Bench

Bench (pronounced bench)

(1) A long seat (without arm or back-rest) for two or more people:

(2) A seat occupied by an official, especially a judge in a courtroom.

(3) Such a seat as a symbol of the office of an individual judge or the judiciary.

(4) The office or dignity of various other officials, or the officials themselves.

(5) In certain team sports, the seat (literally or figuratively) on which the reserve (substitute) players sit during a game while not playing and on which “starting side” players sit while substituted.

(6) The quality and number of the players named as substitutes.

(7) By extension, the quality and number of professionals or experts in reserve, to be called upon as needed:

(8) As a clipping of workbench, the worktable of those engaged in trades.

(9) In interior design, certain fixed flat surfaces (kitchen bench, bathroom bench etc).

(10) A platform on which animals or objects are placed for exhibition.

(11) In farming, a hollow on a hillside formed by sheep.

(12) In surveying, a bracket used to mount land surveying equipment onto a stone or a wall.

(13) In certain legislatures, as “front bench” (the office-holding members of a government or opposition who sit on the bench at the front of their side of the assembly), “back bench” (those elected members not appointed to an office who sit on benches behind) and “cross-bench” (those not members of the party in government or formal opposition who sit on other benches).  The terms are sometimes literal but depending on an assembly’s architecture or the size of a government’s majority, others can sometimes “overflow” to the physical “cross benches”.  Thus there are “front benchers”, “back benchers” & “cross benchers” (sometimes hyphenated).

(14) In geography, a shelf-like area of rock with steep slopes above and below, especially one marking a former shoreline.

(15) In extractive mining, a step or working elevation in a mine.

(16) In science (usually as “at the bench”), to distinguish between being engaged actively in research and concurrent or subsequent administrative functions.

(17) To furnish with benches (now rare).

(18) To seat on a bench or on the bench (now rare).

(19) In extractive mining, to cut away the working faces of benches.

(20) In certain team sports, to substitute or remove a player from a game or relegate them to the reserve squad.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English bench, benk & bynk, from the Old English benc (bench; long seat (especially if backless)), from then Proto-West Germanic banki, from the Proto-Germanic bankon & bankiz (bench), from the primitive Indo-European bheg.  It was cognate with the Scots benk & bink, the West Frisian bank, the Dutch bank, the Old High German Bank, the Old Norse bekkr, the Old Frisian benk, the Danish bænk, the Swedish bänk and the Icelandic bekkur, all from a Germanic source and all of which meant “bench”.  In the Old English there were the verbs bencian (to make benches) and bencsittend (one who sits on a bench).  The dialectal spellings benk & bink are both long obsolete.  Bench & benching are nouns & verbs, bencher is a noun, benched is a verb & adjective and benchy & benchlike are adjectives; the noun plural is benches.

The source of the idea of the “bench as a type of long seat” is thought to come from riparian imagery (natural earthen incline beside a body of water) and etymologists speculate the original notion was of a “man-made earthwork used as a seat”.  Bench was from the late fourteenth century used of the tables on which merchants displayed their wares and that may have been a borrowing from the reference to the seat the judge would occupy in a court of law, that use emerging early in the 1300s and coming soon to mean “judges collectively, office of a judge, the judiciary”.  Whether it was actually an allusion to customers “judging the goods displayed” is speculative.  The use in team sports of “the bench” being the “reserve or substitute team members” was drawn from the actual physical bench on the sideline on which those players would sit while not on the field.  The earliest known reference to the existence of furniture used for this purpose is from the US in 1899 but extending this generally to the “reserve of players” in baseball, football etc seems not to have begun until 1909.  In sport, the idiomatic forms include “bench player” (one habitually selected only in the reserves and not the “starting side”), “benched” (a player substituted during play and “sent to the bench”, either because of poor performance or as part of a planned rotation, “injury bench” (players substituted due to injury), “bench warmer (or “bench sitter”, or “bench jockey”) (one whose career has plateaued as a “bench player”, “warming the bench”) 

Bench has attracted many modifiers describing use including “bench grinder”, “bench saw”, “bench drill”, “sawbench”, “kitchen bench”, “deacon's bench”, “friendship bench”, “bench easel”, “mourners' bench”, “piano bench” (a “piano stool” for two), “preacher’s bench” etc.  The noun & verb “benchmark” refers to the optimal results obtained when testing something or someone on a “test bench” although the use is often conceptual, a physical “test bench” not necessarily part of the processes and even some structures in engineering referred to as a “test bench” may bear no relationship to any actual “bench” however described.

Of seats

Bench seats ranged from the functional to the extravagant.

1971 Holden HQ Belmont Station Sedan (station wagon or estate-car) (left) in turquoise vinyl and 1974 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop (right) in chestnut tufted leather though not actually “rich Corinthian leather” which was (mostly) exclusive to the Cordoba (1975-1983) until late 1975 when not only did the Imperial's brochures mention "genuine Corinthian leather (available at extra cost)" but for the first time since 1954 the range was referred to as the "Chrysler Imperial", a harbinger the brand was about to be retired.  Imperial's advertising copy noted of the brochure photograph above: “...while the passenger restraint system with starter interlock is not shown, it is standard on all Imperials.”; the marketing types didn't like seat-belts messing up their photos.  While all of the big three (GM, Ford & Chrysler) had tufted interiors in some lines, it was Chrysler which displayed the most commitment to the extravagance although regrettably, some testers at the time reported than while they looked accommodating, after an hour of so, they proved quite uncomfortable.  They contrasted the eye-catching seats in the Imperial with the "hard" pews provided by Mercedes-Benz which proved supportive and comfortable even after hours behind the wheel, concluding backs, shoulders and legs were a more reliable guide to orthopedic correctness  than visual appeal, Teutonic austerity proving more luxurious than Detroit's rococo.

