President

President (pronounced prez-i-duhnt or preza-dint (plus many regional variations)

(1) The title of the highest executive officer of most modern republics.

(2) An official appointed or elected to preside over an organized body of persons.

(3) The chief executive (and sometimes operating) officer of a college, university, society, corporation etc.  Many corporate presidents function as something like a “char(man) of the board” rather than a CEO or COO.

(4) A person who presides.

(5) An alternative form of “precedent” (long obsolete).

1325–1375: From the Middle English, from the Old French president, from Late Latin praesidēns (presiding over; president of; leader) (accusative praesidentem) from the Classical Latin praesident (stem of praesidēns), the noun use of the present participle of praesidēre (to preside over, sit in front of).  The Latin word was the substantivized present active participle of the verb praesideō (preside over) while the construct of the verb was prae (before) + sedeō (sit).  The verb’s original sense was “to sit before” (ie presiding at a meeting) from which was derived the generalized secondary meaning “to command, to govern”, praesidēns thus meaning variously “the one who presides at a meeting”, “governor or a region”, “commander of a force” etc.  In English the construct is thus understood as preside + -ent.  Preside was from the Old French presider, from Latin praesidēre, the construct being pre- (before) + sedere (to sit).  It displaced the Old English foresittan which may have been a calque of the Latin.  The –ent suffix was from the Middle English –ent (which existed, inter alia, also as –ant & -aunt.  It was from the Old French -ent and its source, the Latin -ēns (the accusative singular was -entem), suffix of present participles of verbs in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th conjugations.  The word is used with an upper case if applied honorifically (President of Italy; President Nixon etc) but not otherwise but this is of the more widely ignored rules in English.  Modifiers (minister-president, municipal president, president-elect et al) are created as required.  The spelling præsident is archaic.  President & presidency are nouns, verb & adjective, presidentship & presidenthood are nouns, presidenting & presidented are verbs, presidential is an adjective and presiˈdentially is an adverb; the noun plural is presidents.  The feminine form presidentess dates from at least 1763 and is probably obsolete unless used in humor but that may risk one’s cancellation.

US politics in the last decade has had moments of strangeness so some things which once seemed unthinkable are now merely improbable.

In the US, “president” was used in the original documents of the constitution (1787), picking up the earlier colonial use as “officer in charge of the Continental Congress” and it had also been used in several of the colonies and that in the sense of “chosen head of a meeting or group of persons”.  During and immediately after the Revolution, the tile was adopted by the chief magistrates of several states but before long all instead settled on “governor”, emulating the colonial designation.  In the US, the most common slang shortening of president is “pres”, dating from 1892 although dictionaries note the earlier existence of “prex” which was student slang for the president of a university or college.  First recorded in 1828, as a Latin verb, it meant “a request, entreaty”.  The handy initialization POTUS (President of the United States) dates from 1879 when it was created as part of the “Phillips Code” a system devised by US journalist, telegrapher & inventor Walter Polk Phillips (1846–1920) to speed up the transmission of messages across wire services and reduce their cost (the services charging per letter).  Among those in the code was SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) and later (long after the original rationale had been overtaken by technology) journalists and others started using VPOTUS (Vice-President of the United States), FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States) and NPOTUS (next President of the United States) the latter once applied to both Al Gore (b 1948; VPOTUS 1993-2001 & in 2000 the NPOTUS)) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013 & in 2016 the NPOTUS).  Word nerds, pondering nomination of the latest NPOTUS (Kamala Harris (b 1964; VPOTUS since 2021) as the likely Democrat nominee are wondering what will emerge to describe her husband should she become CMOTUS (Chief Magistrate of the United States), the options presumably FGOTUS (First Gentlemen of the United States) or FHOTUS (First Husband of the United States).  Presumably FMOTUS (First Man of the United States) won’t be used.

A full bucket of veep.

