Frango

Frango (pronounced fran-goh)

(1) A young chicken (rare in English and in Portuguese, literally “chicken”).

(2) Various chicken dishes (an un-adapted borrowing from the Portuguese).

(3) In football (soccer) (1) a goal resulting from a goalkeeper’s error and (2) the unfortunate goalkeeper.

(4) The trade name of a chocolate truffle, now sold in Macy's department stores. 

In English, “frango” is most used in the Portuguese sense of “chicken” (variously “a young chicken”, “chicken meat”, “chicken disk” etc) and was from the earlier Portuguese frângão of unknown origin.  In colloquial figurative use, a frango can be “a young boy” and presumably that’s an allusion to the use referring to “a young chicken”.  In football (soccer), it’s used (sometimes trans-nationally) of a goal resulting from an especially egregious mistake by the goalkeeper (often described in English by the more generalized “howler”.  In Brazil, where football teams are quasi-religious institutions, such a frango (also as frangueiro) is personalized to describe the goalkeeper who made the error and on-field blunders are not without lethal consequence in South America, the Colombian centre-back Andrés Escobar (1967–1994) murdered in the days after the 1994 FIFA World Cup, an event reported as a retribution for him having scored the own goal which contributed to Colombia's elimination from the tournament. Frango is a noun; the noun plural is frangos.

The Classical Latin verb frangō (to break, to shatter) (present infinitive frangere, perfect active frēgī, supine frāctum) which may have been from the primitive Indo-European bhreg- (to break) by not all etymologists agree because descendants have never been detected in Celtic or Germanic forks, thus the possibility it might be an organic Latin creation.  The synonyms were īnfringō, irrumpō, rumpō & violō.  As well as memorable art, architecture and learning, Ancient Rome was a world also of violence and conflict and there was much breaking of stuff, the us the figurative use of various forms of frangō to convey the idea of (1) to break, shatter (a promise, a treaty, someone's ideas (dreams, projects), someone's spirit), (2) to break up into pieces (a war from too many battles, a nation) and (3) to reduce, weaken (one's desires, a nation).

A frangō in the sense of the Classical Latin: Lindsay Lohan with broken left wrist (fractured in two places in an unfortunate fall at Milk Studios during New York Fashion Week) and 355 ml (12 fluid oz) can of Rehab energy drink, Los Angeles, September 2006.  The car is a 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG (R230; 2004-2011) which earlier had featured in the tabloids after a low-speed crash.  The R230 range (2001-2011) was unusual because of the quirk of the SL 550 (2006-2011), a designation used exclusively in the North American market, the RoW (rest of the world) cars retaining the SL 500 badge even though both used the 5.5 litre (333 cubic inch) V8 (M273).

The descendents from the Classical Latin frangō (to break, to shatter) included the Aromanian frãngu (to break, to destroy; to defeat), the Asturian frañer (to break; to smash) & francer (to smash), the English fract (to break; to violate (long obsolete)) & fracture ((1) an instance of breaking, a place where something has broken, (2) in medicine a break in a bone or cartilage and (3) in geology a fault or crack in a rock), the Friulian franzi (to break), the German Fraktur ((1) in medicine, a break in a bone & (2) a typeface) & Fraktion (2) in politics, a faction, a parliamentary grouping, (3) in chemistry, a fraction (in the sense of a component of a mixture), (4) a fraction (part of a whole) and (5) in the German-speaking populations of Switzerland, South Tyrol & Liechtenstein, a hamlet (adapted from the Italian frazione)), the Italian: frangere (1) to break (into pieces), (2) to press or crush (olives), (3) in figurative use and as a literary device, to transgress (a commandment, a convention of behavior etc), (4) in figurative use to weaken (someone's resistance, etc.) and (5) to break (of the sea) (archaic)), the Ladin franjer (to break into pieces), the Old Franco provençal fraindre (to break; significantly to damage), the Old & Middle French fraindre (significantly to damage), the Portuguese franzir (to frown (to form wrinkles in forehead)), the Romanian frânge (1) to break, smash, fracture & (2) in figurative use, to defeat) and frângere (breaking), the Old Spanish to break), and the Spanish frangir (to split; to divide).

Portuguese lasanha de frango (chicken lasagna).

In Portuguese restaurants, often heard is the phrase de vaca ou de frango? (beef or chicken?) and that’s because so many dishes offer the choice, much the same as in most of the world (though obviously not India).  In fast-food outlets, the standard verbal shorthand for “fried chicken” is “FF” which turns out to be one of the world’s most common two letter abbreviations, the reason being one “F” representing the once infamous "F-word", one of English language’s most un-adapted exports.  One mystery for foreigners sampling Portuguese cuisine is: Why is chicken “frango” but chicken soup is “sopa de galinha?”  That’s because frango is used to mean “a young male chicken” while a galinha is an adult female.  Because galinha meat doesn’t possess the same tender quality as that of a frango, (the females bred and retained mostly for egg production), slaughtered galinhas traditionally were minced or shredded and used for dishes such as soups, thus: sopa de galinha (also as canja de galinha or the clipped caldo and in modern use, although rare, sopa de frango is not unknown).  That has changed as modern techniques of industrial farming have resulted in a vastly expanded supply of frango meat so, by volume, most sopa de galinha is now made using frangos (the birds killed young, typically between 3-4 months).  Frangos have white, drier, softer meat while that of the galinha is darker, less tender and juicer and the difference does attract chefs in who do sometimes offer a true sopa de galinha as a kind of “authentic peasant cuisine”.