Boring: Rear bench seat in 1963 Chrysler 300J.

The 1963 Chrysler 300J was the rarest (ie the one fewest customers purchased) of the eleven “letter-series” cars (1955-1965) and whether or not related to its performance in the market, one thing which at the time attracted comment was a rear bench seat replacing the eye-catching twin buckets and full length console which had for three seasons appeared in its predecessors (300F, 300G & 300H).  In 1963, the industry, chasing volume & profits, had begin the process of “de-contenting” their cars, either ceasing the availability of stuff expensive to make or install or moving such items to the option list; by the late 1960s even Cadillac would be afflicted.  The Chrysler “letter series” 300s had begin in 1955 with what many had assumed was a one-off high-performance model created by mixing & matching trim from the Imperial line (newly that year established as a stand-alone marquee) as well as tuning the mechanical components for speed.  Existing initially to homologate stuff for use in competition, not only did the C-300 sell in a pleasing volume but it was such a success as a image-building “halo car” the model was retained for 1956 and dubbed 300B with a further nine annually following until the end of the line in with the 300L 1965, each release appending as an identifier the next letter in the alphabet (thus 300C, 300D etc).

Much more swish: Rear bucket seats in 1961 Chrysler 300G.

However, as well as the dubious distinctions of being the least popular and being the only one the series between 1957-1965 not to be offered as a convertible, the 300J represents a quirk in the naming sequence, Chrysler skipping the letter “I”.  That was done for the same reason there are so few “I cup” bras, the rationale being “I” might be confused with the numeric “1” so most manufacturers go straight from “H cup” to “J cup” although some plug the gap with a “HH cup” and there are even those who stop at “G”, handing incremental increases in volume with “GG” & “GGG” cups; it does seem an industry crying out for an ISO.  There’s no evidence Chrysler ever pondered a “300HH”.  Like Chrysler and most bra manufacturers, the USAF (US Air Force) also opted to skip “I” when allocating a designation for the updated version of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-1962 and still in service).  Between the first test flight of the B-52A in 1954 and the B-52H entering service in 1962, the designations B-52B, B-52C, B-52D, B-52E, B-52F & B-52G sequentially had been used but after flirting with whether to use B52J as an interim designation (reflecting the installation of enhanced electronic warfare systems) before finalizing the series as the B-52K after new engines were fitted, in 2024 the USAF announced the new line would be the B-52J and only a temporary internal code would distinguish those not yet re-powered.  Again, “I” was not used so nobody would think there was a B521.

1958 Metropolitan Hardtop in two-tone Frost White and Berkshire Green over black and white houndstooth cloth and vinyl.

Under various marques, the Metropolitan was in production between 1953-1961 and its cartoon-like appearance was a result of applying the motifs of the standard-sized US automobile to something much smaller and in that it was conceptually similar in concept to the more severely executed Triumph Mayflower (1949-1953) which took as a model the “knife-edged” lines of the Daimlers and Rolls-Royces bodied by Hooper.  Although most four-door cars with front bench seats featured full-width cushions (one which one’s butt sat) and squabs (on which one’s back rested), most two door models had “split squabs” which individually could be folded forward, affording someone access to the rear passenger compartment without disturbing anyone sitting on the other side of the front seat.

1958 Metrolpoitan.

The split squabs erect (left), the passenger's folded forward to afford entry to the rear bench (centre) and the rear bench's squab laid flat to allow access to the trunk or provide a larger storage space (right).  In modern five-seaters, the trend has been the so-called 40/60 split seat which allows two passengers still to sit on the back seat while extending the trunk space into the cabin, the origin of the idea reputedly the desire of skiers to carry their skis & poles without the need to fit external racks.  The Metropolitan also had a fold-down rear bench, a common feature in many station wagons, SUVs (sports utility vehicle) and such but for the diminutive Metropolitan it was essential because there was no trunk (boot) lid.  Though not unique, that was unusual in four-seat sedans (which the Metropolitan sort of was) although some sports cars also lacked the fitting including the early Austin-Healey Sprite (the so-called bugeye or frogeye (depending on the side of the Atlantic where one sat)) and every Chevrolet Corvette between the release of the C2 in 1962 and the C5 in 1998.

Bench seat for four: the improbable 1948 Davis Divan.  The blue car (one of a dozen survivors of the 17 built) was restored by the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles where it is on display.

