Banister, Baluster & Balustrade

Banister (pronounced ban-uh-ster)

(1) The handrail on the side of a staircase.

(2) One of the vertical supports of a handrail; a baluster (often in the plural as banisters).

(3) The balustrade of a staircase (usually in the plural as banisters).

(4) To construct a banister.

(5) To act as a banister (only in the literal sense).

1660–1670: Of uncertain origin but thought most likely by dissimilation from the earlier ballester & the seventeenth century barrester, both corruptions of baluster.  As late a 1848 it was listed as “a vulgar term” but by the early twentieth century was an accepted part of the language of architecture and in the building trades. The surname Bannister was unrelated to the use in architecture and entered English from the Anglo-Norman Bannister, from the Old French banastre (basket); it was thus occupational and described a “basket-maker”.  Like many surnames, it also became a locality name.  The verb use in the sense of “to construct a banister” is a metal worker’s or carpenter’s term to describe “fabricating a banister” while the idea of “to act as a banister” is an allusion to some use of static uprights to support something.  There’s is no evidence it has been used figuratively in the way “pillar” or “buttress” are used metaphorically.  Minnie Bannister (voiced by Spike Milligan (1918–2002) & Henry Crun (voiced by Peter Sellers (1925–1980)) were two elderly characters in the BBC’s radio comedy series The Goon Show (1951-1960) which was, by the standards of the time, somewhat anarchic and a precursor to later ventures into surrealist television like Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974).  The gags involving Henry Crun & “Modern Min” Bannister usually involved placing the two into roles wholly improbably for such a decrepit pair.  The spelling bannister (influenced presumably by the surname Bannister) is listed by most dictionaries as an alternative but it seems rare.  Banister is a noun & verb and banistering & banistered are verbs; the noun plural is banisters.

Baluster (pronounced bal-uh-ster)

(1) In architecture, any of a number of closely spaced uprights supporting a railing.

(2) Any of various symmetrical supports, as furniture legs or spindles, tending to swell toward the bottom or top (rare in US use).

1595–1605: From the French baluster, from the Middle French balustre, from the Italian balaustro (pillar shaped like the calyx of the pomegranate flower), from balausta (wild pomegranate flower), ultimately from the Latin balaustium, from the Ancient Greek βαλαύστιον (balaústion), probably from a Semitic language.  Iin Aramaic (the language of Christ), a balatz was “a wild pomegranate flower” and in Classical Syriac ܒܠܳܨܳܐ (blāṣā) was “a pomegranate shoot”.  In Roman architecture, uprights with lyre-like double curves (resembling the swelling form of the half-opened pomegranate flower) were most fashionable.  The spellings ballister & balluster are both (obsolete) while balustre is listed as an alternative (though not used in the US).  Baluster is a noun and balustered & balusterlike are adjectives; the noun plural is balusters.

Balustrade (pronounced bal-uh-streyd)

A railing with supporting balusters.

1635-1645: An unadapted borrowing from the French balustrade, from the Middle French balustre, from the Italian balaustro (pillar shaped like the calyx of the pomegranate flower), from balausta (wild pomegranate flower).  Balustrade is a noun and balustraded & balustrading are verbs; the noun plural is plural balustrades.

Of staircases and such

Lindsay Lohan in glomesh, on staircase.

The terms “banister”, “baluster” & “balustrade” are all used in the language of architecture and design, usually in the context of staircases or railing systems but all refer to different elements.  Banister is now used more loosely than in earlier times.  Mostly, banister refers to the handrail of a staircase, the part one is supposed to hold to stabilize one’s self when ascending or descending (or slide down if one is a child or drunken under-graduate) but it’s also sometimes use of the uprights attached to the rail.  Banister and “handrail” can thus be interchangeable but the former is almost universal in the US while in other parts of the English-speaking world (even Canada, usually a part of the US sphere of linguistic influence), handrail has become common.  Interestingly, one piece of global linguistic standardization seems to be the WH&S (workplace health & safety) signage: It’s always something like “use the handrail when using stairs”, never “use the banister”.

Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) tripping up (for the second time that assent) while climbing the stairs of Air Force One (despite following the WH&S warning and gripping the handrail).  Since the motor manifestations of his descent into senility have become more obvious, Mr Biden is no longer allowed to use the “big stairs” and is directed to the “baby stairs” in the plane’s nose.  Whether the small, angled brackets (some might call them flanges) which affix the handrail to the structure can be called balusters is debatable but that’s certainly their function.

President Biden should have taken one step at a time.

“Baluster” is the correct technical term for the uprights (the vertical posts or spindles supporting the handrail (a few of which are actually decorative with no structural function).  Whether decorative or structural, balusters are almost always arrayed in a series, either a cluster of identical units or with some variations as an architectural flourish.  In style, balusters can simple or ornate and constructed from just about any materials including wood, metal, stone or composites.  In some cases, balusters and banisters (handrails) will be of the same material and in others they will differ.  Some materials have fallen from favor because of the maintenance factor.  Brass was once widely used but keeping it polished proved a labor intensive business and in the hotels which once dripped with the stuff, there's now much more aluminium and stainless steel visible.

