TERF & Terf

TERF & Terf (pronounced turf)

(1) The acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist (trans-exclusionary radical feminism), a fork of radical feminism which maintains a trans woman’s gender identity is not legitimate and rejects the inclusion of trans people and the gender-diverse in the feminist movement.

(2) In genetics as (1) TERF 1 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 1), a protein which in  humans is encoded by the TERF1 gene & (2) TERF 2 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 2), a protein present at telomeres throughout the cell cycle. 

2008: Coined by Australian feminist writer Viv Smythe (@vivsmythe (fka @tigtog, @hoydenabouttown & @GFIComedy) although Ms Smythe suggests the acronym may previously have been in use but her blog entry is the oldest instance extant, hence the credit.  By virtue of use, TERF has become a word and thus the noun terf (and its variants is correct.  The use in genetics dates from the 1990s , the definitions written as part of the project which decoded the human genome (the complete results of which weren't released until March 2022).   

TERF was said first to have been coined as a “deliberately neutral” descriptor of a certain intellectual position among certain feminists, CISgender women who self-identify as feminist but who oppose including transgender women in spaces (physical, virtual & philosophical) which their construct of feminism reserves for those assigned female at birth.  Implicit in this is the denial that trans women (or anyone anywhere on the trans gender spectrum) are women; they regard them as men and because, by definition, men cannot coexist with their feminist construct, they must be excluded.  However, though TERF was of the feminists, by a feminist, for the feminists, once in the wild it is public property and TERF didn’t long stay neutral, soon used as a slur, applied as a term of disparagement by those sympathetic to trans rights and just as quickly embraced by some TERFs in an act of reclamation (a la slut, the notorious n-word etc).  In use online since at least 2008, TERF has different connotations (depending on who is using it and for what purpose) but even when applied as something purely descriptive, feminists who have been labeled TERF have called the term a slur because it has come to be associated with violence and hatred.  It is a loaded term.

Sainte Jeanne d'Arc (Saint Joan of Arc) (1903) by Albert Lynch (1860–1950).  Joan of Arc with proto TERF bangs: latter day TERFs arouse such hatred there may have been whisperings what was required was a few burnings at the stake.

The coining of TERF inspired some neologisms.  TERF bangs (existing only in the plural and noted since 2013 although use didn't trend until 2014) is a sardonic reference to a woman's hairstyle with short, straight, blunt-edged bangs (historically called baby bangs and a variation of what's known by some hairdressers as the "Joan of Arc" fringe), especially when paired with a bob and claimed to be associated with TERFs, the link impressionistic and possibly an example of a gaboso (generalized association based on single-observation).  The link is thought to be part of the opposition to transphobia, the TERF bangs noted for their relationship to the Karen (speak to the manager) bob and all Karens are assumed to be transphobic.  TERFdom is either (1) the holding (and expression) of trans-exclusionary feminist views or (2) being in some way present in the on-line TERF ecosystem.  TERFism is the abstract noun denoting variously the action, practice, state, condition, principle, doctrine, usage, characteristic, devotion or adherence to TERFDom.  TERfturf is an expression variously of the physical, virtual or philosophical space occupied by TERFdom.  TERFy, TERFish & TERFic are adjectives (usually applied disparagingly) which suggest someone or something may be tending towards, characteristic of, or related to trans-exclusionary feminism or those who hold such views.  Strangely, TERFesque seems not to have been used and it's tempting to ponder TERFery, TERFed & TERFistic and the use to which they might be put but there's scant evidence of use.  TERF also provided the model for the backronym SWERF (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist), describing the position of those radical feminists opposed to the sex industry (including pornography), regarding all aspects of the business as exploitative and that women who participate are victims of coercion, any assertion of agency or willing participation a form of false consciousness.

TERF, TWERF and others

Whatever the life TERF subsequently took, Ms Smythe’s original piece was a critique of the undercurrent of transphobia in the UK British media, something hardly difficult to detect nor restricted to the most squalid of the tabloids.  However, as she noted, regardless of her purpose or the context of the text, TERF has became a weaponized device of the culture wars which, in the way of the battle, assumed its identities at the extremes of the trans-inclusion & trans-exclusion positions and it could hardly have followed a different course, the notion, however applied, hardly one amenable to subtle nuances (although some have tried).  That it had the effect of being an inherently schismatic force in radical feminism seemed especially to disturb Ms Smythe and later she would suggest a more accurate (or certainly less divisive) acronym would have been “…TES, with the “S” standing for separatists”, adding that many “…of the positions that are presented seem far too essentialist to be adequately described as feminist, let alone radical feminist.”  Of course, that view was in itself exclusivist and a kind of assertion of ownership of both “radical” and “feminist” but that’s entirely in the tradition of political philosophy including the strains which long pre-date modern feminism, gatekeepers rarely hesitant in lowering the intellectual portcullis, intruders rarely welcome.

