TikToker

TikToker (pronounced tik-tok-ah)

(1) One who is a regular or frequent viewer of the content posted on the short-form video (which, with mission-creep, can in certain circumstances now be up to sixty (60) minutes in duration) sharing site TikTok.com.

(2) One who is a regular or frequent content provider on the TikTok platform.

(3) With a variety of spellings (ticktocker, tictoker, tiktoka etc), a slang term for a clock or watch, derived from the alternating ticking sound, as that made by a clock (archaic).

(4) In computing, with the spelling ticktocker (or ticktocker), slang for a software element which emulates the sound of a ticking clock, used usually in conjunction with digitals depictions of analogue clocks.

2018: The ancestor form (ticktock or tick-tock) seems not to have been used until the mid-nineteenth century and was purely imitative of the sound of mechanical clocks. Tick (in the sense of "a quiet but sharp sound") was from the Middle English tek (light touch, tap) and tock was also onomatopoeic; when used in conjunction with tick was a reference to the clicking sounds similar to those made by the movements of a mechanical clock.  The use of TikToker (in the sense of relating to users (consumers & content providers) of the short-form video (which, with mission-creep, can be up to ten (10) minutes in duration) sharing site TikTok.com probably began in 2018 (the first documented reference) although it may early have been in oral use.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  TikToker is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is TikTokers (the mixed upper & lower case is correct by commercial convention but not always followed).  The PRC- (People’s Republic of China) based holding company ByteDance is said to have chosen the name “TikTok” because it was something suggestive of the “short, snappy” nature of the platform’s content; they understood the target market and its alleged attention span (which, like the memory famously associated with goldfish might be misleading).

A blonde Billie Eilish, Vogue, June, 2021.

Those who use TikTok (whether as content providers or consumers) are called “tiktokers” and the longer the aggregate duration of one’s engagement with the platform, the more of a tiktoker one can be said to be.  The formation followed the earlier, self-explanatory “YouTuber” and the use for similar purposes (indicating association) for at least decades.  So, the noun tiktoker can be a neutral descriptor but it can be used also as a slur.   In February 2024, at the People’s Choice Awards ceremony held in Los Angeles, singer Billie Eilish (b 2001) was filmed leaning over to Kylie Minogue (b 1968), remarking sotto voce:“There’s some, like, TikTokers here…” with the sort of distaste Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) might have displayed if indicating to her companion the unpleasing presence of peasants.  The clip went viral on X (formerly known as Twitter) before spreading to Tiktok.  Clearly there is a feeling of hierarchy in the industry and her comments triggered some discussion about the place of essentially amateur content creators at mainstream Hollywood (and such) events.  That may sound strange given a platform like TikTok would, prima facie, seem the very definition of the “people’s choice” but these events have their own history, associations and connotations and what social media sites have done to the distribution models has been quite a disturbance.  Many established players, even some who have to some extent benefited from the platforms, find disquieting the intrusion of the “plague of TikTokers”.

Pop Crave's clip of the moment, a brunette Billie Eilish & Kylie Minogue, People's Choice Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, February 2024.

There will be layers to Ms Eilish’s view.  One is explained in terms of mere proximity, the segregation of pop culture celebrities into “A List”, B List, C List” etc an important component in the creation and maintenance of one’s public image and an A Lister like her would not appreciate being photographed at an event with those well up (ie down) the alphabet sitting at the next table; it cheapens her image.  Properly managed, these images can translate into millions (and these days even billions) of dollars so this is not a matter of mere vanity and something for awards ceremonies to consider; if the TikTokers come to be seen as devaluing their brand to the extent the A Listers ignore their invitations, the events either have to move to a down-market niche or just be cancelled.  Marshall McLuhan’s (1911-1980) book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) pre-dates social media by decades but its best-remembered phrase (“The medium is the message”) could have been coined for the era, the idea being the medium on which content is distributed should be the first point of understanding its significance, rather than actual content, the theory being the initial assessment of the veracity or the value of something relies on its source.  In the case of pop music, this meant a song distributed by a major label possessed an inherent credibility and prestige in a way something sung by a busker in a train station did not.  What the existence of YouTube and TikTok meant was the buskers and the artists signed to labels began suddenly to appear on the same medium, thus at some level gaining a sort of equivalency.  Viewing TikTok on a phone, tablet or laptop,  sharing the same screen-space, in a sense, all are rendered equal.

On trend: Lindsay Lohan announces she is now a Tiktoker.

Ms Eilish and her label have been adept at using the social media platforms as tools for this and that so presumably neither object to the existence or the technology of the sites (although her label (Universal Music) has only recently settled its dispute with TikTok over the revenue sharing) but there will be an understanding that while there’s now no alternative to, in a sense, sharing the digital space and letting the people choose, that doesn’t mean she’ll be happy about being in the same photo frame when the trophies are handed out.  Clearly, there are stars and there are TikTokers and while the latter can (and have) become the former, there are barriers not all can cross.