She would blame the (missing) balustrades because there is always someone or something to blame: Crooked Hillary Clinton, slipping (twice) in India, March 2018.

Although often much admired for their intricacy, banisters, balustrades and such are an important safety feature of staircases.  In March 2018, while visiting (for some reason) the Jahaj Maha (Ship Palace) in Mandu, crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013), despite holding the arm of an aide, slipped while descending stone stairs.  Another aide quickly took the other arm to stabilize things and the descent resumed but she slipped again, illustrating the importance of handrails which weren’t so much of a thing in the sixteenth century when the palace was built.  Crooked Hillary might be used (at least when not slipping) as an example of the way Spaniards explain the meaning of the word “enigma”: “Were one to meet her on the stairs, one couldn’t be sure if she was going up, or coming down”.

Components of a staircase.

To an architect, a “balustrade” is the name for the whole apparatus (the handrail (banister) and the balusters assembled), added to which might be as base-rail below (although some balusters are mounted directly to the floor or the tread of the stairs.  So, the balustrade is the collective term for the whole railing system on a staircase, balcony, terrace, walkway, or other structure but a convention (by no means universal) seems to have evolved to use balustrade to describe structures other than those used on staircases (unless they’re outdoors).  A railing separating pedestrians from road traffic or a river would certainly be a balustrade and that might also be the term of choice for the apparatus on the staircase leading from the river.  Once inside however, it’s all banisters and handrails.

A glass "balustrade" is really a type of wall with the top-edge serving as a handrail.

"Glass balustrades" are a favorite of interior decorators and can be applied to both indoor and outdoor use.  In domestic use, there's sometimes some resistance because many people, understandably, associate glass with fragility but the glass used is a specialized tempered safety glass, rated at some 400% the strength of that typically used in windows.  An additional benefit is that other than cleaning, glass is an essentially zero-maintenance material and not susceptible to rot, rust or other forms of corrosion.  Depending on the desired effect, a hybrid approach can also be used in which there's a traditional banister (handrail) and base-rail with a small number of uprights (balusters), a glass panel taking the place of the rest.  This is essentially using the components as a window frame. 

Weimar

Weimar (pronounced vahy-mahr, wahy-mahr, veye-mahr or weye-mahr)

(1) A city in Thuringia, in central Germany, the scene (in 1919) of the adoption of the constitution of the German state which came (retrospectively) to be known as the Weimar Republic.

(2) A German surname (of habitational origin).

(3) As Weimar Republic, The sovereign German republic (1918-1933), successor state to the German Empire (1871-1918 and now sometimes referred to as the “Second Reich”) and predecessor to the Nazi regime (the “Third Reich”, 1933-1945).

Pre 1100: The construct was the Old High German wīh (holy; sacred) + meri (sea; lake; pond; standing water, swamp).  The name can therefore be analysed as something like “holy pond” or “sacred lake” but what religious significance this had or which aquatic feature was involved is not known.  A settlement in the area of what is now Weimar has existed since at least the early Middle Ages and there is a document dated 999 which makes reference to the town as Wimaresburg but how long this, or some related form had be in use is unknown.  Over time, the changes presumably reflected as desire for convenience and simplification (not an imperative always noted in evolution of the German language) and during the early centuries of the second millennium the place seems to have been known as Wimares, Wimari & Wimar before finally becoming Weimar.  In a manner not unusual in the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806), it was the seat of the County of Weimar, one of the administrative and commercial centres of Thuringia but in 1062 merged with the County of Orlamünde to form Weimar-Orlamünde, which existed until 1346 when the Thuringian Counts' War (a squabble between several local barons) erupted.  In the settlement which followed, Weimar was taken by the Wettin clan as an agreed fief and over time developed into a major city.  Weimar is a proper noun, Weimarization & Weimarize are nouns and Weimarian is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is Weimars.

One native to or an inhabitant of Weimar is a Weimarer (strong, genitive Weimarers, plural Weimarer, feminine Weimarerin).  The adjective Weimarian (of or relating to the Weimar period (1918-1933) in German can be used in any context but is most often applied to the art & culture associated with the era rather than politics or economics.  The comparative is “more Weimarian”, the superlative “most Weimarian”).  The noun Weimarization (a state of economic crisis leading to political upheaval and extremism) is used exclusively to describe the political and financial turmoil of the Weimar years.  The verb Weimarize (to cause to undergo Weimarization) is the companion term and is applied in much the same was as a word like “Balkanize” as a convenient word which encapsulates much in a way no other can.  The Weimaraner is a breed of dog, bred originally in the region as a hunting dog, the construct being Weimar + the German suffix -aner (denoting “of this place”).

