Floppy

Floppy (pronounced flop-ee)

(1) A tendency to flop.

(2) Limp, flexible, not hard, firm, or rigid; flexible; hanging loosely.

(3) In IT, a clipping of “floppy diskette”.

(4) In historic military slang (Apartheid-era South Africa & Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), an insurgent in the Rhodesian Bush War (the “Second Chimurenga” (from the Shona chimurenga (revolution)) 1964-1979), the use a reference to the way they were (in sardonic military humor) said to “flop” when shot.

(5) In informal use, a publication with covers made with a paper stock little heavier and more rigid that that used for the pages; Used mostly for comic books.

(6) In slang, a habitué of a flop-house (a cheap hotel, often used as permanent or semi-permanent accommodation by the poor or itinerant who would go there to “flop down” for a night) (archaic).

(7) In slang, as “floppy cats”, the breeders’ informal term for the ragdoll breed of cat, so named for their propensity to “go limp” when picked up (apparently because of a genetic mutation).

1855-1860: The construct was flop + -y.  Flop dates from 1595–1605 and was a variant of the verb “flap” (with the implication of a duller, heavier sound).  Flop has over the centuries gained many uses in slang and idiomatic form but in this context it meant “loosely to swing; to flap about”.  The sense of “fall or drop heavily” was in use by the mid-1830s and it was used to mean “totally to fail” in 1919 in the wake of the end of World War I (1914-1918), the conflict which wrote finis to the dynastic rule of centuries also of the Romanovs in Russia, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans in Constantinople although in the 1890s it was recorded as meaning “some degree of failure”.  The comparative is floppier, the superlative floppiest.  Floppy a noun & adjective, floppiness is a noun, flopped is a noun & verb, flopping is a verb, floppier& floppiest are adjectives and floppily is an adverb; the noun plural is floppies.  The adjective floppish is non-standard and used in the entertainment & publishing industries to refer to something which hasn’t exactly “flopped” (failed) but which had not fulfilled the commercial expectations.

Lindsay Lohan in "floppy-brim" hat, on-set during filming of Liz & Dick (2012).  In fashion, many "floppy-brim" hats actually have a stiff brim, formed in a permanently "floppy" shape.  The true "floppy hats" are those worn while playing sport or as beachwear etc.

The word is used as a modifier in pediatric medicine (floppy baby syndrome; floppy infant syndrome) and as “floppy-wristed” (synonymous with “limp-wristed”) was used as a gay slur.  “Flippy-floppy” was IT slang for “floppy diskette” and unrelated to the previous use of “flip-flop” or “flippy-floppy” which, dating from the 1880s was used to mean “a complete reversal of direction or change of position” and used in politics to suggest inconsistency.  In the febrile world of modern US politics, to be labelled a “flip-flopper” can be damaging because it carries with it the implication what one says can’t be relied upon and campaign “promises” might thus not be honored.  Whether that differs much from the politicians’ usual behaviour can be debated but still, few enjoy being accused of flip-floppery (definitely a non-standard noun).  The classic rejoinder to being called a flip-flopper is the quote: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”  That’s often attributed to the English economist and philosopher Lord Keynes (John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946) but it was said originally by US economist Paul Samuelson (1915–2009) the 1970 Nobel laureate in Economics.  In the popular imagination Keynes is often the “go to” economist for quote attribution in the way William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is a “go to author” and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) a “go to politician”, both credited with thing they never said but might have said.  I phraseology, the quality of “Shakespearian” or “Churchillian” not exactly definable but certainly recognizable.  In the jargon of early twentieth century electronics, a “flip-flop” was a reference to switching circuits that alternate between two states.

Childless cat lady Taylor Swift with her “floppy cat”, Benjamin Button (as stole).  Time magazine cover, 25 December 2023, announcing Ms Swift as their 2023 Person of the Year.  "Floppy cat" is the the breeders' informal term for the ragdoll breed an allusion to their tendency to “go limp” when picked up, a behavior believed caused by a genetic mutation.

The other use of flop in IT is the initialism FLOP (floating point operations per second).  Floating-point (FB) arithmetic (FP) a way of handling big real numbers using an integer with a fixed precision, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base; FP doesn’t really make possible what would not in theory be achievable using real numbers but does make this faster and practical and the concept became familiar in the 1980s when Intel made available FPUs (floating point units, also known as math co-processors) which could supplement the CPUs (central processing units) of their x86 family.  The 8087 FPU worked with the 8086 CPU and others followed (80286/80287, 80386/80387, i486/i487 etc) until eventually the FPU for the Pentium range was integrated into the CPU, the early implementation something of a debacle still used as a case study in a number of fields departments including management and public relations.