In the US during the nineteenth century there was a joke about two brothers: "One ran off to sea and the other became vice-president; neither were ever heard of again."  That was of course an exaggeration but it reflected the general view of the office which has very few formal duties and can only ever be as powerful or influential as a president allows although the incumbent is "a heartbeat from the presidency".  John Nance Garner III (1868–1967, vice president of the US 1933-1941), a reasonable judge of these things, once told Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) being VPOTUS was "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (which is polite company usually is sanitized as "warm spit").  For US vice-presidents, the slang veep (based on the phonetic V-P (pronounced vee-pee) is more commonly used.  Veep dates from 1949 and may have been influenced by the Jeep, the four wheel drive (4WD) light utility vehicle which had become famous for its service in World War II (1939-1945) with a number of allied militaries (the name said to be derived from an early army prefix GP (general purpose light vehicle)).  It was introduced to US English by Alben Barkley (1877-1956; VPOTUS 1949-1953), reputedly because his young grandchildren found “vice-president” difficult to pronounce.  In the press, the form became more popular when the 71-year-old VPOTUS took a wife more than thirty years younger; journalists decided she should be the veepess (pronounced vee-pee-ess).  Time magazine entered into the spirit of things, declaring the president should be Peep, the Secretary of State Steep, and the Secretary of Labor Sleep.  In the US, a number of VPOTUSs have become POTUS and some have worked out well although of late the record has not been encouraging, the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963, POTUS 1963-1968), Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961, POTUS 1969-1974) and Joe Biden (b 1942; VPOTUS 2008-2017, POTUS 2021-2025 (God willing)) 1963-1968 all ending badly, in despair, disgrace and decrepitude respectively.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (b 1939; supreme leader of of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989) hands Masoud Pezeshkian (b 1954, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 2024) the presidential seals of Office, Tehran, 28 July 2024.

Even in political science it’s not uncommon to see comparisons between “presidential system” and “parliamentary system” and while that verbal shorthand is well understood within the profession, it’s more accurate to speak of “presidential systems” because the constitutional arrangements vary so much.  Essentially, there are (1) “ceremonial presidencies” in which a president serves as head of state and may nominally be the head of the military but all executive functions are handled by a chancellor, premier or prime-minister (or equivalent office) and (2) “executive presidencies” where the roles of head of state & head of government are combined.  However, those structural models are theoretical and around the world there are many nuances, both on paper and in practice.  While there are many similarities and overlaps in presidential systems, probably relatively few are identical in the constitutional sense.  Sometimes too, the constitutional arrangements are less important than the practice.  In the old Soviet Union, the office of president was sometimes filled by a relatively minor figure, despite it being, on paper, a position of great authority, something replicated in the Islamic Republic of Iran where ultimate authority sits in the hand of the Supreme Leader (both of whom have been ayatollahs).  Many systems include something of a hybrid aspect.  In France, the president appoints a prime-minister and ministers who may come from the National Assembly (the legislature) but, upon appointment, they leave the chamber.  A US president appoints their cabinet from anywhere eligible candidates can be found but creates no prime-minister.  In the “ceremonial presidencies” there is also a spectrum of authority and the extent of that can be influenced more by the personality and ambition of a president than the defined powers.  One president of Ireland described the significance of the office as one of “moral authority” rather than legal power.

Some presidents who like being president.

(Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999).

Mr Putin was prime minister from 1999 to 2000, president from 2000 to 2008, and again prime minister from 2008 to 2012 before returning to the presidency.  The unusual career trajectory was a consequence of the Russian constitution forbidding the one person from serving as president for more than two consecutive terms.   Russia has an executive presidency, Mr Putin liked the job and his solution to (effectively) keeping it was to have Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (b 1965; president of Russia 2008-2012 & prime minister of Russia 2012-2020) “warm the chair” while Mr Putin re-assumed the premiership.  Generously, one could style this arrangement a duumvirate but political scientists could, whatever the constitutional niceties, discern no apparent difference in the governance of Russia regardless of the plaque on Mr Putin’s door.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003), pictured here meeting Lindsay Lohan, Presidential Palace, Ankara, Türkiye, 27 January 2017.  Palace sources say the president regards this meeting as the highlight of his time in office.

Mr Erdoğan has been president since 2014 having previously served as prime minister between 2003–2014.  As prime-minister under Turkey’s constitution with a non-executive president, he was head of government.  After becoming president, he expressed his disapproval for the system and his preference for Turkey’s adoption of an executive presidency.  On 15 July 2016, a coup d'état was staged by the military and, as coups d'état go (of which Türkiye has had a few), it was a placid and unambitious affair and the suspicion was expressed it was an event staged by the government itself although there’s little evidence to support this.  Mr Erdoğan blamed an exiled cleric, his former ally Fethullah Gülen (b 1941), for the coup attempt and promptly declared a state of emergency.  It was scheduled to last three months but the parliament extended its duration to cover a purge of critical journalists, political opponents, various malcontents and those in the military not overtly supportive of Türkiye.  In April 2017 Mr Erdoğan staged a national referendum (which the people duly approved), transforming the Republic of Türkiye into an executive presidency, the changes becoming effective after the presidential and parliamentary elections of June 2018.

Reichspräsident (Reich President) Paul von von Hindenburg (right) accepts the appointment of Adolf Hitler (left) as Reichskanzler (Reich Chancellor), Berlin, Germany, 21 March 1933 (Potsdam Day).  Standing behind Hitler is Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945).