In a constitutional sense, the Weimar Republic came into existence on 11 August 1919 when the national assembly of the German state met in the city to adopt the new Weimar Constitution.  Despite that, many historians use the label to cover the whole period between abdication on 9 November 1918 by Wilhelm II (1859 1941; German emperor (Kaiser) & King of Prussia 1888-1918) and the Nazis taking office on 30 January 1933.  The constitution created what structurally was a fairly conventional federal republic (known officially as the Deutsches Reich (German Reich)), the constituent parts of which were the historic Länder (analogous with the states in systems like the US or Australia though the details of the power sharing differed), each with their own governments, assemblies and constitutions.  Historians regards the inherent weakness of the structure as one of the factors which contributed to the political instability, economic turmoil and social unrest for which the era is remembered but the external forces are thought to have been a greater influence, notably the harsh terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the extraordinary level of war reparations, the latter particularly associated with the hyper-inflation of 1923.  However, it was a time of unusual social & political freedom and there was an outpouring of innovative cultural creativity.  One thing which tends to be obscured by what came later was that by 1928 the system had been stabilized and the economy was stable.  In the last election prior to the Wall Street Crash (1929), the Nazi vote has slumped to 3% and the party was an outlier with few prospects and it was only the depression of the early 1930s which doomed Weimar.

Lindsay Lohan in court, Los Angeles, 2011.

Actually, rather than the pleasant city in Thuringia which lent the constitution its name, it was Berlin, the national and Prussian capital which came most to be associated with the artistic and sexual experimentation of the republic.  Although most of went on in the place was little different than in other conservative German cities it was the small but highly visible numbers of those enjoying the excesses which attracted attention.  In his novel Down There on a Visit (1962) Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) wrote of the sort of warning respectable folk would in the 1920s offer to anyone who seemed to need the advice:

“Christopher - in the whole of Thousand Nights and One Night, in the most shameless rituals of the Tantra, in the carvings on the Black Pagoda, in the Japanese brothel-pictures, in the vilest perversions of the oriental mind, you couldn’t find anything more nauseating than what goes on there, quite openly, every day. That city is doomed, more surely than Sodom ever was."  And then and there I made a decision - one that was to have a very important effect on the rest of my life. I decided that, no matter how, I would get to Berlin just as soon as ever I could and that I would stay there a long, long time.

Weimar art: Der Künstler mit zwei erhängten Frauen (The Artist with Two Hanged Women), watercolour and graphite on paper by Rudolf Schlichter (1890-1955).   

Isherwood left London by the afternoon train for Berlin on 14 March 1929, taking a room next to the Hirschfeld Institute for Sexual Science from which he explored the city’s “decadence and depravity” enjoying just about every minute and by his own account every gay bar and club, of which there were many.  That niche was only one of many to which the Berlin of Weimer catered, all fetishes seemingly there from morphine, cocaine and opium houses to a club at which membership was restricted to a “coven of coprophagists [who] gorged a prostitute on chocolate, gave her a laxative and settled down to a feast.”  Actually, at the time, there was plenty of depravity among the Nazis, however much the public platform of the party might stress traditional values and they were as condemnatory as the Pope of such as communists, homosexuals and Freemasons (The Roman Catholic Church among the institutions Hitler admired along with the British Empire and comrade Stalin (and Stalin really was a construct)).  Indeed, in his writings and the recollections of his contemporaries about his discussions, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) didn’t much dwell on moral matters but he would spend much effort condemning those aspects of German culture he believed the Weimar generation were corrupting including “modernist architecture, Dadaist art, Jewish psychoanalysis, experimental theatre, short shirts, lipstick, bobbed hair, dances like the foxtrot and jazz” (the last of which he derided as “a degenerate negroid sound”).

Weimar art: Sonnenfinsternis (Eclipse of the Sun (1926)), oil on canvas by George Grosz (1893-1959).  Weimar was not untouched by surrealism.

The lurid tales of Weimar Berlin from the diaries of Christopher Isherwood et al now entertain rather than shock as once they would have managed but the expressionist art which flourished at the time remains striking.  A stridently experimental fork of the European avant-garde, the Weimar artists chose to ignore traditional aesthetic conventions and according to some critics the painters were fascinated by ugliness, the composers by atonal dissonance.  They were also artists who were predominately urban and focused upon the city, its decadence and corrosive influence upon the individual.  The Weimar period was the time also when the phrase magischer Realismus (magic realism) was coined, more accurately to describe what had come to be known as the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity).  Magic realism is now thought of as a literary genre in which fantastical elements are interpolated into life-like depictions of the world but the first use was in 1925 by German art historian Franz Roh (1890–1965) who observed many artists in the Weimar Republic were rejecting (or at least ignoring) the idealistic style (fashionable before World War I (1914-1918) and which had combined naturalistic depiction with an amplification of beauty and virtue), in favor of something recognizably realistic yet blended with uncanny elements.  Roh’s understanding of magic realism was at least partially an acknowledgement of technology: the influence of photography and moving pictures (film).  Then as now, there was debate about whether there was some point at which realism stopped and surrealism began but the distinction was that magic realism was a distortion of the actual material world for some political or other didactic purpose whereas surrealism explored the abstractions which lurked in the subconscious mind. 