FLOPs are an expression of specific performance and are used to measure those computations requiring floating-point calculations (typically in math-intensive work) and for purposes of “benchmarking” or determining “real-world” performance under those conditions, it’s a more informative number than the traditional rating of instructions per second (iSec).  The FLOPs became something of a cult in the 1990s when the supercomputers of the era first breached the trillion FLOP mark and as speeds rose, the appropriate terms were created:

kiloFLOPS: (kFLOPS, 10³)
megaflops: (MFLOPS, 10⁶)
gigaflops: GFLOPS, 10⁹)
teraflops: TFLOPS, 10¹²)
petaFLOPS: PFLOPS, 10¹⁵)
exaFLOPS: (EFLOPS, 10¹⁸)
zettaFLOPS: ZFLOPS, 10²¹)
yottaFLOPS: YFLOPS, 10²⁴)
ronnaFLOPS: RFLOPS, 10²⁷)
quettaFLOPS: QFLOPS, 10³⁰)

In the mysterious world of quantum computing, FLOPs are not directly applicable because the architecture and methods of operation differ fundamentally from those of classical computers.  Rather than FLOPs, the performance of quantum computers tends to be measured in qubits (quantum bits) and quantum gates (the operations that manipulate qubits).  The architectural difference is profound and explained with the concepts of superposition and entanglement:  Because a qubit simultaneously can represent both “0” & “1” (superposition) and these can be can be entangled (a relationship in which distance is, at least in theory, irrelevant; under parallelism, performance cannot easily be reduced to simple arithmetic or floating-point operations which remain the domain of classical computers which operate using the binary distinction between “O” (off) and “1” (on).

Evolution of the floppy diskette: 8 inch (left), 5¼ inch (centre) & 3½ inch (right).  The track of the floppy for the past half-century has been emblematic of the IT industry in toto: smaller, higher capacity and cheaper.  Genuinely it was one of the design parameters for the 3½ inch design that it fit into a man's shirt pocket.

In IT, the term “floppy diskette” used the WORM (write once, read many, ie "read only" after being written) principle first appeared in 1971 (soon doubtless clipped to “floppy” although the first known use of this dates from 1974).  The first floppy diskettes were in an 8 inch (2023 mm) format which may sound profligate for something with a capacity of 80 kB (kilobyte) but the 10-20 MB (megabit) hard drives of the time were typically the same diameter as the aperture of domestic front-loading washing machine so genuinely they deserved the diminutive suffix (-ette, from the Middle English -ette, a borrowing from the Old French -ette, from the Latin -itta, the feminine form of -ittus.  It was used to form nouns meaning a smaller form of something).  They were an advance also in convenience because until they became available, the usual way to transfer files between devices was to hard-wire them together.  Introduced by IBM in 1971, the capacity was two years later raised to 256 kB and by 1977 to a heady 1.2 MB (megabyte) with the advent of a double-sided, double-density format.  However, even then it was obvious the future was physically smaller media and in 1978 the 5¼ inch (133 mm) floppy debuted, initially with a formatted capacity of 360 kB but by 1982 this too had be raised to 1.2 MB using the technological advance if a HD (high density) file system and it was the 5¼ floppy which would become the first widely adopted industry “standard” for both home and business use, creating the neologism “sneakernet”, the construct being sneaker + net(work), the image being of IT nerds in their jeans and sneakers walking between various (unconnected) computers and exchanging files via diskette.  Until well into the twenty-first century the practice was far from functionally extinct and it persists even today with the use of USB sticks.

Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) with 3½ inch floppy diskette (believed to be a HD (1.44 MB)).

The meme-makers use the floppy because it has become a symbol of technological bankruptcy. In OS (operating system) GUIs (graphical user interface) however, it does endure as the "save" icon and all the evidence to date does suggest that symbolic objects like icons do tend to outlive their source, thus the ongoing use in IT of analogue, rotary dial phones in iconography and the sound of a camera's physical shutter in smart phones.  Decades from now, we may still see representations of floppy diskettes.

The last of the mainstream floppy diskettes was the 3½ inch (89 mm) unit, introduced in 1983 in double density form with a capacity of 720 KB (although in one of their quixotic moves IBM used a unique 360 kB version for their JX range aimed at the educational market) but the classic 3½ was the HD 1.44 MB unit, released in 1986.  That really was the end of the line for the format because although in 1987 a 2.88 MB version was made available, few computer manufacturers offered the gesture of adding support at the BIOS (basic input output system) so adoption was infinitesimal.  The 3½ inch diskette continued in wide use and there was even the DMF (Distribution Media Format) with a 1.7 MB capacity which attracted companies like Microsoft, not because it wanted more space but to attempt to counter software piracy; within hours of Microsoft Office appearing in shrink-wrap with, copying cracks appeared on the bulletin boards (where nerds did stuff before the www (worldwideweb).  It was clear the floppy diskette was heading for extinction although slighter larger versions with capacities as high as 750 MB did appear but, expensive and needing different drive hardware, they were only ever a niche product seen mostly inside corporations.  By the time the CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read-only Memory) reached critical mass in the mid-late 1990s the once ubiquitous diskette began rapid to fade from use, the release in the next decade of the USB sticks (pen drives) a final nail in the coffin for most.

In the mid 1990s, installing OS/2 Warp 4.0 (Merlin) with the optional packs and a service pack could require a user to insert and swap up to 47 diskettes.  It could take hours, assuming one didn't suffer the dreaded "floppy failure".

