Ornamentalism

Ornamentalism (pronounced awr-nuh-men-tl-iz-uhm)

(1) The desire or tendency to feature (usually what’s judged an excess of) ornamentation in design or execution (buildings, interiors, furnishings, cars, artwork etc).

(2) Any artistic or architectural style characterised by ornamentation.

(3) In the pre-revolutionary Russian literary tradition, an intricate, mannered and ostentatious prose style most prevalent in the early twentieth century.

(4) In politics, something implemented to lend the appearance of being something substantive while in reality changing little (synonymous usually with “window dressing”).

1860s: The construct was ornament + -al + -ism.  Ornament (an element of decoration; that which embellishes or adorns) was from the Old French ornement, from the Latin ornamentum (equipment, apparatus, furniture, trappings, adornment, embellishment), from ornāre, the present active infinitive of ornō (I equip, adorn). The verb was derived from the noun.  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Ornamentalism & ornamentalist are nouns; the noun plural is ornamentalisms.

Lindsay Lohan mug-shot Christmas tree ornament.  Even the blurb: “…handmade photo-fresco Ornament made with a hybrid Gypsum based polymer that has the crystaline structure of ceramics…” has about it the whiff of ornamentalism.  In some places, this ornament may be thought blasphemous.

The sense of the noun & adjective ornamental (the comparative “more ornamental”, the superlative “most ornamental”) differ from those of ornamentalism in that the former is almost always either positive or neutral.  In the narrow technical sense something ornamental has “no purpose beyond the decorative” although many “ornamental devices” often either can or do fulfill some function, thus the nuanced phrase “merely ornamental” to distinguish the pure forms.  As a noun, “ornamentals” are plants, fish and such bred or maintained for no purpose other than their aesthetic value (although obviously they also often a commercial product).

The same positive or neutral senses tend to be enjoyed by the noun & verb “ornament” which means usually “a decorative element or embellishment” (such as a ceramic piece displayed but never used for its nominal purpose).  In music it means specifically “a musical flourish not needed by the melodic or harmonic line, but which serves to decorate that line” while in the rituals of Christianity, ornaments (in this context always in the plural) are objects (crosses, altar candles, incense and such) used in church services.  So in musical and liturgical use, ornaments enjoy a duality in that they are both decorative and fulfill some function.  That is reflected in biology when the word is used to describe a characteristic that has a decorative function (typically in order to attract a mate) such as the peacock’s marvelously extravagant tail feathers.

Ornamentalisn is best known in architecture and design and can been seen in styles ranging from the rococo ((Würzburg Residenz, Würzburg Bavaria, Germany; left), to the McMansion (Wildwood New Jersey, USA; right))

In literary theory, ornamentalism is used to describe a style of writing in the pre-revolutionary Russian literary tradition in which prose was constructed in an intricate, mannered and ostentatious way.  It’s most associated with the early twentieth century and the great exponents of the art were the now sadly neglected Andrei Bely (1880-1934), the symbolist Fyodor Sologub (1863–1927) and the monumentally bizarre Alexei Remizov (1877-1957); it was one of the many stylistic trends briefly to flourish within the Russian avant-garde early in the twentieth century.  It came to be of some interest to later deconstructionists and post-modernists (the latter debatably among the greatest (or worst, depending on one’s view) ornamentalists) because the writers focused not on the capacity of the text to convey narrative or ideological content but the aesthetic and formal qualities of language itself; they treated language as an autonomous artistic medium, focusing on its rhythm, sound, texture and visual patterns.  Even at the time, there was criticism that the style was one of self-indulgence and intended for an audience of fellow writers and those who followed developments in the avant-garde; what comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) would later condemn as “formalism”.

What the ornamentalists did was elevate the elements of language (words, sentences, paragraphs etc) to be artistic objects to be assembled and arranged, their interplay as important (some critics suggested more so) than any implied or discernible meaning, thus the fragmented, non-linear prose which was a complete rejection of traditional realism: the ornamentalists called their work “associative structures”, suggesting they really were the proto postmodernists.  In that sense, it wasn’t the textual devices (repetition, alliteration, assonance) or the unusual syntactic structures which was most striking but the often chaotic mixture of prose and poetry and the interpolation of visual and performative elements into the text.  Needless to say, there was much symbolism, presumably thought an adequate substitute for coherence.  Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) was a noted critic of some of the more wilfully obscure ornamentalists but in his early Russian works and later English novels, their influence is detectable in his sensitivity to language's aesthetic possibilities.  While ornamentalism never really became a formal “school” of literature, it did exert a pull on Russian modernism and the possibility of elements like language operating as autonomous artistic objects.

In the US car industry peak ornamentalism happened between 1957-1962: 1960 Chrysler 300F (left), 1958 Buick Limited (centre) and 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz (right).

An earlier Russian literary tradition which was later sometimes a part of ornamentalism was skaz (from the sleazat (to tell)), a genre of folk tales consisting usually of an eye-witness account of an episode in peasant or provincial life, distinguished by the narrative being related by a fictitious narrator rather than the author directly.  What that method did was afford an author some latitude in the use of speech forms such as dialect, slang, mispronunciations and, not infrequently, neologisms, all of which lent the texts a naturalistic vigour and colourfulness which usually wouldn’t appear in a naturalistic piece, told in the first person.