Still, it wasn’t as if feminism had been immune from the fissiparousness which so often afflicted movements (secular and otherwise), the devolution into into competing doctrinal orthodoxies of course creating heretics and heroes and to think of the accepted structure of the history (first wave, second wave etc) as lineal is misleading.  Nor was the process organic and it has been claimed there are TERFs (notably some of the self-described) for whom the identification with feminism became attractive only when it seemed to offer a intellectual cloak under which push transphobia, an accusation leveled at members of the US organization GIW (Gender Identity Watch).   Described variously as a “hate group” and the “Republican party in sensible shoes”, GIW’s best known activities include lobbying and monitoring legislatures and courts to try to ensure those who are transgender are not granted either the status of women or whatever rights may accrue from that.  Their basis was simply definitional, those DMaB (designated male at birth) can never be anything beyond MiD (men in disguise) and thus have no place in women’s spaces.

T-shirts are available.  In the modern age, if there's not a T-shirt, it's probably not a cause. 

There seems little to suggest bangs are a reliable marker of TERFdom and those wishing to assert where they stand on TERFness should probably don an appropriate T-shirt.  Not only do designer colors seem rare in TERF clothing but the combos mostly are black and white which may be subliminal messaging, this being a polarized debate in which there are few gray areas.  Predictably, trans-friendly T-shirts are more colorful.

Other theorists developed their own form of exclusivism.  The idea behind the back-formation TWERF (Trans Women Exclusionary Radical Feminist) was that it was "pure womanism", the needs of trans women being not only different from “real” women but irrelevant too, again by definition because trans women are still men and even if in some way defined as not, were still not “real” women.  The distinctions drawn by the TWERFs was certainly a particular strain of radical feminism because they raised no objection to the presence of trans men, the agender and even some other non-binary people into at least some of their women-only spaces although the rationale offered to support this position did seem sometimes contradictory.  Some however seemed well to understand the meaning and they were the transsexual separatists, apparently a cause without rebels, support for the view apparently close to zero.  The transsexual separatists argue that they need to be treated, for the purposes of defined rights, as a separate category, a concept which received little attention until the Fina(Fédération internationale de notation, the International Swimming Federation) in June 2022 announced a ban on the participation of transgender women from elite female competition if they have experienced “…any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later."  As something a workaround designed somehow to combine inclusion and exclusion in the one policy, Fina undertook to create a working group to design an “open” category for trans women in “some events” as part of its new policy; when in doubt, form a committee.  The transsexual separatists may not have expected Fina to be the first mainstream organization to offer a supporting gesture but what the federation has done may stimulate discussion, even if the work-around proves unworkable.

Discursiveness is however in the nature of feminist thought, the essence of the phases of renewal which characterized progress, formalized (if sometimes misleadingly) as waves and it’s unrealistic to imagine trans-related issues will be resolved until generational change allows a new orthodoxy to coalesce.  It really wasn’t until the high-water mark of second wave of feminism in the early 1980s that some of the early radical feminists began to attempt to distance the movement from the issues pertaining to trans people, reflecting the view the implications of what was characterized as the transgender agenda would only reinforce sexual stereotyping and the gender binary.  Even then, the position taken by radical feminists was not monolithic but it was the exclusionists who attracted most interest, inevitable perhaps given they offered the media a conflictual lens through which to view the then somewhat novel matter of trans rights, until then rarely discussed.  Third wave feminism was a product of the environment in which it emerged and thus reflected the wider acceptance of transgender rights and few would argue this has not continued during the fourth wave, the attention given to TERF (and its forks and variations) an indication of the interest in the culture wars and the lure of conflict in media content (whether tabloid or twitter) rather than any indication a generalized hardening of opposition among feminists.

TERF must not be confused with the homophone “turf”

Lindsay Lohan winning on the JCB's turf: On 1 October, 2023, four-year old mare Lindsay Lohan (by Emcee out of Requebra) won the Grande Prêmio Costa Ferraz over 1,000 metres, her fourth win in ten starts; Jockey Club Brasileiro, Praça Santos Dumont, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The word turf pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English terf & torf (turves sometimes was used as plural but wholly un-related to the phrase “topsy-turvy”), from the Old English turf & tyrf (turf, sod, slab of soil, roots cut from the earth, piece of grass-covered earth, greensward), from the Proto-West Germanic turb (turf, peat), from the Proto-Germanic turbz (turf, lawn), linked possibly to the primitive Indo-European derbh- (to wind, to compress).  It was cognate with the Dutch turf, the Old Norse torf, the Middle Low German torf (peat, turf), (from which German & German Low German gained Torf) the Danish tørv, the Swedish torv, the Norwegian torv, the Icelandic torf, the Russian трава (trava) (grass), the Old Frisian turf, and the Old High German zurba; it was akin to the Sanskrit दर्भ (darbhá) (a kind of grass) & दूर्वा (dū́rvā) (bent grass).  Turf in its original sense developed as a part of the agrarian economy, describing the top layer of soil in which seeds were planted and roots (hopefully) took hold.  Use (apparently rapidly) expanded to encompass concepts in some way related to the upper layer of the ground or what sprouted from it including sods, slabs of soil with the root systems preserved (ie a piece of grass covered earth) and expanses of grassed surfaces.  To this day, the general literal understanding of “turf” is the grassed, top layer of soil.  The use as a synecdoche for (especially thoroughbred) horse racing (as “the turf”) dates from 1755, that use emerging from the original technical use by those maintaining the grassed surface over which the horses galloped.  From this evolved the modern occupational euphemisms: (1) turf accountant (a bookmaker (bookie) with whom one places bets) and (2) turf advisor (one who for a fee provides “tips” suggesting the horse(s) on which bets should be placed).