That was something which pleased everyone except the floppy diskette manufacturers who had in the early 1990s experienced a remarkable boom in demand for their product when Microsoft Windows 3.1 (7 diskettes) and IBM’s OS/2 2.0 (21 diskettes) were released. Not only was the CD-ROM a cheaper solution than multiple diskettes (a remarkably labor-intensive business for software distributors) but it was also much more reliable, tales of an installation process failing on the “final diskette” legion and while some doubtlessly were apocryphal, "floppy failure" was far from unknown.  By the time OS/2 Warp 3.0 was released in 1994, it required a minimum of 23 floppy diskettes and version 4.0 shipped with a hefty 30 for a base installation.  Few mourned the floppy diskette and quickly learned to love the CD-ROM.

What lay inside a 3½ inch floppy diskette.

Unlike optical discs (CD-ROM, DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) & Blu-Ray) which were written and read with the light of a laser, floppy diskettes were read with magnetic heads.  Inside the vinyl sleeve was a woven liner impregnated with a lubricant, this to reduce friction on the spinning media and help keep the surfaces clean.

Curiously though, niches remained where the floppy lived on and it was only in 2019 the USAF (US Air Force) finally retired the use of floppy diskettes which since the 1970s had been the standard method for maintaining and distributing the data related to the nation’s nuclear weapons deployment.  The attractions of the system for the military were (1) it worked, (2) it was cheap and (3) it was impervious to outside tampering.  Global thermo-nuclear war being a serious business, the USAF wanted something secure and knew that once data was on a device in some way connected to the outside world there was no way it could be guaranteed to be secure from those with malign intent (ayatollahs, the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the Freemasons, those in the Kremlin or Pyongyang et al) whereas a diskette locked in briefcase or a safe was, paradoxically, the state of twenty-first century security, the same philosophy which has seen some diplomatic posts in certain countries revert to typewriters & carbon paper for the preparation of certain documents.  In 2019 however, the USAF announced that after much development, the floppies had been retired and replaced with what the Pentagon described as a “highly-secure solid-state digital storage solution which work with the Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS).”

It can still be done: Although no longer included in PCs & laptops, USB floppy diskette drives remain available (although support for Windows 11 systems is said to be "inconsistent").  Even 5¼ inch units have been built.

It thus came as a surprise in 2024 to learn Japan, the nation which had invented motorcycles which didn’t leak oil (the British though they’d proved that couldn’t be done) and the QR (quick response) code, finally was abandoning the floppy diskette.  Remarkably, even in 2024, the government of Japan still routinely asked corporations and citizens to submit documents on floppies, over 1000 statutes and regulations mandating the format.  The official in charge of updating things (in 2021 he’d “declared war” on floppy diskettes) in July 2024 announced “We have won the war on floppy disks!” which must have be satisfying because he’d earlier been forced to admit defeat in his attempt to defenestrate the country’s facsimile (fax) machines, the “pushback” just too great to overcome.  The news created some interest on Japanese social media, one tweet on X (formerly known as Twitter) damning the modest but enduring floppy as a “symbol of an anachronistic administration”, presumably as much a jab at the “tired old men” of the ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) as the devices.  There may however been an element of technological determinism in the reform because Sony, the last manufacturer of the floppy, ended production of them in 2011 so while many remain extant, the world’s supply is dwindling.  In some ways so modern and innovative, in other ways Japanese technology sometimes remains frozen, many businesses still demanding official documents to be endorsed using carved personal stamps called the印鑑 (ikan) or 判子 (hanko); despite the government's efforts to phase them out, their retirement is said to be proceeding at a “glacial pace”.  The other controversial aspect of the hanko is that the most prized are carved from ivory and it’s believed a significant part of the demand for black-market ivory comes from the hanko makers, most apparently passing through Hong Kong, for generations a home to “sanctions busters”.

Fluff

Fluff (pronounced fluhf)

(1) Light, downy particles, as of cotton.

(2) A soft, light, downy mass.

(3) In slang, a cloth diaper (nappy).

(4) In slang (New England region in the US), marshmallow crème, thus the local delicacy the “fluffernutter” (a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff), once a favorite of children’s school lunches but now likely to attract “mother shaming” on Instagram.

(5) In LGBTQQIAAOP slang, the passive partner in a lesbian relationship, known also as a “ruffle”.

(6) In slang, (Australia, New Zealand, Canada), a fart.

(7) In the slang of pop-culture fandom, fan fiction which (in whole or in part) is “sweet and feel-good” in tone, usually involving romance.

(8) In the slang (UK) of the role-playing game community, a form of role-playing which is inconsequential and not related to the plot and used sometimes in the context of (but not limited to) filling time.

(9) In UK slang short change deliberately given by a railway clerk (keeping the money for themselves), an example of a “deliberate fluff” (obsolete).

(10) Figuratively, something of no consequence; insubstantial.

(11) Figuratively (of literature, political argument, philosophy et al), a slight work or one of dubious artistic or intellectual value; unscholarly (used also as a polite euphemism for “bullshit (BS)” which is less explicit than “cattle feces” (“cattle faeces in non-US English).

(12) An error (flub, lapse, blooper, blunder, boo-boo, defect, error, fault, faux pas, gaffe, lapse, mistake, slip, stumble, brain-fart, brain-explosion), especially an actor's memory lapse in the delivery of lines (often in the form “fluffed their lines”.