In the Weimar style: The Rt Hon Theresa May MP (2023), a portrait of Lady May (b 1956; UK prime-minister 2016-2019) by Saied Dai (b 1958).

Painted by Tehran-born Saied Dai, it will hang in  Portcullis House, Parliament's office complex where many MPs have their offices and not since Graham Sutherland’s (1903–1980) portrait of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) was unveiled in 1954 has a painting of one of the country’s prime-ministers attracted so much interest, the reception of such works not usually much more than perfunctory.  Sutherland was commissioned (as second choice; Sir Herbert Gunn's (1893–1964) fee deemed too high) by the ad hoc “Churchill Joint Houses of Parliament Gift Committee” to paint a portrait to mark the prime-minister’s eightieth birthday and on 30 November 1954, the members of the Commons & the Lords assembled in Westminster Hall to mark the occasion.  Paid for by parliamentary subscription (the idea of paying for such a thing from their own pockets would appal today’s politicians), it was intended the work would remain with Churchill until his death after which it would be gifted to the state to hang in the Palace of Westminster.

Winston Churchill (1954) by Graham Sutherland.

Things didn’t work out that way.  Churchill, not anyway much enjoying the aging process loathed the painting and felt betrayed by the artist, the preliminary sketches he’d been shown hinting at something rather different.  Initially, he sulked, first saying he wouldn’t attend the event, then that he’d turn up only if the painting wasn’t there but his moods often softened with a little coercion and he agreed to make a short speech of thanks at the unveiling, his most memorable lines being: “The portrait is a remarkable example of modern art. It certainly combines force and candour.”  It wasn’t hard to read between the lines and when delivered to Churchill’s country house, the painting was left in a storeroom, never unwrapped and never again to be seen, Lady Churchill (Clementine Churchill (Baroness Spencer-Churchill; 1885–1977) in 1956 incinerating it in what was described as “a huge bonfire”.  That she'd executed one of history’s most practical examples of art criticism wasn't revealed until 1979.  Curiously, when first she saw it in 1954 she admired the work, Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) who was with her at the time noting she “liked the portrait very much” and was much “moved and full of praise for it.”  Her view soon changed.

The better-received May portrait was commissioned this time by the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art at a cost of Stg£28,000 (in adjusted terms somewhat less than the 1,000 guineas paid in 1954; this time all from the tax payer) and Mrs May (she doesn’t use the title she gained in 2020 upon her husband being knighted (for “political service”) in Boris Johnson’s (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) remarkable (and belated) Dissolution Honours List) was reported as saying she thought the portrait a “huge honour”.  When interviewed, the artist said his “…aim was to produce not just a convincing physical likeness, but also a psychological characterization, both individual and yet archetypal - imbued with symbolism and atmosphere.  A good painting needs to be a revelation and also paradoxically, an enigma. It should possess an indefinable quality - in short, a mystery.”

A work of careful composition, critics have found in it influences from the Renaissance and mannerism but it’s most obviously in the spirit of the German expressionists identified with the Weimar Republic and the addition of a convallaria majalis (the "lily of the valley" which flowers in May) was the sort of touch they would have admired.  Interestingly, Mr Dai expressed relief he’d not been asked to render Mr Johnson on canvas which is understandable because while an artist could permit their interpretative imagination free reign and produce something memorable, Mr Johnson over the decades has been a series of living, breathing caricatures and it would be challenge for anyone to capture his “psychological characterization”.  The Weimaresque May in oil on canvas works so well because it’s so at variance with the one-dimensional image of the subject which has so long been in the public mind.  Whether it will change the perception of Mrs May in the minds of many isn’t known but critics have mostly admired the work and views of her premiership do seem to have been revised in the light of the rare displays of ineptitude which have marked the time in office of her three successors.

After Weimar: Der Bannerträger (The Standard Bearer (circa 1936)) oil on plywood by Hubert Lanzinger (1880-1950).  The post card with the inscription Ob im Glück oder Unglück, ob in der Freiheit oder im Gefängnis, ich bin meiner Fahne, die heute des Deutschen Reiches Staatsflagge ist, treu geblieben (Whether in good fortune or misfortune, whether in freedom or in prison, I have remained loyal to my flag, which is now the state flag of the German Reich) was issued in 1939, one of many such uses of the image which depicts Hitler as a knight in shining armor on horseback, bearing a Swastika flag.  As he did whenever a  postage stamp with his image was sold, the Führer received a tiny fee as a royalty; multiplied by millions, he gleaned quite a income from his pictures.  In one of the many examples of the fakery which underpinned Nazism (and fascism in general), Hitler was “terrible on horseback".