Lindsay Lohan enjoying the turf: Lindsay Lohan in The Birdcage (right), Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Victoria (Spring Carnival Derby Day), 2 November, 2019. The outfit paired a Leo & Lin Venus Asymmetric Scarf Skirt with a Morgan & Taylor Leya Boater Hat.  This is a figurative use of “turf”, used as a reference to “horse racing”.

The word Astroturf dates from 1966 when it was released as a commercial product, a synthetic grass for use in sports arenas.  The use of “astroturf” as a slang term meaning “to fake the appearance of popular support for something, such as a cause or product” emerged in the last days of the 1990s although the origin of the use of the word in this context has been traced to 1985 when then Senator (Democratic, Texas) Lloyd Bentsen (1921–2006; US Secretary of the Treasury 1993-1994) used the word to distinguish between “real mail from real people” and the “mountain of cards and letters” sent to his office in a campaign organized by the insurance industry: “…a fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass roots and AstroTurf... this is generated mail.”  Lloyd Bentsen is remembered also for the most memorable retort (which probably was rehearsed) from the 1988 presidential election in which he was the Democratic Party’s nominee for VPOTUS.  In a debate with the Republican’s Dan Quayle (b 1947; VPOTUS 1989-1993), he responded to Mr Quayle comparing himself to John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963) by saying: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy.  I knew Jack Kennedy.  Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.  Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.”  The other coincidental link between the two candidates was that in the 1970 mid-term congressional elections, Bentsen defeated George H.W. Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; VPOTUS 1981-1989 & POTUS 1989-1993) for a Texas senate seat and it was Dan Quayle Bush choose as a running mate in his successful 1988 presidential campaign.  Mr Qualye's other contribution to US political history was being filmed visiting a school in New Jersey school where he “corrected” a student’s spelling of “potato” by adding a final “e”.  That a man aspiring to be elected to an office “a heartbeat away from the presidency” and thus the authority to launch nuclear missiles didn’t know how to spell “potato” was disturbing enough but what made it really funny (at least in one sense) was he read the incorrect spelling from flashcards prepared in advance, confirming the public’s perception politicians obediently parrot whatever is fed to them by the party machine.

Lindsay Lohan on some turf: Lindsay Lohan standing on one of the Flemington Racecourse lawns.  This is a literal use of “turf”, used as a reference to “grass” but, had she been standing on the race track proper, the word would have been used in both senses.

As a general term for the “street or sidewalk (footpath)” in cityscapes, turf had entered slang use by at least the 1880s.  The phrase “comes with the turf” means one must “take the rough with the smooth” and accept less pleasant aspects of a chosen profession, location etc.  In figurative use the “turf war” was a demarcation dispute between parties over territory which can be literal physical space or something more abstract.  The idea of “our turf” in the sense of “streets or parts of a suburb in which a gang had an exclusive right to conduct criminal activities” must be old but the use of “turf” to describe the concept seems not to have been recorded prior to 1953.  On a gang’s turf, “civilians” might well stroll un-molested but it’d be dangerous for members of other gangs to trespass.  The term “turf war” is said to have come into use only in 1962 but the notion of “one’s turf” to which one had an exclusivity of possession or right was documented from at least the mid nineteenth century when it was almost formalized as a set of boundaries in the streets on which prostitutes plied their trade, the unmarked borders administered both by the sex workers and police officers who (usually with the extraction of some sort of fee in cash or kind) “enforced the rules”.

Bang

Bang (pronounced bhang)

(1) A loud, sudden, explosive noise (such as the discharge of a firearm).

(2) A resounding stroke or blow.

(3) In informal, use, a sudden movement, show of energy or instance of something suggesting great value, energy, vitality or spirit (source of many idiomatic forms such as “started with a bang”, “went off with a bang”, “great bang for the buck” etc).

(4) Suddenly and loudly; abruptly or violently.

(5) In figurative use, precisely; directly; right (such as “bang on” or “bang in the middle” (ie exactly correct” or “bang to rights” (caught red-handed; guilty as sin).

(6) In informal use, a sudden or intense pleasure; thrill or excitement (now less common).

(7) In slang, various senses of precision such as “bang off” (instantly; right away) or “bang on” (marvelous; perfect; just right).

(8) In vulgar slang, the act or instance of sexual intercourse (with many variants, the most infamous the gangbang).

(9) In the jargon of mining, civil engineering etc, the physical explosive product.

(10) In the slang of drug users, an injection or other form of dose of a narcotic; a shot of heroin which proved lethal.

(11) In US criminal class clang, to participate in street gang criminal activity.