The Tic-Toc Tach

1967 Jaguar 340 (left), 1980 Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC 5.0 (centre) and 1970 Plymouth Superbird (right).  Only the Americans called the shared tachometer/clock a “Tic-Toc Tach”.

Since the inter-war years Jaguar had included a small clock at the bottom of the tachometer but in 1966, phasing in the change as models were updated or replaced, began to move the device to the centre of the dashboard (in the case of the 420 & 420G putting it in a blister in the padded section which had replaced the timber top-rail).  By 1968 the horological shift was almost complete (only the last of the Mark IIs (now known as 240, 340) and & Daimler V8 250 models still with the shared dial) and it was then Chrysler adopted the idea although, with a flair the British never showed, they called it the "Tic-Toc-Tachometer".  Popularly known as the “Tic-Toc Tach”, it was also used by other US manufacturers during the era, the attraction being an economical use of dash space, the clock fitting in a space at the centre of the tachometer dial which would otherwise be unused.  Mercedes-Benz picked up Jaguar's now abandoned concept in 1971 when the 350 SL (R107, 1971-1989) was introduced and it spread throughout the range, almost universal (in cars with tachometers) after 1981 when production of the 600 (W100) ended; Mercedes-Benz would for decades use the shared instrument.  A tachometer (often called a “rev counter”) is a device for measuring the revolutions per minute (RPMs) of a revolving shaft such as the crankshaft of an internal combustion engine (ICE) (thus determining the “engine speed”).  The construct was tacho- (an alternative form of tachy-, from the Ancient Greek ταχύς (takhús) (rapid) + meter (the suffix from the Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron) (measure) used to form the names of measuring devices).

1967 Oldsmobile 4-4-2.

Nobody however crammed more into a tic-toc-tach than Oldsmobile which during the first generation (1964-1967) of its 4-4-2 also included a temperature gauge, ammeter and oil pressure gauge, something necessitated because the instrument panel the stylists were compelled to use contained only two pods.  When the second generation (1968-1972) was released, the dash included a third pod so the ancillary gauges were given their own space and a true tic-toc-tach was used.  Thankfully, nobody seems ever to have attempted to coin a term for five-function device on the early 4-4-2s so those who worry about such things must content themselves with choices like “enhanced tic-toc-tach” or “augmented tic-toc-tach”.  Buyers got the instrument with its “perimeter auxiliary gauges” by choosing option code U21 (Rallye Pac with Tachometer and Clock) for US$84.26 which sounds modest but at the time the bikini-clad and neoprene-tailed “mermaids” who splashed around the coral reef in the middle of Submarine Lagoon at California’s Disneyland Resort were paid US$65 week.  Making a virtue of necessity, Oldsmobile described the cluttered device as a “compact instrument cluster [which] lets driver monitor engine performance at a glance”, not burdening brochure readers with the fact the Rallye Pac wasn’t planned as part of the range and with only two pods on the dash, there was no other way elegantly to cram it all in.

1967 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 Holiday Coupe W-30.

The 4-4-2 was Oldsmobile’s response to the Pontiac GTO, introduced in 1964 by the companion GM (General Motors) division.  The GTO (Pontiac shamelessly “borrowing” the name from Ferrari’s 250 GTO (Gran Turismo Omologato (ie car homologated for competition in the GT (grand-touring) category) was the template for the “muscle car” genre of the 1960s in that it used a big V8 from the full-sized range in the smaller, lighter, intermediate platform.  It was actually an old idea practiced on both sides of the Atlantic since the 1920s but the GTO institutionalized the concept and made it a commercial proposition on a scale never before known because of the then unique conjunction in 1960s America of a large cohort of males aged 17-25 with enough disposable income (or credit-worthiness) to pay for such things.  The GTO existed because Pontiac threaded the configuration through a loophole in the GM corporate rules designed to prevent such things being produced for road use but it sold in such volume at a pleasing profit margin that management’s scruples rapidly were discarded and the crazy years of the muscle car began.  The GTO of course encouraged imitators from Ford, Chrysler and (eventually) even AMC but it also compelled three of GM’s other divisions (Chevrolet, Buick & Oldsmobile) to do their own interpretations.  Only Cadillac stood aloof but in 1970 they did put a 500 cubic inch (8.2 litre) V8 rated at 400 HP (gross horsepower) in the FWD (front-wheel-drive) Eldorado which sounds a daft idea but the engineers disguised its inherent tendencies very well and the delivery of the 400 HP was a very different experience than something like that of the 375 Ford in the same year modestly claimed for the Boss 429 Mustang.