A Spanish literary tradition in the same vein as ornamentalism was plateresco (from platero (silversmith), most associated with sixteenth century romances (with most of what that implies).  The English version of the terms was “plateresque” (silversmith-like) and literary criticism borrowed the idea from architecture & design where it describes the ornate styles popular in Spain during the sixteenth century, the word applied in the same way as rococo (which can be thought of as “high ornamentalism”).  The more familiar Spanish term was Gongorism which described the style of writing typified by that of the poet Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627), famous for his baroque and affected ways with the language which featured a Latinistic vocabulary & syntax, intricate use of metaphors, much hyperbole, mythological allusions and a general weirdness of diction.  In fairness, Góngora did not always write in this manner but so distinctive were his narratives when he did that a minor industry of imitators followed including Richard Crashaw (1613-1649) and the English polymath Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) who had great fun while Gongorising.  Gongorism as practiced was a deliberate exaggeration of technique, unlike the earlier aureate (from the Latin aureatus (adorned or decorated with gold), the construct being aure(us) (golden, gilded) +‎ -ate (the adjective-forming suffix).  Arueate language (characterized by the use of (excessively) ornamental or grandiose terms) was most generously described as a sort of poetic diction and it was much in vogue for English and Scottish and poets of the fifteenth century, the works of whom are characterized by the used of ornate & ornamental language, often studded with vernacular coinages from Latin words.

Refusenik

Refusenik (pronounced ri-fyooz-nik)

(1) In (originally) informal use, a citizen of the USSR (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1922-1991), a Soviet citizen (usually Jewish) who was denied permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union (usually to Israel).

(2) By extension, a person who refuses to cooperate with a system or comply with a law as a matter of political principle or because of a moral conviction.

Circa 1975: The construct was refuse + -nik.  The Russian отказник (otkáznik), the construct of which was отка́з (otkáz) (refusal, denial, repudiation, rejection, nonsuit; renunciation, disavowal; breakdown, failure) +‎ -ник (-nik) was a synonym of refusenik.  The -ник suffix was from the Proto-Slavic -ьnikъ, created originally by a nominalization of the adjectives in -ьnъ with the suffix -ikъ (from -ик (-ik)).  The suffix and was used to form masculine nouns, usually denoting adherents etc, the use illustrated by forms such as the dialectal Lithuanian lauk-inykas (peasant, farmer), from laũkas (field) and the Old Prussian lauk-inikis (vassal).  Refuse (in the sense of “to decline a request or demand” was from the Middle English refusen, from the Old French refuser, from the Vulgar Latin refūsāre, a blend of Classical Latin refūtāre (the source also of “refute”) and recūsāre (the source also of recuse).  The use in the sense of “items or material that have been discarded; rubbish, garbage, trash) was a late Middle English borrowing of the Middle French refusé, past participle of refuser (to refuse) which displaced the native Middle English wernen (to refuse).  In English, “refusenik” began as a calque of the Russian отка́зник (otkáznik) and from the mid-1970s, “refusenik” came to be used of someone who refused to do something (usually some law with which most complied), often either as a protest against government policy (conscription) or as a matter of personal autonomy (mandated vaccination).  While the construct of the word was an amusing novelty, the idea conveyed had a long tradition, the English agent noun refuser documented since the late fifteenth century.  The alternative spelling refusnik was not uncommon.  Refusenik is a noun; the noun plural is refuseniks.  Forms like refuseniking & refuseniked are non-standard but used for humorous effect as required.

Technically the –nik suffix corresponds approximately to the English –er in that nearly always it denotes an agent noun (ie it describes a person related to the thing, state, habit, or action described by the word to which the suffix is attached).  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.  The connotation however is different in that –er is linguistically neutral (ie the value in the word “murderer” is carried by the “murder” element) whereas a –nik word is usually loaded and that can be negative, positive and often jocular. 

In structural linguistics, the process of creating words by adding a foreign suffix (such as refusenik) is known as “suffix borrowing” (or “affix borrowing”, “prefix borrowing” the obvious companion term).  Refusenik was thus a fork of the phenomenon known as “neoclassical blending” or “neoclassical compounding”, where a foreign morpheme is combined with a native or other language base.  The forms are described as “neologisms created through affixation” and many are coined for jocular effect, the “-nik” subset used to imply a person associated with something, often in a somewhat negative sense, other noted examples including “beatnik” (a member of the “beat” generation of the 1950s, an early example of what would in the 1960s come to be called the “counter culture” and a kind of proto-hippie), “peacenik” (one opposed to war and coined originally to describe those associated with the anti-war movement in the US and opposed to US participation in the conflict in Indochina), “warnick” (the response of the peaceniks to those who supported US policy (which wasn’t picked up by the establishment, unlike “dry”, used originally as a slur by the those who had been labeled “wet” (higher taxes, more social spending etc); the “drys” (smaller government, deregulation etc) liked the term and adopted it although their attempt to give it a little more appeal as “warm & dry” never caught on), “appeasenik” (used in a derogatory sense to describe those who prefer a policy of appeasement to a more robust foreign policy response), “contranik”, (used in a derogatory sense to describe those in the US supporting the right-wing Contras (from the Spanish la contrarrevolución (literally “the counter-revolution”) who between 1979-1990 staged an insurgency against Nicaragua’s Marxist Sandinista Junta), “nogoodnik” (someone disreputable), “neatnick” (someone thought obsessively tidy in their habits), “kibbutznik” (In Israel, a member of a kibbutz (and not necessarily a Russian émigré)), “sweetnik” (one’s sweetheart (male or female), “noisenik” (a musician who produces harsh, discordant music (with deliberate intent rather than through lack of skill) and “nudenik” (a advocate of nude sunbathing).

A 1961 guide to the beatnik world view.