(13) A young woman (often as “a bit of fluff”), the implication being of her providing a brief, amusing diversion rather than one sought for a permanent relationship)

(14) To make into fluff; shake or puff out (feathers, hair etc) into a fluffy mass (often followed by up).

(15) To make a mistake.

(16) To become fluffy; move, float, or settle down like fluff.

1780s: From the earlier (or perhaps contemporary) floow (woolly substance, down, nap, lint (which appeared also as flough, flue & flew)), possibly from the West Flemish vluwe (an imitative modification of floow), of uncertain origin but which may be from the French velu (hairy, furry), from the Latin villūtus (having shaggy hair), from villus (shaggy hair, tuft of hair) and may be compared with the Old English flōh (that which is flown off, fragment, piece), linked to the later “flaw”.  Although undocumented, etymologists generally conclude the word may have been a blend of flue +‎ puff.  “Fluffy stuff” is a common phenomenon in the natural world and descriptors existed in many European languages including the possibly onomatopoeic Middle Dutch vloe, the dialectal English floose, flooze & fleeze (particles of wool or cotton; fluff; loose threads or fibres), the Danish fnug (down, fluff) and the Swedish fnugg (speck, flake).  Traces of the sound of the word “fluff” are found in other languages including the Japanese フワフワ (fuwafuwa) (lightly, softly), the Hungarian puha (soft, fluffy), the Polish puchaty (soft, fluffy) and the Romanian puf (down; peachfuzz; soft hair of some animals; powderpuff).  Fluff & fluffing are nouns & verbs, fluffed is a verb, fluffiness & fluffer are nouns, fluffless & flufflike are adjectives, fluffy is an adjective (and non-standard) noun and fluffily is an adverb; the noun plural is fluffs.

Fluffied: Lindsay Lohan in bikini embellished with faux fur, photo-shoot for the fifth anniversary of ODDA magazine, April 2017.

In idiomatic use there’s “fluff around” of “fluff about” (ineffectually to act or waste time”, “fluff off” (an affectionate form of “fuck off”), “fluff-ball” or “ball of fluff” (a fluffy kitten or puppy with the quality of “cuteness”), “bum fluff” or “belly-button fluff” (small particles the fabric of clothing which accumulates in body crevices), “fluffhead” (someone vague or confused (synonymous with “airhead”), “fluff up” (a polite version of “fuck up”).  The term “fluffy bunny” isn’t from lagomorphology (the scientific study of rabbits (small mammals in the family Leporidae)) although it may be assumed it’s often heard in pet shops.  Fluffy bunny (also as “fluff bunny” & “fluffbunny”) was an adaptable noun used to mean: (1) a synonym of chubby bunny (a competitive eating game in which contestants had to pronounce words or phrases (such as “Irish wristwatch”) while holding increasing numbers of marshmallows is their mouth), (2) in the strange world of quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement which in theory can occur in theory never arises because of other physics and (3) a derogatory descriptor of a casual, naive practitioner of Wicca (or other neo-pagan religion), especially one deemed to have only a superficial understanding.  The slang “bit of fluff” (young woman with who one is enjoying or planning a brief affair) was first recorded in 1903 while the use to describe marshmallow confection seems to date from at least 1920, noted in Massachusetts.  The verb in the sense of “to shake into a soft mass” was in use by 1875 (directly from the noun) while the meaning “make a mistake” dates from 1884 as theater slang to refer to acts who had forgotten their lines.  The adjective fluffy (containing or resembling fluff) came into use in the 1820s.

Watergate Fluff

Watergate fluff is one of the alternative terms for the dish “Watergate Salad”, the others including Green Fluff, Green Goddess, Fluff Salad and Funeral Salad, the last picked up reputedly because it was so often served at wakes.  It’s not clear how the culinary delight came to be called “Watergate Salad” although there’s no doubt the use was triggered by some association the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s which revolved around attempts by the administration of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) to “cover up” the involvement of operatives connected to the White House with the break-in in June 1972 of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington DC’s Watergate Building.  Interestingly, although the scandal (in the public perception although the legal proceedings would last longer) ended in August 1974 when Nixon resigned, the first known use of the term “Watergate Salad” dates from 1975 although in September 1974, Maryland's Hagerstown Daily Mail had published the recipe for “Watergate Cake”, also a similarly green-tinted dessert made with pistachio pudding in the mix and sometimes the icing.

The dish however predates the term.  Some claim the Kraft Foods Corporation deserves credit (apparently as a proud boast rather than an admission of guilt) as the creator because in 1975 they published a recipe called “Pistachio Pineapple Delight” as part of a promotional campaign to support the release that year of their “Pistachio Pudding Mix” (something with a long tradition, a whipped cream and pineapple concoction detailed in a Kansas newspaper in 1913, the year Richard Nixon was born).  At that point, history and myth become hard to separate, on story saying the food editor of the Chicago Tribune named it to stimulate interest, suggesting it was the ideal snack to enjoy while watching the televised hearings of proceedings pursuant to the scandal while another suggested it was associative because the Watergate Hotel (in the infamous building) served the salad on their popular weekend buffets; no menus appear to have survived to prove or disprove that one.  Best of all is it’s because the salad is “full of nuts” (like the crew involved in the scandal, including the memorable lawyer and Watergate conspirator & burglary coordinator G Gordon Liddy (1930–2021) who wasn’t really “a nut” but certainly portrayed as one).  True or not, that’s the one which deserves to be accepted.