1970 Oldsmobile 442 Convertible, Official Pace Car (Indianapolis 500) Edition.

Though not original, GTO was of course a great name and the best Oldsmobile’s product-planners could come up with was 4-4-2, an allusion to the configuration (front to rear) of a four barrel carburetor, a four-speed manual gearbox and dual-exhausts.  Once explained it made sense but it remained a flaky name, something suffered by later imitators, Dodge’s “Super Bee” as good a car as Plymouth’s Road Runner but with nothing like the same brand-appeal.  Like Pontiac’s GTO, the 4-4-2 was originally an option package but such was the market response both became regular production models.  As it turned out, 4-4-2 was “just a name” rather than a promise because in 1965 when, in order to be advertise the things at a lower base-price, a three-speed gearbox became standard with the four-speed moved to the option list but there was no 4-3-2: 4-4-2 they all remained which made sense because at various times it could be ordered also with two or three-speed automatic gearboxes, none of which ever were dubbed 4-2-2 or 4-3-2.  However, in an inconsistency at the time not untypical in the industry, although in 1968 the badge was changed from “4-4-2” to “442”, both descriptions continued for years to appear in documents and sales literature.

1953 Kaiser Manhattan (left) and 1961 Chrysler 300G (left).

Although no other manufacturer put five separate functions in the one circular pod, others did do five-function clusters in a more elaborate housing but while Kaiser just appended a semi-circular surround for the ancillary gauges (fuel-level, coolant temperature, ammeter & oil pressure) Chrysler in 1960 introduced the “Astrodome”, the name one of many influenced by what was going on during the dawn of the space-age.  What the dramatic Astrodome did was offer the driver a “3D” effect by placing the four gauges in a staggered array on the steering column, using space usually taken by the transmission selector lever, that function moved to a push-button panel on the dashboard while the turn-signals were controled by a sliding lever; to complete the “space-race” look, buttons and knobs were prolific so although the ergonomics weren’t ideal, visually, the atmospherics were most fetching.

1961 Chrysler 300G.

The speedometer was calibrated to 150 mph (240 km/h) which was needed because, even in street trim, the most highly-tuned 300Gs easily could exceed 140 mph (225 km/h).  Despite the concerns sometimes expressed today, the tires of the era were safe to use at such speed (much had been learned from the tyres developed for use in aviation during World War II (1939-1945)) but the drum brakes of the era were inadequate.

Adding to the drama in 1960 was what Chrysler called “revolutionary Panelescent lighting” which was a fanciful term describing the use of electroluminescence (EL), an optical and electrical phenomenon, in which a material emits light in response to the passage of an electric current or to a strong electric field.  As implemented for the Panelescent system, as well as the soft blue backlighting, each gauge pointer was also an individual source of red light.  The Astrodome was used between 1960-1962 on a number of Chryslers including the “Letter-series” 300s and the New Yorker while EL remained in use until 1967; it was last seen on the first generation Dodge Charger (1966-1967).

Conventions in English and Ablaut Reduplication

In 2016, the BBC explained why we always say “tick tock” rather than “tock-tic” although, based on the ticking of the clocks at the time the phrase originated, there would seem to be no objective reasons why one would prevail over the other but the “rule” can be constructed thus: “If there are three words then the order has to go I, A, O.  If there are two words then the first is I and the second is either A or O which is why we enjoy mish-mash, chit-chat, clip-clop, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, tip-top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tic tac, sing song, ding dong, King Kong & ping pong.  Obviously, the “rule” is unwritten so may be better thought a convention such as the one which dictates why the words in “Little Red Riding Hood” appear in the familiar order; there the convention specifies that in English, adjectives run in the textual string: opinion; size; age; shape; colour; origin; material; purpose noun.  Thus there are “little green men” but no “green little men” and if “big bad wolf” is cited as a violation of the required “opinion (bad); size (big); noun (wolf)” wolf, that’s because the I-A-O convention prevails, something the BBC explains with a number of examples, concluding “Maybe the I, A, O sequence just sounds more pleasing to the ear.”, a significant factor in the evolution of much that is modern English (although that hardly accounts for the enduring affection some have for proscribing the split infinitive, something which really has no rational basis in English, ancient or modern.  All this is drawn from what is in structural linguistics called “Ablaut Reduplication” (the first vowel is almost always a high vowel and the reduplicated vowel is a low vowel) but, being English, “there are exceptions” so the pragmatic “more pleasing to the ear” may be helpful in general conversation.

Rolls-Royce, the Ford LTD and NVH

Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II, 1959.  Interestingly, the superseded Silver Cloud (1955-1958) might have been quieter still because the new, aluminium 6¼ litre (380 cubic inch) V8 didn’t match the smoothness & silence of the previous cast iron, 4.9 litre (300 cubic inch) straight-six, despite the V8 being remarkably heavy for something made substantially from "light metal".