The difference between a “beatnik and a “beat” was that the “Beats” were members of the “Beat Generation” a literary and cultural movement which emerged in the late 1940s and popularized by the writers Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), William S Burroughs (1914–1997) a Neal Cassady (1926-1968).  Kerouac would describe the Beat state as being “beaten down, exhausted, but also in touch with the raw, spiritual, and authentic experiences of life” and they were a harbinger of the counter-culture of the 1960s.  There were at the time claims there was a distinct “Beat philosophy” but there were so many claims about this that it really can’t be said there was ever a coherent “philosophy” beyond a sense of rebellion against mainstream culture, materialism, and the alleged conformity on post-war America life, the latter something which in later decades would exert a strong nostalgic pull, exploited by a number of politicians.  The term “beatnik” was more about the stereotyped. Superficial elements associated with those who followed what they thought was the “beat lifestyle”.  It’s not fair to say the beatniks were “the Beat’s groupies” but that probably was the public perception, one which imagined them sitting in coffee shops, wearing berets and listening to poetry readings.

The “nik” words belong to a broader class of borrowed affixed words or loanword derivatives, the best known of which are the neoclassical compounds, formed by combining elements (usually prefixes or suffixes) from classical languages, particularly Greek and Latin, with existing words or roots from other languages (or simply combining Greek & Latin elements, something of which some purists don’t approve).  These compound words are common both in general use and specialized or technical fields such as science, medicine, and philosophy.  Well known examples include: “television” (the construct being tele- (from the Greek tēle (far)) + vision (from the Latin videre (to see)), “automobile”, the construct being auto- (from the Greek autos (self)) + mobile (from the Latin mobilis (movable)), “astronaut” (the construct being astro- (from the Greek astron (star)) + -naut (from the Greek nautēs (sailor)), “bicycle”, the construct being bi- (from the Latin bis (twice)) + cycle (from the Greek kyklos (circle; wheel)).

There has never been an authenticated Lindsaygate or Lohangate so, deductively, Lindsay Lohan has lived a scandal-free life although she does have some history of refusenikism.

Refusenik though belongs to the subset of the type coined usually for humorous effect or a commercial purpose and they include the “-zillas” (stormzilla, bridezilla, bosszilla et al), the suffix from the fictional Godzilla and appended to imply something or someone is excessively large, powerful, or monstrous, usually in an exaggerated or absurd way, the “-aholics” (shopaholic, chocoholic, workaholic et al) the suffix appended to The suffix -aholic (from alcoholic) is often humorously attached to nouns to describe someone addicted to or obsessed with something, the “fests” (geekfest, nerdfest, laughfest, foodfest et al, the –fest suffix from the German Fest (festival), appended to describe and event involves much of a certain thing or theme or will attract those of a certain type, the “-o-ramas” (snack-o-rama, fright-o-rama, book-o-rama et al, the -orama suffix from panorama (a wide view) and appended to suggest an abundance or spectacle of something and of course the “-gates” (pizzagate, whitewatergate, snipergate, servergate, benghazigate et al (all in some way related to crooked Hillary Clinton which is interesting), -gate suffix from the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s.  The use of the –gate scandal is an example of what’s called “transferred, implied or imputed meaning” and because it creates form which are “mock-serious”, the words can straddle a range of senses, unlike something like “chocoholic” which, whatever might be the implications for an individual’s health, is always jocular.

In English, the use of the –nik suffix spiked after the USSR in October 1957 launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth although the earlier Yiddish forms (in Yinglish, the words contributed by Yiddish speakers from Eastern Europe) may also have exerted some regional influence, notably in New York where as early as the 1930s nudnik (an annoying person; a pest, a nag, a jerk) had spread beyond the Jewish community.  The association of with Sputnik created a minor industry among headline writers looking for words to describe the failures, explosions and crashes which were a feature of the launches in the early days of the US space program after the Russian’s satellite had so shocked the Americans.  The terms like kaputnik, dudnik and flopnik became briefly famous and contributed to the impression the Soviets were much more advanced in rocketry and related technology but that was misleading because the Russians had suffered just as many failures but theirs were a state secret and therefore unknown outside official circles while for the US launches were televised nationally on network television.  The perceptions generated by kaputnik, dudnik and flopnik also created a political ripple which would play out in the 1960 US presidential election and beyond.  Although Sputnik gave things quite a shove, the suffix had a long history in English and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes raskolnik (a bit of a rascal) was in use by at least 1723.  After following the British Empire to the other side of the world, raskol washed up in PNG (Papua New Guinea) as a noun meaning “a criminal, operating sometimes as part of a gang”.  IN PNG, raskol was from the English rascal (a rogue, a scoundrel, a trickster) and entered Tok Pisin (“talk + pidgin”, one of PNG’s official languages and a creole of Indo-European, Malayo-Polynesian and Trans-New Guinean languages (principally English and Kuanua).  In later editions of The American Language (first published in 1919), the US satirist & critic HL Mencken (1880–1956 and a fair scholar of the tongue) credited the popularity of the practice of appending -nik to the ends of adjectives to create nouns to US Cartoonist Al Capp (1909–1979) who put a few of them in his syndicated Li'l Abner cartoon (1934-1977), Sputnik (1957) & beatnik (1958) respectively an accelerant or product of the process.

While it often was applied humorously, it also was used of those in Israel who refused to participate in military operations conducted by the Tsva ha-Hagana le-Yisra'el (the Israel Defence Forces (IDF)) in the occupied Palestinian territories (which the government of Israel calls “disputed territories” which the refuseniks regards as unlawful under international law.  Language matters much in the Middle East and some still use “Tel Aviv” as the synecdoche for “government of Israel” because recognition Jerusalem (another “disputed” space” as the capital is so limited.  Tel Aviv briefly was the capital between May 1948-December 1949 and a time when ongoing military conflict rendered Jerusalem too unstable for government operations.  Jerusalem was declared the capital in December 1949 and by mid-1950, most of the state’s administrative apparatus was based there but its status as a national capital is recognized by only a handful of nations.