In cars and such, a “bench seat” differs from a “bucket” or “individual” seat in that comfortably it can accommodate three occupants, the comparison with furniture being the difference between a “chair” and a “sofa”.  In commercial vehicles, bench seats commonly can seat four but in cars the recommended (and eventually legal) limit was typically three although the truly bizarre Davis Divan (1948) featured a bench allowing four abreast seating for adults, something which would have been an interesting experience for the quartet because a quirk of the suspension system was the long, pointed nose of the thing actually rose under braking.  The three-wheeled Divan was the brainchild of “automotive entrepreneur” (some historians are less kind) Glen Gordon “Gary” Davis (1904-1973) who put some effort into building the prototypes, not enough into preparation for actual production but much into raising funds from “investors”, a goodly chunk of which apparently was spent on real estate, entertaining and mink coats for “friends” (with all that implies).  He had a flair for slogans so many investors were attracted but the project proved chimeric, Mr Davis subsequently tried and convicted of fraud & grand theft, spending two years in prison.  The name Divan was used as an allusion to the car's wide bench seat.  It was from the French divan, from the Ottoman Turkish دیوان (divan), from the Iranian Persian دیوان (divân), from the Classical Persian دیوان (dēwān), from Middle Persian dpywʾn' or dywʾn' (dēwān) (archive, collected writings, compilation of works”), from the Sumerian dub.  The sense was of a sofa-like piece of furniture comprising a mattress lying against the wall and on either the floor or an elevated structure.  Part of the tradition of interior decorating in the Middle East, in the West divans are sometimes called “ottomans”; those with an internal storage compartment: “box ottomans”.

Four American Airlines stewardesses proving the bench seat had “hiproom for four adults; its foam rubber cushion beautifully upholstered in long-wearing synthetic fabrics.”  Dr Phil Tiemeyer's Women and the Jet Age. A Global History of Aviation and Flight Attendants (2025) explores the post-war aviation industry and the not always happy part played by flight attendants.

Resembling a large shoe mounted on a tricycle undercarriage, so much was strange about the Davis Divan that in 1948 the four-abreast seating configuration probably didn’t seem so startling.  Still, the public were aware of the unusual feature because among the many publicity shots distributed was one of four American Airlines flight attendants (then called stewardesses) perched, apparently happily, on the bench seat while Mr Davis looked on approvingly.  Presumably, the four young ladies were relaxed and comfortable because the space available was rather more than airlines these days provide for economy-class passengers in airliners.  To this day, there are those who defend Mr Davis and claim the corporate failure was a consequence of his managerial ineptitude rather than constructive fraud but as well as the mink coats, there were clues some of techniques used to raise what would now be called VC (venture capital) were suspect, including the claim the movie star Greta Garbo (1905-1990) was one of the investors.  Ms Garbo was by 1948 already legendarily reclusive, never gave interviews and journalists who sent type-written questions (including a return SSAE (stamped self-addressed envelope)) were ignored.  If any alleged “investor” was unlikely to contradict Mr Davis, it was Greta Garbo.

Mannerist but not quite surrealist: Some artistic licence taken.

Advertising for the 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (left) with images by Art Fitzpatrick (1919–2015) & Van Kaufman (1918-1995) and a (real) 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Sports Coupe (right) fitted with Pontiac's much admired 8-lug wheels, their exposed centres actually the brake drum to which the rim (in the true sense of the word) directly was bolted.  Four could be seated on the Bonneville's front seat but the packaging efficiency was not as good as was found on the Divan; although the car was 8.2 inches (208 mm) wider (78.2 (1,986) vs 72.0 (1,829)), at 63.4 inches (1,610 mm), the Pontiac’s front seat was narrower than the 64 inches (1,626 mm) found in the Divan.  The inefficiency inside was reflected under the hood (bonnet).  Although wide, even Detroit's large-displacement V8s of the post-war years were, by historic standards, relatively short, but to achieve the desired look (longer, lower, wider), the stylists rendered long noses and such was the capaciousness, a straight-8 or V16 could have been installed.  Remarkably, as a marker of distinction, some of these machines even had their noses extended a few inches, just "for the look", creating even more waste space.  Undeniably, something like the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix was dramatic but it was emblematic of an era of self indulgence. 

Had one taken seriously some of the images used to advertise US cars in the 1960s, one might have assumed Mr Davis had been so influential that bench seats might by 1961 seat five but sadly, the work of Fitzpatrick & Kaufman (best remembered for what they rendered for GM’s (General Motors) PMD (Pontiac Motor Division) took some artistic licence and one piece of exaggeration was width.  The pair rendered memorable images but certainly exaggerated things where they though it would help created what were even then admired as simulacrums rather than something to be taken literally.  While PMD’s “Year of the Wide-Track” (introduced in 1959) is remembered as a slogan (the original advertising copy read “Wide Track Wheels” but was soon clipped to “Wide Track” because it was snappier), it wasn’t just advertising shtick, the decision taken to increase the track of Pontiacs by 5 inches (127 mm) because the 1958 frames were carried-over for the much wider 1959 bodies, rushed into production because the sleek new Chryslers had rendered the old look frumpy and suddenly old-fashioned.  That spliced-in five inches certainly enhanced the look but the engineering was sound, the wider stance did genuinely improve handling.  Just to make sure people got the message about the “wide” in the “Wide Track” theme, the advertising artwork deliberately exaggerated the width of the cars they depicted and while it was the era of “longer, lower, wider” (and PMD certainly did their bit in that), things never got quite that wide.  Had they been, the experience of driving would have felt something like steering an aircraft carrier's flight deck.

Davis Divan: Even if the car wasn’t “real”, the brochure was well-done, reflecting the influences of Art Deco and Mid-Century Modernism.