Of course, if one has effectively “captured” the state, one can just decide to become president.  When in 1934 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) was informed Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; Reichspräsident (1925-1934) of the German Weimar Republic 1918-1933) was dying, unilaterally he had replaced the constitutional procedures covering such an eventuality, the “Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich” (issued as a cabinet decree) stipulating that upon the president’s death the office of Reichspräsident would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor under the title of Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Chancellor of the Reich).  Thus, the leadership of the party, government and state (and thus the military) were merged and placed exclusively in Hitler’s hands, a situation which prevailed until his death when the office of Reichspräsident was re-created (by a legal device no more complex than a brief document Hitler called his “political testament”) as an entity separate from the chancellorship.  Interestingly though, in a manner typical of the way things were done in the Third Reich, although in 1934 there ceased to be a Reichspräsident, maintained as administrative structures were (1) the Chancellery, (2) the Presidential Chancellery and (3) what became ultimately the Party Chancellery.

Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulets a 1966 short roof (left) and 1970 long roof ("presidential", right),  

Between 1963-1981, Mercedes-Benz built 2190 600s (W100), 428 of which were the long wheelbase (LWB) Pullman versions, 59 were configured as Landaulets with a folding roof over the passenger compartment.  Built in both six and four-door versions, the Landaulets were available with either a short or long fabric roof, the latter known informally as the "presidential" although the factory never used the designation.  Twelve of the presidentials were built, a brace of which were bought by Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994) and subsequently inherited (along with the rest of North Korea) by Kim Jong-il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1994-2011) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).

The 1970 Landaulet pictured was purchased by the Romanian government and used by comrade president Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party 1965-1989) until he and his wife were executed (by AK47) after a “people's tribunal” held a brief trial, the swiftness of which was aided by the court-appointed defense counsel who declared them both guilty of the genocide of which, among other crimes, they were charged.  Considering the fate of other fallen dictators, their end was less gruesome than might have been expected.  Comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980) had a similar car (among other 600s) but he died undisturbed in his bed.  The blue SWB (short wheelbase) car to the rear is one of the few SWB models fitted with a divider between the front & rear compartments including hand-crafted timber writing tables and a refrigerated bar in the centre console.  It was delivered in 1977 to the Iranian diplomatic service and maintained for Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980; the last Shah of Iran 1941-1979).

Crooked Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) chatting with crooked Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969).  His credibility destroyed by the Watergate scandal, Nixon is the only US president to resign from office.

The term Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration but the name is derived from a break-in into Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC on 17 June 1972.  A series of revelations made it clear the White House was involved in attempts cover up Nixon’s knowledge of this and other illegal activities.  He continued to insist he had no prior knowledge of the burglary, did not break any laws, and did not learn of the cover-up until early 1973.  Also revealed was the existence of previously secret audio tapes, recorded in the White House by Nixon himself.  The legal battle over the tapes continued through early 1974, and in April Nixon announced the release of 1,200 pages of transcripts of White House conversations between him and his aides. The House Judiciary Committee opened impeachment hearings and these culminated in votes for impeachment.  By July, the US Supreme Court had ruled unanimously that the full tapes, not just selected transcripts, must be released.  One of the tapes, recorded soon after the break-in, demonstrated that Nixon had been told of the White House connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they took place, and had approved plans to thwart the investigation.   It became known as the "Smoking Gun Tape".  With the loss of political support and the near-certainty that he would be impeached and removed, was “tapped on the shoulder” by a group of Republicans from both houses of Congress, lead by crazy old Barry Goldwater (1909–1998).  Nixon resigned the presidency on 8 August 1974.

Mr Nixon assured the country he was "not a crook" although in that he was speaking of matters unrelated to the Watergate scandal.

One thing even his most committed enemies (and there were many) conceded of Nixon was his extraordinary tenacity and Nixon fought hard to remain president and the most dramatically Shakespearian act came in what came to be called the Saturday Night Massacre, the term coined to describe the events of 20 October 1973 when Nixon ordered the sacking of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox (1912-2004), then investigating the Watergate scandal.  In addition to Cox, that evening saw also the departure of Attorney General Elliot Richardson (1920-1999) and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus (1932-2019).  Richardson had appointed Cox in May, fulfilling an undertaking to the House Judiciary Committee that a special prosecutor would investigate the events surrounding the break-in of the DNC’s offices at the Watergate Hotel.  The appointment was made under the ex-officio authority of the attorney general who could remove the special prosecutor only for extraordinary and reprehensible conduct.  Cox soon issued a demand that Nixon hand over copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office; the president refused to comply and by Friday, a stalemate existed between White House and Department of Justice and all Washington assumed there would be a break in the legal maneuvering while the town closed-down for the weekend.

Before the massacre.  Attorney-General Elliot Richardson, President Richard Nixon and FBI Director-Designate Clarence Kelly (1911-1997), The White House, 1973.

