Bedint

Bedint (pronounced buh-dent (U) or bed-ent (non-U))

(1) Something which suggests a bourgeois aspiration to the tastes or habits of the upper classes.

(2) A generalized expression of disapproval of anyone or anything not in accord with the social standards or expectation of the upper classes.

(3) Any behavior thought inappropriate (ie something of which one for whatever reason disapproves).

1920s:  A coining attributed to variously to (1) English writer and diplomat Harold Nicolson (1886–1968), (2) his wife, the writer Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) or (3) speculatively, Vita Sackville-West’s family.  The word is of Germanic origin and although there are variants, the source of all was the Middle Dutch bedienen, the construct being be- +‎ dienen.  The Middle Dutch be- was from the Old Dutch bi- & be-, from the Middle High German be-, from the Old High German bi-, from the Proto-Germanic bi-, from the primitive Indo-European hepi and was used to indicate a verb is acting on a direct object.  Dienen was from the Middle Dutch dienen, from the Old Dutch thienon, from the Proto-Germanic þewanōną and meant "to be of assistance to, to serve; to serve (at a tavern or restaurant); to operate (a device)".  In the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church, it has the specific technical meaning "to administer the last sacraments (the last rites)".  A bedient (the second third-person singular present indicative of bedienen) was thus a servant, a waiter etc.  The acceptable pronunciation is buh-dent while bed-int, be-dit or anything else is the depth of bedintism.  Bedint is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bedints.  As a non-standard word, there are no derived forms but, for humorous effect, some have appeared including the nouns, bedintism bedinity & bedintism and the adjectives bedinted, bedintish & bedintesque.  Caution must be exercised because the very use of the word can be judged bedint.

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

The idea thus is exemplified by a maître d'hôtel (head waiter) who, well dressed and well mannered, appears superficially not dissimilar to someone from the upper classes but of course is someone from a lower class, adopting for professional reasons, some of their characteristics (dress, manner, speech (and sometimes snobbery) etc).  Whoever coined the word, it was certainly popularized by Harold Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West, neither of whom were much reticent in finding fault in others.  It seems initially to have been their shared code for discussing such things but soon became common currency amongst the smart set in which they moved and from there, eventually entered the language although not all dictionaries acknowledge its existence and it should probably be thought non-standard.  It one of those words which need not be taken too seriously and is most fun to use if played with a bit (bedintish, bedintesque, bedintingly bedinded, bedintism, bedintology etc).  As a word, although from day one weaponized, bedint was subject to mission-creep to the point where, as Lewis Carroll's (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898) Humpty Dumpty "in rather a scornful tone" explained to Alice in Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1871): "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

Figures from the lost, pre-1914 world: Harold Nicolson & Vita-Sackville West, London, 1913.

As originally used by Nicolson & Sackville-West, bedint was one the many linguistic tools of exclusion and snobbery; these devices exist among all social classes, some of which, when part of “working-class consciousness” or similar constructs are classified as “inverted snobbery”.  Bedint was used to refer to anyone not from the layers of the upper class (royalty, the aristocracy, the gentry) in some way aping the behavior or manners of “their betters”; the behavior need not be gauche or inappropriate, just that of someone “not one of us”.  Nicolson didn’t exclude himself from his own critique and, as one who “married up” into the socially superior Sackville family, was his whole life acutely aware of what behaviors of his might be thought bedint, self-labelling as he thought he deserved.  His marriage he never thought at all bedint although many of those he condemned as bedint would have found it scandalously odd, however happy the diaries of both parties suggest that for almost fifty years it was.

Harold Nicolson & Vita-Sackville West, Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent, 1932.

Bedint as a word proved so useful however that it came to be applied to members of the upper classes (even royalty) were they thought guilty of some transgression (like dullness) or hobbies thought insufficiently aristocratic (ie "a bit middle class" which was about as bad as insults got).  The idea of some behavior not befitting one’s social status was thus still a thread but by the post-war years, when bedint had entered vocabulary of the middle-class (a bedint thing in itself one presumes Nicolson and Sackville-West would have thought), it was sometimes little more than a synonym for bad behavior (poor form as they might have said), just an expression of disapproval.  That didn't mean all "non-typical" behavior was bedint because certain eccentricities or a bohemian lifestyle might be tolerated or even admired.  Bedint-tagging can thus be thought as something within the rubric of labeling theory.  

Harold Nicolson & Vita-Sackville West, Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent, 1960.

The biographical work on Nicolson reveals a not especially likable snob but, in common with many fine and sharp-eyed diarists, he seems to have been good company though perhaps best enjoyed in small doses.  One of those figures (with which English political life is studded) remembered principally for having been almost a successful politician, almost a great writer or almost a viceroy, he even managed to be almost a lord but, despite switching party allegiances to curry favor with the Labour government (1945-1951), the longed-for peerage was never offered and he was compelled to accept a knighthood.  His KCVO (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, an honor in the personal gift of the sovereign) was granted in 1953 in thanks for his generous (though well-reviewed and received) biography of the stamp-collecting George V (1865-1936, King of England 1910-1936) although those who could read between the lines found it not hard to work out which of the monarch’s activities the author thought bedint.  As it was, Nicolson took his KCVO, several rungs down the ladder of the Order of Precedence, accepting it only "faute de mieux" (in the absence of anything better) and describing it “a bedint knighthood”, wondering if, given the shame, he should resign from his clubs.