The “tick-tocking” sound of a clock was for some years a feature of the advertising campaigns of the Rolls-Royce Motor Company, the hook being that: “At 60 mph (100 km/h) the loudest noise in a Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”.  Motoring journalists did verify the claim (at least in ideal conditions) but given electric clocks can be engineered silently to function, the conclusion was the company deliberately fitted time-pieces which emitted an untypically loud “tick-tock”, just to ensure the claims were true.  The Silver Clouds were, by the standards of the time, very quiet vehicles but in the US, Ford decided they could mass-produce something quieter still and at the fraction of the cost.  Thus the 1965 Ford LTD, a blinged-up Ford (the add-on "gingerbread" in pre-bling days known as "gorp") advertised as: “Quieter than a Rolls-Royce”.

The test conditions were recorded as: “Dry, level, moderately smooth concrete divided highway; light quartering winds.  All cars operated at steady 20-, 40- and 60- mph with all vents closed”.  The two Rolls-Royces were both standard wheelbase Silver Cloud III saloons with the 6¼ litre (380 cubic inch) V8 and four-speed automatic transmissions while the three Fords (a Galaxie 500 LTD, a Galaxie 500/XL and a Galaxie 500 Four-Door Sedan) were all fitted with the 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) V8 and three-speed Cruise-O-Matic automatic transmission.  The test results were certified by the USAC (United States Auto Club).

To ensure what must at the time have seemed an audacious claim couldn't be dismissed as mere puffery, J. Walter Thompson, then Ford’s advertising agency commissioned acoustical consultants Boldt, Beranek and Neuman to run tests, two brand new Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III saloons purchased for the project.  What the engineer’s decibel (dB) meters revealed was that, under conditions that were controlled but representative of much of the driving experience in the US, the Galaxies were indeed quieter inside than a Rolls-Royce.  Because of the way the dB scale works, the differences (as great as 5.5 dB) were quite large and obvious to the human ear.  It was a reasonable achievement in engineering and Ford, anticipating the ensuing controversy, was uncharacteristically modest in claiming their 2.8 dB advantage at 60 mph was only “slight”, the numbers making the point with no need for exaggeration.  Ford didn’t mention the tick-tock of the clock.

Ford Galaxie 500/XL advertising, 1965.  In the West, advertising has long been an exception to the general prohibition of the use of "child labor" (Lindsay Lohan was signed to Ford Models at the age of three and soon got her first gig!).

Ford did though “stack the deck”, a bit in configuring the Galaxies with their mildly tuned 289 V8 with a two-barrel carburettor; had the test included another variation on the full-size line which used the 427 (7.0) V8, the results would have been different, the raucous 427 side oiler offering many charms but they didn't extend to unobtrusiveness.  Still, the choice was reasonable because the tune of the 289 was more representative of what most people bought.  Amusingly, it wasn't the first time Rolls-Royce was surprised by the way things were done in Detroit.  Years earlier, the company had obtained a licence to manufacture Cadillac's four-speed Hydramatic automatic transmission, then the benchmark of its type.  Disassembling one, the Rolls-Royce engineers were surprised at the “rough finish” on some of the internal components and resolved their version would be built to their standards of precision.  That done, a lovingly built Hydramatic was installed in a car and tested, the engineers surprised to find it didn't work very well and offered nothing like the smooth operation of the original.  They contacted Cadillac and were told the prototype Hydramatics produced with universally fine tolerances had also misbehaved and the “roughness” of certain components deliberately was introduced to ensure the optimal frictional resistance was obtained.     

Ford Galaxie 500 LTD advertising, 1965.

Not much noticed at the time was another intrusion.  Although the trend had for years been creeping through the industry, what the 1965 LTD did was make blatant Ford's incursion into the market territory once reserved for the corporate stablemate, Mercury, the "middle class" brand between Ford & Lincoln.  This intra-corporate cannibalism (which had already seen Chrysler shutter its DeSoto division) would have consequences, one of which was Mercury's eventual demise, another being Ford's competitors, noting the LTD's success, bringing their own interpretations to the market, the most successful of which was the Chevrolet Caprice (which enjoyed the same relationship to the Impala as the LTD had to the Galaxie 500).  Notably, the Caprice contributed to the later extinction of the once highly popular Oldsmobile, squeezed from its niche by Chevrolet (from below) and Buick (from above).  What were once gaps in the market, catered to by specific brands, ceased to exist. 

1965 Ford LTD (technically a “Galaxie 500 LTD” because in the first season the LTD was a Galaxie option, not becoming a stand-alone model until the 1966 model year).

Even before the LTD was released the full-sized cars produced by the US industry featured the world's finest engine-transmission combinations and Ford justly deserves credit for what was achieved in 1965 because it wasn’t an exercise merely in adding sound insulation.  The previous models had a good reputation for handling and durability but couldn’t match the smoothness and ride of competitive Chevrolets so within Ford was created a department dedicated to what came to be called HVH (Noise, Vibration & Harshness) and this team cooperated in what would now be understood as a “multi-disciplinary” effort, working with body engineers and suspension designers to ensure all components worked in harmony to minimize NVH.  The idea was to craft a platform which, at least on the billiard table like surfaces of the nations freeways, would match the powertrains for smoothness and that was a task which would absorb much time and effort because the mildly-tuned V8 engines most customers bough were unobtrusive in their delivery and the automatic transmissions didn't so much change gears as slur effortlessly between ratios.