However, on Saturday, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox.  Richardson refused and resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox.  Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned.  Nixon then ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork (1927-2012), as acting head of the Justice Department, to fire Cox; while both Richardson and Ruckelshaus had given personal assurances to congressional committees they would not interfere, Bork had not.  Brought to the White House in a black Cadillac limousine and sworn in as acting attorney-general, Bork wrote the letter firing Cox; thus ended the Saturday Night Massacre.  Perhaps the most memorable coda to the affair was Richardson’s memorable post-resignation address to staff at the Department of Justice, delivered the Monday morning following the “massacre”.  Richardson had often been spoken of as a potential Republican nominee for the presidency and some nineteen years later, he would tell the Washington Post: “If I had any demagogic impulse... there was a crowd... but I deliberately throttled back.” His former employees responded with “an enthusiastic and sustained ovation.”  Within a week of the Saturday Night Massacre, resolutions of impeachment against the president were introduced in Congress although the House Judiciary Committee did not approve its first article of impeachment until 27 July the following year when it charged Nixon with obstruction of justice.  Mr Nixon resigned less than two weeks later, on 8 August 1974, leaving the White House the next day.

Lyndon Johnson (left) & Sam Rayburn (1882-1961, right), Washington DC, 1954.

Nixon’s predecessor also liked being president and few have assumed the office in circumstances more politically propitious, even if it was something made possible by the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963).  Johnson had for over two decades worked to achieve control of the Senate and at the peak of the success of the Johnson-Rayburn congressional era the Democrats held majorities of 64-36 in the Senate and 263-174 in the House of Representatives.  In the 1964 presidential election (facing Barry Goldwater), Johnson won a crushing victory, securing over 60% of the popular vote and taking every state except Goldwater’s home state of Arizona and a handful south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Relatively uninterested in foreign policy, Johnson had a domestic agenda more ambitious than anything seen since the US Civil War (1861-1865) a century before and what he achieved was far-reaching and widely appreciated for its implications only decades after his death but it was the US involvement in the war in Vietnam which consumed his presidency, compelling him dramatically to announce in April 1968 “…I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”  As a message, it was strikingly similar to that in July 2024 delivered by Joe Biden (b 1942; US president 2021-2025), something nobody seemed to think a mere coincidence.  Also compelling are similarities between the two, both spending a political lifetime plotting and scheming to become president, having no success until curious circumstances delivered them the prize with which genuinely they achieved much but were forced to watch their dream of re-election slip from their grasp.

Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela since 2013, left) and Hugo Chávez (1954-2013; President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela 1999-2013 (except during a few local difficulties in 2002, right)).

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) of course liked being president and the events of 6 January (the so-called "capitol riot") are regarded by many (though clearly not a majority of US Supreme Court judges) as an attempted (if amateurish) insurrection, something Mr Trump denies encouraging.  To the south, in Venezuela, Mr Maduro also really likes being president and is from the comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) school of democracy: “It matters not who votes, what matters is who counts the votes”.  Accordingly, in July 2024 there was some scepticism when the National Electoral Council (the NEC, controlled by Mr Maduro’s political party) announced the president had won the 2024 presidential election with 51.2% of the vote, despite the country being in a sustained economic crisis during which it had suffered a rate of hyper-inflation at its peak so high the economists stopped calculation once it hit a million percent and seen more emigration than any country in South or Central America not actually in a state of declared war.  For a country which possesses the world’s largest known reserves of crude oil, the economic collapse has been a remarkable achievement.  Mr Maduro came to office after the death of Hugo Chávez, a genuinely charismatic figure who took advantage of a sustained high oil price to fund social programmes which benefited the poor (of which his country had a scandalous number) who, unsurprisingly voted for him; Mr Chávez won his elections fair and square.  The decrease in oil revenue triggered a chain of events which meant Mr Maduro hasn’t enjoyed the same advantages and some claim his victories in the 2013 & 2018 elections were anything but fair & square although the numbers were so murky it was hard to be definitive.  Details of the 2024 results however are not so much murky as missing and although the NEC provided aggregate numbers (in summary form), only some 30% of the “tally sheets” (with the booth voting details) were published.  Interestingly, the (admittedly historically unreliable) public opinion polls suggested Mr Maduro might secure 30-35% of the vote and the conspiracy theorists (on this occasion probably on sound ground) are suggesting the tally sheets made public might have been selected with “some care”.