Der Bannerträger was an example of the type of art which proliferated in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, works intended to enforce the personality cult around Hitler and comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) and reinforce the messaging of both regimes.  Hitler, although he dutifully acknowledged them when they were presented, really did regard them as a kind of kitsch and although he understood their utility as propaganda pieces, they aroused in him little interest.  What he really liked in a painting was beauty as he defined it and in this his differentiation was something like his views on architecture where the standards imposed on the “functional” varied from his expectations of the “representational”.  Hitler would admire modern architecture rendered in steel & glass if it was being used for a factory or warehouse; there it was a matter of efficiency and improving working conditions but for the public buildings of the Reich, he insisted on classical motifs in granite.  In painting, he distinguished between what was essentially “advertising” and “real” art which the expressionism of the Weimar era certainly was not; the “…sky is not green, dogs are not blue and anyone who paints them as such has a sick mind” was his summary of thought on the Weimar art movement.  His preference was for (1) the Neoclassical which drew inspiration from the Greek and Roman art of Antiquity and his fondness extended not only to the voluptuous female nudes historians like to mention but also to the idealized, heroic figures representing nobility and heroism; with these he identified, (2) realistic landscapes, particularly those of the German countryside at its most lovely, (3) German Academic Realism which produced intricately detailed realistic representations of subjects, (4) depictions from Norse mythology which created a link between the legends and the idealized vision of the Nazi project and (5), traditional portraiture, if realistic and flattering (certainly demanded of the many painted of him).

Women in Weimer art: Margot (1924), oil on canvas by Rudolf Schlichter (1890-1955) (left), Porträt der Tänzerin Anita Berber (Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber (1925)), oil and tempera on plywood by Otto Dix (1891–1969) (centre) and Bean Ingram (1928), oil on canvas by Herbert Gurschner (1901-1975) (right). 

Books of which the Nazis didn’t approve could be burned and the proscribed music not played but the practical public servants in the finance ministry knew much of the Entartete Kunst (degenerate art) removed from German (and later Austrian) galleries was highly sought by collectors in other countries and valuable foreign exchange was obtained from these sales (some of which in the post-war years proved controversial because of the provenance of some pieces sold then and later; they turned out to have been “obtained” from occupied territories or Jews).  Hitler despised Dadaism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism and expected others in the Reich to share his view but an exhibition of Entartete Kunst in Munich in 1937 proved an embarrassing one-off for the regime because people from around the country travelled to see it and it was the most attended art show of the Third Reich.  It was Weimar’s revenge.

Squint

Squint (pronounced skwint)

(1) To look with the eyes partly closed; partially to close the eyelids.

(2) In ophthalmology, to be afflicted strabismus (a condition of the eye consisting in non-coincidence of the optic axes); to be cross-eyed.

(3) To look or glance obliquely or sidewise; to look askance.

(4) To make or have an indirect reference to or bearing on; tend or incline toward (usually followed by toward, at etc).

(5) To be not quite straight, off-centred; to deviate from a true line; to run obliquely; askew, not level (as an intransitive verb in Scots English).

(6) In radio transmission, the angle by which the transmission-signal is offset from the normal of a phased array antenna.

(7) To cause to squint; cause to look obliquely.

(8) An act or instance of squinting.

(9) In informal use, a quick glance.

(10) An indirect reference; an inclination or tendency, especially an oblique or perverse one.

(11) In church architecture, a narrow oblique opening in a wall or pillar of a church to permit a view of the main altar from a side aisle or transept (also known as a hagioscope).

1350-1400: A variant of the earlier Middle English asquint, it was used first as an adverb in the sense of “with a squint; askant, the adjectival sense emerging in the 1570s and applied to the eyes, meaning “looking different ways; looking obliquely”.  The familiar modern meaning “looking indirectly, looking askance” dates from the 1610s.  The noun use (non-coincidence of the optic axes, permanent tendency to look obliquely) was a development from the adjective and came into use in the 1650s while the idea of a “sidelong glance” appeared a decade later.  Squint is a noun & verb, squinter & squintingness are nouns, squinty & squintless are adjectives, squinting is a noun & verb, squinted & squintest are verbs and squintingly is an adverb; the noun plural is squints.

Squint was not found in Middle English and the Middle English asquint has been traced to the early thirteenth century where it was used to mean “obliquely, with a sidelong glance” and is of uncertain origin although etymologists seem certain it was derived from some word related to or meaning “slope, slant, acute angle” although there are no surviving texts in which instances of use have survived.  This was also the French équinter (cut to a point) and the French dialectal esquintar & squintar (cast a glance, look furtively) and there may be a relationship but again, no documents exist to establish a link.  The Australian slang verb squiz was in use by at least 1916 (apparently with a civilian rather than military origin) and meant “to look at” (without any suggestion of it being “a quick look” and it may have been a portmanteau word, a blend of squi(nt) and (qui)z although the “quiz” part has never been explained and it may have the “z” was used just for the attractiveness of the sound.