Ford Galaxie 500 LTD (with "Body/Chassis Puck") advertising with , 1965.

What emerged was a BoF (Body on Frame) platform (a surprise to some as the industry trend had been towards unitary construction) to ensure the stiffest possible structure but the combination of the frame’s rubber body-mounts (which Ford dubbed "pucks" because of their similarity in size and shape to the rubber disks used in ice hockey), robust torque boxes and a new, more compliant, coil-spring rear suspension delivered what even the competition's engineers (though probably not the sales staff) acknowledged was the industry’s quietest, smoothest ride.  To solve the problem of troublesome vibrations, the material had before come to the rescue, a rubber layer for the carburettor mountings proving the solution to the resonance which, at certain road speeds, affected the flow of the fuel-air mix in the MGA Twin-Cam, resulting in pistons melting.  Alas, the fix was discovered too late and the MGA was doomed.  Norton had better luck with their Isolastic, a rubber-based engine mounting which disguised the chronic vibration on the Commando's 750 cm³ parallel twin, allowing the company (as something of a last gasp) to extract a (sometimes profitable) decade from what was an antiquated design.

Ford LTD advertising, 1980.

In geopolitics and economics, much changed between 1965 and 1980.  Whereas Ford had once been able prove their Galaxie range (US$2,800-4,800) was quieter than a US$17,000 Rolls-Royce, by 1980 a LTD (the Galaxie name, dating from 1959 was retired after the 1974 season) sold typically for between US$6,400-8,000, reflecting the inflation which became entrenched during the 1970s.  That was representative of the effect on domestically produced cars but an "entry-level" (the concept really was used even of cars from the more exulted) Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow now listed for a minimum US65,000-odd and if that wasn't thought conspicuous enough consumption, there was the two-door Camargue with a price tag in six figures.  The LTD was looking even better value.  Ford in the era made a bit of a thing of comparing their locally produced machines with high-priced stuff from across the Atlantic, one campaign showing how closely the US Granada (1975-1982) resembled various Mercedes-Benz; these days it's the Chinese manufacturers which are accused of plagiarism although they often are more blatant in their copying.  Reckoning however what worked in 1965 would still work 15 years on, Ford re-ran their tests and, in a regulatory environment which was rather more harsh on advertising claims, asserted only that "The 1980 Ford LTD rides as quietly as a $65,000 Rolls-Royce".  The tic-tock of the clock still didn't rate a mention.        

Enthrone

Enthrone (pronounced en-throhn)

(1) To put on the throne in a formal installation ceremony (sometimes called an enthronement) which variously could be synonymous with (or simultaneously performed with) a coronation or other ceremonies of investiture.

(2) Figuratively in this context, to help a candidate to the succession of a monarchy or by extension in any other major organisation (ie the role of “kingmakers”, literal and otherwise).

(3) To invest with sovereign or episcopal authority (ie a legal instrument separate from any ceremony).

(4) To honour or exalt (now rare except in literary or poetic use).

(5) Figuratively, to assign authority to or vest authority in.

Circa 1600: The construct was en- + throne and the original meaning was “to place on a throne, exalt to the seat of royalty”.  For this purpose it replaced the late fourteenth century enthronize, from the thirteenth century Old French introniser, from the Late Latin inthronizare, from Greek the enthronizein.  In the late fourteenth century the verb throne (directly from the noun) was used in the same sense.  Throne (the chair or seat occupied by a sovereign, bishop or other exalted personage on ceremonial occasions) dates from the late twelfth century and was from the Middle English trone, from the Old French trone, from the Latin thronus, from the Ancient Greek θρόνος (thrónos) (chair, high-set seat, throne).  It replaced the earlier Middle English seld (seat, throne).  In facetious use, as early as the 1920s, throne could mean “a toilet” (used usually in the phrase “on the throne”) and in theology had the special use (in the plural and capitalized) describing the third (a member of an order of angels ranked above dominions and below cherubim) of the nine orders into which the angels traditionally were divided in medieval angelology.  The en- prefix was from the Middle English en- (en-, in-), from the Old French en- (also an-), from the Latin in- (in, into).  It was also an alteration of in-, from the Middle English in-, from the Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in (in).  Both the Latin & Germanic forms were from the primitive Indo-European en (in, into).  The intensive use of the Old French en- & an- was due to confluence with Frankish intensive prefix an- which was related to the Old English intensive prefix -on.  It formed a transitive verb whose meaning is to make the attached adjective (1) in, into, (2) on, onto or (3) covered.  It was used also to denote “caused” or as an intensifier.  The prefix em- was (and still is) used before certain consonants, notably the labials b and p.  Enthrone, dethrone, enthronest & enthronize are verbs, enthronementm, enthronization & enthroner are nouns, enthroning is a noun & verb, enthroned is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is enthronements.  The noun enthronable is non-standard.  The derived forms include the verb unenthrone, reenthrone & disenthrone and although there have been many enthroners, the form enthronee has never existed.