Although not in US terms a “big” car, at 72 inches (6 feet, 1.8 metres) in width, the Davis Divan was comparatively wide, as of course it had to be make the four-place bench seat viable.  Still, with an apparently aerodynamic body made from aluminium (taking advantage of the ample stock of the metal created when contacts for military aircraft had been cancelled after the unexpectedly abrupt end of World War II (1939-1945)) it weighed in at a svelte 2,450 pounds (1,110 kg) so the small, four cylinder engines would have delivered low fuel consumption and provided adequate, if not sparkling, performance although if the shape was as slippery as it appeared, the claimed top speed of 115 mph (185 km/h) may have been plausible; as far as is known, no one has ever attempted to verify the claim.  In a booming economy in which new cars were in high-demand, the package must have seemed attractive to investors, especially as it was expected to sell for what seemed a competitive US$995.

One of the mink coats made infamous in the court proceedings in which Mr Davis was handed a two-year sentence after being convicted of fraud & grand theft.

In retrospect, the projected price was as remote from economic reality as the 990 Reichsmarks (RM) the Nazi Party in 1938 promised would be the cost Germans would pay for a new KdF-Wagen.  The Kraft durch Freude-Wagen was the “people’s car” marketed by the Party’s Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) operation which also ran cruise liners and holiday resorts and although not one car had been delivered to a civilian customer by the end of the war, it would subsequently enjoy much global success as the Volkswagen Type 1 (VW Beetle, 1938-2003).  As late as 1943 some of the 340,000-odd Germans obediently still were making their weekly payment of 5 RM and it would be more than a decade before some received any form of refund.  While over 21 million VW Beetles were made, Davis Divan production only ever reached 16 or 17 (including three specialized military (non-combat-vehicles) variants) and remarkably, at least 12 have survived as curiosities in museums and private collections.

Of law

Bench seat for four: A gang of four Sceggs.  Sceggs should not be confused with the homophonic skegs, a feature from shipbuilding.

In courts of the common law tradition the terms “bench” & “bar” date from the medieval age and remain part of courtroom terminology.  “The bench” was originally the seat on which judges at while presiding, the early furniture apparently a simple wooden bench as one would find at many long dining tables and in the manner typical of the way English evolves, “bench” came to be used of judges collectively and of the institution of the judiciary itself.  The “bar” was the physical barrier separating the spectators and participants of a trial from the area where the lawyers and judges conducted the proceedings, thus the “bar table” being that at which the advocates sat and the right to practice law before the bench being “passing the bar”, familiar in the modern US phrase “passing the bar exam” or the English form “called to the bar”.  As “bench” became a synecdoche for the judiciary, “bar” came to be used of the lawyers although in jurisdictions where there is a separation between those who appear in court (barristers) and those who do not (solicitors) “bar” was applied only to the former and even after reforms in some abolished the distinctions between certain branches of the law, specialist practitioners continue often to be referred to as the “equity bar” & “common law bar”.  There’s thus the apparent anomaly of the use of “bencher” (recorded in the 1580s) being used to mean “senior member of an inn of court”, all of whom would have been members of “the bar”.  Presumably the idea was one of “approaching the bench” or (more mischievously) “aspiring to the bench”.  The bench-warrant (one issued by a judge, as opposed to one issued by a magistrate or justice of the peace (JP) dates from the 1690s. 

An illuminated manuscript (circa 1460) which is the earliest known depiction of the Court of King's Bench in session.

In England, the Court of King’s Bench (KB) (or Queen’s Bench (QB) depending on who was on the throne) began in the twelfth century as a court at which the monarch literally presided; it was a circuit court which would, from time-to-time, travel around the counties hearing cases.  The Court of KB was thus in some sense “virtual”, whatever wooden bench upon which he sat becoming the KB for the duration of the trial.  Kings would cease to sit as judges and the KB later was interpolated into the system of courts (there would be many internecine squabbles over the years) until (as the Court of Queen’s Bench), under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873), it, along with the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Exchequer and Court of Chancery were merged to become the High Court of Justice, each of the absorbed institutions becoming a division.  The Common Pleas and Exchequer Division were abolished in 1880 when the High Court was re-organized into the Chancery Division, Queen's Bench Division and the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division (the latter memorably known as “wills, wives & wrecks” in legal slang).  The origin of the KB is a hint of why a king or queen can’t appear before a court in the UK or other places in which they remain head of state: Although it is in a practical sense now a legal fiction, all courts of law are “their courts” of which they remain the highest judge.  The most famous (or infamous) relic of all this is the power of pardon which although no longer a personal power in the hands of the king, remains exactly that for a US president and is the only head of power in the US constitution not subject to "checks & balances", a POTUS able to grant pardons by ex-officio fiat.  In that sense, the POTUS is the "chief magistrate" mentioned in the Federalist Papers (1788) although the authors used the term to distinguish a republic's president from European monarchs by stressing the execution of legal duties under the rule of law rather than sovereign privilege.  Not all presidents have been much troubled by that distinction. 

Benches afforced with foreign judges, the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong’s national security law

Multi-national benches are not uncommon.  There have been courts operating under the auspices of the LoN (League of Nations;1920-1946) & UN (United Nations; since 1945) such as the ICC (International Criminal Court), the ICJ (International Court of Justice) and the various ad-hoc bodies set up to handle prosecutions related to crimes in specific locations (Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia etc) and the UK had the JCPC (Judicial Committee of the Privy Council) which included senior judges from the Commonwealth.  The JCPC functioned not only as a final court of appeal for Commonwealth nations (a role for a handful it still fulfils) but also as the appellate tribunal for a number of domestic bodies including some ecclesiastical bodies, admiralty matters and even matters from the usually obscure DCRCVS (Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons).  There were also the IMTs (International Military Tribunal) which tried matters arising from the conduct of German & Japanese defendants from World War II (1939-1945), the bench of the latter Tokyo Tribunal notably diverse although those of the subsequent dozen trials in Nuremberg after the first (1945-1946) were staffed exclusively by US judges.  A number of former colonies also use foreign judges (and not always from the former colonial power).