There are also pintos (pintinhos in the diminutive) which are chicks only a few days old but these are no longer a part of mainstream Portuguese cuisine although galetos (chicks killed between at 3-4 weeks) are something of a delicacy, usually roasted.  The reproductive males (cocks or roosters in English use) are galos.  There is no tradition, anywhere in Europe, of eating the boiled, late-developing fertilized eggs (ie a bird in the early stages of development), a popular dish in the Philippines and one which seems to attract virulent disapprobation from many which culturally is interesting because often, the same critics happily will consume both the eggs and the birds yet express revulsion at even the sight of the intermediate stage.  Such attitudes are cultural constructs and may be anthropomorphic because there’s some resemblance to a human foetus.

Lindsay Lohan at Macy's and Teen People's Freaky Friday Mother/Daughter Fashion Show, Macy's Herald Square, New York City, August 2003.  It's hoped she had time for a Frango.

Now sold in Macy’s, Frangos are a chocolate truffle created in 1918 for sale in Frederick & Nelson department stores.  Although originally infused with mint, many variations ensued and they became popular when made available in the Marshall Field department stores which in 1929 acquired Frederick & Nelson although it’s probably their distribution by Macy's which remains best known.  Marshall Field's marketing sense was sound and they turned the Frango into something of a cult, producing them in large melting pots on the 13th floor of the flagship Marshall Field's store on State Street until 1999 when production was out-sourced to a third party manufacturer in Pennsylvania.  In the way of modern corporate life, the Frango has had many owners, a few changes in production method and packaging and some appearances in court cases over rights to the thing but it remains a fixture on Macy’s price lists, the troubled history reflected in the “Pacific Northwest version” being sold in Macy's Northwest locations in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon while the “Seattle version” is available in Macy's Northwest establishments.  There are differences between the two and each has its champions but doubtless there are those who relish both.

A patent application (with a supporting trademark document) for the Frango was filed in 1918, the name a re-purposing of a frozen dessert sold in the up-market tea-room at Frederick & Nelson's department store in Seattle, Washington.  The surviving records suggest the “Seattle Frangos” were flavoured not with mint but with maple and orange but what remains uncertain is the origin of the name.  One theory is the construct was Fr(ederick’s) + (t)ango which is romantic but there are also reports employees were told, if asked, to respond it was from Fr(ederick) –an(d) Nelson Co(mpany) with the “c” switched to a “g” because the word “Franco” had a long established meaning.  Franco was a word-forming element meaning “French” or “the Franks”, from the Medieval Latin combining form Franci (the Franks), thus, by extension, “the French”.  Since the early eighteenth century it had been used when forming English phrases & compound words including “Franco-Spanish border” (national boundary between France & Spain), Francophile (characterized by excessive fondness of France and all things French (and thus its antonym Francophobe)) and Francophone (French speaking).

Hitler and Franco, photographed at their day-long meeting at Hendaye, on the Franco-Spanish border, 23 October 1940.  Within half a decade, Hitler would kill himself; still ruling Spain, Franco died peacefully in his bed, 35 years later.

Remarkably, the Frango truffles have been a part of two political controversies.  The first was a bit of a conspiracy theory, claiming the sweet treats were originally called “Franco Mints”, the name changed only after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in which the (notionally right-wing and ultimately victorious) Nationalist forces were led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) and the explanation was that Marshall Field wanted to avoid adverse publicity.  Some tellings of the tale claim the change was made only after the Generalissimo’s meeting with Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) at Hendaye on 23 October 1940.  Their discussions concerned Spain's participation in the War against the British but it proved most unsatisfactory for the Germans, the Führer declaring as he left that he'd rather have "three of four teeth pulled out" than have to again spend a day with the Caudillo.  Unlike Hitler, Franco was a professional soldier, thought war a hateful business best avoided and, more significantly, had a shrewd understanding of the military potential of the British Empire and the implications for the war of the wealth and industrial might of the United States.  The British were fortunate Franco took the view he did because had he agreed to afford the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces) the requested cooperation to enable them to seize control of Gibraltar, the Royal Navy might have lost control of the Mediterranean, endangering the vital supplies of oil from the Middle East, complicating passage to the Indian Ocean and beyond; it would have transformed the strategic position in the whole hemisphere.  However, in the archives is the patent application form for “Frangos” dated 1 June 1918 and there has never been any evidence to support the notion “Franco” was ever used for the chocolate truffles.

Macy's Dark Mint Frangos.

The other political stoush (late nineteenth century Antipodean slang meaning a "fight or small-scale brawl") came in 1999 when, after seventy years, production of Frangos was shifted from the famous melting pots on the thirteenth floor of Marshall Field's flagship State Street store to Gertrude Hawk Chocolates in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, the decision taken by the accountants at the Dayton-Hudson Corporation which had assumed control in 1990.  The rationale for this shift was logical, demand for Frangos having grown far beyond the capacity of the relatively small space in State Street to meet demand but it upset many locals, the populist response led Richard Daley (b 1942; mayor (Democratic Party) of Chicago Illinois 1989-2011), the son of his namesake father (1902–1976; mayor (Democratic Party) of Chicago, Illinois 1955-1976) who in 1968 simultaneously achieved national infamy and national celebrity (one’s politics dictating how one felt) in his handling of the police response to the violence which beset the 1968 Democratic National Convention held that year in the city.  The campaign to have the Frangos made instead by a Chicago-based chocolate house was briefly a thing but was ignored by Dayton-Hudson and predictably, whatever the lingering nostalgia for the melting pots, the pragmatic Mid-Westerners adjusted to the new reality and, with much the same enthusiasm, soon were buying the Pennsylvanian imports.