Books (left & centre), academic journals and magazines used the title “Refusenik” in its original sense of “a Soviet citizen (usually Jewish) who was denied permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union (usually to Israel), something which was a feature of the Brezhnev-era (Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982; Soviet leader 1964-1982)) USSR but it was later adopted (by extension) in the English-speaking world to refer to those refusing to cooperate with a system or comply with a law as a matter of political principle or because of a moral conviction.  Edited by self-described refusenik (in the later sense) Peretz Kidron (1933–2011) and published in 2013 by Bloomsbury, Refusenik (right) applied the word in the later sense of “those who refuse” rather than the original “those who were refused”.  With a blurb including a quote from linguistics theorist & public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky (b 1928) and a foreword by author and essayist Susan Sontag (1933—2004), it’s likely a few reviews were written before a page was turned.

Embezzle

Embezzle (pronounced em-bez-uhl)

In law, fraudulently to appropriate or convert (money or property entrusted to one's care) for one's own use (applied especially to fraud committed by an employee).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English embesilen, from the fourteenth century Anglo-French embesiler, embesillier & embeseillier (to destroy, make away with; to steal, cause to disappear), the construct being em- + beseiller, from the Old French beseiller (to torment, destroy, gouge) of uncertain origin.  The sense of “dispose of fraudulently to one's own use” dates from the 1580s.  The earliest known use of the noun embezzler (one who embezzles) was in the 1660s but it may pre-date that because the noun embezzlement was known in the 1540s while the noun embezzling dates from the early fifteenth century.  The em- prefix (used before certain consonants, most often the labials b and p) was a variant of the Middle English en-.  It was originally from the Old French en- (and an-), from the Latin in- (in, into) but was also from an alteration of in-, from the Middle English in-, from the Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in (in).  Both the Latin and Germanic forms were from the primitive Indo-European en (in, into).  The intensive use of the Old French en- & an- is due to confluence with the Frankish an- (the intensive prefix), related to Old English intensive prefix on-.  It was used to impart the sense of (1) in, into, (2) on, onto, (3) covered, (4) caused or (5) as an intensifier.  Embezzle, embezzles, embezzled & embezzling are verbs and embezzlement & embezzler are nouns; the most common noun plural is embezzler. 

In English law, embezzle was a special class of theft or fraud which was distinguished by two characteristics: (1) the act was committed by a person employed by the owner of the misappropriated property and (2) the property misappropriated was in the (legal) possession of the employee.  The fine distinctions arose early in the development of common law because of the practical difficulties caused by the long-established legal doctrine that to constitute a larceny, the property must be removed from the possession of the owner.  Servants and others were thus able to steal with impunity goods entrusted to them by their masters and a stature of 1529 was enacted, providing that it would be a felony were employees to convert to their own use jewels, money, goods or chattels delivered to them by their employers (masters in the terminology of the time).  It's an illustration of the difference between "in legal possession of" and "lawfully possessing".   

On the way out: Bernard Madoff leaving Manhattan Federal Court, Tuesday, 10 March 2009.

Confessed embezzler Bernie Madoff (1938-2021) embezzled almost US$20 billion using as a platform history's largest (known) Ponzi scheme.  After being arrested, the DoJ (Department of Justice) and the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission) stated referring to him as “Bernard Madoff”, the media and most politicians following their lead; it was felt an affectionate diminutive like “Bernie” was no longer appropriate.  Between 1990-1993, during his respectable period, Mr Madoff served three one-year terms as chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (the Nasdaq (one of those initialisms which became an acronym)); the New York-based stock exchange described usually as "tech heavy").  Even today, Mr Madoff's scheme is sometimes described as "a US65 billion scam" but the actual embezzlement was around US$20 billion, the additional funds all in his imagination.  Predictably, those who did best were the lawyers involved in the case who charged a reputed US$800 million.  

The idea that “theft as a servant” was an offense which deserved a greater punishment that theft by a stranger remains a doctrine in common law jurisdictions, the rationale being that such crime is also a violation of trust.  In Australia, the concept has attracted interest of late because of the increasing frequency of “wage-theft” cases in which employers have been found to have been engaged in deliberately under-paying their staff, sometimes in a manner which is so carefully constructed as to have been held to have been systemic.  In most jurisdictions, the penalties available remain civil but two states have recently passed laws permitting criminal prosecutions of both corporations and individuals.  Legal commentators have generally welcomed the development, noting the frequently cited defense that organizations lacked the resources to deal with the complexity of the award wage system didn’t appear to constrain them when engaging in the tax minimization exercises made possible by the intricacies of tax law.  The law reform does nothing to alter the notion of “theft as a servant” being higher order of offending that done by a stranger but it does slightly redress the injustice of embezzlement by employees being by definition a criminal act yet embezzlement by employers was only ever a matter redressed by civil action and, in a practical sense, usually claimed to be “an error” rather than a “deliberate act”, a defense rarely tolerated if raised by an employee (an in this judges were doubtlessly usually correct).  The first case under a criminal code is now before the Victorian courts.

In idiomatic use, someone with their “fingers in the till” is committing embezzlement.  Synonyms exist but because of precise definitions in law, not all are interchangeable in a legal context.  In general use they include filch, loot, misappropriate, misuse, pilfer, purloin, skim, abstract, defalcate, forge, misapply, peculate, thieve, defalcate, flog, pinch and peculate.  Most tempting because of the rarity is probably the verb peculate (embezzle, pilfer, appropriate to one's own use public money or goods entrusted to one's care) from 1749, from the Latin peculatus, past participle of peculari (to embezzle), from peculum (private property (and originally "cattle"), the related forms being peculated, peculating & peculator.

The Great Crash 1929

The Great Crash 1929 (1955) by JK Galbraith.