Wedding day: Duff Cooper & Lady Diana Manners, St Margaret's Church, London, 2 June 1919.

So a knighthood, a thing which many have craved, can be bedint if it's not the right knighthood.  When the Tory politician Duff Cooper (1890–1954) ended his term (1944-1948) as the UK's ambassador to France, the Labor government (which had kept him on) granted a GCMG (Knight Grand Commander of the order of St Michael & St George) and although he thought his years as a cabinet minister might have warranted a peerage, he accepted while wryly noting in his diary it was hardly something for which he should  be congratulated because: "No ambassador in Paris has ever failed to acquire the it since the order was invented and the Foreign Office has shown how much importance they attach to it by conferring it simultaneously on my successor Oliver Harvey (1893-1968), who is, I suppose, the least distinguished man who has ever been appointed to the post".  Still, Cooper took his "bedint" GCMG and when a Tory government returned to office, he was, shortly before his death, raised to the peerage, choosing to be styled Viscount Norwich of Aldwick.  His wife (Lady Diana Cooper (1892–1986) didn't fancy becoming "Lady Norwich" because she though it "sounded like porridge" (additionally, she had good "brand recognition") and took the precaution of placing notices in The Times and Daily Telegraph telling all who mattered she would continue to be styled "Lady Diana Cooper".  They had a "modern marriage" so differences between them were not unusual.

Nude & Naked

Nude (pronounced nood or nyood)

(1) Naked or unclothed, as a person or the body.

(2) Without the usual coverings, furnishings etc; bare.

(3) In art, being or prominently displaying a representation of the nude human figure.

(4) In law, a contract made without a consideration or other legal essential and therefore invalid (nudum pactum).

(5) In historic commercial use (usually for underwear), a light grayish-yellow brown to brownish-pink color (no longer in common use; now considered offensive because of the cultural implications of its association with white skin).

1531: As an artistic euphemism for naked, use was first applied to sculpture first emerged in the 1610s but the term not common in painting until the mid-nineteenth century when the idea of "the nude" was recognized as a genre.  The origin of the use in painting in the sense of "the representation of the undraped human figure in visual art" is said to date from 1708 and be derived from the French nud, an obsolete variant of nu (naked, nude, bare) also from the Latin nūdus.  The phrase idea of being in the nude (in a condition of being unclothed) emerged in the 1850s in parallel with the use in art criticism.

The adjective nude in legal use dates from the 1530s and meant "unsupported, not formally attested", the use from the Latin nūdus (naked, bare, unclothed, stripped) from the primitive Indo-European root nogw- (naked).  In legal matters it was typically applied in contract law (hence the "nude contract") and, by extension, the general sense of "mere, plain, simple" emerged twenty years later.  is attested from 1550s. In reference to the human body, "unclothed, undraped," it is an artistic euphemism for naked, dating from 1610s (implied in nudity) but not in common use in this sense until mid-nineteenth century.  The noun nudie (a nude show) dates from 1935 while the much earlier noun nudification (making naked) was from 1838, presumably a direct borrowing of the French nudification which had been in use since 1833.  The practice of nudism actually has roots in Antiquity but nudist (as applied to both practitioners and practice) came into use only in 1929 as an adjective and noun, both influenced by the French nudiste.  The noun nudism (the cult and practice of going unclothed) also dates from 1929 and in the UK, however inaccurately, it was described as a cult of German origin which had been picked up also by the more bohemian of the French, the more respectable London press linking the practice with vegetarianism, physical exercise, pagan worship and the eating of seeds.  Nude, nudeness  & nudist are nouns & adjectives and nudity & nudism are nouns; the noun plural is nudes.

Naked (pronounced ney-kid (U) or neck-ed (non-U))

(1) Being without clothing or covering; nude.

(2) Without adequate clothing.

(3) A natural environment bare of any covering, overlying matter, vegetation, foliage, or the like.

(4) Bare, stripped, or destitute.

(5) A descriptor of the most basic version of something sometimes more elaborate or embellished.

(6) In optics, as applied to the eye, sight etc, unassisted by a microscope, telescope, or other instrument.

(7) Defenseless; unprotected; exposed.

(8) Not accompanied or supplemented by anything else.

(9) In botany, (of seeds) not enclosed in an ovary; (of flowers) without a calyx or perianth; (of branches etc) without leaves; (of stalks, leaves etc) without hairs or pubescence.

(10) In zoology, having no covering of hair, feathers, shell etc.

(11) In motorcycle design, a machine in which the frame and engine are substantially exposed by virtue of screens and fairings not being fitted.