Joe Biden with Ray-Ban Aviators (left) and without, squinting.

Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) is often photographed wearing a pair of Ray-Ban, gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses and they’ve become one of his signature accessories.  In less unhappy times he presented a custom pair of aviators to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) along with a crystal sculpture of an American bison, the US national mammal.  Gift giving between heads of governments is a centuries-old tradition and it’s not known what the US gave Imran Khan (b 1952; prime minister of Pakistan 2018-2022); those interested should probably check eBay.  When Mr Biden isn’t wearing his Ray-Bans, he’s often pictured squinting and there has been speculation about the reason for this: (1) his eyes could be highly sensitive to light, (2) he may suffer from a mild case of strabismus (an imbalance in the muscles controlling eye movement) or (3) he may have difficulty focusing on the teleprompter he needs to use because his cognitive decline has reached the point where he can no longer remember what he needs to say and he’s too old to learn how to sync his speech with the prompting his staff could provide through an earpiece.  His decline may accelerate and, if re-elected in 2024, he’ll be 86 when his term ends so there’s plenty of time for him to deteriorate to the point a clinician would pronounce senility.  Over the centuries, the world has had a few heads of state or government who variously have been (1) a bit vague, (2) senile or (3) barking mad but few of them have had their own nuclear arsenal.

Heads of state squinting: Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011, left) & Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021, right).

A squint (the partial closing of the eyelids) differs from a stare which is fixedly to look at something or someone.  A less common use (probably obsolete except in literary or poetic use) was to vest something with being “very conspicuous on account of size, prominence, colour, or brilliancy; to stand out; to project; to bristle”.  One can squint while staring but stares can be anything from a squint to something wide-eyed.  Stare was from the From Middle English staren, from the Old English starian (to stare), from the Proto-West Germanic starēn, from the Proto-Germanic starjaną & starāną (to be fixed, be rigid), from the primitive Indo-European ster-.  It was cognate with the Dutch staren (to stare), the German starren (to stare) and the German starr (stiff).  The verb was from the Old English starian (to gaze steadily with the eyes wide open, look fixedly at, be wide-eyed (with madness, awe etc)”, from the Proto-Germanic staren (be rigid (the source also of the Old Norse stara, the Middle Low German & Middle Dutch staren, the Old High German staren  & starren (to stare at), the German starren (to stiffen) & starr (stiff), the Old Norse storr (proud), the Old High German storren (to stand out, project) and the Gothic and staurran (to be obstinate), from the primitive Indo-European root ster- (stiff).  In English, use of the word originally did not imply rudeness.  The phrase “to stare [someone] down dates from 1848 and the first known reference to a “staring contest” is from 1895.  In his memoir (Inside the Third Reich (1969), Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) claimed that during a communal meal, he once won an informal “staring contest” with Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), something which presumably be felt compelled to mention because so many of his contemporaries had in their memoirs and interviews commented on “Hitler’s hypnotic gaze”.

If looks could kill: Greta Thunberg (in pink) death-staring Donald Trump.

A frequently seen version of the stare is the so-called “death stare”, the idea being that one is looking at another with a hatred of such intensity it’s suspected one wishes them to die.  The idea of being able to “subject (someone) to the intimidating power of a stare" date from the 1670s and in popular culture, books have been written and films produced with a plotline involving someone able to doom another with nothing more than a stare.  Noted weather forecaster Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) famous death stare directed at Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) during the United Nations (UN) climate change summit, New York, September 2019.  Those needing an illustration for a school project about the use of the phrase “If looks could kill” need look no further.  In response, Mr Trump tweeted: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!”  Ms Thunberg trumped Trump’s mockery by adding to her X (the app formerly known as Twitter) profile: “A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”

Crooked Hillary Clinton had many reasons to stare at her husband and quite a few were caught on camera.  Analysts suggest that while it's hard to judge, her stares may at times have verged on being "death stares".

Stare is etymologically unrelated to stair (one of or a series of steps; a staircase) which was from the Middle English steire, staire, stayre, stayer, steir, steyre & steyer, from the Old English stǣġer (stair, staircase), from the Proto-Germanic staigriz (stairs, scaffolding), from the primitive Indo-European steyg- (to walk, proceed, march, climb”).  It was cognate with the Dutch steiger (a stair, step, wharf, pier, scaffolding), the Middle Low German steiger & steir (scaffolding) and the German Low German Steiger (a scaffold; trestle).  It was related to the Old English āstǣġan (to ascend, go up, embark), the Old English stīġan (to go, move, reach; ascend, mount, go up, spring up, rise; scale) and the German Stiege (a flight of stairs).  Stairs are used by the Spanish to illustrate the meaning of the word “enigma”: “A fellow who, were one to meet him of the stairs, one couldn’t be sure if he was coming up or going down”.