(12) In the slang of typology & the printing trade, an exclamation point, a variant being the interrobang (a punctuation mark (‽) which merges the question mark (?) and the exclamation mark (!) to indicate a query made as an interjection).

(13) In Irish slang, a strong smell (often used of halitosis (chronic bad breath)).

(14) In regional slang (limited apparently to the New England region in the US), an abrupt left-turn by a road-user (Boston, Massachusetts) or a left, right or U-turn (more generalized); the typical use is “bang a left/right/uey”. The equivalent use in Australia & New Zealand is “hang a left/right/uey” although there a U-turn is known also as a “U-bolt”.

(15) In regional slang (limited apparently to urban areas in Nigeria), to fail an exam.

(16) In mathematics, a factorial (on the basis the factorial of n is often written as n!)

(17) In the jargon of financial markets, rapidly or in high volumes suddenly to sell (an equity, commodity, currency etc), causing prices to fall.

(18) In the jargon of hairdressing, as bangs, a number of variants of the fringe.

(19) In reggae music, an offbeat figure played usually on guitar and piano.

(20) In vulgar slang, to have sexual intercourse with (sometimes with the implication of “without consent”.

(21) To strike or beat resoundingly; to pound; to strike violently or noisily.

(22) To hit or painfully to pump.

(23) To throw or set down roughly; to slam.

1540-1550: From the Middle English bangen, from the Old English bangian or borrowed from the Old Norse banga (to pound, hammer), both from the Proto-Germanic bangōną (to beat, pound), from the primitive Indo-European ben- (to beat, hit, injure).  It was cognate with Scots bang & bung (to strike, bang, hurl, thrash, offend), the Icelandic banga (to pound, hammer), the Old Swedish bånga (to hammer (from which modern Swedish gained banka (to knock, pound, bang), the Danish banke (to beat) & bengel (club), the Low German bangen, & bangeln (to strike, beat) (the German dialect banken may originally have been imitative), the West Frisian bingel & bongel, the Dutch bengel (bell; rascal) and the German Bengel (club) & bungen (to throb, pulsate).  Bang is a noun, verb & adverb, banged is a verb & adjective, banger is a noun, banging is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is bangs.

Of the universe

The origin of the term “Big Bang Theory” (which describes a model accounting for the origin and most of the dynamics of the (present) universe during the last 14 billion years-odd) is traced to a chance remark by English astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) on BBC Radio in 1949 but it wasn’t until the late 1960s it came widely to be used in scientific circles and a few more years before it was part of the common public language.  Hoyle always denied he’d intended to be disparaging of what was then a theory some 30 years old and this most historians came to accept although certainly he was unconvinced of the idea’s soundness and for some decades clung to his preferred “steady state” model of the universe.  The steady state position is sometimes misunderstood as something like “twas ever thus” but is better understood as “constant process”, the crucial difference that while the steady staters held matter constantly was being created as the universe expands, the big bangers believed the distance between the matter which came into existence a fraction of a second after the big bang increased as the universe expanded from its one-time singularity.  Hoyle never quite became a big banger but as the evidence mounted, he modified his model to become what was dubbed “a quasi steady stater” although his increasingly convoluted explanations forcing observations to somehow fit his belief convinced few.  The criticism of Hoyle was he made cosmology into a kind of theology.

Noted golfer Paige Spiranac (b 1993) is active on Instagram and recently posted a “Life update” to her four million followers, advising “I have bangs now”.  Hopefully, she will keep us informed and there will be more to come.  For golfers, she has posted a set of invaluable short clips called Paige Quickies which are guides for both the experienced wishing to hone their techniques and those taking up the sport.  Being highly qualified, she filled one gap in the instructional market with a collection of tips for “busty golfers” (specific weight distribution a significant element as the body pivots when swinging a club).  On Instagram, in less than 24 hours, the clip garnered over 2.6 million views.

Hoyle's use of the term “big bang” while it did graphically emphasise the difference of opinion between the two schools of thought, was unfortunate as a contribution to public understanding because of the connotations of the words  “big” & “bang”, most imagining the origins of the universe as starting with a huge, noisy explosion whereas what was envisaged by the theorists was a sudden “cosmic inflation” (of space), a process which continues and was in the 1990s found to be accelerating although not everywhere equally.  The big bang theory is now the orthodoxy in the mainstream scientific community though some questions remain unanswered including the mystery of why, based on a number of calculations which explain many other things, over 90% of the universe’s matter is “missing” (or at least can’t be observed).  The fudge to “explain” that has been the twin concepts of “dark matter” and “dark energy” which are more “speculative concepts” than a theoretical model and best understood as an elegant way of saying “don’t know”.  There have been a number of suggestions to account for the “missing matter”, the most intriguing being the notion the calculated “matter number” might be too high because of “drag effect” created by the operation of time itself.  Time obviously is important otherwise everything would happen at the same time and who knows what else it does; recently, particle physicists reported having witnessed pinpricks of darkness moving faster than the speed of light without breaking the laws of relativity so there's much still to be understood.