Alhaji Ibrahim Wogorie (b 1967) being enskinned as North Sisala community chief, Ghana, July 2023.

In colonial-era West Africa the coined forms were “enskin” (thus enskinment, enskinning, enskinned) and “enstool” (thus enstoolment, enstooling, enstooled).  These words were used to refer to the ceremonies in which a tribal chief was installed in his role; the meanings thus essentially the same as enjoyed in the West by “enthrone”.  The constructs reflected a mix of indigenous political culture and English morphological adaptation during the colonial period, the elements explained by (1) the animal skins (the distinctive cheetah often mentioned in the reports of contemporary anthropologists although in some Islamic and Sahelian-influenced chieftaincies (including the Dagomba, Mamprusi, Hausa emirates), a cow or lion skin often was the symbol of authority) which often surrounded the new chief and (2) the tradition in Africa of a chief sitting on a stool.  Sometimes, the unfortunate animal’s skin would be laid over the stool (and almost always, one seems to have been laid at the chief’s feet) but in some traditions (notably in northern Ghana and parts of Nigeria) it was a mark of honor for the chief to sit on a skin spread on the ground.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia (b 1963), enstooled as Nana Ntentankesehene (Chief of the Internet/Web), Ghana, August 2024.  Note the cheetah skin used to trim the chair.

The stool was the central symbol of chieftaincy and kingship among Akan-speaking peoples (still in present-day Ghana where “to enskin” is used generally to mean “to install as a leader of a group” and the constitution (1992) explicitly protects the institution of chieftaincy and judicial decisions routinely use “enstool” or “enskin” (depending on region)).  In Akan political culture, the most famous use was the Sika Dwa Kofi (the Golden Stool) of the Asante and it represented the embodiment of the polity and ancestors, not merely a seat (used rather like the synecdoches “the Pentagon” (for the US Department of Defense (which appears now to be headed by a cabinet office who simultaneously is both Secretary of Defense & Secretary of War)) or “Downing Street” (for the UK prime-minister or the government generally).  Thus, to be “enstooled” is ritually to be placed into office as chief, inheriting the authority vested in the stool.  Enskin & enstool (both of which seem first to have appeared in the records of the Colonial Office in the 1880s and thus were products of the consolidation of British indirect rule in West Africa, rather than being survivals from earlier missionary English which also coined its own terms) were examples of semantic calquing (the English vocabulary reshaped to encode indigenous concepts) and, as it was under the Raj in India, it was practical administrative pragmatism, colonial officials needing precise (and standardized) terms that distinguished between different systems of authority.  In truth, they were also often part of classic colonial “fixes” in which the British would take existing ceremonies and add layers of ritual to afforce the idea of a chief as “their ruler” and within a couple of generations, sometimes the local population would talk of the newly elaborate ceremony as something dating back centuries; the “fix” was a form of constructed double-legitimization.

A classic colonial fix was the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of Chiefs) in Fiji which the British administrators created in 1878.  While it's true that prior to European contact, there had been meetings between turaga (tribal chiefs) to settle disputes and for other purposes, all the evidence suggests they were ad-hoc appointments with little of the formality, pomp and circumstance the British introduced.  Still, it was a successful institution which the chiefs embraced, apparently with some enthusiasm because the cloaks and other accoutrements they adopted for the occasion became increasingly elaborate and it was a generally harmonious form of indigenous governance which enabled the British to conduct matters of administration and policy-making almost exclusively through the chiefs.  The council survived even after Fiji gained independence from Britain in 1970 until it was in 2012 abolished by the military government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama (b 1954; prime minister of Fiji 2007-2022), as part of reform programme said to be an attempt to reduce ethnic divisions and promote a unified national identity.  The commodore's political future would be more assured had he learned lessons from the Raj.

There was of course an element of racial hierarchy in all this and “enskin” & “enstool” denoted a “tribal chief” under British rule whereas “enthrone” might have been thought to imply some form of sovereignty because that was the linkage in Europe and that would never do.  What the colonial authorities wanted was to maintain the idea of “the stool” as a corporate symbol, the office the repository of the authority, not the individual.  The danger with using a term like “enthronement” was the population might be infected by the European notion of monarchy as a hereditary kingship with personal sovereignty; what the Europeans wanted was “a stool” and they would decide who would be enstooled, destooled or restooled. 

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban, South Africa, October 2022.