Macy's Frango Mint Trios.

Doubtlessly to the delight of economists (sweet-toothed or not), there appears to be a “Frango spot market”.  Although the increasing capacity of AI (artificial intelligence) has improved the mechanics of “dynamic pricing” (responding in real-time to movements in demand), as long ago as the Christmas season in 2014, CBS News ran what they called the “Macy's State Street Store Frango Mint Price Tracker”, finding the truffle’s price was subject to fluctuations as varied over the holiday period as movements in the cost of gas (petrol).  On the evening of Thanksgiving, “early bird” shoppers could buy a 1 lb one-pound box of Frango mint “Meltaways” for US$11.99, the price jumping by the second week in December to US$14.99 although that still represented quite a nominal discount from the RRP (recommended retail price) of US$24.00.  Within days, the same box was again listed at US$11.99 and a survey of advertising from the previous season confirmed that in the weeks immediately after Christmas, the price had fallen to US$9.99.  It may be time for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to open a market for Frango Futures (the latest “FF”!).

Suffrage

Suffrage (pronounced suhf-rij)

(1) The right to vote, especially in a publicly contested, democratic elections; the franchise.

(2) The exercise of such a right; casting a vote.

(3) In ecclesiastical use, a prayer, especially a short intercessory prayer (especially those offered for the faithful dead) or a short petition (such as those after the creed in matins and evensong.

(4) Aid, intercession (now rare).

(5) Testimony; attestation; witness; approval (now rare).

(6) The collective opinion of a body of persons (archaic and probably extinct).

1350–1400: From the Middle English suffrage (intercessory prayers or pleas on behalf of another), from the thirteenth century Old French sofrage (plea, intercession), from the from Medieval Latin, from the Latin suffragium (voting tablet, a vote cast in an assembly (for a law or candidate), an act of voting or the exercise of the right to vote, the decision reached by a vote, an expression of approval, influence or promotion on behalf of a candidate), the construct being suffrag(ari) (genitive suffrāgiī or suffrāgī) (to express public support, vote or canvass for, support) + -ium (the noun suffix).  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, as the neuter singular morphological suffix, it was the standard suffix to append when forming names for chemical elements.  The derived forms included nonsuffrage, presuffrage, prosuffrage & antisuffrage (the latter a once well-populated field).  Suffrage, suffragist, suffragette, suffragettism & suffragent are nouns and suffraged is an adjective; the noun plural is suffrages.

The sense in English of “vote” or “right to vote” was derived directly from the Classical Latin and it came by the late nineteenth century to be used with modifiers, chosen depending on the campaign being advocated (manhood suffrage, universal suffrage, women's suffrage, negro suffrage etc and the forms were sometimes combined (universal manhood suffrage).  Because the case for women became the most prominent of the political movements, “suffrage” became the verbal shorthand (ie technically a clipping of woman suffrage).The meaning “a vote for or against anything” was in use by the 1530s and by the turn of the century this had assume the specific sense “a vote or voice in deciding a question or in a contest for office”.  By the 1660s, widely it was held to mean “act of voting in a representative government” and this is the origin of the modern idea of the franchise: “the political right to vote as a member of a body” codified in 1787 in the US US Constitution (in reference to the states).

Exercising her suffrage: Wearing “I voted” sticker, Lindsay Lohan leaves polling station after casting her vote in the 2008 US presidential election, West Hollywood, 4 November 2008.  In California, the Democratic ticket (Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) & Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025) took gained all 55 electors in the Electoral College with 8,274,473 votes (61.01%) against the 5,011,781 (36.95%) gained by the Republican ticket (John McCain (1936–2018) & Sarah Palin (b 1964).

In zoology the suffrago (as a learned borrowing from Latin suffrāgō (the pastern, or hock)) describes the joint between the tibia and tarsus, such as the hock of a horse's hind leg or the heel of a bird.  Always rare (and now probably extinct), the companion term in clinical use was suffraginous, from the Latin suffraginosus (diseased in the hock), from suffrāgō, used in the sense of “of or relating to the hock of an animal”.  So, there’s an etymological relationship between English noun “suffrage” (in zoology, the joint between the tibia and tarsus) and “suffrage” (an individual's right to vote) and while there are many strange linkages in the language, that one seems weirder than most.  The anatomical term describes what is essentially the hock in quadrupeds (although it was used also of birds) and that was from the Classical Latin, suffrāgō (ankle-bone, hock or the part of the leg just above the heel) and traditionally, etymologists analyzed this as related to sub- (under) + a base meaning “break, fracture” or “support” although there were scholars who connected it with frag- (to break) from frangere (to break).  The functionalists weren’t impressed by that, suggesting it was a transferred anatomical term.

The Suffragist, 7 July, 2017.

Printed originally in 1913 as a single-sheet pamphlet, in November that year The Suffragist was first issued as weekly, eight-page tabloid newspaper, noted for its cover art which was a kind of proto-agitprop.  A classic single-issue political movement, the pamphlets had been produced by the CU (Congressional Union), an affiliate of the NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association) but The Suffragist was an imprint of the CUWS (Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage), created (with a unique legal personage to avoid corporate liability) as a publicity and activist organ; in 1917 it became the NWP (National Woman's Party).  After its aims were in 1918 realised, The Suffragist ceased publication and the activists shifted their attention to the promotion of the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), some which, more than a century on, has still not been ratified and has thus never been interpolated into the constitution.