Of cars

Big banger and old banger: John Greenwood (1945-2015) in “Spirit of ’76” Chevrolet Corvette, Le Mans 24 Hour, June 1976 (left) and a despondent Lindsay Lohan with Herbie while in “old banger” state, Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), the Corvette an “8-banger” and the Beetle a “4-banger”.  The Corvette was powered by a 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) big-block V8 and although forced to retire after a failure in the fuel delivery system, while it was running, nothing in the field could match the mark of 222 mph (354 km/h) it set thundering down the then 6 km (3.7 mile) Mulsanne straight.  In 1976, Mulsanne had yet to be distorted by the silly chicanes added in 1990 at the behest of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation, world sport's dopiest regulatory body)).

With cars, “banger” proved productive.  Because an ICE (internal combustion engine) always includes a “power stroke” (or its equivalence), in which the fuel-air mix explodes (the combustion causing “a bang” which sequentially is the sound from the exhaust system; to aficionados sometimes a pleasing tone, sometimes not), in slang, vehicles came to be described by the cylinder count thus (most frequently “4-banger”, “6-banger” or “8-banger”).  However, a car could also be a “big banger” (one with a large displacement ICE, usually a V8 with the appellation coming from the “big-block” era of the post-war years when Detroit mass-produced engines with pistons the size of paint cans) or an “old banger” (one old, worn out or battered”.  Old banger was synonymous with “clunker”, “beater”, “hooptie”, “jalopy”, “wreck”, “crock”, “shitbox”, “rustbucket” etc and the dubbing came either from the appearance (“banged up” in the sense of being dented or damaged) or the “banging” noise (backfiring, a damaged exhaust system etc) the dilapidated machines emanated.

Of sausages and such

Bangers & Mash by the Daring Gourmet.  Not everyone garnishes their B&M with chopped parsley.

Unrelated to ICEs, a banger could be (1) one who bangs (in any sense (sex, violence etc), (2) the penis (3) a sausage (the use reputedly based originally not on any resemblance to a penis but, dating from the time when they were produced by encasing the contents in the intestine casings of slaughtered animals (often sheep), the combination of excess water in the mix and the impervious skin making them susceptible to exploding if not punctured prior to being cooked), (4) the breasts of a female (and thus usually in the plural) and (5) in popular music a highly rated song (some of which would be enjoyed by (6) headbangers (that subset of music fans who “dance” by violently shaking their heads in time to the music)).

Rolling Stone magazine No.169, September 12, 1974.  Rolling Stone and Playboy magazine in the 1960s & 1970s attracted a large audience of the market segments attractive to advertisers and alongside the content with which both most were associated, they attracted respectable authors to write about politics and interview subjects such as celebrity philosophers and Nazi war criminals.

As well as being a noun plural “Bangs” is also a proper noun as a surname, the most noted being Lester Bangs (1948–1982) who in the late 1960s began to write reviews of popular music, prompted by an advertisement in Rolling Stone magazine inviting reader submissions.  He wouldn’t have thought what he criticized was “pop” and Rolling Stone magazine (first published in 1967) was one of a number of titles that created an ecosystem in which classifications proliferated with clear “hierarchies of respectability” evolving among those who regarded “pop” as a serious musical form and Bangs definitely was one of them; before the mid-1960s, popular music usually wasn’t written about with the tone of reverence afforded to jazz, opera, the avant-garde and such.  Bangs died a drug-related death although not the traditionally “messy” one associated with the field he critiqued.  Having contracted influenza, he was self-medicating with an opioid analgesic and a benzodiazepine; his overdose was ruled “accidental”.

Of hair

In hairdressing, the noun “bangs” is used to describe a number of variants of the fringe (or sections of hair) cut straight across the forehead, the derived verb used as “to bang the hair”.  Sometimes there are “left and right” bangs but even when a style wholly is a conventional fringe the convention is to speak of “bangs”, although hairdressers, especially when constructing something asymmetric, will refer to the “left” or “right” bang.  Although there are on the internet claims the use is based on the notion of a clipped hair “bursting out” (ie “explosively” in a figurative sense and thus based on “bang” in the sense of something sudden), verified evidence confirms “bangs” joined the rich jargon of hairdressing late in the nineteenth century as a clipping (get it?) of “bang-tail”, a term then used for decades in used in equestrian circles to described a horse’s tail being allowed to grow long and then cut (docked) straight across (the painless cut called a “bang-off”).  Apparently with origins in Scotland before spreading south and across the Atlantic, it joined “gee-up” as a phrase with equine roots enjoying a re-purposing for wider use.  The OED cites the first use of “bang” for the cutting of human hair to 1878 and within half-a-decade US newspapers and periodicals had adopted the plural form “bangs” when referring to a straight-across cut of hair on the forehead.  It was in the late 1880s the imaginative use “lunatic fringe” was coined (a century later to become a popular name for hairdressing salons) and “fringe” remained the dominate use in the UK and much of the Commonwealth while the US opted for the punchier “bangs”.  As a tool of US linguistic imperialism, the internet in the twenty-first century did its job and throughout the English-speaking world, bangs now peacefully co-exists with fringe with youth tending to the former.