However, what remains unusual is the matter of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) deciding to have foreign judges serve on The HKCFA (Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal), established in 1997 when the HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) was created upon Beijing regaining sovereignty (under the IC2S (one country, two systems)) principle, with the end of British colonial rule.  At that point, the HKCFA became the territory’s highest judicial institution, replacing the JCPC in London.  On the HKCFA’s bench sits the Chief Justice (a Hong Kong national), several “Permanent Judges” and some two-dozen odd “Non-permanent Judges” who may be recruited from Hong Kong or from among lawyers of the requisite background from any overseas common law jurisdiction.  As non-permanent judges, appointments have been drawn (from bar & bench) from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Lindsay Lohan, foreign judge on the bench of The Masked Singer (2019), a singing competition, the Australian franchise of a format which began in the ROK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)) as King of Mask Singer.

While it may seem strange a developed country like the PRC (People’s Republic of China (the old "Red China"), the world’s second largest economy, a permanent member of the UNSC (UN Security Council) and since 1965 the final member of the original “Club of Five” declared nuclear powers) would have foreign judges sitting on the bench of one of its superior courts, on the mainland the PRC operates under a civil law system which, like the tradition in continental European, is based primarily on written statutes and codes (with ultimate effective control remaining with the CCP), unlike common law systems, which rely heavily on case law and judicial precedent.  As a British colony, Hong Kong had used common law and under that system had become a major regional and international presence, something in part due to its judicial system being perceived as fair and uncorrupted; it was a “rule of law” state.

In the PRC there simply wasn’t a body of judges or lawyers with the necessary background in common law to staff the territory’s highest appellate court and significantly, at the time of the handover from the Raj, Hong Kong was of great importance to the PRC’s economy and the CCP understood it would be critical to maintain confidence in the rule of law, investors and overseas corporations with a presence in Hong Kong needing to be assured matters such as contracts would continue as before to be enforceable.  So it was, literally, “business as usual”, whatever may have been the fears about the political undercurrent.  The growth of the mainland economy since 1997 has been such that the HKSAR now constitutes only a small fraction of the national economy but analysts (some of whom provide advice to the CCP) understand the linkages running through the territory remain highly useful for Beijing and some long-standing conduits are still used for back-channel communications about this and that.  As far as business is concerned, the operation of the legal system has remained mostly satisfactory, even though the CCP ensured Beijing retained a reserved power to overturn the HKCFA’s decisions, the "rule of the CCP" sometimes thought preferable to the implications of "rule of law".

The colonial era building where now sits the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.  Formally opened in 1912, it was built with granite in the neo-classical style and between 1985-2011 was the seat of the Legislative Council (LegCo).

However, in 2020, a “National Security Law” (technically the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and thus usually written in English as the “NSL”) was imposed.  While not aimed at the regulation of business or economic matters, it was wide in scope and claims of application (the extraterritoriality extending worldwide), essentially extending to the territory many of the laws of the mainland regarding “political activities” and matters of “free speech”, the latter interpreted by the CCP in a way not unique but certainly different from Western understandings.  Citing the “political situation”, two British judges in June 2024 resigned from the HKCFA, prompted by Beijing’s recent crackdown on dissent in the city, something made possible by the NSL.  In his published letter, one judge, his rationale for departure notwithstanding, did say he continued “…to have full confidence in the court and the total independence of its members.”  As early as 2020, one Australian judge had already resigned, followed by two others from the UK, both saying the Hong Kong government had “…departed from values of political freedom and freedom of expression.”  The CCP may have anticipated some objection from the overseas judges because, since the passage of the NSL, no overseas judge has been allocated to hear the “security-related” cases.  The judicial disquiet seemed not to trouble the territory’s chief executive, former police officer Ka-chiu (John Lee; b 1957) who said the overseas appointments would continue to help “…maintain confidence in the judicial system and… strong ties with other common law jurisdictions.”  In response to the departing judge’s comment, he claimed the NSL had “no effect” on judicial independence and the only difference was that “…national security is now better safeguarded.”

Early in June, the Hong Kong authorities arrested two men and one woman attending a FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (the International Federation of Association Football that, for historic reasons, recognizes more countries than the UN)) World Cup qualification match against Iran, their offence being “turning their backs to the pitch and not standing during the performance of the national anthem”, a police spokesman adding that anybody “…who publicly and intentionally insults the national anthem in any way in committing a crime.”  Before the NSL was imposed, bolshie Hongkongers were known to boo the anthem to express discontent with their rulers; that definitely will no longer be tolerated.  The match ended Iran 4: Hong Kong 2 but despite that, more than ever the HKSAR and the Islamic Republic have much in common.

Daughter

Daughter (pronounced daw-ter)

(1) A female child or person in relation to her parents.

(2) Any female descendant (now rare).

(3) A person said to be related to an institution as if by the ties binding daughter to parent (daughter of the church; Daughters of the American Revolution etc).