Suffrage came ultimately from the suffrāgium (which had a number of senses relating to “voting”) writers from Antiquity documented their takes on the etymology.  In De lingua latina libri XXV (On the Latin Language in 25 Books), the Roman scholar Varro (Marcus Terentius Varro, 116–27 BC) held it arose metaphorically from suffrāgō (ankle-bone), the rationale being that votes originally were cast pebbles, sherds (now more commonly called “shards”) or other small tokens, possibly with astragali (knuckle or ankle-bones typically from sheep or goats) used like dice or counters.  Animal bones widely were used for many purposes, Pliny the Elder (24-79) in his encyclopaedic Naturalis historia (Natural History (37 thematic books in ten conceptual volumes)) noted people re-purposing astragali for tasks as diverse as teaching arithmetic, gambling, divination, or decision-making.  The Roman statesman Cicero (106-43 BC) seems not directly to have commented on the etymology, in his De Legibus (On the Laws) using suffrāgium in the common sense of “voting” & “vote” applied it also as a rhetorical device to suggest “support” so while not supporting the link with bones, nor does he contradict the popular notion that as an ankle-bone supports the human structure, votes support a candidate.

The Suffragist, 15 September, 1917.

The medieval grammarians also took an interest, Isidore of Seville (circa 560-636) covering all bases by noting (1) suffrāgium’s link with fragor (breaking) implied the idea of “breaking one’s voice” in approval (voting then often done in town squares “by the voice” and (2) the role of the ankle-bone in supporting the as a vote cast supports a proposition or candidate in an election.  Because only fragments of texts from thousands of years ago remain extant, it’s impossible to be emphatic about how such things happened but the consensus among modern etymologists appears to favour the purely metaphorical “support” rather than any use of bones as electoral tokens or calculation devices.  Better documented is the migration of suffrāgium to ecclesiastical use, entering Church Latin to use used to mean “prayers of intercession”; it was from here the English suffrage first entered the language.  As the Roman world Christianized, many words were re-purposed in a religious context and suffrāgium was picked up in the sense of “spiritual support”, manifested in prayers of intercession which originally were those offered for the “faithful dead”: in Confessiones (Confessions, 397-400), Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) wrote of suffragia sanctorum (the suffrages of the saints) by which he meant their intercessory prayers but, as was not uncommon, although the “masses for the dead” remained the standard, there was some theological mission creep and the prayers could assume a wider vista, extending also to the living.

Heartfelt advice in 1918 from a “suffragette wife” to young ladies contemplating marriage.

The Old French sofrage came directly from Church Latin, entering Middle English in the fourteenth century with suffrages being prayers of intercessions, often described as “petitions” to God or (in the case of specific topics) to the relevant saint or saints and “suffrage” seems to have entered the vernacular, Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) using the word merely as a synonym for “prayers” of whatever type.  Having thus arrived in the Church, the use was extended to the ecclesiastical structure, the first suffragan bishops appointed in the late 1500s, their role being a “bishop who assists another bishop” and the role seems to have been envisaged as something of a clerical plateau, intended as an appointment for one either “unsuitable” for an ordinary jurisdiction or with no desire to ascend the hierarchy.  The use came directly from the thirteenth century Old French suffragan, from the Medieval Latin suffraganeus (an assistant) which was a noun use of the adjective, (assisting, supporting) from the Latin suffragium (support).  The title endures to this day although between denominations there can be variations in the role (ie job description) including some being appointed as assistants to bishops while others directly administer geographical regions within a supervising bishop’s diocese.  That means the title alone does not describe the nature of the office and although a priest may be styled Diocesan bishop, Titular bishop, Coadjutor bishop, Auxiliary bishop or Suffragan Bishop, not all of the same type necessarily fulfil the same duties and there may be overlap.  While engaged in wartime cryptographic work for the UK government, the troubled mathematician Dr Alan Turing (1912-1954) became well-acquainted with the organizational structure of the British Army and was struck by the similarities between that institution and the Church of England as described in Anthony Trollope’s (1815-1882) The Chronicles of Barsetshire (published in a series of six novels between 1855-1867).  Ever the mathematician, Dr Turing devised a table, having concluded a lieutenant-colonel was a dean while a major-general was a bishop.  A brigadier was a suffragan bishop, the rational for that being they were the “cheapest kind of bishop”.

The Suffragist, 3 October, 1917.

It was the “re-discovery” of the Classical world (ironically often through the archives or writings of Islamic scholars) during the Renaissance and Reformation that Western scholars and translators re-visited the Latin sources, reviving the political sense of suffrāgium into English, restoring “vote” and “right to vote” alongside what had become the standard (religious) sense.  Even then, although there was in most places rarely a wide franchise, voting did happen (among a chosen few) and by the seventeenth century “suffrage” (a vote in an election) was part of common English use and in the 1700s & 1800s, as various forces began to coalesce into democratic movements, it assumed the meaning “a right to vote” which evolved gradually (via manhood suffrage, woman suffrage, negro suffrage etc) into the now familiar “universal adult suffrage”. In English, suffrage has thus enjoyed a palimpsestic past, its ancestral roots anatomical, adapted in antiquity for matters electoral, taken up in Christendom as a form of prayer before returning again with a use in democratic politics.