Bezzle was a back-formation from embezzle, coined by the economist JK (Ken) Galbraith (1908-2006) in his 1955 book The Great Crash, 1929.  In the technical language of economics, bezzle is the temporary gap between the perceived value of a portfolio of assets and its long-term economic value.  The actions and forces which operate in economies over time create bezzle which unleash consequences understood usually only in retrospect.  The significance of the derivation from embezzlement was that Galbraith called it “the most interesting of crimes”, noting: Alone among the various forms of larceny [embezzlement] has a time parameter. Weeks, months or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in—or more precisely not in—the country’s business and banks.

The conditions which exist at certain times Galbraith observed, are especially conducive to the creation of bezzle, and “…at particular times this inflated sense of value is more likely to be unleashed, giving it a systematic quality”.  Those times tend to be defined by the business cycle in that “…in good times, people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful.  But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more.  Under these circumstances, the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression, all this is reversed.  Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous.  Commercial morality is enormously improved and the bezzle shrinks."

The Great Crash 2005

Crashed and towed, Los Angeles, 2005.

In 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 350 of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a fixed-roof.

Fixed and simonized, Texas, 2007.

By 2007, the car (still with California registration plates (5LZF057) attached) had been repaired, detailed & simonized and was being offered for sale in Texas, the odometer said to read 6207 miles (9989 km).  Bidding was said to be “healthy” so it was thought all's well that ends well but once the vehicle's provenance was brought to the attention of the repair shop, it was realized the celebrity connection might increase its value so it was advertised on eBay with more detail, including the inevitable click-bait of LiLo photographs.  However, either eBay doesn't approve of commerce profiting from the vicissitudes suffered by Hollywood starlets or they'd received a C&D (cease & desist) letter from someone's lawyers and the auction ended prematurely.  It proved a brief respite, the SL 65 soon back on eBay Motors but with the offending part of the blurb limited to "previously owned by high profile celebrity", leaving it to prospective buyers to join the dots.

Jacqueline Kennedy (1929-1994; US First Lady 1961-1963) with the elongated Ken Galbraith who at the time was serving as US ambassador to India.  Galbraith later recalled how difficult it was to get John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) interested in subjects like agriculture, a matter then (as now) of great matter in the Indian economy.

In other words, there can exist a temporary (and not necessarily short) difference between the actual economic value of a portfolio of assets and its reported market value, especially during periods of irrational exuberance.  At these times, there is “…a net increase in psychic wealth” because (1) the embezzler both feels and is richer while the original owners of the portfolio do not realize that they are poorer.  The classic case studies of the phenomenon are those duped in Ponzi schemes, a mechanism of deception in that two people simultaneously can enjoy the same wealth but the effect is similar when accounting fraud is involved, companies like Enron and WorldCom booking overvalued assets and excessively high stock valuations.   Until accounting frauds are uncovered, there is a collective increase in psychic wealth as the value of the bezzle rises.  Bezzle is of course temporary and when the truth emerges perceived wealth decreases until it once again approximates real wealth but this is not an abstract measure of value, the perceptions greatly influencing patterns of consumption with obvious effects upon the real economy.  Many recessions have followed the unwinding of a bezzle and of course, Galbraith’s 1955 book was about the worst of them, the Great Depression of 1929.

Others have since refined the idea of bezzle, noted investor Charles Munger (b 1924) explaining the net effect of a bezzle doesn’t actually demand that there be some form of constructive embezzlement as described by Galbraith.  It needs only that when the reported market value of an asset or portfolio temporarily exceeds its real economic value (which he defined as the value of future returns on that asset), the economy goes through the same cycle of increase and decrease in psychic wealth.  Munger tracked the way rising asset prices, disconnected from their underlying long-term economic value, can contribute to what he called the febezzle.  The word didn’t linger in the language as bezzle has but his insight certainly has, his point being that rising stock or real estate prices can generate income and wealth effects whether or not these rising prices reflect real increases in the earning capacity of these assets.  When asset prices rise for reasons other an increases in actual productive capacity, the overall economy doesn’t benefit because there will be no corresponding increase in the productive capacity of that economy.  The owners of the over-valued assets so of course feel richer but only temporarily because prices eventually converge to a value that represents their real contribution to the production of goods and services, thus the concern some express during periods of irrational exuberance in markets such as fashionable equities, real estate, cryptocurrencies or tulip bulbs.

Interestingly, Munger was discussing things in the distant world of the 1990s when commentators were expressing concern about the economic pattern in Western economies simultaneously to drive up asset prices while restricting the money supply.  Some of the range of possible consequences of that had unfolded since the early 1980s but those events provided little guidance to what might happen were the same forces to be unleashed when the money supply was allowed rapidly to expand and sold at marginal cost.  In the twenty-first century, the successive reactions of central banks to (1) the “tech wreck” of 2000-2001, (2) the global financial crisis (2008-2011) and (3) the COVID-19 pandemic mean the implications can be explored.

The photograph used on the cover of some editions of Galbraith's book was staged.  It was taken on 30 October 1929, shortly after the Wall Street crash and purported to show investor Walter Clarence Thornton (1903–1990) offering his 1928 Chrysler Imperial 75 Roadster for US$100, the car at the time typically costing between US$1550-2000 depending on options.  The Imperial name was used by Chrysler for its upper range models between 1926-1954 after which it was the corporation's stand-alone marque designed to compete with Cadillac, Lincoln and Packard, an approach abandoned in 1975 and few care to recall the abortive revival of 1990-1993.  At this time, Mr Thornton was working as a model and the "lost all on the stock market shoot" was just another gig.  He's remembered also for founding the Walter Thornton Modeling Agency which would be one of the most successful in the industry until the mid-1950s when he was the victim of a malicious prosecution.  All charges were dismissed before going to court but the trial-by-tabloid had so damaged his reputation he retired to Mexico.

Hagiography

Hagiography (pronounced hag-ee-og-ruh-fee or hey-jee-og-ruh-fee)

(1) The writing and critical study of the lives of the saints; hagiology.