(4) Any female (archaic in the English-speaking world but used sometimes by some cultures to indicate some closeness of family relationship, rather as aunt & uncle are sometimes used in the West).

(5) Any institution or other thing personified as female and considered with respect to its origin (eg Australia is the daughter of the six colonies).

(6) In chemistry & physics (of a nuclide), an isotope formed by radioactive decay of another isotope.

(7) In biology, pertaining to a cell or other structure arising from division or replication (eg the daughter cell; daughter DNA).

(8) As daughterboard, IBM’s original descriptor for boards (now called piggyback boards, riser cards or mezzanine boards) which directly (usually by soldering) connect to motherboards (now called main or system-boards).

(9) In historical linguistics, as daughter language (known also as a descendant language), a language descended from another (its mother language) through genetic descent as opposed to a "sister language" which is one which also evolved from the proto- mother language but formed a separate branch.  The model is that of a tree where the mother language is the trunk and the branches the daughters and sisters (each of which can have their own daughters and sisters).  The image of the tree represents the diversification of languages from a root source.

(10) In fantasy writing, as merdaughter, a mermaid daughter.

(11) In slang, as “daughter of Sappho”, a lesbian.

Pre 950: From the Middle English goghter & doughter, from the Old English dohtor (female child considered with reference to her parents; daughter) from the Proto-West Germanic dohter, from the Proto-Germanic dokhter and the earlier dhutēr, from the primitive Indo-European dughtḗr, source also of the Sanskrit duhitā & duhitar-, the Avestan dugeda-, the Armenian dustr, the Old Church Slavonic dušti, the Lithuanian duktė and the Ancient Greek thygátēr & thugatēr).  The Proto-Germanic forms were the source also of the Old Saxon dohtar, the Old Norse dóttir, the Old Frisian and Dutch dochter, the Old High German tohter, the German Tochter and the Gothic dauhtar.  Daughter, daughterhood, daughtership & daughterling are nouns and daughterless, daughtered, daughterly & daughterlike are adjectives; the noun plural is daughters or daughtren (archaic).

Dutiful daughter: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) with daughter Ivanka Trump (b 1981;  senior advisor in the first Trump administration 2017-2021) in an extended (stretch) Lincoln Continental limousine, New York City, circa 1992.

The common Indo-European word was lost in Celtic and Latin; the Latin filia (daughter) is the feminine form of filius (son), the most obvious connection in Modern English being young female horses: a filly is a beast under four and thus too young to be a mare and filly is still used as humorous and affectionate slang to refer to a lively girl or young woman.  The modern spelling evolved in the sixteenth century in southern England.  In late Old English, the form also emerged of a "woman viewed in some analogous relationship" (to her native country, church, culture etc and that use persists to this day) and from circa 1200 could be used to describe anything regarded as feminine.  Daughter-in-law is attested from the late fourteenth century.  The noun plural is daughters, the long archaic form being daughtren and the last surviving obsolete spelling was dafter.  The adjective daughterly (relating to or characteristic of a daughter) is technically neutral but has long denoted “dutiful (towards parents)”, the “dutiful daughter” a frequent reference in English literature, often to damn those judged insufficiently dutiful although in the English-speaking world there was never much of a tradition of "honor killing" as still practiced east of Suez; daughters who disappointed the family might variously be disinherited or ostracized but they were allowed to live.  As well as dutiful, daughters can be difficult and Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; POTUS 1901-1909) was once asked by some Republican Party apparatchiks to "control his daughter" (Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980) who had a mind of her own).  He replied he "could be president of the United States or he could control Alice but he could not do both."  

The noun step-daughter was from the Old English stepdohtor, the formation aligned with the German Stieftochter.  Grand-daughter, like the related forms to describe recent ancestors and relations dates from 1610.  The noun god-daughter (female godchild, girl one sponsors at her baptism) was adopted in the mid-thirteenth century as a modification of the Old English goddohtor.  The noun filicide (action of killing a son or daughter) dates from the 1660s, the construct being the Latin filius/filia (son/daughter) + -cide (a killing), the meaning extended after 1823 to "one who kills a son or daughter", filicidal appearing shortly after.  Bathsheba was the Biblical wife of King David, mother of Solomon, from the Hebrew Bathshebha (literally "daughter of the oath" from bath (daughter)).

Lindsay Lohan: Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father).

I wait for the postman to bring me a letter

I wait for the good Lord to make me feel better

And I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders

A family in crisis that only grows older

Why'd you have to go

Why'd you have to go

Why'd you have to go

Daughter to father, daughter to father

I am broken but I am hoping

Daughter to father, daughter to father

I am crying, a part of me is dying and

These are, these are

The confessions of a broken heart

And I wear all your old clothes; your polo sweater

I dream of another you the one who would never, never

Leave me alone to pick up the pieces

A daddy to hold me, that's what I needed

So why'd you have to go

Why'd you have to go

Why'd you have to go

Daughter to father, daughter to father

I don't know you, but I still want to

Daughter to father, daughter to father

Tell me the truth, did you ever love me'

Cause these are, these are

The confessions of a broken heart, of a broken heart

I love you

I love you

I love you

I, I love you

Daughter to father, daughter to father

I don't know you, but I still want to

Daughter to father, daughter to father

Tell me the truth, did you ever love me'

Did you ever love me?