English words and their connotations did continue to matter in the post-colonial world because although the colonizers might have departed, often the legacy of language remained, sometimes as an “official” language of government and administration.  In the 1990s, the office of South Africa’s Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi (1928–2023) sent a series of letters to the world’s media outlets advising he should be styled as “Prince” and not “Chief”, on the basis of being the grandson of one Zulu king and the nephew of another.  The Zulus were once described as a “tribe” and while that reflected the use in ethnography, the appeal in the West was really that it represented a rung on the racist hierarchy of civilization, the preferred model being: white people have nations or states, Africans cluster in tribes or clans.  The colonial administrators recognized these groups had leaders and typically they used the style “chief” (from the Middle English cheef & chef, from the Old French chef & chief (leader), from the Vulgar Latin capus, from the Classical Latin caput (head), from the Proto-Italic kaput, from the primitive Indo-European káput).  As the colonial records make clear, there were “good” chiefs and “troublesome” chiefs, thus the need sometimes to arrange a replacement enstooling.

Unlike in the West where styles of address and orders of precedence were codified (indeed, somewhat fetishized), the traditions in Africa seem to have been more fluid and Mangosuthu Buthelezi didn’t rely on statute or even documented convention when requesting the change.  Instead, he explained “prince” reflected his Zulu royal lineage not only was appropriate (he may have cast an envious eye at the many Nigerian princes) but was also commonly used as his style by South African media, some organs or government and certainly his own Zulu-based political party (IQembu leNkatha yeNkululeko (the IPF; Inkatha Freedom Party).  He had in 1953 assumed the Inkosi (chieftainship) of the Buthelezi clan, something officially recognized four year laters by Pretoria although not until the early 1980s (when it was thought he might be useful as a wedge to drive into the ANC (African National Congress) does the Apartheid-era government seem to have started referring to him as “prince”).  Despite that cynical semi-concession, there was never a formal re-designation.

Enthroned & installed: Lindsay Lohan in acrylic & rhinestone tiara during “prom queen scene” in Mean Girls (2004).

In the matter of prom queens and such, it’s correct to say there has been “an enthronement” because even in the absence of a physical throne (in the sense of “a chair”), the accession is marked by the announcement and the placing of the crown or tiara.  This differs from something like the “enthroning” of a king or queen in the UK because, constitutionally, there is no interregnum, the new assuming the title as the old took their last breath and “enthronement” is a term reserved casually to apply to the coronation.  Since the early twentieth century, the palace and government have contrived to make an elaborate “made for television” ceremony although it has constitutional significance beyond the rituals related to the sovereign’s role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

Dame Sarah Mullally in the regalia of Bishop of London; in January 2026, she will take office as Archbishop of Canterbury, the formal installation in March.  No longer one of the world's more desirable jobs (essentially because it can't be done), all wish her the best of British luck.

In October 2025, the matter of enthronement (or, more correctly, non-enthronement) in the Church of England made a brief splash in some of the less explored corners of social media after it was announced the ceremony marking the accession of the next Archbishop of Canterbury would be conducted in Canterbury Cathedral in March 2026.  The announcement was unexceptional in that it was expected and for centuries Archbishops of Canterbury have come and gone (although the last one was declared gone rather sooner than expected) but what attracted some comment was the new appointee was to be “installed” rather than the once traditional “enthroned”.  The conclusion some drew was this apparent relegation was related to the next archbishop being Dame Sarah Mullally (née Bowser; b 1962) the first woman to hold the once desirable job, the previous 105 prelates having been men, the first, Saint Augustine of Canterbury (circa 630s-circa 604) in 597 (not to be confused with the still influential Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430)).

Despite the suspicions the event was being in some way "devalued" because a woman got the job, there is in the church no substantive legal or theological significance in the use of “installed” rather than “enthroned” and the choice reflects modern ecclesiastical practice rather than having any doctrinal or canonical effect.  A person become Archbishop of Canterbury through a sequence of juridical acts and these constitute the decisive legal instruments; ceremonial rites have a symbolic value but nothing more, the power of the office vested from the point at which the legal mechanisms have correctly been executed (in that, things align with the procedures used for the nation’s monarchs).  So the difference is one of tone rather than substance and the “modern” church has for decades sought to distance itself from perceptions it may harbor quasi-regal aspirations or the perpetuation of clerical grandeur and separateness; at least from Lambeth Palace, the preferred model long has been pastoral; most Church of England bishops have for some times been “installed” in their cathedrals (despite “enthronement” surviving in some press reports, a product likely either of nostalgia or “cut & paste journalism”).  That said, some Anglican provinces outside England still “enthrone” (apparently on the basis “it’s always been done that way” rather than the making of a theological or secular point”).

Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury's official London residence.

Interestingly, Archbishops of York (“the church in the north”) continued to enjoy ceremonies of enthronement even after those those at Canterbury underwent installations.  Under canon law, the wording literally makes no difference and historians have concluded the retention of the older form is clung to for no reason other than “product differentiation”, York Minster often emphasizing their continuity with medieval ceremonial forms; it’s thus a mere cultural artefact, the two ceremonies performing the same liturgical action: seating the archbishop in the cathedra (the chair (throne) of the archbishop.  Because it’s the Archbishop of Canterbury and not York who sits as the “spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican community”, in York there’s probably no lingering sensitivity to criticism of continuing with “Romish ways”.  It's not that northern noses are less troubled by the “whiff of popery”, it just that few now care.