Pre 900: From the Middle English nakede & naked (without the usual or customary covering" (of a sword etc)) from the Old English nacod (nude, bare, empty or not fully clothed); related to the Old High German nackot, the Old Norse noktr and Latin nudus; cognate with the Dutch naakt, the German nackt, the Gothic naqths; akin to the Old Norse nakinn, the Latin nūdus, the Greek gymnós and Sanskrit nagnás.  Source was the Proto-Germanic nakwathaz, also the root of the Old Frisian nakad, the Middle Dutch naket, the Old Norse nökkviðr, the Old Swedish nakuþer and the Gothic naqaþs and ultimate source the primitive European nogw (naked), related to the Sanskrit nagna, the Hittite nekumant, the Old Persian nagna, the Lithuanian nuogas, the Old Church Slavonic nagu, the Russian nagoi, the Old Irish nocht and the Welsh noeth.  As applied to qualities, actions, etc, use emerged in the early thirteenth century, the phrase “naked truth” first noted in 1585 in Alexander Montgomerie's (circa 1550-1598) The Cherry and the Slae.  The phrase “naked as a jaybird (1943) was earlier referenced as “naked as a robin” (1879); the earliest known comparative based on it was the fourteenth century “naked as a needle”.  “Naked eye” is from 1660s, the form unnecessary in the world before improvements in lens grinding technology led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes.  The adjective nakedly (without concealment, plainly, openly) was from circa 1200.  The noun nakedness was from the Old English nacedness (nudity, bareness).  Naked is a verb & adjective and nakedness & nakedhood are nouns.  The special use of naked as a noun applies to motorcycles in which case the noun plural is nakeds.

Naked motorcycles:  2010 Ducati 1098 Streetfighter (left) and 2015 MV Agusta Stradale (right).

Those with a fondness for such things can spend a long time admiring the intricacy of machines like these, the exposed pipework of exhaust systems exerting a particular fascination.  On the BMW motorcycle forums (fora for those who insist on the Latin plural) it’s not uncommon to read of longings for the factory to produce a naked version of the straight-six K1600, a machine available since 2011 only with extensive fairings, befitting its role as a “touring bike”.  What the aficionados want is to see are the curves of the six stainless exhaust headers which would be as pleasing as those on the old Benelli Sei (Six, 1973-1978).

1976 Benelli Sei 750.  This is the appeal of the naked look; it would be sad to conceal the sensuous steel beneath some sort of plastic.

The concept of the naked motorcycle is a machine reduced to its essence of a frame, wheels and an engine, thereby making it lighter than more exotically configured models which may include flashings, windshields, saddlebags or fairings.  Simple physics mean a machine with less mass accelerates, turns and stops with less demand of energy and at low speed they tend to be easier to manoeuvre, are lighter to hold up when static and certainly easier to mount on a centre-stand.  There's also the attraction there are fewer things to break, fibreglass fairings being notorious for getting cracked, scratched or broken and Perspex screens are, with age, prone to cloudiness.  The look however is why some buy naked bikes, the intricacies of the exposed mechanicals appealing especially to engineers anxious to display the quality of the frame's welding or the indefinable but real attraction of Allen-headed bolts.  They're also quick.  Although sacrificing the aerodynamic advantages gained by fairings means in some cases the naked machines can have lower top speeds, they tend to accelerate with more alacrity, offer instant responsiveness and, in street use, top speeds are now anyway rarely approached.

1936 John Deere Model B Row Crop Tractor (“Unstyled”).

The concept known to motorcyclists as the “naked” existed also in agricultural machinery, all of which presumably began in a “naked” form with protective housings added later.  As such equipment became big business in commerce, decorative embellishments would have been the last appendages to appear.  Until the 1939 model-cycle, John Deere’s (JD) row crop tractors were “naked” in execution with the steering post, radiator and most of the engine exposed, the wheels often with spokes running from hub to rim.  However, in 1938, JD hired the industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972) and he created the shapes of the sheet metal which was added to cover many of the exposed areas, including the radiator, the new grill unmistakably from the art deco era and perhaps influenced by the memorable “coffin-nosed” Cords (810-812, 1936-1937).  Mr Dreyfuss’s distinctive radiator cowling was for generations a signature element of many of JD’s Tractors.

1956 John Deere Model 60 Row Crop Tractor (“Styled”).

At the time, such ventures were thought “styling” rather than “designing” so the new JD ranges came to be dubbed the “Styled” and the predecessors retrospective this became the “Unstyled” and also a marker of the new was the use of solid steel wheels to replace the spoke units.  Although heavier and using more steel, the solid wheels were cheaper to produce because they eliminated the use of much labor.  JD’s switch to “Styled” versions was phased in over several years with the models “D” & “G” being the last to appear in the original “naked” configuration.  JD and Mr Dreyfuss put effort and capital into the “Styled” project and as the company’s product line for decades indicated, they were well-pleased with the result and no doubt would not have predicted that early in the twenty-first century, with vintage tractors a collectable item (and definitely there are identifiable cults among the calling), there would be those who would take a 1942  “Styled” JD and lovingly transform it into an “Unstyled”.

Trimline phone in white, available also in designer colors.  Western Electric's original Trimline was available in 36 finishes (33 shades plus faux teak or walnut and the obviously daring “Transparent”) including JD’s signature green & yellow.

Although his name remains well-known in the field, Henry Dreyfuss is somewhat neglected in the public imagination although his breadth was remarkable, encompassing both industrial and consumer products ranging from vacuum cleaners, typewriters and alarm clocks to heavy locomotives, tractors and office buildings.  His most enduring contribution to daily American life was his involvement in the design of telephone handsets, his models for Western Electric serving as standard household and office fixtures between the 1940s and 1990s while the wall-mountable Trimline (1965) and twelve-digit touch-phone (1968) to this day remain available as retro items.