These are

The confessions of a broken heart, oh yeah

And I wait for the postman to bring me a letter

Songwriters: Kara Dioguardi (b 1970), Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & William Wells (b 1973).  Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Kobalt Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music.  From the album A Little More Personal (Raw) (2005).

Kim Ju Ae, First Daughter of the DPRK

Donald Trump is by all accounts a good father and no doubt gave his daughters the odd tour of the hotels and real-estate developments which are the core of the family business but as daddy-daughter days go, they probably weren’t as much fun as those arranged for Kim Ju Ae (b circa 2013) by Kim Jong Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).  Like just about everything else done by the Supreme Leader, his daddy-daughter days are well-publicized by the KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) and Kim Ju Ae had been seen accompanying her father while inspecting nuclear warheads, watching ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) launches and reviewing military parades although the most recent highlight was of her driving a battle-tank on manoeuvres over a plain (she seemed to be having fun).  With an elaborate headquarters located at 1 Potonggang-dong in Pyongyang's Potonggang District) the KCNA may be the world's most productive state news agency and is the best source for new Kim Jong Un content.  Of course, Mr Trump is commander-in-chief of the world’s best-equipped military and, if so minded, could on next daddy-daughter day take his daughters tank-driving although their enthusiasm for such things may be restrained.

Daddy-daughter day.  DPRK postage stamp issued in 2018 to mark Kim Ju Ae’s presence at a military base where ICBMs were being displayed.  Like many young girls, Kim Ju Ae is much taken by the beauty of nuclear weapons.

Although not discussed by the KCNA, there has in the West been speculation Kim Ju Ae is being groomed to succeed Kim Jong Un as leader of the DPRK (and thus become Kim IV) should (God forbid) the Supreme Leader drop dead.  One important aspect of the succession would be the choice of title to be granted to Kim IV, not a minor matter in the DPRK where the personality cult of the leaders has so assiduously been cultivated.  The DPRK’s leadership titles are not arbitrary honorifics; they are components of the Suryŏng system, a carefully managed political theology blending Confucian familial hierarchy, Marxist terminology and quasi-religious veneration. Structurally, the key functional term is 령도자 / 지도자 (leader), the adjectives chosen to mark legitimacy, continuity, and distinction and thus far the nomenclature has included:

Kim Il Sung (Kim I): 위대한 수령 (Widaehan Suryŏng); “Great Leader, 1948-1994”.

Kim Jong Il (Kim II): 친애하는 지도자 (Chin’aehan Jidoja); “Dear Leader, 1994-2011”.

Kim Jong Un (Kim III):  최고령도자 (Ch’oe-go Ryŏngdoja); “Supreme Leader since 2011”.

Were Kim Ju Ae to be elevated as successor, it would be the first time since the formation of the DPRK in 1948 that the leadership would be held by a woman but on forums in the RoK (Republic of Korea (the "puppet state" of South Korea)), users seems to think this not significant and that it was at least possible the “Supreme Leader” epithet might be re-used, the argument being (1) “Supreme Leader” has become accepted as the apex designation, (2) institutional continuity would be maintained and (3) it would conform with the dynamics of 삼대세습 (三代世襲, samdae sesŭp), the construct being 삼대 (三代) (three generations) +세습 (世襲) (hereditary succession).  In Korea, the “three-generation hereditary succession” of the Kim dynasty is the Great Leader / Dear Leader / Supreme Leader sequence and for various reasons it’s unthinkable that the “Great Leader” title could be re-used because part of Kim gamily mystique (of which much has been manufactured) is that as the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung is and must remain unique.

Daddy-daughter day.  KCNA official image of Kim Ju Ae’s driving a Cheonma-2 (M2024) third generation main battle tank, March, 2026.

Indeed, despite being three decades dead, Kim Il Sung remains president.  Kim Il-sung held an array of titles during his decades as the DPRK’s dictator, the proliferation not unusual in communist nations where the ruling party’s structures are maintained alongside the formal titles of state with which a nation maintains relations with the rest of the world.  In office for a remarkable 45 years, he was designated premier (head of government) between 1948-1972 and president 1972-1994.  Additionally, he was between 1949-1994 head of the WPK (Workers' Party of Korea) and in that role was styled successively as chairman (1949-1966) and general secretary (after 1966).  During his 45-year rule, there were ten POTUSs, six RoK presidents, nine British prime ministers and ten Australian prime ministers and his tenure in office spanned the era of the Soviet Union from its apotheosis under comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) to its collapse in 1991.

Daddy-daughter day. DPRK postage stamp issued in 2018 to mark Kim Ju Ae’s presence at a military base where ICBMs were being displayed.

Being dead however proved no obstacle to The Great Leader extending his presidency, the collective office Chuch'ejosŏnŭi yŏngwŏnhan suryŏng (Eternal leaders of Juche Korea) created in 2016 by the insertion of an enabling line in the preamble to the constitution.  What this amendment did was formalise the position of The Great Leader and his late son (The Dear Leader) as the “eternal leaders” of the DPRK and was said to be part of juche, the term used to describe the DPRK’s national philosophy, a synthesis of The Great Leader’s interpretation of (1) Korean tradition and (2) Marxist-Leninist theory.  It was an interesting legal move.  Constitutionally, the office of president was established only in 1972; prior to that the role of head of state had been purely ceremonial and held by respected party functionaries, all power exercised by The Great Leader in his capacity as premier and general secretary of the WPK.  However, merely by being president, The Great Leader vested the office with such prestige that upon his death in 1994, the position was left vacant, The Dear Leader not granted the title.  That nuance of succession for a while absorbed the interest of the DPRK watchers but attempts to invest the move with any significance abated as DPRK business, though in the more straitened circumstances of the post Soviet world, continued as usual.