In the way these things are done, the regime is sustained by being able to count on the reliability of the security forces and the conventional wisdom in political science is this can be maintained as long as (1) the members continued to be paid and (2) the percentage of the population prepared to take to the streets in violent revolt doesn’t reach and remain at a sustained critical mass (between 3-9% depending on the mechanics of the country).  So the streets are being watched with great interest but already Mr Maduro has received congratulations from the leaders of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the DPRK; North Korea), Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, and Nicaragua and Russia so there’s that.  Mr Maduro runs the country on a basis not dissimilar to being the coordinator of a number of "crime families" and on 2 August the US State Department announced they were recognizing the leader of the opposition as the "legitimate winner" of the election and thus president of the Bolivarian Republic; gestures like this have previously been extended but the regime's grip on power was strong enough to resist.  The opposition numbers are now greater and generous will be the resources devoted to ensuring a critical mass of protesters isn't achieved and Caracas doesn't see its own "capital riot".  For as long as the security forces remain willing and able to retain control of the streets and ensure the population isn't deprived of food for three days (another trigger point for revolution established by political scientists), Mr Maduro should be able to keep the job he so obviously enjoys. 

1955 Studebaker President Speedster.  As well as the styling motifs, there was a sense of exuberance in the two (and sometimes three) tone color schemes the US industry offered in the 1950s.  

Studebaker used the President name (they also offered a "Dictator" until events in Europe made that a harder sell) for their most expensive models, the first three generations a range of sedans, coupes and roadsters produced between 1926-1942.  The name was revived in 1955 and used until 1958, the range this time encompassing two and four-door sedans & station wagons and two-door coupes and hardtops.  The last of the Packards (the much derided, so-called "Packardbakers" which had a brief, unsuccessful run between 1957-1958) was based on the Studebaker President Speedster, the most admired of the range.

Quark

Quark (pronounced kwawrk or kwahrk)

(1) In physics, any of a set of six hypothetical elementary particles (together with their antiparticles), said to be the fundamental units which combine to make up the subatomic particles known as hadrons (baryons, such as neutrons and protons, and mesons) but unable to exist in isolation.

(2) A soft creamy cheese, eaten throughout northern, central, eastern, and south-eastern Europe as well as the Low Countries, very similar to cottage cheese though not usually made with rennet

(3) In computer operating systems, an integer that uniquely identifies a text string.

(4) In informal use in the British Falkland Islands, the name given to the black-crowned night heron, Nycticorax nycticorax, the origin onomatopoeic, from the sound of the bird’s squawk.

(5) In Old & Middle English onomatopoeic slang, to croak (obsolete).

1963: A coining by US physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019), describing the discovery for which he would be awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics.  The English word quark appears un-adapted in the scientific lexicon of just about every language on Earth but the Italians invented the pleasing quarkonio, the construct being quark + -onium (termination of positronium), a meson consisting of a charm quark or a bottom quark and its own antiquark and consequently devoid of flavor (the name given to different versions of the same type of particle).  The German noun Quark (curds, (and in slang “trivial nonsense”)) has been suggested as Dr Gell-Mann’s inspiration (Gell-Mann's parents were from the Austro-Hungarian Empire).  The German form was from the late Middle High German twarc, from the Old Church Slavonic tvarogu (curds, cottage cheese), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root teue- (to swell), the source also of the Greek tyros (cheese).  Russian-American physicist George Zweig (b 1937) who (independently of Gell-Mann) co-proposed the theory of quarks, called them aces because his calculations suggested there were four of them.

Gell-Mann’s linguistic choice prevailed but the etymological speculation about quark ran as a minor footnote in the history of high-energy physics, interest stimulated after he was awarded 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles.  From the beginning the physicist’s quark rhymed with "cork" but Gell-Mann subsequently came across quark in James Joyce’s (1882-1941) difficult (some prefer "rewarding" and Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) was a fan, claiming to find at least one gem on every page)) novel Finnegans Wake (Three quarks for Muster Mark!) and without the literary antecedent, it may thus have entered the scientific discourse as “kwork”.  Because of the context in which Joyce placed quark in the novel, Gell-Mann deduced the author intended it to rhyme with “Mark” & “Bark” and among Joyceians, there’s long been discussion about whether the source was the Old & Middle English slang meaning “croak” or the German Quark which had a technical meaning in cheese production but also was a popular colloquial term for "trivial nonsense” in the sense of “talking nonsense”.  Joyce had certainly visited parts of Germany where the term was in use but no notes have ever been uncovered which would confirm the origin.

Hawkwind, Quark, Strangeness and Charm (Charisma CDS 4008 (1977)).