Takes on Cleopatra with bangs long & short.

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) in Cleopatra (1963, left) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) in Liz & Dick (2012).  Based on period sculptures, it seems likely the queen had curly hair but because of the prevalence of their appearance on women in surviving art from Ancient Egypt, bangs became entrenched in the public’s imagination of Cleopatra and film directors accordingly complied.  While it's true that the look (on men and women) does appear on much surviving imagery from Ancient Egypt it must be remembered that then, as now, public art was not necessarily representative of the appearance of the wider population although it probably did align with that of the elites.  Also, the as the archaeological records make clear, the consistency of style (straight-cut bangs (ie a horizontal fringe) across the forehead with hair apparently perfect (often shoulder-length and symmetrical) which appears dense, geometric, and highly regular was achieved with the use of wigs of human hair, wool, or plant fibres.  Carefully constructed and styled into clearly repeatable forms, the blunt bangs, at least among certain parts of society, must have been an enduring fashion statement.

The “bang” technique with origins in equine grooming is used with ponytails and is called the “straight blunt cut”; for this purpose the only substantive difference between a “pony's tail” and a “ponytail” is scale.

While, whether of human fringes or horses' tails, “bangs” might be a nineteenth century coining, the hair style is as ancient as humanity, the prehistoric origins doubtlessly a simple expedient to keep the hair from dangling in the eyes, the trim presumably a tiresome task in the era before scissors.  From that humble beginning evolved eventually the array of styles now available, at least some of which allegedly have been a political statements of group solidarity.  A fine “brief history of bangs” is maintained by Odele Beauty (their “Rinse Blog” an indispensable source of technical information) and there it’s claimed Cleopatra’s (Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (Κλεοπάτρα Θεά Φιλοπάτωρ (“Cleopatra father-loving goddess” in the Koine Greek); circa 69 BC–circa 10 BC, Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51-30 BC and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh) “famous fringe is apparently a myth” although on the basis of surviving art, it seems likely Ancient Egyptians “wore blunt-cut bang wigs as early as 3000 BC” and whether or not they were the “influencers”, the look spread north to the Greece and Rome of Antiquity, Odele Beauty noting Augustus (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (known also as Octavianus (Octavian)); 63 BC-14 AD, founder of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD) and first Roman emperor 27 BC-14 AD) “wore his hair combed into a short, forehead-framing fringe, setting a new trend (later dubbed the “Caesar cut”) that future emperors would follow.”  

Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc, 1901), oil on canvas by Albert Lynch (1860–1950).  The short bangs were always present in older paintings of Joan of Arc but it wasn't unusual for modern artists to be influenced by contemporary trends.  Monsieur Lynch left no notes so it's not known if he had in mind the circa 1901 style what of what later would come to be known as a “bloshie young woman”.  Joan of Arc (circa 1412–1431) sometimes was depicted bangs blunt and not but artists had her variously blonde or brunette and with hair wild or coiffed and their images may reflect what male artists thought such a woman should look like.

Surviving European art from the Medieval to Modernity confirms bangs seem never to have gone away and the emergence of the word late in the 1800s suggests they must then have been a quite a thing.  By then, bangs had survived seventeenth century disapprobation of the church, priests finding fashion trends symbols of ungodly vanity and inappropriate for modest, pious women.  However what cemented bangs in their cultural place seems to have been the social ripples from World War I (1914-1918), the so called flappers of the “roaring twenties” taking to them as an adjunct to the other forms of fashion minimalism they adopted as earlier, restrictive conventions were shrugged-off.  Although it had earlier also enjoyed some less pleasing connotations, “flapper” in the sense of the “bright young things” of the era is thought a re-adaptation of the nineteenth century Northern English slang meaning “teen-age girl” and it referenced the hair not routinely being “put-up” in the adult manner and instead kept in plaits or braids, left to “flap about” as she moved.  The 1920s re-cycling of “flapper” retained the connection with “lively young girl” and had nothing to do with hair; bangs had been around for millennia before the flappers but they made them one of their signature looks.  Since the 1920s, trends have ebbed and flowed in the cyclical way fashion works and bangs variously have been softened, blunted, gained wispy curls (not to be confused with the dreaded “fly-away bits”), bulked up as “bumper bangs”, trimmed back to be the “baby bangs” of pixie cuts and evolved in the twin streams of the “curtain bangs” which seductively would drape over the eyes and the dramatic, “set piece installations” made famous by Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009) which for years provided hairdressers with a solid income stream as young ladies everywhere demanded the same thing.

Although it’s not uncommon to see headlines like “Bangs are back”, that’s misleading because they never went away; like hairdressers, headline writers have their own methods of operation.  It would be more accurate were the sites to headline which bangs are trending and that’s now a global thing because it matters not whether a trend is noted as happening in Seoul, Sydney, Seattle and Santiago because on the internet everything is happening at the same time and looks now wax, wane or die in global unison and while the imaginative can doubtless describe some variants, beyond than the basic, self-explanatory forms (short, straight, blunt), there are really five distinct bangs:

Air bangs (seen here in conjunction with long side bangs also favored by goths).