The most famous derived from was of course the noun suffragette which seems first to have been appeared in print in the UK in 1906, used as a term of derision (by a man).  It was an opportunist coining which can be deconstructed as a (etymologically incorrect) feminine form of the noun suffragist (an advocate of the grant or extension of political suffrage) but it owed its existence to the women who in the UK began to take militant action.  Whereas a suffragist might have been someone (male or female) who wrote learned letters on the subject to the editor of The Times, the suffragette chained herself to the railings outside Parliament House and engaged in other forms of civil disobedience with at least one fatality recorded.

The end of civilization as men knew it: Postcard marking the granting of voting rights to women by the colonial government in New Zealand (1893), printed & published in England by the Artist's Suffrage League, Chelsea, London.

Only four countries: New Zealand, Australia, Finland & Norway (and 11 US states) extended the franchise to women prior to World War I.  France (birthplace of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”) denied women the vote until after World War II (1939-1945), Charles de Gaulle's (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) provisional government in Algiers granting “full suffrage” on 21 April 1944 with the first exercise of the right in the municipal elections of 29 April, 1945.  Swiss women gained the right to vote (at the federal level) in 1971, following a national referendum in which a majority approved the idea.  At the cantonal (regional) level, some cantons had earlier granted women voting rights, Vaud the first in 1959.  The last was Appenzell Innerrhoden which did so only to comply with a ruling by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.

As the campaign stepped up, techniques were borrowed from anarchists and revolutionaries including fire-bombings of institutions of “the establishment”; if imprisoned, the suffragettes would stage hunger strikes compelling the home secretary to order either their release or force-feeding (a practice previously most associated with lunatic asylums).  Although the suffragettes generated international publicity and encouraged similar movements in other places, despite New Zealand having in 1893 having granted the vote to women on the same basis as men without the country having descended into some kind of feminized Hell, little progress was made and it was only the social and economic disruptions brought about by World War I which induced change, women over 30 able to vote in elections and be elected to parliament in 1918.  In 1928, this was extended to all women over 21, thus aligning their franchise with that which men had since 1918 enjoyed.  The 1928 settlement remains the classic definition of “universal suffrage” in the sense of “all adults” and all that has changed is the threshold age has been lowered to 18 although the UK government has suggested it will seek further to lower this to 16.  If that’s enacted, it’ll still be less permissive that what the ayatollahs (not usually thought paragons of liberalism) in Iran permitted during the 1980s when 15 year olds got the vote.

"Love, honor and obey" was a bride's traditional wedding vow but in the nuclear weapons treaty business between the US & USSR the principle was: "trust but verify".  

As the meme-makers knew, even after women voting became a thing, some husbands knew they still had to check to make sure their wives got it right:  Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) verifying the vote of Melania Trump (b 1970, US First Lady 2017-2021 and since 2025) while exercising her “secret ballot” in the 2016 US presidential election, Polling Station 59 (a school), Manhattan, New York, 8 November 2016.

The –ette suffix was from the Middle English -ette, a borrowing from the Old French -ette, from the Latin -itta, the feminine form of -ittus.  It was used to form nouns meaning a smaller form of something and the use in English to create informal feminine forms has long upset some, including Henry Fowler (1858–1933) who in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) condemned the formation of “suffragette”: “A more regrettable formation than others such as leaderette & flannelette, in that it does not even mean a sort of suffrage as they mean a sort of leader & of flannel, & therefore tends to vitiate the popular conception of the termination's meaning. The word itself may now be expected to die, having lost its importance; may its influence on word-making die with it!”  Whether one might read into that that damnation that Henry Fowler regretted women getting the vote can be pondered but to be fair, the old linguistic curmudgeon may have been a proto-feminist who approved.  There were anyway some reactionaries who became converted to the cause.  After a satisfactory election result, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) was reminded by his wife Clementine Churchill (1885–1977) that he’d received more votes from women than from men, having apparently been forgiven for having once been in the vanguard of the opposition to woman suffrage.  “Quite right”, cheerfully he agreed; a practical democrat, he by then welcomed votes regardless of their origin.

Woman Suffrage Headquarters, Euclid Avenue, Cleveland Ohio, 1912.

The word “suffrage” came by the late 1860s to be attached to activists advocating extending the franchise to women, “woman suffragist” & “female suffragist” both used in US publications and the divergence in the movement was reflected in the UK by the adoption of terms “manhood suffragist” (by at least 1866) and “woman suffragist” (by 1871) although the first reference of the latter was to actions in the US, the existence of the breed in England not acknowledged for a further three years.  Historically, both “woman suffrage” & “women's suffrage” were used but the former overwhelmingly was the standard phrasing late in the 1800s and into the next century when the matter became a great political issue.  To modern eyes “woman suffrage” looks awkwardly wrong but is grammatically correct, “woman” used as a noun adjunct (ie a noun modifying a following noun).  Singular noun adjuncts are common such as “student union” even though the in institution has a membership of many students.  In English, a singular noun can function attributively (like an adjective) to describe a category or class (manpower, horse racing etc).  The possessive (women’s suffrage) emphasizes ownership: the notion of suffrage (in the linguistic sense) “belonging” to women and in modern use that that appears to be the common form and “woman suffrage” was a formal, abstract construction from more exacting times, reflected in uses like “manhood suffrage”, “child labor”, “slave trade” etc.  In structural linguistics, the shift to a preference for possessive forms (workers’ unions, children’s rights, women’s movement etc) is thought a marker of the increasingly fashionable concepts of agency and belonging.