(2) A biography of a saint.

(3) In biographical publishing & criticism, works essentially promotional or otherwise uncritical; any biography that idealizes or idolizes its subject; a biography which is uncritically supportive of its subject, often including embellishments or propaganda.

1805–1820: A compound word, the construct being hagio- + -graphy.  Hagio was from a combining form of the Ancient Greek ἅγιος (hágios) (holy, saintly) and the -graphy element was from the Ancient Greek -γραφία (-graphía) (writing), thus “sacred writing”.  In English, the word was first used in the 1820s of studies (strictly speaking often not biographies by modern standards) of the lives of saints, use later extended to “sacred writing” in general and only (and scholars are not in accord about quite when) sometime in the late nineteenth century to biographies and other secular works which were uncritical (especially if some criticism was obviously justified).  The suspicion is that such works would have been referred to as “hagiographic” before the idea of “the hagiography” came to be accepted as a definable category; it’s now an accepted slur among book reviewers.  The hagiography as a device of propaganda has a long tradition and there are studies of saints who, although known to have lived not wholly saintly lives, certainly seemed to have after some medieval hagiologists had finished with them.  The earlier forms were hagiographer (1650s), hagiographical (1580s) and Hagiographic (1809).  Hagiography, hagiologist, hagiology & hagiographer are nouns, hagiographic & hagiographical are adjectives and hagiographically is an adverb; the noun plural is hagiographies.

Because of the inherent limitations in the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, their not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of trends and patterns.  The assumption is the use of the word "hagiography" increased as it came to be applied to secular literature and (especially from the early twentieth century onwards) both the volume of biographies and reviews & criticism of them became more frequent.    

Among the earliest forms of formally structured propaganda, the use can be traced to Hagiographa, the Greek designation of the Ketuvim, the third part of the Jewish Scriptures and the modern idea of the hagiography is that of a work which treats ordinary, flawed human subjects (as all the saints of course were) as saintly.  One outfit for which hagiography has been perfected is the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (or North Korea)).  It’s often referred to as a hermit state shrouded in mystery but the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the regime’s official state news agency is surprisingly energetic in its production of information about the nation for both domestic & international consumption.  In 2008, the KCNA issued the “official biography” of Kim Jong-il (Kim II, 1941-2011; The Dear Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1994-2011), making clear that from the moment of his birth, truly he was amazing.  He was born inside a log cabin beneath Korea’s most sacred mountain and in the moment of delivery, a shooting star brought forth a spontaneous change from winter to summer and there appeared in the sky, a double rainbow.  That year there was no spring because the appearance of The Dear Leader on Earth brought sunlight and prosperity, the finest summer the nation has even known.  Exceptional from his first breath, The Dear Leader was not subject to bowel movements, never needing to defecate or urinate although this seems not to be an inheritable genetic trait of the dynasty because Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; The Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) is known to be accompanied on his travels always by some form of portable toilet.  So discriminating was the palette of The Dear Leader that he employed staff to inspect every grain of rice by hand to ensure each piece was of uniform length, plumpness, and color, The Dear Leader eating only perfectly-sized rice.  Although, just to illustrate the pointlessness of the capitalist pursuit, he only ever played one round of golf and that on the country’s notoriously difficult 7,700 yard (7040 m) course at Pyongyang, he took only 34 strokes to complete the 18 holes, a round which included five holes-in-ones.  Every word the KCNA released was said to be true but in the West, it was labelled as “beyond hagiographic” (except for the bit about the rice which was judged “plausible”).

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

Apparently the author of 39 books on topics as diverse as travelling in Africa and a multi-language illustrated dictionary of photography & cinematography (including a glossary of terms), author Derek Townsend was obviously prolific but it may be that in one volume, he produced what the English literature & political science departments in any university could use as the definitive case study of the hagiography.  Townsend’s Jigsaw: The Biography of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen : Statesman - Not Politician (Sneyd and Morley, Sydney, 1983 (ISBN-13: 9780949344007)) was the “authorized biography” of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen KCMG (1911–2005; premier of the Australian state of Queensland 1968-1987) and it was an extraordinary book in that not one reviewer could find one fragment of text which was anything but complimentary and gushingly so.  To be fair, the facts (dates and locations etc) all appeared to be correct.  What was best part however was for the hardback edition, a biographical piece (thumbnail sketch just not sufficient) describing the author was included in which he was described as:

"...professional traveller, acclaimed explorer, technologist, government strategist and one of the most diverse business entrepreneurs... an international best-selling author [whose] non-fiction books have sold millions of copies".  Said to have been "...one of the first visitors allowed into Zanzibar after the 'revolution'... numerous government leaders have extended their hospitality - presidents Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Milton Obote, Dr Eric Williams and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to mention but a few".  He was also "...actively concerned with sophisticated design technology of early commercial turboprop aircraft as well as involvement with many aspects of Britain’s first defensive surface to air (SAM) guided missile, the ramjet powered Bloodhound.  For the Rank Organization, one of his many achievements was the initial responsibility for developing not only the marketing strategy but also the techniques of utilization for a revolutionary dry electrostatic 'copying' process now commonly known as Xerox".  Surprisingly, he didn't bother describing himself also as a "scientist" which he'd earlier done in a piece for a magazine in which he extolled the benefits of Castrol GTX motor oil.  Again, to be fair, Castrol GTX was and remains a fine lubricant.  An analysis by artificial intelligence (AI) might now help but for readers then, it was hard whether the biography or the blurb about the author was the more hagiographic.

Jigsaw (1983), a classic and perhaps the definitive book of its kind.