It’s still scientific orthodoxy there are six quarks but there may be more.  They are known as flavors and are named (1) up, (2) down, (3) strange, (4) charmed, (5) bottom & (6) top, each manifesting in three colors, (1) red, (2) green & (3) blue.  The use of colors as a convention seems a curious choice because, not falling within the wavelength of visible light, quarks cannot possess the quality of a color in the conventional sense of the word.  However, red, green and blue are probably more mnemonic that the traditional constructions from the Ancient Greek.  Neutrons & protons are each made from three quarks, one of each color, a neutron being (2 x down + 1 x up) and a proton (2 x up + 1 x down).  Particles can be assembled using the other quarks but the resulting mass is massively larger and rapidly they decay into protons and neutrons.  Until the experiments of the early 1960s which at high-speed collided protons with electrons or other protons, it was thought neutrons & protons were fundamental particles.  It was during the observations of these collisions that it became understood quarks were the building blocks.

White cheeses.

Quark cheese (sold also as quarg) is a feature of cuisines in the Baltic and nations traditionally Germanic or Slavic-speaking as well as some Jewish sects and Turkic peoples.  It is soft and white, has a relatively short shelf-life and the appearance is similar to cottage cheese or mascarpone; in some languages the terms for that and quark are interchangeable.  The Roman historian Tacitus (Publius Cornelius Tacitus, circa 56–circa 120) in his De origine et situ Germanorum (On the Origin and Situation of the Germans (circa 98)) discussed Germanic culture (clearly they were viewed as a trouble even then) makes mention of a “fluffy white cheese” which may have been something like quark or any one of the fermented milk variations of the age.  The word quark was from the Late Middle High German quarc, twarc, & zwarg the Lower Saxon dwarg, all in use by at least the late thirteenth century and thought derived from a West Slavic equivalent, possibly the Lower Sorbian twarog, the Upper Sorbian twaroh, the Polish twaróg or the Czech & Slovak tvaroh; it was cognate with the Belarusian тварог (tvaroh) and the Russian творог (tvorog).  It’s thought the Old Slavonic tvarogъ was connected in some way with the Old Church Slavonic творъ, (tvor) (form), thus the notion of a “solidified milk which took a form”, an idea familiar in the French fromage (cheese) and the Italian formaggio (cheese).

Founded in 2004, 3 Quarks Daily is a kind of on-line selective content aggregator, augmented with some editorial material; thematically, nothing tends to dominate although the curators do insist whatever is run must be “inherently fascinating”.  That’s something obviously a matter a reader's judgment but such is cast of the net that on any given day, it’s likely many will find stuff of interest, some of which sometimes will fascinate.  Befitting a site which began when the web was barely a decade old, 3 Quarks Daily recalls the time when what the “inventor of the internet” (Al Gore; b 1948, US vice president (VPOTUS) 1993-2001 & in 2000 the next president of the United States (NPOTUS)) called the “information super-highway” could genuinely surprise and delight.  That still happens of course but more prominence is enjoyed by places with content delivered by algorithms rewarding shark-feeding populism.  The site’s name comes from the elementary nuclear particle and acknowledges the debt to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, the choice being an allusion to three Quarks spanning the often separate worlds of art, literature & science and the site used to award annual prizes known as Top Quark, Strange Quark & Charm Quark.  A visit to 3 Quarks Daily is highly recommended.

Eristic

Eristic (pronounced e-ris-tik)

(1) Pertaining to controversy or disputation; controversial; provoking strife, controversy or discord.

(2) A person who engages in disputation; a controversialist.

(3) The art of disputation; of, relating, or given to controversy or logical disputation for its own sake (especially if pursued speciously) or as a technical exercise (in education).

(4) In the study of the myths of Antiquity, of or relating to Ἔρις (Eris) (Discord), the goddess of strife,

1630–1640: From the Ancient Greek ἐριστικός (eristikós) (eager for strife, anxious to provoke), the construct being erist(ós) (verbid of erízein (to wrangle), derivative of éris discord) + -ikos, the English equivalent being eris + -t- + ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  Eristic is a noun & adjective, eristical is an adjectives and eristically is an adverb; the noun plural is eristics.

The eristic is a long-standing feature in democratic politics where the formal notions of “government” and “opposition” are institutionalized.  There is much in Lord Randolph Churchill’s (1849–1895) dictum that “the duty of the opposition is to oppose” and that process is the dynamic by which political debate is conducted.  That’s good if a genuine contest of ideas but there is often a sense that things are opposed for no reason other purpose than the conflict itself; it’s not the goal which matters, just the maintenance of strife.  The state of politics in the US can now be said to be eristic and that’s not something unique to the modern era, politics is a cyclical business and the forces unleashed can ultimately create conditions whereby conflict switches to conciliation and then to consensus.  Although there seems little hope of that in the immediate future, nothing lasts forever and unexpected events can be catalytic.  Eristic seems an attractive option for those writing about politics because (1) it’s undeniably applicable and (2) it adds variety to what can be often a repetitive vocabulary, the most common adjectives in such texts including belligerent, combative, contentious, controversial, disputatious, quarrelsome, scrappy & testy.  Political scientists who decide to use the adjective should note the comparative form (more eristic) and the superlative (most eristic) and, just in case there’s any doubt, Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) would likely usually attract the superlative.