(1) Air bangs are characterized by being light and sparse.  First defined as an element of K-beauty (the aesthetic of South Korea which encompasses hair, clothes, cosmetics music) etc these are known also as “Korean bangs” but their alternative name (see-through bangs) better describes the look.  Despite the name, they are not ideally suited to those with thin or wispy hair and like just about every style, work best with thick locks which provide a better contrast and more scope for styling.  Professional stylists caution those at home crafting air bangs from a conventional fringe to do the process slowly because it's easy to over-estimate to much need to be cut (specialized tools are available).  One advantage of air bangs compare with a straight cut is that in using unequal-length strands, that aspect of precision is avoided but the look does work best if there's a perception of consistency in the spacing. 

Baby bangs: On Pinterest, this was described as a “statement cut” and on that the content provider didn't expand but one suggested statement might be: “admission of guilt”.  Still, the bangs do mean attention is drawn to her lovely sanpaku eyes so there's that.

(2) Baby bangs are short, straight or blunt-edged bangs which are used usually in coordination with the shorter flavours of bob, the reason for that being that if paired with more voluminous cuts, the bangs tend to “get lost” or worse, look like mistakes.  Micro bangs are also “bangs writ small” but differ in that the look is used with styles other than bobs and is identified by being ; not usually considered conventionally attractive, it appears more on catwalks and in photo-shoots than on the street although some do (unwisely) pick up the look.  Baby bangs really suit only a tiny sub-set of the population (most of whom are aged under 15) and should be thought the Pontiac Aztec (2001-2005) of hair-styles in that they're functional, offer good visibility and undeniably are distinctive but are ugly.  All that can be said for both is that on the inside, looking out, one doesn't have to see them. 

Lindsay Lohan with curtain bangs, done in the “twin-hemispheric” or “double polyspheric mode”.

(3) Curtain bangs are long bangs, parted in the centre (although there have been asymmetric interpretations) and designed to resemble a two-drape curtain tied at the side, partially to reveal the face.  The leading edges of the most artfully styled sit just at the point where the eye color is visible and devoted fashionistas wear them with a “curtain reveal top” in which the curve of the garment matches that of the bangs, something which can be as hard to achieve as it sounds.  With a change of as little as a half inch (12.5 mm), stylists can use curtain bangs to change the perception of the shape of a face, the most popular visual trick being elongation, making a “round” face appear something more sought (heart, diamond or inverted triangle).  Combined with skilfully applied makeup, the transformation can be dramatic. 

An emo selfie with classic emo bangs.  The expression is emoesque but the vibrancy of the colors on clothes and bandana is untypical, emos tending more to goth-flavored looks with black and gray although purple seems now less of an emo thing.

(4) Emo bangs are less concerned with shape and symmetry, the important thing being the sweep of hair from the forehead fully covering at least one eye and maybe partially obscuring the other.  Amateur psychiatrists and other students of the emo (a distinct sub-set of humanity) probably have their own thoughts on whether the emo’s goal is to limit what they see of the world or to limit how much others see of them.  Emos are however pragmatic and although their have the honor of an eponymous style, they're also sometimes seen with various bangs. 

There seems little to suggest bangs are a reliable marker of TERFdom and those wishing to assert where they stand on TERFness should probably don an appropriate T-shirt.

(5) Not all agree TERF bangs should be thought a distinct class but they are short, straight, blunt-edged bangs seen usually with shorter cuts (not necessarily bobs).  The term is said to have originated on the microblogging platform Tumblr (which vies with MySpace for as the social media site to have suffered the greatest loss between its high-valuation and most recent sale) when in 2014 a user posted the suggestion such bangs seemingly were exclusive to TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists).  That obviously was impressionistic and it was never clarified whether the suggestion was intended humorously but if not, it’s an example of a gaboso (pronounced gah-boh-so).  A gaboso (Generalized Association Based On Single Observation) (also as the verb gabosoed) is the act of taking one identifiable feature of someone or something and using it as the definitional reference for a group; it ties in with logical fallacies.  While it’s doubtful many professional hairdressers have TERF bangs in the lexicon, it seems novel enough to warrant a mention.

Ultimatum

Ultimatum (pronounced uhl-tuh-mey-tuhm or uhl-tuh-mah-tuhm)

(1) A final, uncompromising demand or set of terms issued by a party to a dispute (used especially of governments and WAGs (wives & girlfriends)), the rejection of which may lead to a severance of relations, the imposition of sanctions, the use of force etc.

(2) A final proposal or statement of conditions; any final or peremptory demand, offer or proposal.