Someone who could write like that of themselves was clearly just the chap the premier needed for a his authorized biography which could be released during the 1983 state election and Mr Townsend didn’t disappoint, his text including phrases which lauded his subject as a “statesman extraordinaire” & “protectorate of Queensland and her people”.  Whether despite or because of Jigsaw, Mr Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party government enjoyed an extraordinary victory, defeating not only the official Australian Labor Party (ALP) opposition but securing such a majority that the Nationals no longer needed the support of the troublesome Liberal Party to form a government. 

Puffery

Puffery (pronounced puhf-uh-ree)

(1) Undue or exaggerated praise; inflated laudation; publicity, claims in advertising, acclaim etc, that are exaggerated (also known as the “puff piece”).

(2) In common law jurisdictions (often as “mere puffery), certain claims or assertions made which, even if literally untrue or misleading, are not actionable.

(3) An act of puffing (rare except in humor).

1730–1735: The construct was puff (in the sense of “to praise with exaggeration”) + -ery.  The noun puff was from the early thirteenth century Middle English puf, puffe, puff & puf, from the Old English pyf (a short, quick blast of wind, act of puffing) which was imitative and cognate with the Middle Low German puf & pof.  It was derived from the verb which was from the Middle English puffen, from the Old English pyffan & puffian (to breathe out, blow with the mouth) and similar forms in other European languages included the Dutch puffen, the German Low German puffen, the German puffen, the Danish puffe and the Swedish puffa.  The sense of “to blow with quick, intermittent blasts” was common by the mid-fourteenth century while the meaning “pant, breathe hard and fast” emerged some decades later.  It was used of the “fluffy light pastry" from the late fourteenth century while the “small pad of a downy or flossy texture for applying powder to skin or hair” was first so described in the 1650s.

The meaning “to fill, inflate, or expand with breath or air” dates from the 1530s while the intransitive sense (in reference to small swellings & round protuberances) was noted by 1725.  The transitive figurative sense of “exalt” was known by the 1530s which shifted somewhat by the early eighteenth century into the meaning “praise with self-interest, give undue or servile praise to”, the idea by mid century focused on the figurative sense of “empty or vain boast”, this sense soon extended to mean “flattery & inflated praise”.  The derogatory use of poof for “an effeminate man; a male homosexual” was noted from the 1850s and is presumably from puff (possibly in the sense of “powder puff”, an allusion to the stereotype of their “excessive concern with maintaining a delicate appearance”)) and the extended form “poofter” was early twentieth century Australian slang, an unusual linguistic departure for a dialect which tended either to clip or add a trailing “e”, “y” or “o” sound to words.  The correct spelling for the furniture piece (A low cushioned seat with no back; a padded foot-stool) was pouf, from the French pouf & pouff (again of imitative origin) but, presumably because of confusion caused by the pronunciation, the spellings puff & poof sometimes are used.  The suffix -ery was from the Middle English -erie, from the Anglo-Norman and Old French -erie, a suffix forming abstract nouns.  The suffix first occurs in loan words from the Old French into the Middle English, but became productive in English by the sixteenth century, sometimes as a proper combination of -er with “y” (as in bakery or brewery) but also as a single suffix (such as slavery or machinery).  Puffery is a noun; the noun plural is pufferies.

Mere puffery

The origin of “puffery” in the publishing industry is thought to be the character of Mr Puff, the verbose and bogus critic in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s (1751-1816) The Critic (1779).  Puffery was the class of “criticism” used as a tool by literary cliques (comprising groups of authors who praised each other’s works) and this excessive lauding was referred to also as a “blow up” (ie the notion of puffing into a balloon, inflating something which although becoming bigger, remains essentially “empty’).  In the jargon of publishing, a puff (or puff piece) is the equivalent of a “blurb”.

In law, the concept of “mere puffery” was created to provide a buffer between the “meaningless” sales pitch and the deceptive or misleading claims which amount to a misrepresentation.  A misrepresentation may be actionable; “mere puffery” is not.  Puffery is used to describe a claim that (1) a “reasonable person” would not take seriously or (2) is so vague or subjective that it can be neither proved nor disproved.  Those two definitions operate in conjunction because even if an assertion can be disproved, if it would be absurd for the “reasonable person” to claim they believed it, it will be held to be “mere puffery”.

Doubling down: Disappointed at losing the case based on their £100 offer, to restore public confidence, they offered £200. 

In contract law, the term “puffery” comes from one of the most celebrated cases in English jurisprudence: Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company (1892, EWCA Civ 1) before the Court of Appeal.  During the deadly influenza pandemic in the northern winter of 1889-1890, the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company it would pay £100 (equivalent to some £14,000 in 2023) to anyone who became ill with influenza after using their smoke ball in accordance with the instructions enclosed with the product.  Mrs Carlill was concerned enough by the flu to buy a ball which, following the instructions, she used thrice daily for some weeks but nevertheless, caught the flu.  Unable to persuade the company to pay her £100, Mrs Carlill brought an action, in court claiming a contract existed which the company denied.  At first instance, despite being represented by a future prime-minister, the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company lost, a verdict upheld unanimously by the Court of Appeal.  It was a landmark in the development of contract law, refining the long-established principles of (1) offer, (2) acceptance, (3) certainty of terms and (4) payment although it would be decades before the implications would begin comprehensively to be realized in legislation.  Not only did Mrs Carlill secure her £100 but she survived the pandemic, living to the age of ninety-six.  On 10 March 1942, she died after catching influenza.

So, Mrs Carlill, having used the smoke ball three times a day for almost two months before she developed influenza sued for breach of contract and the court held the offer made in the advertisement was not “mere puff” but constituted a valid offer of contract; the Smoke Ball Company’s offer was thus a misrepresentation because, in the particular circumstances detailed, a “reasonable person” would be likely to believe that they would receive £100 and thus, relying on the claim, be persuaded to purchase the product.  However, all the circumstances must be considered on a case-by-case basis and an individual’s simple reliance on a claim they sincerely believe to be true is not sufficient to for something to be held a misrepresentation.