A sideways glance from Lindsay Lohan, opening night of Club Lohan, Athens, Greene, October 2016.

In the context of human vision, it means briefly to look at something or someone and it has additional senses including (1) To cause light to gleam or sparkle and (2) literally and figuratively to induce something to move obliquely, the idea picked up in cricket to describe the stroke in which the batsman hits the ball with the bat held at a slant (the classic version being the “leg glance”).  The figurative use can extend from the use of the eyes to communicate feelings to making an incidental or passing reflection, often unfavourably, on a topic.  The significance of a glance is its briefness.  The verb was from the Late Middle English glenchen (of a blow: to strike obliquely, glance; of a person: to turn quickly aside, dodge), from the Old French glacier, glachier & glaichier (to slide; to slip (from which Middle English also gained glacen (of a blow: to strike obliquely, glance; to glide)), from glace (frozen water, ice), from the Vulgar Latin glacia, from the Latin glaciēs (ice), from the primitive Indo-European gel- (to be cold; to freeze).  The noun was derived from the verb and emerged circa 1500, used initially in the sense of “a sudden movement producing a flash” and the familiar modern meaning “a brief or hurried look” dates from the 1580s and this was probably influenced by the Middle English glenten (look askance).  The sideways glance is one effected “from the corner of the eyes”.  For evolutionary reasons, we signal meaning with a variety of non-verbal clues (the so-called “body language”) and usually, when looking at someone, one turns one head in their direction and so one’s glance will be straight ahead.  If one wishing to convey one is especially interested, one turns one’s whole body to face them.  A sideways glance differs in that it’s an indirect mode of engagement, the most negative form of which is said to be “looking sideways” at someone but most sideways glances are more indicative of being merely uninterested.

Ultra

Ultra (pronounced uhl-truh)

(1) The highest point; acme; the most intense degree of a quality or state; the extreme or perfect point or state.

(2) Going beyond what is usual or ordinary; excessive; extreme.

(3) An extremist, as in politics, religion, sporting team supporters, fashion etc, used semi-formally on many occasions in history.

(4) In the history of military espionage, the British code name for intelligence gathered by decrypting German communications enciphered on the Enigma machine during World War II (initial capital letter).

1690–1700: A New Latin adverb and preposition ultrā (uls (beyond) + -ter (the suffix used to form adverbs from adjectives) + -ā (suffixed to the roots of verbs)).  The prefix ultra- was a word-forming element denoting "beyond" (eg ultrasonic) or "extremely" (ultralight (as used in aviation)) and was in common use from the early nineteenth century, the popularity of use apparently triggered by the frequency with which it was used of political groupings in France.  As a stand-alone word (in the sense now used of the most rabid followers of Italian football teams) meaning "extremist", it dates from 1817 as a shortening of ultra-royaliste (extreme royalist (which at the time was a thing))."  The independent use of ultra (or shortening of words prefixed with it) may also have been influenced by nē plūs ultrā (may you) not (go) further beyond (this point), said to be a warning to sailors inscribed on the Pillars of Hercules at Gibraltar.  This legend comes not from Greek mythology but dates from the resurrection of interest in antiquity which began during the Renaissance, influenced by Plato having said the lost city of Atlantis “lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules” and the most useful translations of nē plūs ultrā probably something like "go no further, nothing lies beyond here".

As a prefix, ultra- has been widely appended.  The construct of ultra vires (literally "beyond powers") was ultra (beyond) + vires (strength, force, vigor, power) and is quoted usually by courts and tribunals to describe their jurisdictional limits, something ultra vires understood as "beyond the legal or constitutional power of a court".  In political science, the term ultranationalism was first used in 1845, a trend which has ebbed & flowed but certainly hasn't died.  The speed of light being what it is, ultralight refer not to optics but to very small (often home-built or constructed from a kit) aircraft, the term first used in 1979 although it was (briefly) used in experimental physics in the late 1950s.  Ultrasound in its current understanding as a detection & diagnostic technique in medicine dates from 1958 but it had been used in 1911 to mean "sound beyond the range of human hearing", this sense later replaced by ultrasonic (having frequency beyond the audible range) in 1923, used first of radio transmission; the applied technology ultrasongraphy debuted in 1960.  Ultraviolet (beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum) was first identified in 1840 and in 1870 ultra-red was coined to describe what is now known as infra-red.  First identified in the 1590s, ultramarine (blue pigment made from lapis lazuli) was from the Medieval Latin ultramarinus ("beyond the sea"), the construct being ultra +  marinus (of the sea) from mare (sea, the sea, seawater), from the primitive Indo-European root mori- (body of water), the name said to be derived from the mineral arriving by ship from mines in Asia.  Ultramontane has a varied history and was first used in the 1590s.  It was from the Middle French ultramontain (beyond the mountains (especially the Alps)), from the early fourteenth century Old French, the construct being ultra + the stem of mons (hill), from the primitive Indo-European root men- (to project) and was used particularly of papal authority, though the precise meaning bounced around depending on context.  The acronym UHF (ultra-high frequency) was coined in 1937 although the technology using radio frequencies in the range of 300-3000 megahertz (Mhz) became available in 1932.  Other forms (ultramodern, ultra-blonde et al) are coined as required and survive or fall from use in the usual way English evolves.