“Kaiser Wilson” protest sign criticizing Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921) for not keeping his 1916 election “promise” to fight for woman suffrage: “Have you forgotten your sympathy with the poor Germans because they were not self-governed?  20,000,000 American women are not self-governed.  Take the beam out of your own eye.”  The quote: “Take the beam out of your own eye” comes from Biblical scripture:

Matthew 7:3-5 (King James Version, (KJV, 1611))

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

What’s discussed in Matthew 7:3-5 is hypocrisy, the metaphor being a speck of dust in one’s brother's eye and a plank in one's own and the teaching is one should first rectify their own significant flaws (the “plank”) before criticizing the minor flaws of others (the “speck”).  What reading the passage should do is encourage humility and self-reflection, persuading individuals to acknowledge their own shortcomings before judging others.  The passage was part of the Sermon on the Mount, regarded by Christians as a central element in Christ’s moral teachings and Woodrow Wilson, the son of a preacher and himself a noted (if selective) moralist would have well acquainted with the text.

Watched by an approving comrade Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986; Soviet foreign minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956), comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) casts his vote in the 1937 election for the Supreme Soviet.  To the left, Comrade Marshal Kliment Voroshilov (1881–1969) watches Comrade Nikolai Yezhov (1895–1940, head of the NKVD 1936-1938).

Those voting in 1937 may have had high hopes for the future because, read literally, the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union (adopted 5 December 1936) described a democratic utopia.  Unfortunately, within months, comrade Stalin embarked on his Great Purge and turned his country into a kind of combination of prison camp and abattoir, many of those involved in drafting the constitution either sent to the Gulag or shot.  In 1937 the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) was declared to have won 99% of the vote so it was not an exceptional result but the photograph is unusual in that it’s one of the few in which the usually dour comrade Molotov is smiling.  It was comrade Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924; head of government of Russia or Soviet Union 1917-1924) who dubbed Molotov “stone ass” because of his famous capacity (rare among the Bolsheviks) to sit for hours at his desk and process the flow of paperwork the CPSU’s bureaucracy generated.  Precise in every way, Molotov would correct those who suggested Lenin’s moniker had been “iron ass” but, disapproving of “shameful bureaucratism”, he may have used several variants in the same vein and in another nod to Molotov’s centrality in the administrative machinery of government, he was known also as “comrade paper-clip”.

On paper, between 1936-1991, the Supreme Soviet was the highest institution of state authority in the Soviet Union (1922-1991) but was in reality a “rubber stamp parliament” which existed only to ratify, adding a veneer of legality to laws sent down by the executive, controlled exclusively by the CPSU although it was valued for photo-opportunities, enthralled delegates always seen attentively listening to comrade Stalin’s speeches.  On election night comrade Stalin was quoted in the Soviet press as saying: “Never in the history of the world have there been such really free and really democratic elections -- never!  History knows no other example like it...our universal elections will be carried out as the freest elections and the most democratic compared with elections in any other country in the world.  Universal elections exist and are also held in some capitalist countries, so-called democratic countries.  But in what atmosphere are elections held there?… In an atmosphere of class conflicts, in an atmosphere of class enmity.”  The statement often attributed to comrade Stalin: “It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes” probably was apocryphal but indicative of how he did things and his psephological model has been an inspiration to figures such as Saddam Hussein (1937–2006; president of Iraq 1979-2003) and Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).

Peanut

Peanut (pronounced pee-nuht)

(1) The pod or the enclosed edible seed of the plant, Arachis hypogaea, of the legume family, native to the tropical Americas (and probably of South American origin).  During the plant’s growth, the pod is forced underground where it ripens.  The edible, nut-like seed is used for food and as a source of oil (historically known variously also as the pinder, pinda and goober (used south of the Mason-Dixon Line (originally as “goober pea)), earthnut, groundnut & monkey nut (pre-World War II (1939-1945) UK use).

(2) The plant itself.

(3) Any small or insignificant person or thing; something petty.

(4) In US slang, a very small clam.

(5) In slang, barbiturates (recorded also of other substances delivered in small pills).

(6) In slang, small pieces of Styrofoam used as a packing material (known also as the “packing peanut”).

(7) Of or relating to the peanut or peanuts.

(8) Made with or from peanuts.

1790–1800: The construct may have been pea (in the sense of the small green vegetable) + nut but may etymologists think it was more likely a folk etymology of pinda or pinder, both forms still in dialectal use south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  The plant is apparently native to South America and it was Portuguese traders who early in the sixteenth century took peanuts from Brazil and Peru to Africa by 1502.  Its cultivation in Chekiang (an eastern coastal province of China) was recorded as early as 1573 and the crop probably arrived with the Portuguese ships which docked there.  According to the broadcaster Alistair Cooke (1908–2004), The spellings pea nut & pea-nut are obsolete.  Peanut is a noun & verb. Peanutted & peanutting are verbs and peanutty & peanutlike are adjectives; the noun plural is peanuts.