One of the (many) judgments of Paris: Early in the century, the feud between Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan played out in the well-documented way such things are done on social media.  Both now mothers, détente appears to have been negotiated and a state of peaceful co-existence seems now to prevail.

In Greek mythology, Ἔρις (Eris) (strife) was the goddess or personified spirit (daimona) of strife, discord, contention and rivalry and in the bloodthirsty way artists for centuries delighted in doing, often she was depicted as the daimona of the strife of war, haunting battlefields and glorying in the carnage of the slaughter.  Something of the crooked Hillary Clinton on Antiquity, for obvious reasons Eris was closely identified with the Enyo the goddess of war and the eighth century poet of Ancient Greek Homer used the names interchangeably in his epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.  In Roman mythology her name was Discordia, the source obviously of the Modern English “discord”.  So disagreeable was Eris that other gods tried to avoid inviting her to their parties.  Usually this caused no more than the usual bitchiness familiar in mythology but one infamous non-invite led to the event known as the μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος (Golden Apple of Discord), known in the story The Judgment of Paris.  Much miffed at not being invited to the wedding of Peleus & Thetis, Eris tossed the golden apple in the midst of the feast of the gods at the wedding banquet, offering it as a prize to whoever was of the greatest beauty, thus sparking a vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite a squabble which ultimately triggered the Trojan War.  Eris, even more angry than usual, had inscribed kallisti (To the prettiest one) on her “wedding gift” handing it to Πάρις (Paris, AKA Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros) (Alexander), the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy) who was told to choose the goddess he found most beautiful.  Judging what turned out to be one of Greek mythology's more significant beauty contests, Paris chose Aphrodite, offending Hera and Athena, the most famous consequence of their feud being the Trojan War.  Tragedy did thereafter stalk the marriage of Peleus and Thetis; of their seven sons, the only one to survive beyond infancy was Achilles.

Friedrich Nietzsche (circa 1890), etching on wove paper by an unknown artist of the European Expressionist school, Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.  Even before he went mad, Nietzsche looked sort of deranged.

Eris wasn’t an accident of supernatural genetics but was “born that way”.  In his Theogony, the Ancient Greek poet of the seventh & eighth centuries, Hesiod, recounted how she was the goddess who gave birth to work, forgetfulness, hunger, pain, battles, fights, murders, killings, quarrels, lies, disputes, lawlessness, ruin and bad language, but spread the blame a bit in his later Works and Days, saying the source of conflict on Earth was the two different strifes: Eris the daughter of Nyx and the other a spirit of emulation, placed by Zeus within the world to engender a healthy sense of competition.  That much appealed to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) who decided “a healthy sense of competition” was the struggle for survival and supremacy between men which was the very nature of human existence and in Homer's Contest (circa 1872 and described as a preface for one of several projected or at least contemplated books) he wrote: “Without competing ambition the Hellenic State like the Hellenic man degenerates.  He becomes bad and cruel, thirsting for revenge, and godless; in short, he becomes “pre-Homeric” — and then it needs only a panic in order to bring about his fall and to crush him.”  Contemplating the Germany of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) quickly grasped Nietzsche and was soon seduced by his words.

Hitler’s opinion of his fellow man was often not high and Nietzsche’s construct of human nature resonated.  He thought envy and jealousy the foundation of Ancient Greek society, both qualities essential for effective competition to produce the dynamic in which the strong would thrive and dominate the weak: “Eris urges even the unskilled man to work, and if one who lacks property beholds another who is rich, then he hastens to sow in similar fashion and to plant and to put his house in order; the neighbor vies with the neighbor who strives after fortune.. The potter also has a grudge against the potter, and the carpenter against the carpenter; the beggar envies the beggar, and the singer the singer. Good is this Eris to men”.  More delicate types like the English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975 and born a week before Hitler) saw something very different in Hellenic civilization but for Nietzsche the lesson was conflict (competition) in all facets of life, be it athletics, art, war, rhetoric or poetry meant not only individuals reaping the material and spiritual rewards of fame & glory but the strengthening of a whole society.  Nietzsche may not have been the “Nazi” some like to suggest but his words had such appeal to them it can be hard to separate the two and the implications of his philosophy are apparent in Hitler’s domestic & foreign policy as well as the internal structures of the party, something not well understood until the post-war years.

Harbinger

Harbinger (pronounced hahr-bin-jer)

(1)  A person who goes ahead and makes known the approach of another; a herald (obsolete).

