economics which was easier to read but lacked some of the nuances of argument and the political subtleties which had so captivated certain intellectuals.  Hayek was in his views an elitist who seemed not to have a high opinion of the powers of most people abstractly to reason but he certainly defended their right to pursue what they perceived as their economic advantage.  In many ways the book seems at its best (for non-economists anyway) if read not as advocacy for a particular structure for an economy but as a work of political philosophy and digested this way, Hayek’s discussion of the language of politics is of special interest; his explanation of the way labels like “left” and “right” have become distorted both as descriptors and in the consequences of use remains influential.

Lindsay Lohan, a poem by Amber Tambling, from the collection Dark Sparkler (2015).

It varies according to the language and formatting but prints of von Hayek’s alarum contain some 58,000-60,000 words, printed over 250-320 pages (the widely used “classic edition” by the University of Chicago Press edition is typically 274 pages) but some, bulked-up with introductions, commentaries and appendices have been close to 500.  Hayek had much to say but an alarum can be sid with fewer words, actress and author Amber Tamblyn (b 1983) composing one with no text at all.  The publisher HarperCollins described her third collection Dark Sparkler (2015) as a “…hybrid of poetry and art exploring the lives and deaths of actresses who began their careers as child stars.”  The book, which included original artwork by a number of artists, was well received, critically and commercially.  The title was well-chosen because Dark Sparkler was a catalogue of murder and suicide but what attracted much comment was the inclusion of one living soul: Lindsay Lohan, her entry (on page 47) blank but for her name as the title.  An author’s relationship ultimately is with their readers but first it’s with their critics and the response to that one proved it’s possible to deconstruct text even when it doesn’t appear.  The critical reaction was something in vein taken by those who approached John Cage’s (1912–1992) 4:33 (1952) in that, without much with which to work, the only obvious question seemed to be “What did you mean?”  Ms Tamblyn did say she found it “upsetting” when, after reading several of the poems dedicated to starlets who died young, she spoke the words “Lindsay Lohan” and the audience laughed; perhaps in the age of TikTok she’d not now be surprised.  She claimed the inclusion of the work in its unusual form was not to say “you’re next” but explicitly to avoid writing anything about a life in progress, the idea being Ms Lohan’s life was her own story to write.  Like any work of prose or poetry, page 47 was there for people to take from it what they found.

Contra

Contra (pronounced kon-tra)

(1) Against; contrary or opposed to; in opposition or contrast to; against, anti.

(2) An arrangement (usually between companies) whereby they exchange goods and/or services on a basis agreeable to both, often without any exchange of cash.

(3) In politics (sometimes used in a derogatory sense), a conservative; originally tied to Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries.

(4) In accounting, as contra-entry or contra-account, an entry or account which cancels another entry or account.

(5) In music, an informal term for any of the musical instruments in the contrabass range (contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet or (especially) double bass).

(6) In dance, a type of country dance most identified with the New England region in the US (mostly obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English contra (against, over against, opposite, on the opposite side; on the contrary, contrariwise) from the Latin contrā.  The Latin contrā (against) meant originally "in comparison with" and was the ablative singular feminine of com-teros, from the Old Latin com (with, together) + -tr, (zero-degree form of the comparative suffix -ter-).  As used as a noun in English, it meant "a thing which is against another" by 1778, an evolution of the earlier sense of "the contrary or opposite" from the 1640s.  English also picked up the practice from Late Latin in using contra as a prefix.  In French, it became contre- which passed into English as counter-, the Old English equivalent of which was wiðer (which survived in dialectical English as withers and in Scottish as widdershins), from wið (with, against).  There was also contraindicate (to indicate the contrary of (a course of treatment, etc)) from the 1660s, an evolution from the 1620s forms contraindicated & contraindication, contra-indicate the rare verb.  The use to describe the forces opposed to the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua since 1979 began in 1981, Contra a shortened form of the Spanish contrarrevolucionario (counter-revolutionary).  Contra is a noun, verb, adjective & adverb; the noun plural is contras.  

The Contras and the Sandinistas

Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) Flag.

The contras were active from 1979 to the early 1990s in opposition to the left-wing government in Nicaragua (the Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction).  The term was a short-form of la contrarrevolución (counter-revolution) although there were intellectuals in the movement who disliked the label because they thought it suggested something negative or reactionary.  They preferred comandos (commandos) though peasant sympathizers also called the rebels los primos (the cousins), reflecting in many ways the character of the early movement as one of civilian irregulars.  In the White House of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989), "contra" wasn’t greatly favored and by the mid-1980s, marketing types in the administration introduced “democratic resistance” to press briefings though it never caught on outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Undeterred, by the press’s scepticism towards "newspeak", on the ground, the energetic and ever-optimistic CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) liaison operatives encouraged use of la resistencia.  

Newspeak was a “language” invented by George Orwell (1903-1950) for his alarum novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).  The concept of Newspeak was of a language (really a set of words and terms integrated into English using conventional spellings in the elements and respecting rules of grammar and such) used by totalitarian state to “shape meaning” and prevent individuals from developing critical thoughts.  In the dystopian novel, Newspeak was used as a way to “construct reality”.  In that it differed from something like the earlier “Basic English” that was a “cut-down version of the English with a vocabulary limited to a few hundred words “essential” for “basic” communication although in academic linguistics it was demonstrated even if working wholly within the vocabulary of “Basic English”, it was possible to explore complexities and abstractions, the difficulty (the “basic problem” as it were) being this could be achieved only if one anyway had a good command of “standard English”.  In promoting the use of la Resistencia (the resistance), the CIA station chief in Managua was using a type of Newspeak (albeit not with an “invented” word) that was not technically “euphemistic” in that the Contras literally were “resisting the Sandinistas” but it was an attempt to vest the movement with positive associations.  