The word appears in many aspects of modern culture including “circus peanut” (a type of commercial candy), “cocktail peanuts” (commercially packaged salted nuts served (for free) in bars to heighten thirst and thus stimulate beverage sales (also known generically as “beer nuts”)), “peanut butter” (a spread made from ground peanuts and known also as “peanut paste”), “peanut butter and jelly” (a sandwich made with jelly (jam or conserve) spread on one slice and peanut butter on the other), “small peanuts” (very small amount (always in the plural), “peanut milk” (a milky liquid made from peanuts and used as a milk substitute), peanut brittle (a type of brittle (confection) containing peanuts in a hard toffee), “peanut butter cup” (a chocolate candy with peanut butter filling), “peanut bunker” (a small menhaden (a species of fish)), “hog peanut” (a plant native to eastern North America that produces edible nut-like seeds both above & below ground (Amphicarpaea bracteata)), “peanut worm” ( sipunculid worm; any member of phylum Sipuncula. (Sipuncula spp), “peanut cactus” (a cactus of species Chamaecereus silvestrii), “peanut ball” (in athletics & strength training, an exercise ball comprised of two bulbous lobes and a narrower connecting portion), “peanut marzipan” (a peanut confection made with crushed peanuts & sugar, popular in Central & South America), “peanut whistle” (in the slang of the ham radio and citizens band (CB) radio communities, a low-powered transmitter or receiver, “peanut tree” (A tree of the species Sterculia quadrifida), “peanut-headed lanternfly” (In entomology, a species of Neotropical fulgorid planthopper (Fulgora laternaria)) and peanut tube (in electronics, a type of small vacuum tube).

Herbert (HW) Horwill’s (1864-1943) A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (1935) was written as kind of trans-Atlantic companion to Henry Fowler’s (1858–1933) classic A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) and was one of the earliest volumes to document on a systematic basis the variations and dictions between British and American English.  The book was a kind of discussion about the phrase “England and America are two countries separated by one language” attributed to George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950) although there are doubts about that.  Horwill had an entry for “peanut” which he noted in 1935 was common in the US but unknown in the UK where it was known as the “monkey nut”.  According to the broadcaster Alistair Cooke (1908–2004), the world “peanut” became a thing in the UK during the early 1940s when the US government included generous quantities of the then novel peanut butter in the supplies of foodstuffs included in the Lend-Lease arrangements.

In idiomatic use, the phrase “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys” is used to suggest that if only low wages are offered for a role, high quality applicants are unlike to be attracted to the position.  The phrase “peanut gallery” is one of a number which have enter the language from the theatre.  The original Drury Lane theatre in London where William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) were staged was built on the site of a notorious cockpit (the place where gamecocks fought, spectators gambling on the outcome) and even before this bear and bull-baiting pits had been used for theatrical production of not the highest quality.  That’s the origin of the “pit” in this context being the space at the rear of the orchestra circle, the pit sitting behind the more desirable stalls.  By the Elizabethan era (1558-1603), the poor often sat on the ground (under an open sky) while the more distant raised gallery behind them contained the seats which were cheaper still; that’s the origin of the phrase “playing to the gallery” which describes an appeal to those with base, uncritical tastes although “gallery god” (an allusion to the paintings of the gods of antiquity which were on the gallery’s wall close to the ceiling) seems to be extinct.  The “peanut gallery” (the topmost (ie the most distant and thus cheapest) rows of a theatre) was a coining in US English dating from 1874 because it was the habit of the audience to cast upon to the stage the shells of the peanuts they’d been eating although whether this was ad-hoc criticism or general delinquency isn’t known.  The companion phrase was “hush money”, small denomination coins tossed onto the stage as a “payment” to silence an actor whose performance was judged substandard.  “Hush money” of course has endured to be re-purposed, now used of the payments such as the one made by Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; president elect 2024) to Stormy Daniels (stage name of Stephanie Gregory, b 1979).

Chairman Mao Zedong (left) and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (right), celebrating the Japanese surrender, Chongqing, China, September 1945.  After this visit, they would never meet again.

Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell (1883–1946) was a US Army general who was appointed chief of staff to the Chinese Nationalist Leader, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) (Generalissimo was a kind of courtesy title acknowledging his position as supreme leader of his armed forces; officially his appointment in 1935 was as 特級上將 (Tèjí shàng jiàng) (high general special class)).  Stilwell’s role was to attempt to coordinate the provision of US funds and materiel to Chiang with the objectives of having the Chinese Nationalist forces operate against the Imperial Japanese Army in Burma (now known usually as Myanmar).  Unfortunately, the generalissimo viewed the Chinese communists under Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) as a more immediate threat than that of Nippon and his support for US strategy was no always wholehearted. 

So Stilwell didn’t have an easy task and in his reports to Washington DC referred to Chiang as “Peanut”.  Apparently, “peanut” had originally been allocated to Chiang as one of the army’s random code-names with no particular meaning but greatly it appealed to Stillwell who warmed to the metaphorical possibilities, once recorded referring to Chiang and his creaking military apparatus as “...a peanut perched on top of a dung heap...”  That about summed up Stillwell’s view of Chiang and his “army” and in his diary he noted a military crisis “would be worth it” were the situation “…just sufficient to get rid of the Peanut without entirely wrecking the ship…”  A practical man, his plans extended even to assassinating the generalissimo although these were never brought to fruition.  Eventually, Stilwell was recalled to Washington while Chiang fought on against the communists until 1949 when the Nationalists were forced to flee across the straits of Formosa to the Island of Taiwan, the “renegade province” defying the CCP in Beijing to this day.  Stillwell did have one final satisfaction before being sacked, in 1944 handing Chiang an especially wounding letter from Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945), the reaction so pleasing he was moved to write a poem:

I have waited long for vengeance,
At last I've had my chance.
I've looked the Peanut in the eye
And kicked him in the pants.
 
The old harpoon was ready
With aim and timing true,
I sank it to the handle,
And stung him through and through.
 
The little bastard shivered,
And lost the power of speech.
His face turned green and quivered
As he struggled not to screech.
 
For all my weary battles,
For all my hours of woe,
At last I've had my innings
And laid the Peanut low.
 
I know I've still to suffer,
And run a weary race,
But oh! the blessed pleasure!
I've wrecked the Peanut's face.