The constitution was again revised in 1998.  Being a godless communist state, no fine theological points stood in the way of declaring The Great Leader the DPRK’s “Eternal President”, the latest addition to the preamble declaring: “Under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Korean people will hold the great leader Comrade Kim Il-sung in high esteem as the eternal President of the Republic.”  The constitution, as revised and promulgated after the death of The Dear Leader, again referred to The Great Leader as “Eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea” but in 2016 (The Dear Leader having been dead for an apparently decent duration), another amendment to the preamble changed the administrative nomenclature of executive eternity to “Eternal leaders of Juche Korea”, the honor now jointly held by the leaders great & dear.  It was another first for the Kims and the legal mechanism is expected to be replicated after the death of the Supreme Leader.

KCNA official photograph: Ri Sol-ju (b circa 1987; wife of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un) (left), Kim Ju-ae (centre) and Kim Jong-un (right), undisclosed location, February 2023.

Although the dynastic model (Kim I, Kim II, Kim II) may appear to be that of a hereditary monarchy, the regime makes an ideological distinction between the DPRK and decadent practices elsewhere, the succession based on 백두혈통 (Paektu hyŏlt’ong) (Mount Paektu bloodline) with the legitimacy conferred not by “inheritance” but rather “revolutionary lineage”.  Sitting on the Chinese border, Mount Paektu is an active volcano and the highest peak on the Korean peninsula; as well as being important in ancient Korean mythology, it figures also in the legends of the Kims, Kim Il-sung said to have led a resistance against Japan's occupation of the peninsula from bases on Mount Paektu and it was there Kim Jong-il was born.  Now, with “three-generation hereditary succession” accomplished, in a sense, samdae sesŭp has been perfected and in South Korea (or “the puppet state to the south” as the KCNA puts it), the feeling the internal logic of henceforth maintaining a “Supreme Leader” would be compelling although that won’t stop some in the puppet state dubbing her “Supreme Leaderette”.

IBM: Mothers and daughters but not sisters

IBM PC-1 (1981).

IBM didn’t invent the motherboard.  It evolved into the form in which it became well-known in the early 1980s because advances in technology had reduced the size of certain components (CPU, memory etc) which used to be separate devices which were wired together to run as a unit.  When IBM released the original PC-1 in 1981, it was built around a motherboard which contained slots into which expansion boards could be plugged and various connectors with which compatible devices could be connected.  Given there were motherboards, IBM, in the innocent age of the 1980s, decided other peripheral components, those usually directly embedded through soldering to the motherboard, should be called daughterboards.  Quite how the nomenclature was chosen is either not known or IBM has suppressed the records and the fanciful notion that it’s because the early motherboards contained more female than male connections is just an industry myth.  In the literature, there’s also the odd reference to sisterboards though the name never caught on and "daughter-board" was sometime used to describe cards which plugged-into expansion cards but such devices were rare.  Obviously, if a server has two daughter-boards installed, there's no reason why they couldn't, in that configuration, be called “sister-boards” but that convention never evolved.

IBM PC-1 motherboard (1981), expansion slots at the top right; it seemed small at the time.

A daughterboard was a circuit board which extended the circuitry of the motherboard and, being soldered, was connected directly, unlike the inherently swappable expansion cards which plugged-in using the bus or other (most often serial, parallel or SCSI (small computer system interface)) interfaces.  Like a motherboard, daughterboards had sockets, pins, plugs and connectors to permit connection to other boards or other devices and have been both part of initial product releases and post-launch updates, the best known example of which were the MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) daughterboards used to add functionality to a sound card.  Except for the odd special build for someone really nerdy, modern PCs (personal computer) now rarely have daughterboards although they’re still seen on servers.

Daughterboard (left) and bored daughter (right):  1984 Apple Macintosh 128 KB motherboard with SCSI daughterboard (right) and additional RAM daughterboard (left).  In 1984, having a machine with 1 MB RAM was a way to impress people.  An obviously bored Chelsea Clinton (b 1980; FDOTUS 1993-2001) is pictured listening to crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) again explain why her never becoming POTUS was the fault of others, Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, Hilton Hotel, Manhattan, New York City, 18 September, 2023.  Like us all, Chelsea had heard it many times before.

Even before the twenty-first century interest in gender and gendered pronouns, IBM had renamed everything in the corporation which could in anyway be thought sexist, racist etc.  By the late 1990s, although the term motherboard continued widely to be used, IBM had started calling them them variously main-boards or system-boards; daughterboards became piggyback or mezzanine boards.  Interestingly, as part of the linguistic sanitation, IBM started calling hard disk drives "hard files" which was either looking forward to solid-state storage or just one of those inexplicable things which happens when projects assume their own inertia; whatever the reason, "hard file" never caught on.  The terms male and female for connections (modeled on human anatomy and used in everything from plumbing to the space programme) were retained because their use was universal and convenient or mnemonic gender-neutral substitutes eluded even IBM's language police.  Male and female connectors may be about the only gender-loaded terms which will escape being labelled "micro-aggressions".