Nude or naked?

In many places the words may correctly be used interchangeably.  In law, a nude and a naked contract are the same, a pact which is unenforceable because if doesn’t possess all the elements required to be valid.  The legal maxim nuda pactio obligationem non parit signifies a naked promise which is a promise without anything being provided in return.  Nuda pactio obligationem non parit thus does not create a legal obligation.

The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956) by Kenneth Clark, Bollingen Series, Pantheon Books, New York, 1956.

Lord Clark (Kenneth Clark, 1903-1983), a cultural elitist of a kind now perhaps either extinct or rendered silent by a less deferential culture, opened The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form by noting naked implied something embarrassing yet nude “…carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.”  Clark certainly wrote for an “educated” audience and his view was there were works of art in which there were nudes but other depictions were just variations of nakedness for whatever purpose.  The nude, he concluded, “…is not the subject of art, but a form of art.”  In critical circles that's now mostly the accepted orthodoxy but since Antiquity not all elites (even the “educated” ones) have shared the view and it wasn't just medieval popes who sought to cover up the unclothed, sometimes with draping and sometimes fig leaves, all judiciously placed.  Other have been more destructive, burning or reducing to rubble “that which should offend thine eye”. 

Highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996) who, as is done in her profession, appears sometimes “in the nude” although Lord Clark would have called that state of undress: “nakedness”.

In other words, the models in men's magazines were photographed naked while figures rendered in fine art were part of the tradition of the nude.  Photographers who thought their work artistic didn't agree and the onset of cultural relativism means such debates, whatever opinions may be held, are now rare.  However, the adoption by some that nude was something to used exclusively about works of art dates only from the eighteenth century, a movement led by critics and the commercial art industry which wanted the English market again to start buying the many nudes available for sale but which, even before the Victorian era, had fallen from fashion.

New York Magazine, February 2008 (Spring Fashion Issue).

Bert Stern’s (1929-2013) nude photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) was commissioned by Vogue magazine and shot over three days, some six weeks before her death.  In book form, the images captured were compiled and published as The Last Sitting (first edition, William Morrow and Company (1982) ISBN 0-688-01173-X).  Stern reprised his work in 2008 with Lindsay Lohan, the photographs published in February 2008’s spring fashion issue of New York magazine.  Stern chose the medium of forty-six years earlier, committing the images to celluloid rather than using anything digital.  The reprised sessions visually echoed the original with a languorous air though the diaphanous fabrics were draped sometimes less artfully than all those years ago.  He later expressed ambivalence about the shoot, hinting regret at having imitated his own work but the photographs remain an exemplar of peak-Lohanary.

First published in 1968, New York magazine is now owned by Vox media and, unlike many, its print edition still appears on surviving news-stands.  The editorial focus has over the decades shifted, the most interesting trend-line being the extent to which it could be said to be very much a “New York-centred” publication, something which comes and goes but the most distinguishing characteristic has always been a willingness (often an eagerness) to descend into pop-culture in a way the New Yorker's editors would have distained; it was in a 1985 New York cover story the term “Brat Pack” first appeared.  Coined by journalist David Blum (b 1955) and about a number of successful early twenty-something film stars, the piece proved controversial because the subjects raised concerns about what they claimed was Blum’s unethical tactics in obtaining the material.  The term was a play on “Rat Pack” which in the 1950s had been used of an earlier group of entertainers although Blum also noted another journalist's coining of “Fat Pack”, used in restaurant-related stories.

Lindsay Lohan, Playboy magazine cover, January/February 2012.

Nudity & nakedness are defined by both context & circumstances.  The cover photograph for Lindsay Lohan's 2012 Playboy shoot was, in the narrow technical sense, ambiguous because the chair could have been concealing a pair of delicate lace knickers.  Importantly, even though there are stilettos on the feet, this is still a nude shot because, in this context, shoes don't count; everybody knows that.

Actually, in the context of nude shots it’s probably more correct to say stilettos can be part of the construct of "the nude", the shoes having a long history as an element in such photo sessions, the connotation well-understood.  For that reason, the motif was the one addition to a “nude pin-up calendar” published in 2010 by EIZO Corporation (株式会社, EIZO Kabushiki-gaisha), a Japanese visual technology company which began in 1968 as a television manufacturer.  The name EIZO is an unaltered use of the Japanese 映像 (eizō) (image).  As electronics became progressively cheaper and more powerful there was a proliferation in the use of screens for many purposes and EIZO responded by diversifying into products such as arcade game hardware, computer monitors, VCRs (video cassette recorders) and cassette players.  In 2002, a range of monitors for medical imaging was introduced and the novel calendar appeared to promote its radiological devices.

Eizo Pin-up calendar, 2010.