(2) An inn-keeper (obsolete)

(3) A person sent in advance of troops, a royal train, etc to provide or secure lodgings and other accommodations (obsolete).

(4) Anything that foreshadows a future event; omen; sign.

1125–1175: From the late Middle English herbenger, a nasalized variant of the Middle English herbegere, a dissimilated variant of Old French herberg(i)ere (host; lodging), the more common variant of which was herberg(ier) (to shelter).  In English, the late fifteenth century meaning and spelling was herbengar (one sent ahead to arrange lodgings (for a monarch, an army etc)), an alteration of the late twelfth century Middle English herberger (provider of shelter, innkeeper), from the Old French herbergeor (one who offers lodging, innkeeper) from herbergier (provide lodging), from herber (lodging, shelter), from the Frankish heriberga (lodging, inn (literally “army shelter”))from the Germanic compound harja-bergaz (shelter, lodgings), related was the Old Saxon and Old High German heriberga (army shelter) from heri (army) + berga (shelter) which is the root also of the modern harbor.  Origin of the Frankish heriberga was the Proto-Germanic harjaz (army) + bergô (protection).  Related were the German herberge, the Italian albergo, and the Dutch herberg.  The sense of "forerunner; that which precedes and gives notice of the coming of another" developed in the mid-sixteenth century while the intrusive (and wholly unetymological) -n- is from the fifteenth century.  Use as a verb began in the 1640s; to harbinge (to lodge) was first noted in the late fifteenth century.

Harbinger of Autumn (1922) by Paul Klee (1879-1940), watercolor and pencil on paper bordered with watercolor and pen, mounted on card, Yale University Art Gallery.

Death and Destruction

The original, late medieval, meaning of harbinger was “lodging-house keeper”, one who harbors people for the night, the word derived from harbourer or, as it was then spelled herberer or herberger.  Herberer derives from the French word for inn (auberge) and “Ye herbergers…” are referred to as the hotel managers of their day in the Old English text The Lambeth Homilies, circa 1175.  By the thirteenth century, harbinger had shifted meaning, referring now to a scout who went ahead of a military formation or royal court to book lodgings and meals for the oncoming horde.  This is the source of the modern meaning of “an advance messenger” that we understand now, Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) apparently the first to adopt the form in The Man of Law's Tale (circa 1386):

The fame anon thurgh toun is born

How Alla kyng shal comen on pilgrymage,

By herbergeours that wenten hym biforn

A modern translation of which is:

The news through all the town was carried,

How King Alla would come on pilgrimage,

By harbingers that went before him

In Modern English, harbinger exists only in a metaphorical sense meaning forerunner or announcer.  In the narrow technical sense, almost anything can be harbingered; a warm day in late winter can be a harbinger of spring but popular use, in this gloomy age, is now almost exclusively of harbingers of pain, suffering, doom, death and destruction.

I grew. Foul weather, dreams, forebodings

Were bearing me - a Ganymede -

Away from earth; distress was growing

Like wings - to spread, to hold, to lead.

 

I grew. The veil of woven sunsets

At dusk would cling to me and swell.

With wine in glasses we would gather

To celebrate a sad farewell,

 

And yet the eagle's clasp already

Refreshes forearms' heated strain.

The days have gone, when, love, you floated

Above me, harbinger of pain.

 

Do we not share the sky, the flying?

Now, like a swan, his death-song done,

Rejoice! In triumph, with the eagle

Shoulder to shoulder, we are one.

I grew. Foul weather, dreams, forebodings… by Boris Pasternak (1890-1960).

The phrase “a crypto-fascist...harbinger of Doom” isn’t a quote from one of Gore Vidal’s (1925–2012) many thoughts on William F Buckley (1925–2008) but comes from a review by Rachel Handler (a senior editor at Vulture and New York) of Lindsay Lohan’s Netflix film Irish Wish (2024).  While it’s not unknown for reviewers to take movies seriously, it’s unlikely many rom-coms have ever been thought to demand deconstruction to reveal they’re part of a “…larger sociopolitical plot to maintain the status quo, quell dissent, replace much of the workforce with AI, install a permanent Christian theocratic dictator, and make Ireland look weird for some reason.”

The piece is an imposing 3½ thousand-odd words and should be read by students of language because, of its type, it’s an outstanding example but for those who consume rom-coms without a background in critical theory it may be wise first to watch the film because the review includes the plot-line.  If having watched and (sort of) enjoyed the film, one should then read the review and hopefully begin faintly to understand why one was wrong.  Ms Handler really didn’t like the thing and having already damned Ms Lohan’s first Netfix production (Falling for Christmas (2022)) as “a Dante’s Inferno-esque allegory”, she’s unlikely much to be looking forward to the promised third.  All should however hope she writes a review.