Aleita Dupree's Watergate Salad recipe

Ingredients

1 (3 ½ oz) box of instant pistachio pudding mix.
1 (20 oz) can of crushed pineapple with juice (most use sweetened).
1 (8 oz) container of cool whip, thawed.
1 heaped cup of miniature marshmallows.
½ cup of chopped pecan nuts.
Stemmed maraschino cherries for garnish (optional).

Instructions

(1) In glass serving bowl, mix crushed pineapple and juice with pistachio pudding mix.  Stir pudding until mix completely is dissolved and mixture is smooth.

(2) Fold in the thawed cool whip.  Gently fold until pudding and cool whip is completely blended.

(3) Add miniature marshmallows and pecans.  Cover and chill until salad is set (should take up to 30 minutes).

(4) To serve, garnish with stemmed cherries and extra chopped pecans (if desired).

Fluff in fashion

Fluffiness in fashion: Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022, left) and in New York to promote Irish Wish (Netflix, 2024, right).  The fluffy cream coat is by David Koma (Davit Komakhidze (Georgian: დავით კომახიძე); b 1985)) a London-based, Georgian-born fashion designer (the label of his fashion house is stylized as DΛVID KOMΛ).  The crystal payette-embroidered layered cup bra hints at the profile of the customer base; it’s on sale at US$1250 (down from US$1750).  The fashion business is regarded by some as a bit “fluffy” (frocks and such) compared with “hard” industries such as heavy engineering or nuclear weapons construction but the annual turnover of the global fashion industry is substantial.  The numbers bounce around a bit because it difficult to determine where “fashion” ends and “commodities” begin but estimates between US$1.5-2.5 trillion are widely quoted (In financial use, one trillion = 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million or 1,000 billion)).

Cynophagia

Cynophagia (pronounced)

The practice of eating dog meat.

Late 1700-early 1800s: The construct was cyno- + phagia.  Cyno was a combining form of the Ancient Greek κύων (kúōn or kýon) (dog) and the suffix –phagia was from the Ancient Greek -φαγία (-phagía) (and related to -φαγος (-phagos) (eater)), corresponding to φαγεῖν (phageîn) (to eat), infinitive of ἔφαγον (éphagon) (I eat), which serves as infinitive aorist for the defective verb ἐσθίω (esthíō) (I eat).  In English, use is now most frequent in mental health to reference the consumption of untypical items.  Being a cynophagist (a person who engages in cynophagia) is not synonymous with being a cynophile (a person who loves canines) although it’s not impossible there may be some overlap in the predilections.  The construct was cyno- +‎ -phile.  The –phile suffix was from the Latin -phila, from the Ancient Greek φίλος (phílos). (dear, beloved) and was used to forms noun & adjectives to convey the meanings “loving”, “friendly”, “admirer” or “friend”.  In the context of metal health, the condition would be described as cynophilia.  The -philia suffix was from the Ancient Greek φιλία (philía) (fraternal) love).  It was used to form nouns conveying a liking or love for something and in clinical use was applied often to an abnormal or obsessive interest, especially if it came to interfere with other aspects of life (the general term is paraphilia).  The companion suffix is the antonym -phobia. The related forms are the prefixes phil- & philo- and the suffixes -philiac, -philic, -phile & -phily.  Cynophagia, cynophagy, cynophagism & cynophagist are nouns and cynophagic is an adjective; the noun plural is cynophagists.

The word cynophagia was coined as part of the movement in European scholarship in the late eighteenth & early nineteenth centuries which used words from classical languages (Ancient Greek & Latin) as elements to create the lexicon of “modern” science & medicine, reflecting the academic & professional reverence for the supposed purity of the Ancient world.  The reason there was a cynophagia but not a “ailourphagia” (which would have meant “the practice of eating cat meat”) is probably because while the reports from European explorers & colonial administrators would have sent from the orient many reports of the eating of dogs, there were likely few accounts of felines as food.  The construct of “ailourphagia” would have been ailour-, from the Ancient Greek αἴλουρος (aílouros) (cat) + phagia.  The Greek elements of ailouros were aiolos (quick-moving or nimble) & oura (tail), the allusion respectively to the agility of cats and their characteristic tail movements.  There are of course ailurophiles (one especially fond of cats), notably the "childless cat ladies" and disturbingly, there's also paedophage (child eater). 