Advertising Agency: Butter, Berlin & Duesseldorf, Germany
Creative Director: Matthias Eickmeyer
Art Director: Nadine Schlichte
Illustrator/CGI: Carsten Mainz
Copywriter: Reinhard Henke

The theme of the calendar was a model scanned in twelve stereotypical “pin-up” poses, the young lady nude except for her stilettos with the images in the form of classic X-Ray film.  What that meant was the model was in a sense more naked than most nudes because all that was visible (except for the stilettos) was the skeleton and an adumbrated outline of the skin; like the more “artistic” pornography, much was achieved by having a viewer’s mind “fill in the gaps” as it were.  It attracted much interest but it soon was revealed no model was irradiated in the making of the calendar, the images all created with CGI (computer-generated imagery).  The concept came from Berlin-based creative agency Butter and in terms of brand-recognition was an outstanding success because before images of the calendar went viral, it’s doubtful many outside the Japanese electronics industry had heard of EIZO and their highly-regarded monitors.

What a stiletto imposes on the wearer’s “metatarsophalangeal joint between the metatarsal and proximal phalangeal bones” attracted some comment.  It seems a small price to pay for the pleasure men gain from seeing a foot in these classic shoes.

Being the internet, the images were of course deconstructed even before Butter revealed the truth.  Those well acquainted with medical imaging pointed out it was obvious they were digital composites because some things appeared as “white” when they should have been “black”, Miss July’s nipples apparently an obvious clue (for those with a trained eye) while others pointed out a “conspicuous absence of bowel gas and pulmonary vascularity.”  What the careful analysis of the images did proved was just how well-trained those eyes must be because (presumably) no radiologists have ever before had to assess subjects imaged in quite these positions.

Butter's “No model was harmed in the making of EIZO's calendar” explanation of the production process: (1) The wireframe skeleton (top left) and skin (top right), (2) Rendering the skeleton (middle left) and skin (middle right), (3) Combining and inverting the skin & skeleton renderings (bottom right) and (4) the final image after detail editing.   It was at stage (4) that, had a trained consultant been on hand, something like the color of Miss July's nipples would have been corrected but that seems a minor quibble about what was an imaginative project.

In high fashion, there has for some time been pressure on the industry (in Europe in some jurisdictions this has even assumed a legislative form) to move away from the use of untypically (even unusually) thin models on catwalks and in advertising in favor of those with bodies more representative of the population.  Although it's obvious this has resulted in something of a "quota-system" of "plus-sized" models, to date the industry has proved remarkably adept in keeping the catwalks and photo-shots "thin" and unattributed sources within the agencies have been quoted as saying they are still requested by the fashion houses and publications to supply the traditional shape with "just enough" of the larger types added (thrown-in, as it were).  So, in an era when the "please do not feed the models" meme cut a bit close to the bone, to reassure the internet their calendar had required no model to be exposed to a high-dose of radiation, Butter published pictures of the physical wireframes constructed for the CGI modelling; while that proved she was all pixels and there was no exploitation, a feminist critique would still detect the gratuitous objectification of the female form.  Still, neither agency or client could resist the tagline: “The EIZO Medical pin-up calendar – just like EIZO monitors – really does show every detail.”

Nude bras by Flora & Fauna (left) and Capeizo (right).

The concept of the “nude bra” was one of the unanticipated consequences of the emergence of DEI (diversity, equality & inclusion) as part of the West’s linguistic and cultural framework.  The beige bra has long been an industry staple and although the products are sometimes described as a “boring beige bra”, their usual qualities (comfortable, supportive and unobtrusive) made them an “everyday essential”.  However, the functional, if unexciting, garments tended once to be marketed as “skin-tone” which obviously was intrinsically exclusionary because it implied skin was “beige” and thus one of the many examples of “white privilege”.  Accordingly, mostly the industry shifted to value-free descriptors such as beige, black, brown, green, grey, ivory, pink, purple, red, white etc.  The purpose of a nude bra is to be nearly imperceptible under clothing, achieved by the fabric as closely as possible matching the skin tone and the obvious implication is what is a nude bra for one might be quite the opposite for another.  Glamour has a a helpful on-line guide based on the idea of skin's undertones able to be classified as cool, warm, or neutral and notes that while in underwear "black" and "white" tend to be universal, colors like beige or brown are spectrums and there are variations, both between manufacturers and even within their ranges,  That's good because even within a construct like "black skin" or "white skin", there are variations so ideally the selection of a nude bra will involve a consumer comparing fabric with flesh.

Polka

Polka (pronounced pohl-kuh or poh-kuh)

(1) A lively couple dance of Bohemian origin, with music in duple meter (three steps and a hop, in fast duple time).

(2) A piece of music for such a dance or in its rhythm.

(3) To dance the polka.

(4) As polka-dot (sometimes polka dot or polkadot), a dot or round spot (printed, woven, or embroidered) repeated to form a pattern on a surface, especially textiles; a term for anything (especially clothing) with this design.

1844: From the French polka, from the German Polka, probably from the Czech polka, (the dance, literally "Polish woman" (Polish Polka), feminine form of Polak (a Pole).  The word might instead be a variant of the Czech půlka (half (půl the truncated version of půlka used in special cases (eg telling the time al la the English “half four”))) a reference to the half-steps of Bohemian peasant dances; it may even have been a merger of both.  The dance first came into vogue in 1835 in Prague, reaching London in the spring of 1842; Johann Strauss the younger (1825-1899) wrote many polkas.  Polka was a verb by 1846 as (briefly) was polk and notoriously, the fabric pattern sometimes is mispronounced as "poke-a-dot".  Polka is a noun & verb, polka, polka-dot & polkabilly are nouns and polka-like is an adjective; the noun plural is polkas.