Phobias

One who suffers a morbid fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one's mouth is said to be an arachibutyrophobe.  Phobias need not be widely diagnosed conditions; they need only be specific and, even if suffered by just one soul in the world, the criteria are fulfilled.  In this sense, phobias are analogous with syndromes.  A phobia is an anxiety disorder, an unreasonable or irrational fear related to exposure to certain objects or situations.  The phobia may be triggered either by the cause or an anticipation of the specific object or situation.

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998) introduced the culinary novelty of peanut butter spread on Oreos; an allure appalled arachibutyrophobes avoid.

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 (2013)) made some interesting definitional changes from the earlier DSM-4 (1994):  (1) A patient no longer needs to acknowledge their anxiety is excessive or unreasonable in order to receive a diagnoses, it being required only that their anxiety must be “out of proportion” to the actual threat or danger (in its socio-cultural context).  (2) Symptoms must now, regardless of age, last at least six months.  (3) The diagnostic criteria for social phobias no longer specify that age at onset must be before eighteen, a change apparently necessitated by the substantial increase in reporting by older adults with the DSM editors noting the six-month duration threshold exists to minimize the over-diagnosis of transient fears.

Whether it was already something widely practiced isn’t known but Lindsay Lohan is credited with introducing to the world the culinary novelty Oreos & peanut butter in The Parent Trap.  According to the director, it was added to the script “…for no reason other than it sounded weird and some cute kid would do it."  Like some other weirdnesses, the combination has a cult following and for those who enjoy peanut butter but suffer arachibutyrophobia, Tastemade have provided a recipe for Lindsay Lohan-style Oreos with a preparation time (including whisking) of 2 hours.  They take 20 minutes to cook and in this mix there are 8 servings (scale ingredients up to increase the number of servings).

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (plus more for dusting)
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
1 ¼ cups unsalted butter (at room temperature)
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Filling Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup unsweetened smooth peanut butter
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of kosher salt (omit if using salted peanut butter)

Filling Instructions

(1) With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, the butter & peanut butter until creamy.

(2) Gradually add powdered sugar and beat to combine, then beat in vanilla and salt.

Whisking the mix.

Instructions

(1) Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

(2) In small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder & salt.

(3) In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Mix in the vanilla extract. With the mixer running on low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until just combined (it should remain somewhat crumbly).

(4) Pour mixture onto a work surface and knead until it’s “all together”; wrap half in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator.

(5) Lightly dust surface and the top of the dough with a 1:1 mixture of cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

(6) Working swiftly and carefully, roll out dough to a ¼-½ inch (6-12 mm) thickness and cut out 2 inch (50 mm) rounds.  Transfer them to the baking sheets, 1 inch (25 mm) apart (using a small offset spatula helps with this step). Re-roll scraps and cut out more rounds, the repeat with remaining half of the dough.

(7) Bake cookies until the tops are no longer shiny ( about 20 minutes), then cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack completely to cool.

(8) To assemble, place half the cookies on a plate or work surface.

(9) Pipe a blob of filling (about 2 teaspoons) onto the tops of each of these cookies and then place another cookie on top, pressing slightly but not to the extent filled oozes from the sides.

(10) Refrigerate for a few minutes to allow the filling to firm up.  Store in an air-tight container in refrigerator.

The manufacturer embraced the idea of peanut butter Oreos and has released versions, both with the classic cookie and a peanut butter & jelly (jam) variation paired with its “golden wafers”.  As well as Lindsay Lohan’s contribution, Oreos have attracted the interest of mathematicians.  Nabisco in 1974 introduced the Double Stuf Oreo, the clear implication being a promise the variety contained twice crème filling supplied in the original.  However, a mathematician undertook the research and determined Double Stuf Oreos contained only 1.86 times the volume of filling of a standard Oreo.  Despite that, the company survived the scandal and the Double Stuf Oreo’s recipe wasn’t adjusted.

Scandalous in its own way was that an April 2022 research paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids wasn’t awarded that year’s Ig Nobel Prize for physics, the honor taken by Frank Fish, Zhi-Ming Yuan, Minglu Chen, Laibing Jia, Chunyan Ji & Atilla Incecik, for their admittedly ground-breaking (or perhaps water-breaking) work in explaining how ducklings manage to swim in formation.  More deserving surely were Crystal Owens, Max Fan, John Hart & Gareth McKinley who introduced to physics the discipline of Oreology (the construct being Oreo + (o)logy).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism etc).  Oreology is the study of the flow and fracture of sandwich cookies and the research proved it is impossible to split the cream filling of an Oreo cookie down the middle.

An Oreo on a rheometer.

The core finding in Oreology was that the filling always adheres to one side of the wafer, no matter how quickly one or both cookies are twisted.  Using a rheometer (a laboratory instrument used to measure the way in which a viscous fluid (a liquid, suspension or slurry) flows in response to applied forces), it was determined creme distribution upon cookie separation by torsional rotation is not a function of rate of rotation, creme filling height level, or flavor, but was mostly determined by the pre-existing level of adhesion between the creme and each wafer.  The research also noted that were there changes to the composition of the filling (such as the inclusion of peanut butter) would influence the change from adhesive to cohesive failure and presumably the specifics of the peanut butter chosen (smooth, crunchy, extra-crunchy, un-salted (although the organic varieties should behave in a similar way to their mass-market equivalents)) would have some effect because the fluid dynamics would change.  The expected extent of the change would be appear to be slight but until further research is performed, this can’t be confirmed.