Historically, east of Suez, consuming dog meat was not uncommon and in some cultures it was a significant contribution to regional protein intake while in other places it was either unlawful of taboo.  Carnivorism (the practice of eating meat) is an almost universal human practice but what is acceptable varies between cultures.  Some foods are proscribed (such as shellfish or pig-meat) and while it’s clear the origin of this was as a kind of “public heath” measure (the rules created in hot climates in the pre-refrigeration age) but the observance became a pillar of religious observance.  Sometimes, a similar rule seems originally to have had an economic imperative such as the Hindu restriction on the killing of cattle for consumption, thus the phrase “sacred cow”, the original rationale being the calculation the live beasts made an economic contribution which much outweighed their utility as a protein source.  So, what is thought acceptable and not is a cultural construct and that varies from place-to-place, the Western aversion to eating cats & dogs attributable to the sentimental view of them which has evolved because of the role for millennia as domestic pets.  Over history, it’s likely every animal in the world has at some point been used as a food source, some an acquired taste such as the “deep fried tarantula” which, long a tasty snack in parts of Cambodia, became a novelty item in Cambodian restaurants in the West.  There are though probably some creatures which taste so awful they’re never eaten, such as parrots which ate the seeds of tobacco plants, lending their flesh a “distinctive flavor”.  The recipe for their preparation was:

(1) Place plucked parrot and an old boot in vat of salted water and slow-cook for 24 hours.
(2) After 24 hours remove parrot & boot.
(3) Throw away parrot and eat old boot.

Analysts had expected “more of the same” from Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) in his debate with Kamala Harris (b 1964; US vice president since 2021): the southern border, illegal immigrants, inflation et al.  What none predicted was that so much of the post-debate traffic would be about Mr Trump’s assertion Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio (one of literally dozens of localities in the country so named, one factor which influenced it becoming the name of the town in the Fox cartoon series The Simpsons) were eating the pets of the residents (ie their cats & dogs).  As racist tropes go, it followed the script in terms of the “otherness, barbarism, incompatibility” etc of “outsiders in our midst” although there seemed to be nothing to suggest there was any tradition of such consumption in Haiti.  Still, at least it was something novel and it wasn’t the first time pet cats had been mentioned in the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr Trump’s choice of running mate as JD Vance (b 1984; US senator (Republican-Ohio) since 2023) bring renewed attention to the latter’s 2021 interview then Fox News host Tucker Carlson (b 1969) in which he observed the US had fallen into the hands of corporate oligarchs. Radical Democratic Party politicians and “…a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

Eventually, that would be answered by the childless cat ladies, notably the most famous: the singer Taylor Swift who posted an endorsement of Kamala Harris, posing with Benjamin Button, the Ragdoll she adopted in 2019.  Benjamin Button was no stranger to fame, the seemingly nonplussed puss appearing of the cover announcing Ms Swift as Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year.

Childless cat lady Taylor Swift with ragdoll Benjamin Button (as stole).  Ragdoll cats make good stoles because (apparently because of a genetic mutation), they tend to "go limp" when picked up.  

Ms Swift is of course a song-writer so well accustomed to crafting text to achieve the desired effect and one word nerd lawyer quickly deconstructed, much taken by the first three paragraphs which interlaced the first person (“I” & “me/my”) and the “you” while avoiding starting any sentence with “I” (a technique taught as a way of conveying “objectivity”) until the she announces her conclusion:

 “Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.”

“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”

“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”

So, a classic example of a technique which might be used by someone disinterested: two premises which lead to a conclusion, the rhythm of the lyric being “I, I, you, you, you.”  Then, after the “you, you, you” of the “discussion” has made it clear where her focus is, every sentence in the third paragraph begins with “I”, emulation a cadence which might appear in a musical track: “I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make.”  One can see why her songs are said to be so catchy.

The intervention of Ms Swift and Benjamin Button produced reactions. 

Newspapers haven’t always been effective in changing voting intentions or nudging governments in particular public policy directions.  During the inter-war years the Beaverbrook (the Daily & Sunday Express and the less disreputable Evening Standard) press in the UK ran a long and ineffective campaign promoting “empire free trade” and the evidence suggests the editorial position a publication adopted to advocate its readers vote one way or the other was more likely to reflect than shift public opinion.  One reason is that in the West, while politics is very interested in the people, the people tend not to be interested in politics and most thoughtful editorials are barely read.  People are however rabid consumers of popular culture and one opposition leader would later claim an interview a woman’s magazine conducted with his (abandoned) ex-wife did him more political damage than anything written by political or economics reporters, however critical.  With 283 million followers on Instagram (Ms Harris has 18 million), Ms Swift’s intervention may prove decisive if she shifts just a few votes in the famous “battleground states”.

Celebrity endorsements are not unusual; some successful, some not.  In 2016, Lindsay Lohan endorsed crooked Hillary Clinton (who did win the popular vote so there was that).

Whether Ms Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris will shift many opinions isn’t known (many analysts concluding the electorate long ago coalesced into “Trump” & “anti-Trump” factions) but the indications are she may have been remarkably effective in persuading to vote those who may not otherwise have bothered, the assumption being most of these converts to participation will follow her lead and it’s long been understood that to win elections in the US, the theory is simple: get those who don’t vote to vote for you.  In practice, that has been difficult to achieve at scale (the best executions in recent years by the campaign teams of George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) in 2004 and Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) in 2008.

However, in including a custom URL which directed people to vote.gov where they could register to vote produced a spike in voter registration, the US General Services Administration (GSA) revealing an “unprecedented” 338,000-odd unique visits to their portal in the hours after Ms Swift’s post.  Although the “shape” of the hits isn’t known, most seem to be assuming that (as well as some childless cat ladies), those who may be voting for the first time will tend to be (1) young and (2) female, reflecting the collective profile of Ms Swift’s “Swifties”.  They are the demographic the Democratic Party wants.  The GSA called it the “Swift effect” and added that while in the past there had been events which produced smaller spikes, they were brief in duration unlike the Swifties woh for days kept up the traffic, the aggregate numbers dwarfing even the “intensity and enthusiasm” in the wake of the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) overturning Roe v Wade (1973) prior to the 2022 mid-term congressional elections.