Lindsay Lohan in polka-dot dress, Los Angeles, 2010.

Polka-dot (a pattern consisting of dots (usually) uniform in size and arrangement) is used especially on women’s clothing (men seem permitted accessories such as ties, socks, scarves, handkerchiefs etc) and is attested from 1851 although both polka-spot and polka-dotted are documented in 1849.  

Why the name came to be associated with the then widely popular dance is unknown but most speculate it was likely an associative thing, spotted dresses popular with the Romani (Roma; Traveller; Gypsy) girls who often performed the polka dance.  Fashion journals note that, in the way of such things, the fad faded fast but there was a revival in 1873-1874 and the polka-dot since has never gone away, waxing and waning in popularity but always there somewhere.

In fashion, it’s understood that playing with the two primary variables in polka-dot fabrics (the color mix and the size of the dots) radically can affect the appeal of an outfit.  The classic black & white combination of course never fails but some colors just don’t work together, either because the contrast in insufficient or because the mix produces something ghastly.  Actually, combinations judged ghastly if rendered in a traditional polka dot can successfully be used if the dots are small enough in order to produce something which will appear at most angles close to a solid color yet be more interesting because of the effect of light and movement.  However, once dots are too small, the design ceases to be a polka dot.  It’s not precisely defined what the minimum size of a dot need to be but, as a general principle, its needs to be recognizably “dotty” to the naked eye at a distance of a few feet.

Why Men Like Straight Lines and Women Like Polka Dots: Gender and Visual Psychology (2014) by Professor Gloria Moss.

There’s also the sexual politics of the polka dot, Gloria Moss, Professor of Marketing & Management at Buckinghamshire New University and a visiting professor at the Ecole Superieure de Gestion (ESG) in Paris exploring the matter in her book Why Men Like Straight Lines and Women Like Polka Dots: Gender and Visual Psychology (Psyche Books, 2014, pp 237).  An amusing mix which both reviews the academic literature and flavors the text with anecdotes, Dr Moss constructs a thesis in which the preferences of men and their designs lie in the origins of modern humanity and the need for hunters to optimize their vision on distant horizons while maintaining sufficient peripheral vision to maintain situational awareness, threats on the steppe or savannah coming from any direction.  So men focus of straight line, ignoring color or extraneous detail unless either are essential to the hunt and thus survival, perhaps of the whole tribe.  By contrast, women’s preferences are rooted in the daily routine of the gatherer those millions of years ago, vision focused on that which was close, the nuts and berries to be picked and the infants with their rounded features to be nurtured.  From this came the premium afforded to responsiveness to round shapes, color contrasts and detail.  Being something of an intrusion into the world of the geneticists and anthropologists, reaction to the book wasn't wholly positive but few can have found reading it dull or unchallenging.  Of course, it won't surprise women that in men there is still much of the stone age but, for better or worse, Dr Moss concluded some of them belong there too.

Singer Ariana Grande (b 1993) and her equally famous “snatched high ponytail” in Fendi polka-dots, 2025 MTV Video Music Awards, UBS Arena, Elmont, New York, September 2025.

Over the last few decades, although the popularity on the catwalks would come and go, in the high streets shop-fronts or the on-line catalogues, polka-dots have never disappeared.  Despite that, in April 2025 Vogue magazine announced polka-dots were “making a comeback” for the (northern) spring & summer season by which it seems to have meant the look was returning to designer collections, having apparently been of late consigned to “Holland Park mums on the school run or brunching on the King’s Road”.  Thoughtfully, the magazine included the now obligatory trigger warning, this time urging caution on the trypophobic (those suffering from trypophobia (an obsessive or irrational fear of patterns or clusters of small holes)).  Noting the design’s history of association with the “prim and proper”, Vogue suggested the fabric could be “toughened up with leather” or “mixed with bold colour”, suggesting the striking juxtaposition of “a floaty polka dot dress with your most worn-in leather boots.”  In such matters, Vogue’s editors are the pros and say however it’s done, the trick is “fully to commit”.

Vincent Siriano's Spring/Summer 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Macy’s Herald Square, New York City, September 2025.

US designer Vincent Siriano (b 1985) doubtlessly well knows fashion's classic maxim (one of many): “Don’t mix spots and stripes” but clearly he’s not afraid to disrupt what had become something of an orthodoxy.  It wasn’t always that way and in the 1950s and 1960s when houses often would introduce their lines in the well-upholstered surrounds of up-market department stores, it wasn’t unknown for spots & stripes peacefully to coexist, sometimes in quite striking color combinations.  Whether coincidental or not, Mr Siriano chose to debut his Spring/Summer 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Macy’s Herald Square, now thought a hub more for tourism than fashion.  According to the designer, the nostalgic nod reflected his fondness for such places (or at least what they used to be) and his “ethos of inclusivity and accessibility in the fashion industry.”  Presumably, the store’s sponsorship money made it an especially good place to put a catwalk.

Vincent Siriano's Spring/Summer 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection at Macy’s Herald Square, New York City, September 2025.