The Ultras

The prefix ultra- occurred originally in loanwords from Latin, meaning essentially “on the far side of, beyond.”  In relation to the base to which it is prefixed, ultra- has the senses “located beyond, on the far side of” (eg ultraviolet), “carrying to the furthest degree possible, on the fringe of” (eg ultramodern) or “extremely” (eg ultralight); nouns to which it is added denote, in general, objects, properties, phenomena etc that surpass customary norms, or instruments designed to produce or deal with such things (eg ultrasound).  The more recent use as a noun (usually in the collective as “the ultras”) applied to members of an extreme faction dates from early nineteenth-century English parliamentary politics and is associated also with the most extreme supporters of certain Italian football (soccer) teams.

Although never formally a faction in the modern sense of the word, the ultra Tories (the ultras) operated from 1827 (some political scientists insists the aggregation coalesced only in 1828) as a formal as a loose and unstructured grouping of politicians, intellectuals, and journalists who constituted, in embryonic form, the “extreme right wing” of British and Irish politics.  Essentially reactionary conservatives unhappy with changes associated with the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution and urbanization, they regarded the 1689 protestant constitution as the unchangeable basis of British social, economic and political life and treated all their opponents with a rare obsessional hatred.  In another echo of recent right-wing politics, the ultras showed some scepticism of economic liberalism and supported measures designed to ameliorate the hardships suffered by the poor during the early industrial age.  Like a number of modern, nominally right-wing populist movements, the ultras were suspicious of “free trade” and the destructive consequences these policies had on industries vulnerable to competition from foreign producers.

Portrait of the Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) by Francisco Goya (1746–1828), circa 1812–14, oil on mahogany panel, National Gallery, London.

The previously inchoate ultras coalesced into a recognizable force in the period of instability which followed the death in 1827 of a long-serving prime-minister.  Their first flexing of political muscle, which proved unsuccessful, was an attempt to deny the premiership to a supporter of Catholic emancipation but the ultras emerged as a powerful influence in Tory politics although many claimed to belong to the Whig tradition.  Their annus mirabilis (a remarkable or auspicious year) came in 1830 when the ultras brought down the Duke of Wellington’s government (1828-1830) but the need for reform was unstoppable and while the label was for decades to be applied to the far-right of the Conservative Party, the latter iterations never matched the political ferocity of the early adherents.

Ultra Blonde product.

Although there are packaged products labeled as such and the phrase "ultra-blonde" is far from uncommon, there's no precise definition of such a thing and while some blondes are blonder than others, on the spectrum, there is a point at which going further means the color ceases to anymore to be blonde and becomes some shade which tends to grey, white or the dreaded yellow.  For that reason, some hairdressers prefer to describe platinum as a stand-alone color rather than the usual "platinum blonde", noting that the end result will anyway usually to some degree differ, depending on the shade and physiology of the hair to be treated.  They also caution the idea of ultra blonde isn't suitable for everyone and base their recommendations of whether a client's skin is warm or cool toned, the practical test being to assess the veins visible in the wrist; if they're mostly blue and purple (source of the word "blue-blooded" which was based on the notion of those with obviously blue veins being rich enough not to have to work in the fields), then the undertone is cool, if mostly green then it's warm and if a mix of both, the undertone is neutral.

Lindsay Lohan had an ultra-blonde phase but for her Playboy photo shoot in 2012, wore a blonde wig; many would call this "ultra blonde" but to a professional hairdresser it's a "pale".

The undertone interacts with skin tone, paler, pinky skin tones suit cool, delicate blondes like ash, beige or baby-blonde whereas darker or more golden-toned skins suit honey hues described often as butter, golden or caramel.  For perfectionists, there's also eye color to consider and here the trick is to achieve the desired degree of contrast; soft, multi-tonal shades better complementing lighter colours whereas deeper, richer blondes flatter the darker eye.  Those especially obsessive can use non-optically corrective contact lens, eye color often easier to change than hair.  So, while hairdressers think of ultra blonde as shifting concept rather than a specific color, most agree (whatever the sometimes extraordinary proliferation of imaginatively named products on manufacturers' color charts), there are essentially four stages of blondness and they’re usually described as something like: medium, light, pale & platinum.  In each of those categories, it's possible to be an "ultra" though hairdressers will readily admit their technical distinctions resonate little with customers whose expectation of "ultra" is simply the limit of what's physically possible.