In an indication of how little the wording matters, it’s not clear who was the last Archbishop of Canterbury who could be said to have been “enthroned” because there was never any differentiation of form in the ceremonies and the documents suggest the terms were used casually and even interchangeably.  What can be said is that Geoffrey Fisher (1887–1972; AoC-99: 1945-1961) was installed at a ceremony widely described (in the official programme, ecclesiastical commentaries and other church & secular publications) as an “enthronement” and that was the term used in the government Gazette; that’s as official an endorsement of the term as seems possible because, being an established church, bishops are appointed by the Crown on the advice of the prime minister although the procedure has at least since 2007 been a “legal fiction” because the church’s CNC (Crown Nominations Commission) sends the names to the prime minister who acts as a “postbox”, forwarding them to the palace for the issuing of letters patent confirming the appointment.  When Michael Ramsey (1904–1988; AoC-100: 1961-1974), was appointed, although the term “enthrone” did appear in press reports, the church’s documents almost wholly seem to have used “install” and since then, in Canterbury, it’s been installations all the way.

Pope Pius XII in triple tiara at his coronation, The Vatican, March, 1939.

So, by the early 1960s the church was responding, if cautiously, to the growing anti-monarchical sentiment in post-war ecclesiology although this does seem to have been a sentiment of greater moment to intellectuals and theologians than parishioners.  About these matters there was however a kind of ecumenical sensitivity emerging and the conciliar theology later was crystallised (if not exactly codified) in the papers of Second Vatican Council (Vatican II, 1962-1965, published 1970).  The comparison with the practice in Rome is interesting because there are more similarities than differences although that is obscured by words like “enthronement” and “coronation” being seemingly embedded in the popular (and journalistic) imagination. That’s perhaps understandable because for two millennia as many as 275 popes (officially the count is 267 but it’s not certain how many there have been because there have been “anti-popes” and allegedly even one woman (although that’s now largely discounted)) have sat “on the throne of Saint Peter” (retrospectively the first pope) so the tradition is long.  In Roman Catholic canon law, “enthronement” is not a juridical term; the universal term is capio sedem (taking possession of the cathedral (ie “installation”)) and, as in England, an appointment is formalized once the legal instruments are complete, the subsequent ceremony, while an important part of the institution’s mystique, exists for the same reason as it does for the Church of England or the House of Windsor: it’s the circuses part of panem et circenses (bread and circuses).  Unlike popes who once had coronations, archbishops of Canterbury never did because they made no claim to temporal sovereignty.

Pope Paul VI in triple tiara at his coronation, The Vatican, June. 1963.  It was the last papal coronation.

So, technically, modern popes are “installed as Bishop of Rome” and in recent decades the Holy See has adjusted the use of accoutrements to dispel any implication of an “enthronement”, the last papal coronation at which a pope was crowned with the triple tiara was that of Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) but in “an act of humility” he removed it, placing it on the on the alter where (figuratively), it has since sat.  Actually, Paul VI setting aside the triple tiara as a symbolic renunciation of temporal and monarchical authority was a bit overdue because the Papal States had been lost to the Holy See with the unification of Italy in 1870 though the Church refused to acknowledge that reality; in protest, no pope for decades set foot outside the Vatican.  However, in the form of the Lateran Treaty (1929), the Holy See entered into a concordat with the Italian state whereby the (1) the Vatican was recognized as a sovereign state and (2) the church was recognized as Italy’s state religion in exchange for which the territorial and political reality was recognized.  Despite that, until 1963 the triple tiara (one tier of which was said to symbolize the pope’s temporal authority over the papal states) appeared in the coronations of Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958), John XXIII (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963) and Paul VI (who didn’t formally abolish the rite of papal coronation from the Ordo Rituum pro Ministerii Petrini Initio Romae Episcopi (Order of Rites for the Beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome (the liturgical book detailing the ceremonies for a pope's installation)) until 1975.

The Chair of St Augustine.  In church circles, archbishops of Canterbury are sometimes said to "occupy the Chair of St Augustine".

The Chair of St Augustine sits in Canterbury Cathedral but technically, an AoC is “twice installed”: once on the Diocesan throne as the Bishop of the see of Canterbury and also on the Chair of St Augustine as Primate of All England (the nation's first bishop) and spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. So, there’s nothing unusual in Sarah Mullally being “installed” rather than “enthroned” as would have been the universal terminology between the reformation and the early twentieth century.  Linguistically, legally and theologically, the choice of words is a non-event and anyone who wishes to describe Dame Sarah as “enthroned” may do so without fear of condemnation, excommunication or a burning at the stake.  What is most likely is that of those few who notice, fewer still are likely to care.