In an interview with JD Vance, Fox News asked what he thought might be the significance of Ms Swift mobilizing the childless cat lady vote and he responded: “We admire Taylor Swift’s music. But I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music, or are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most people.  When grocery prices go up by 20 per cent, it hurts most Americans. It doesn’t hurt Taylor Swift. When housing prices become unaffordable, it doesn’t affect Taylor Swift, or any other billionaire.”  Fox News choose not to pursue the matter of whether self-described “billionaire celebrity” Donald Trump could be said to be “…fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most people.”

In “damage-limitation” mode, the Trump campaign mobilized generative AI in an attempt to re-capture the childless cat lady vote.  After the debate, Mr Trump had added geese to the alleged diet of Springfield’s Haitian residents.

Mr Trump may have himself to blame for Ms Swift’s annoying endorsement because he’d earlier posted fake, AI-generated images on his social media platform, Truth Social, suggesting she’d urged her the Swifties to vote for him.  Such things were of course not foreseen by the visionary AI (artificial intelligence) researchers of the 1950s, the genie is out of the bottle and given that upholding the “freedom of speech” guaranteed by the First Amendment to the constitution is one of the few things on which the SCOTUS factions agree, the genie is not going back.

The meme-makers have really taken to generative AI.

So while generative AI doesn’t allow mean the meme makers can suddenly create images once impossible, it does mean they can be produced by those without artistic skills or specialized resources and the whole matter of the culinary preferences of Haitians in Ohio is another blow for the state.  It was only in May 2024 that a number of schools in issued a ban on Gen Alpha slang terms including:

Ohio: It means “bad” with all that implies (dull, boring, ugly, poor etc).  Because of the way language evolves, it may also come to mean “people who eat pet cats & dogs”.  The implication is it’s embarrassing to be from Ohio.

Skibidi: A reference to a viral meme of a person’s head coming out of a toilet; it implies the subject so described is “weird”.

Sigma: Unrelated to the 18^th letter of the Greek alphabet, it’s been re-purposed as a rung on the male social hierarchy somewhat below the “alpha-male”.

Rizz: This one has a respectable pedigree, being the the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2023 word of the year.  It’s said technically to be a “Gen Z word”, short for “charisma”.  It has been banned because Gen Alpha like to use it in the negative (ie “lacking rizz”; “no rizz” etc).

Mewing: A retort or exclamation used to interrupt someone who is complaining about something trivial.  Gen Alpha are using it whenever their teachers say something they prefer not discuss.

Gyatt: A woman with a big butt, said originally based on the expression “goddam your ass thick.”

Bussin’: “Good, delicious, high quality” etc.

Baddie: A tough, bolshie girl who “doesn’t take shit form no one”.  It’s a similar adaptation of meaning to a term like “filth” which means “very attractive”.

Filibuster

Filibuster (pronounced fil-uh-buhs-ter (U) or fil-e-bust-ah (non-U))

(1) In US politics, the use of irregular or obstructive tactics by a member of a legislature to prevent the adoption of a measure generally favored or to attempt to force a decision against the will of the majority.

(2) An exceptionally long speech, as one lasting for a day or days, or a series of such speeches to accomplish this purpose.

(3) A member of a legislature who makes such a speech.

(4) By extension, delaying tactics generally.

(5) Historically, an irregular military adventurer, especially one who engages in an unauthorized military expedition into a foreign country to foment or support a revolution.

(6) By extension, to engage in unlawful and private military action; a mercenary soldier (obsolete).

1580–1590: From the Spanish filibustero (pirate), from the Middle French flibustier, a variant of fribustier and probably from the Dutch vrijbuiter (pirate (literally “one plundering freely”).  The construct in Dutch was vrij (free) + buit (booty) + -er (agent), hence the later English noun “freebooter”.  Etymologists note the alteration in the first syllable in French was due to the word being somewhat conflated with vlieboot (light, flat-bottomed cargo vessel with two or three masts) when it was borrowed from the Dutch.  By virtue of the Dutch colonial empire, filibuster was picked up by Indonesian and, as fèilìbǎshìtuō (費力把事拖／费力把事拖), by Chinese.  Filibuster is a noun & verb, filibusterer & filibusterism are nouns, filibusterous is an adjective, filibustering & filibustered are verbs and filibusterist is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is filibusters.

There’s some murkiness about the word’s entry into English, perhaps because the first use was among sailors at sea.  The first recorded instance seems to have been flibutor meaning “pirate” and referring to buccaneers operating in Caribbean waters (almost always French, Dutch, and English “adventurers” (ie pirates)) and that was some sort of variant (possibly an imperfect echoic) of the Dutch vrijbueter (the modern spelling vrijbuiter) (freebooter), the word used of the regions pirates and picked up in Spanish (filibustero) & French (flibustier (earlier fribustier)) forms.  If was this origin which led to the later use in English of “freebooter” to mean “a mercenary; a soldier of fortune” and later still to those irregular combatants, organized into loose (but still structured) formations in the US and travelling during the mid-nineteenth century to Central America or the Spanish West Indies, usually after being hired by a state or insurrectionist force, either to put down or conduct a revolt.