In the famous Red Bull lawsuit in 2013, the court noted the company’s advertising slogan “Red Bull gives you wings” was “mere puffery” in that no reasonable person would believe ingesting even many cans of the stuff would mean they would “grow wings and fly” but the lawsuit claimed that implicit in the slogan was the allegedly deceptive and fraudulent suggestion that the drink was a “superior source of energy”, something not backed up by scientific evidence.   Heard in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the class action was lodged by someone who had been drinking Red Bull for a decade-odd.  His claim was not that he expected feathers to sprout but that idea drinking Red Bull would increase performance and concentration (as advertised on the company's television, on-line and marketing campaigns) was “deceptive and fraudulent and is therefore actionable”.  The scientific basis for the action was research which found energy drinks gained their “boost” through caffeine alone, not guarana or any other ingredient, adding although there was no academic support for the claim Red Bull provides “any more benefit to a consumer than a cup of coffee, the Red Bull defendants persistently and pervasively market their product as a superior source of ‘energy’ worthy of a premium price over a cup of coffee or other sources of caffeine.”  Red Bull, while denying any wrongdoing or liability and maintaining its “marketing and labeling have always been truthful and accurate”, the company settled the lawsuit “to avoid the cost and distraction of litigation”.  As part of the settlement, anyone resident of the US who claimed to have purchased a can of Red Bull at some time after 1 January 2002 was eligible to receive either a $US10 reimbursement or two free Red Bull products with a retail value of approximately $US15, a webpage created to enable those affected to lodge their claim.  To avoid any similar claims, the company “voluntarily updated its marketing materials and product labeling".

Advertising is often a mix of puffery and specific claims which can be actionable, depending on the circumstances, either in damages or restitution.

So every case is decided on its merits.  A case before the Federal Court in Australia in 2017 held that a false assertion an app had “the most property listings in Sydney” was a misrepresentation because uncontested evidence proved otherwise although the court note were the app to claim it was “the best” app of its kind that would be mere puffery because, in that context, the phrase “the best” means nothing in particular because it’s not something which can be reduced to a metric or precisely defined.  More intriguing for those who like to speculate when grey turns black or white was the Pepsi Points Case which was in many ways similar to Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.  PepsiCo’s advertising included a point system which customers could use to redeem prizes and one campaign had offered a military jet fighter (then invoiced by the manufacturers at US$23 million odd) in exchange for 7 million "Pepsi Points" (then worth US$700,000).  Mailing a $700,000 cheque to PepsiCo, a customer asked to collect his jet.  The court held the offer was “mere puffery” on the basis of (1) aspects of the campaign which clearing indicated “its jocular nature”, (2) that no reasonable person would believe a US$23 million jet could be obtained by exchanging US$700,000 and it was (3) anyway impossible for the company to deliver a military fighter jet in operable condition to a civilian customer.  It was an interesting case because it might have been decided differently if the object had been closer in value to the points mentioned and been something there was no legal impediment to supplying (such as a US$1 million car).  Were it a US$143 million car (there is one), the promotion would presumably still be judged puffery but at some point, it must be that the relative values would be close enough to for the “reasonable person” test to apply.  That however is something impossible to reduce to an equation and each case will be decided on its merits.  Just to be sure, PepsiCo bumped up by several orders of magnitude the points required to start one’s own air force up and added some text to make it clear the whole thing was just a joke.

In the matter of Tyrrell’s Crinkly Crisps.  Often packaging & advertising will contain a number of claims, some of which will be mere puffery (even if it’s easy to prove blatantly they’re untrue) while others need to be verifiable:

2 Pack: Not puffery; every pack must contain two packets.  There have been instances when customers have complained they’ve received more than was advertised and paid for but it’s rare.  Usually, such things are treated as “windfalls”.

Vegan: Not puffery; the contents must be vegan (as defined in the regulation of whatever jurisdiction in which they’re sold).

Triple Cooked: Probably puffery because it’s doubtful the term has any legal definition although were it possible to prove the production process is essentially the same as for any other crisp (chip), it might be actionable.  Because “triple” does have a defined value, were it proved the goods were cooked only twice as long as the practice of other manufacturers, that would presumably compel a change of text to “Double Cooked”.

More Crunch: Probably puffery because the measure of such things is so subjective and there is a point at which to increase crunchiness becomes self-defeating because other desired qualities will be lost.

Crinkly Crisps: Not puffery; the crisps must to some extent be crinkly although it might be fun to have a judge explore the margins and tell us how slight a corrugation can be while still being called “crinkly”.

No Artificial Nasties: Not puffery; these packets probably contain artificial ingredients because they’re almost impossible to avoid in the industrial production of food.  What constitutes a “nasty” is however a thing of quantity as well as quality; something millions every day harmlessly (even beneficially) can be a toxic “nasty” in large quantities so what’s included in the packet will be safe as supplied.  If potential “nasties” are found to exist in a quantity above a certain point, it’s actionable.

Gluten Free: Not puffery; unless there is an allowable quantity (ie trace amounts) permitted by regulation, there must be no gluten.

Sea Salt & Vinegar: Not puffery; sea salt is a particular type of salt so it must be used and there must be evidence of the use of vinegar.

165 g Net: Not puffery; each pack must contain 165 g of edible content +/- the small % of production line variation a court would deem acceptable.

Content guide (fat, energy et al): Not puffery; again, what’s claimed must be a reliable indication of the products within whatever small variation is acceptable.

Photograph with giant crisp: Puffery and an example of how the “reasonable person” test works in conjunction with an objective test of truth.  The packs do not contain crisps as large as is represented in the image (indeed, such would be too big even toi fit in the pack) and no reasonable person would believe this is what they’re buying.