Whether or not with stripes, the black & white polka-dots were eye-catching but what attracted some were the gigot sleeves.  Variously implemented, gigots were billowingly full at the shoulder, diminishing in volume around the elbow before gradually becoming tight at the wrist; the French gigot translating literally as “leg” (and used usually of livestock), in industry slang they were known as the “leg of mutton sleeve”.  In the nineteenth century, the puffy style came and went several times before a few revivals in the 1960s & 1970s were thought to have forever buried the look.  One of the reasons for the sudden “extinction of 1896” was that stylistically it had nowhere to go but “bigger” and the gigot by then truly could be monstrous, some garments demanding 2½ yards (2¼ metres) of material.  The most extreme could retain their shape only with the use of internal whalebone hoops but the development of lightweight plastics and synthetic fabrics meant the gigot’s post-war resurrection was more manageable for both makers and wearers although their impracticality rendered the most voluminous a catwalk item with all that implies.  Mr Siriano including them in 2026 in a “ready-to-wear” collection shouldn’t be taken too literally but he's serious about the polka-dots and indications are they're back in numbers for another season.  It's a welcome return.

Demimonde

Demimonde (pronounced dem-ee-mond or duh-mee-mawnd (French))

(1) That class of women existing beyond or on the margins of respectable society because of their indiscreet behavior or sexual promiscuity; typically they were mistresses but not courtesans and certainly not prostitutes (classic meaning from the mid-late nineteenth century).

(2) A group, the activities of which are ethically or legally questionable (later use).

(3) Any social group considered to be not wholly respectable (though vested sometimes with a certain edgy glamour).

(4) By extension, a member of such a class or group of persons.

1850–1855: From the French demi-monde, the construct being demi- (half) + monde (world (in the sense of “people”)), thus literally “half world” and translatable as something like “those really not ‘one of us’”.  It may have been coined by the French author and playwright Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) but certainly was popularized in his comedic play, Le Demi Monde (1855).  The hyphenated original from French (demi-monde) is sometimes used in English.  Demimonde is a noun; the noun plural is demimondes.

In English, demi dates from the mid-1300 and was from the Middle English demi (half, half-sized, partial), from the twelfth century Anglo-Norman demi (half), from the Vulgar Latin dimedius, from the Classical Latin dīmidius, the construct being dis- (apart; in two) + medius (middle).  The French demi (which English borrowed) was a combining form which existed as noun, adjective, and adverb.  The French monde was from the twelfth century Old French monde, a semi-learned form of the tenth century mont (etymologists trace the alteration to ensure the word was distinct from the unrelated mont (mountain)), from the Latin mundus which could mean (1) clean, pure; neat, nice, fine, elegant, sophisticated, decorated, adorned or (2) universe, world (especially the heavens and heavenly bodies with the sense “universe” being a calque of the Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos)).or mankind (as in "inhabitants of the earth").  In Medieval Latin it was used also the mean "century" and "group of people".  The Latin mundus may have been from the Etruscan munθ (order, kit, ornament) or the primitive Indo-European mhnd- (to adorn) which was cognate with the Old High German mandag (joyful, happy; dashing).  As well as the historically pejorative sense in demimonde, “demi” appeared in other loanwords from French meaning “half”  including demilunes (in the shape of a half-moon (semi-circular)) and demitasse (a small coffee cup of the type associated with the short black) and, on that model, is also prefixed to words of English origin (eg demigod).

Treading Water Perfume's Demimonde.  The Trending Water brand is described as “queer-owned” and the products are “hand crafted”.

Similar forms in French included beau monde (literally “beautiful world”, the plural being beaux mondes) which meant “the fashionable part of society” (ie the “beautiful people”) and demi-mondaine (plural demimondaines) which was used in a variety of ways ranging from “women of equivocal reputation and standing in society” to “a sexually promiscuous woman” (ie, one of the demimonde).  Of lifestyles in some way disreputable (or at least unconventional), the terms “bohemian” and “demimonde” are often used although if one is to acknowledge the history of use, they should be differentiated despite both being associated with non-conformity.  Bohemianiam is best used of artistic and intellectual milieus where there’s a pursuit of the non-orthodox and often a rejection of societal norms (or they are at least ignored).  Demimonde, reflecting the specific origin as describing a social class of women financially able to sustain a lifestyle deemed morally dubious, retains to this day the hint of something disreputable although with the decline in the observation of such things, this is now more nuanced.  The gradual distancing of the word from its origins in the intricacies of defining the sexual morality of nineteenth century French women meant it became available to all and in her politely received novel The Last Thing He Wanted (1996), Joan Didion (1934-2021) explored the murky world of the back-channel deals in politics as it is practiced, a demimonde in which individuals are “trying to create a context for democracy” but may be “getting [their] hands a little dirty in the process.”

The Canyons (2013), Lindsay Lohan's demimonde film.