Although now most associated with US politics (notable the Senate), the use of “filibuster” to describe the parliamentary tactic appears not widely to have been used in this context until 1865 although the practice was first this described in 1861, the curious linguistic adoption is explained by the appeal of the notion of obstructionist or recalcitrant legislators acting “like pirates” on the floor of the chamber to “plunder and overthrow” the established order of authority; because of events in Central America and the Caribbean, the word (used in the paramilitary sense since 1853) was in the news  Originally, “filibuster” was used to describe the “ringleader” senator but so institutionalised did it become in Senate procedures that by the early 1890s it was understood as the actual mechanism.  As a delaying tactic, then, as now, it wasn’t exclusive to the Senate bit because of the Senate’s rules, composition and numbers, it was there it could be most effective.  As a tactical mechanism in the US Senate, filibuster continues to enjoy its historic meaning but it’s long been used in many contexts as “verbal shorthand” for “delaying tactic; obstructionism; act of procrastination” and in the US Senate, filibusters can be ended by an act of “cloture” (from the French clôture (closure) and a doublet of closure and clausure (from Late Latin clausūra, from the Classical Latin clauses) (the act of shutting up or confining; confinement).

In its pure form (under rules which permitted “unlimited debate”, subject only to a closing vote by a two-thirds majority among an assembled quorum) the filibuster existed only to 1917 when the first cloture act was passed.  Since then there have been a number of refinements, all designed to limit the extent to which the filibuster can be used to defy the will of a clear majority and in certain situations, most notably votes confirming the appointment of judges to the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) only a bare majority (ie 51 out of 100) is now required, a significant change from what prevailed for most of the republic’s existence when at least 60 votes were needed, something which meant at least some bipartisan support was usually essential.  That applied also to other presidential appointments such as federal judges and cabinet members.

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

It was during the administration of George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) that the Republican Party began exploring a way to neuter the filibuster which was slowing up (in some cases stopping) their project and what they wanted as a change to the Senate rules which would allow judicial nominees to pass with a simple majority, something obviously topical because the GOP then held 51 Senate seats.  The Republicans plotters first gave their scheme the code-name “The Hulk” but it was them majority leader Trent Lott (b 1941) who gave it the name which stuck: the “Nuclear Option”.  That had some resonance because the point about the use of nuclear weapons is that things can get out of hand and the ensuing conflict can be equally damaging to both sides, something which may explain the long historical reluctance by senators to tinker too much with the filibuster, both sides aware they may need it one day.  In one of those charming coincidences, Senator Lott was compelled to resign the majority leadership because he made a speech praising old Strom Thurmond’s (1902-2003; US senator (Republican- South Carolina) 1954-2003) segregationist policies when running as the Dixiecrat candidate in the 1948 presidential election.  It’s old Senator Thurmond who still holds the record for the Senate’s longest single-person filibuster, his mark of 24 hours: 18 minutes set in August 1957 in an attempt to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1957).  The act passed into law.  Trent Lott is a confessed Freemason.

Three wise men who, as senate majority leaders, would, from time-to-time, change their views on things: Harry Reid (left), Mitch McConnell (centre) and Trent Lott (right).

As things worked out, the Republicans increased their majority in 2004 and they were never compelled use the nuclear option but by 2013, with the Democrats now enjoying a majority, it was them being filibustered, frustrating their (many) attempts to fill judicial vacancies.  Accordingly, the Democratic majority leader, old Harry Reid (1939–2021; US senator (Democrat, Nevada) 1987-2017), pulled the trigger, changing the Senate’s rules to permit nominees for cabinet posts and federal judgeships to be with a bare majority of 51 votes, the Republican & Democratic positions on the issue now reversed from a decade earlier.  Then Republican minority leader, old Mitch McConnell (b 1942; US senator (Republican- Kentucky) since 1985) warned darkly: “You'll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.”  It’s believed Harry Reid’s middle name (Mason) was a coincidence and it’s not believed he was ever a Freemason although he did as a young man convert to Mormonism.

Notably, Senator Reid must have understood Senator McConnell’s words because he didn’t aim the nuclear option at Supreme Court nominees, meaning it was still necessary to gather at least 60 votes to confirm an appointment.  However, control of the Senate shifted back to the Republicans in the 2014 mid-term elections and in one of his sneakier moves, Senator McConnell decided the house wouldn’t consider the matter of SCOTUS vacancies and delayed things in the hope it would be a Republican in the White House to make the nomination(s).  That attracted much criticism as both naked cynicism and an “unprecedented breach of political conventions” but Senator McConnell knew the rules and his faith was rewarded when Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) won.  Quickly, Senator McConnell pressed the nuclear button, saying that although he led the opposition to what Senator Reid had done in 2013, that had set a precedent and it was one the Republican majority was going to follow.  That was quite a stretch given the simple majority rule had never been applied to the SCOTUS but again, Senator McConnell knew the rules and he had Mr Trump's nominee confirmed in a 54-45 vote.