National flag of Nicaragua.

Believing the domino theory applied as much to central America as once it had been applied in east Asia, almost from the beginning the contras received military and financial aid from the US.  Congress cut the appropriations but the White House continued support with funding provided through a variety of imaginative (and covert) money-making schemes and slush funds which culminated in the Iran-Contra affair (Iran-Contragate), the biggest scandal of the Reagan years.  The affair (noted if not openly discussed by the ayatollahs in the Persian ماجرای ایران-کنترا‎ and definitely not by the Contras in the Spanish Caso Irán–Contra) was a back channel CIA (the US Central Intelligence Agency) operation run out of the White House, secretly to sell weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran, then subject to an arms embargo.  The cover story for the operation was the armament shipments were part of an intricate web of deals to free seven American hostages held in Lebanon by the Hezbollah, a paramilitary operation which started as modestly as many others but which would evolve into a something which simultaneously would effectively take over the Lebanese state while acting as the regional proxy of Tehran (or a sub-contractor to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard depending on the interpretation).  The story wasn’t entirely untruthful but the administration arranged the first sales prior to the hostages being seized.

Sandinista graffiti.

Ronald Reagan’s (1911–2004; US president 1981-1989) world view was never as simple as his detractors suggest but it was starker than most of the Washington establishment and he didn’t support the position, which had become predominate during the Cold War and certainly after the Vietnam war, that the geopolitical structure of the world should be thought of as stable and permanent.  That was the view of the power-realists like Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1973 & secretary of state 1973-1977), theorists who believed problems needed to be managed over decades whereas Reagan thought problems needed to be solved: the Soviet Union was a problem, Cuba was a problem and the Sandinistas were a problem.  The Congress however had prohibited the provision of aid to the Contras.

In the Spanish, contra was a direct inheritance from the Latin contrā and in the Old Spanish there was also cuentra as well, with a diphthongization of the stressed Latin /ŏ/. As the word was generally atonic, over time, the unstressed variant contra eventually prevailed.  The synonym is en oposición a.  Although in English “contra” is less frequently used as a “stand-alone” word as is the case in Spanish, it does appear, often as a kind of “verbal shorthand” where appears as a clipping of “contrary”.  That use may to some extent be class based because, pronounced correctly, the slipping doesn’t save a syllable, “contrary” said correctly as the “U” kon-tree rather than the “non-U” kuhn-trair-ee. 

In 1985, the administration began a diversion of the profits the Iran operation to the Contras although it’s still not certain the president authorized this, so many of the supporting documents having been destroyed, the lesson of Nixon’s tapes well-learned: If stuff gets burned it can’t become evidence.  Within a year the story broke and after many denials about many things, Reagan was forced to appear on nationally television, taking “full responsibility” for the affair, suggesting what began with good diplomatic intensions, ran astray in a classic case of mission creep.  A commission was appointed to investigate and concluded no evidence existed to prove the president either knew of or approved the detail of operations.  Although several dozen administration officials were indicted and some were convicted, many were overturned on appeal and while a couple served terms of probation, most of the rest were pardoned by President George HW Bush (1924–2018; George XLI, US President 1989-1993) even before coming to trial, some noting the evidence suggested George XLI had his own reasons for not wishing the some matters to be aired in court although whether that included the role the CIA allegedly played in the distribution of crack cocaine in US cities during the 1980s has never been clear.

Supermarine Seafang (1946) with contra-rotating propellers.  The Seafang (1946-1947) was powered by the 37-litre (2240 cubic inch) V12 Rolls-Royce Griffon (1941-1955) and was the final evolution of the Spitfire (1938-1948) derived Seafire (1943-1947) and Spiteful (1944), the trio all designed for use on RN (Royal Navy) aircraft carriers, the series enjoying success despite the basic design being hampered by the narrow undercarriage that made landings a challenge (something corrected on the Spiteful & Seafang).  Series production of the Seafang was contemplated but only 18 were built because the jet-powered de Havilland Sea Vampire (1945-1950) proved capable of carrier operations, surprising some at the Admiralty who doubted the jets could operate from anywhere but land.

Contra-rotating propellers (known also as coaxial contra-rotating propellers) were implemented on some World War II (1939-1945) aircraft to address several aerodynamic and performance challenges associated with the fitting of piston engines developing power well in excess of anything the designers had envisaged.  The attraction were many and included reducing the “torque Reaction”, the phenomenon in which the torque generated by a spinning propeller cause an aircraft to yaw in the opposite direction of the propeller's rotation.  Pilots had long been trained to counteract this by use of the rudder (especially during take-off and low-speed-flight) but as engine power rose and propeller blades became bigger, heavier and more numerous, the effect greatly became exaggerated.  On two or four-engined machines, the obvious solution was to have the blades on each wing rotate in opposite directions but on the most powerful of the single-engined fighters, the two units were mounted one behind the other and this had the benefit also of allowing the rear propeller to recover energy from the swirling airflow (the slipstream) generated by the forward.  That allowed designers to harness the greater power without increasing the diameter of the propellers, avoiding issues with ground clearance and supersonic tip speeds (one of the reasons the Soviet Air Force’s swept-wing (unusually in a propeller aircraft) Tupolev Tu-95 (Bear) bomber (in service 1956-1993) was so loud was because the tips exceeded the speed of sound).  Had jet technology not emerged when it did, in single-engine interceptors (the Spitfire and its ilk a classic example), the contra-rotating apparatus would have become more common, wartime adoption limited by the complexity in assembly and additional maintenance demands.