It was Alexandre Dumas’ play Le Demi Monde (1855) which popularized the use but in earlier works, notably La Dame aux Camélias (1848), the character of the demi-mondaine is identifiable although in that work the doomed protagonist is more of a courtesan whereas as used during the second half of the century, the term really wasn’t applied to that class and was most associated with women on the margins of “respectable society” who lived lavishly thanks to wealthy patrons; subtly different from a courtesan.  The literal translation “half-world” implied an existence halfway between the “proper" world and that of the disreputable and that was the sense in the late Victorian era of the Belle Époque era: glamorous but morally ambiguous women, living on the margins of high society in a state of the tolerably scandalous.  Social mores and moral codes are of course fluid and in the first half of the twentieth century the meaning shifted to encompass some other marginalized or shadowy subcultures and ones which encompassed not only women and the association was no longer of necessity associated with sexual conduct.  Thus bohemian artists, the underground nightlife, those who live by gambling and later the counter-cultural movements all came to be described as demimonde.  What that meant was these was less of a meaning shift than an expansion, the word now applied to many groups existing in some way not wholly outside the mainstream but neither entirely in conformity.  There were thus many demimondes and that use persists to this day although the air of the glamorous depicted by Dumas is now often absent, some demimondes distinctly squalid and definitely disreputable.

By the late nineteenth century the notion of the demimonde had attracted the avant-garde and non-conformists, their circles of artists, writers and intellectuals in their own way vested with the edgy glamour of the type attached to the salons the well-kept mistresses conducted in parallel with those of the establishment ladies and it’s easy to draw parallels with Andy Warhol’s (1928–1987) Factory in the 1960s which was a magnet for New York’s non-mainstream “creatives” as well as the flotsam and jetsam of the art schools.  Sometimes too, there are echos, the demimonde of Berlin after the fall of the wall (1989) drawing comparisons with that described in the city during the last years the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  So, the track of demimonde has been (1) mistresses, and women not quite respectable but with funds enough to defy conventions (nineteenth century), (2) the more subversive of the avant-garde added (early twentieth century), (3) bohemian subcultures, various “underground” scenes (mid-late twentieth century) and (4) reflecting the implication of post-modernity, anyone who likes the label.

Sarah Bernhardt (1876), oil on canvas by Georges Clairin (1843-1919).

The Parisian Belle Époque (beautiful era) was the time between the late 1800s and the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918).  For more than a century the period has been celebrated (accurately and not) in art and literature, the great paintings mush sought by collectors.  The Belle Époque is considered still one of Europe’s “golden ages” and although its charms would have escaped most of the working population, for the fortunate few it was a time of vitality and optimism and in some ways modernity’s finest hour until ended by the blast of war.  One trend was the way the cultural hegemony of the private salons of the networks of artists, aristocrats and intellectuals lost some its hold as discourse shifted to the more public (and publicized) realm of the stage, cabriolets and cafés, lending a new theatricality to society life and an essential part was the demimonde, those who operated in the swirling milieu yet were not quite an accepted part of it, their flouting of traditional mores and bourgeois politeness perhaps a little envied but not obviously embraced.  While it could be said to include drug-takers, gamblers and such, the classic exemplar in the spirit of Dumas’ demimonde was the demimondaine, those thrusting women who maintained their elevated (if not respectable) position by parlaying their attractiveness and availability to men willing to pay for the experience.  It usually wasn’t concubinage and certainly not prostitution (as understood) but it was clear les demimondaines belonged with the bohemians and artists of the avant-garde and they were known also as les grandes horizontals or mademoiselles les cocottes (hens) among other euphemisms but for youth and beauty much is tolerated if not forgiven and in all but the inner sanctums of the establishment, mostly there was peaceful co-existence.  Among the demimondaines were many actresses and dancers, a talent to entertain meaning transgressions might be overlooked or at least not much dwelt upon.  Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) benefited from that and her nickname monstre sacré (sacred monster) was gained by her enjoying a status which proved protective despite her life of ongoing controversy.  The Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) also found a niche as an amusing proto-celebrity with a good stock of one-liners and being part of the demimonde of the not quite respectable was integral to the appeal although being convicted of the abominable crime of buggery proved social suicide. 

Marthe de Florian (1898), oil on canvas by Italian-born society portraitist Giovanni Boldini (1842–1931).  The painter’s style of brushwork saw him dubbed le maître du swish (the master of swish) and he was another of Mademoiselle de Florian’s many lovers.

What tends now to be forgotten is that among the demimonde it was only figures like Bernhardt and Wilde who were well known outside of society gossip.  The once obscure Marthe de Florian (1864–1939) joined the “half worlders” by being, inter-alia, the one-time lover of four subsequent prime ministers of France (a reasonable achievement even given the churn rate in the office) although she took the name she adopted from a banker; nothing really matters except money.  When the details of her life emerged, they inspired the novel A Paris Apartment (2014) by US author Michelle Gable (b 1974), a theme of which was une demimondaine could be distinguished from a common prostitute because the former included (at least as a prelude) romance with the le grande acte (acts of intimacy) and ultimately some financial consideration.  That seems not a small difference and unlike the transactional prostitute, the implication was that to succeed in their specialized profession (debatably a calling), a demimondaine needed the skills associated with the Quai d'Orsay: tact, diplomacy, finesse, daring, low cunning and high charm.  It needed also devotion to the task because for Mlle de Florian to get where she did, she inspired “some three duels, an attempted suicide and at least one déniaisé (sexual initiation) of one lover’s eldest son”.