1731: From the New Latin, a specialized use of the Medieval Latin ultimatum (a final statement), noun use of neuter of Latin adjective ultimātus (last possible, final; ended, finished), past participle of ultimāre (to come to an end), from ultimus (extreme, last, furthest, farthest, final).  The Latin plural ultimata was used by the Romans as a noun in the sense of “what is farthest or most remote; the last, the end”.  In mid-1920s slang ultimatum described also “the buttocks” (a use which deserves to be revived).  In English, the plural form had an interesting trajectory.  Although the Anglo-Irish satirist & Anglican cleric Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) used “ultimatums”, that didn’t until the twentieth century convince the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) to displace ultimata as the recommended form.  In diplomacy (a world of “gray areas”), the comparative is “more ultimative”, the superlative “most ultimative”.  Ultimatum is a noun, ultimating & ultimated are verbs and ultimative is an adjective; the noun plural is ultimatums or ultimata. 

The first ultimatum would have been issued in prehistoric times and there have been many since.  History suggests a great many have been bluffs which can be a successful tactic if perceived as plausible but often the “bluff was called” and the ultimatum proved a hollow threat, thus the language of diplomacy including also the (sometimes darkly) satirical or humorous (1) penultimatum (plural penultimatums or penultimata) which describes a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, commonly expressed as an ultimatum in the hopes of compelling immediate compliance with demands, but that then is superseded by more negotiation instead of actual dire consequences and (2) antepenultimatum (plural antepenultimatums or antepenultimata) which describes a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, essentially a penultimatum, but even more tentative and more repeatedly abandoned in favour of subsequent ignominious compromises.  The trouble with unfulfilled ultimatums is that while rapidly they can lose their persuasive power (in a manner analogous with Aesop's Fable The boy who cried wolf), at some point a party issuing unenforced ultimatums may one day make good on their threats, the high stakes gambler Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and the rather dim-witted Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) both in September 1939 genuinely surprised when the Anglo-French ultimatum guaranteeing the sovereignty of Poland was honoured, the previous back-downs no longer a guide.  Of course, six year later, Polish sovereignty was sacrificed to political necessity but a war which began with the RAF (Royal Air Force dropping leaflets politely asking the Germans to stop what they were doing and ended with the USAAF (US Army Air Force) dropping A-bombs of Japanese cities had many unintended consequences.

CD cover art for Lindsay Lohan's Spirit in the Dark (2008) album.

For centuries, the word “ultimatum” seems to have been avoided by poets, librettists and lyricists.  Ultimatum is a Latinate “formal” word so perhaps not well-suited to love songs but beyond the register and tone, those studying structural linguistics note the prosody: It’s a four-syllable word with a stress pattern (ul-TIM-a-tum) difficult to “fit into” common meters and melodic phrasing.  That said, while there’s a semantic narrowness, the idea of the ultimatum (a final demand backed by consequences) is hardly rare in opera and poetry but it tends to be described or implied rather than labelled with the specific word.  However, one niche was found in the definitely modern genre of rap, hip-hop and such and that’s attributed to the material putting a premium on conflict, violence and the technique of rhyming on the final syllable.  Undaunted however was Kara DioGuardi (b 1970) who included “ultimatum” in the opening verse of the Lindsay Lohan song Stay (2008).  Its inclusion is a genuine rarity.

Verse 1 of Stay (2008) Kara DioGuardi, sung by by Lindsay Lohan.

Baby, take your coat off and your shoes and just relax
Let your body sink into these arms, that's where it's at
I'll open up a bottle and slip into something else
I hope tonight's the night that all these walls are gonna melt
'Cause when we're out, you're sending me mixed signals all the time
You want me, but you don't just wanna lay it on the line
So baby, here's your ultimatum, are you in or out?
All you have to do is wanna turn this all around, and...

If it was for poets a challenge to splice “ultimatum” into the body of a work, without any discordance it could be used as a title and Philip Larkin (1922-1985) choose it for his first published poem which appeared in The Listener on 28 November, 1940:

Ultimatum (1940) by Philip Larkin.

But we must build our walls, for what we are
Necessitates it, and we must construct
The ship to navigate behind them, there.
Hopeless to ignore, helpless instruct
For any term of time beyond the years
That warn us of the need for emigration:
Exploded the ancient saying: Life is yours.
For on our island is no railway station,
There are no tickets for the Vale of Peace,
No docks where trading ships and seagulls pass.
Remember stories you read when a boy
- The shipwrecked sailor gaining safety by
His knife, treetrunk, and lianas - for now
You must escape, or perish saying no.

Unknown previously, “ultimatum” did occasionally appear in twentieth century poetry, a product probably of the big, multi-theatre wars and the use in modern and experimental poetry of language which borrowed from abstract or formal vocabularies.  While the terrible first half of the twentieth century gave poets plenty of scope to explore the concept (it was an age of ultimatums), in print, it was done almost without mention of the word.

The issuing of ultimatums has shaped a number of turning points in history; variously they have proved decisive, stabilizing or catastrophic.  Probably the most infamous was the “July Ultimatum”, served on Serbia by Austria-Hungary after a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914; heir presumptive to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).  While such a procedure was orthodox politics, what was notable about what Vienna did in 1914 was to make demands it was certain Serbia would be unable to fulfil.  The Austrians hankered for war because they wanted permanently to put an end the “Serbian threat” and Berlin, anticipating a traditional, short, sharp, limited war of a few weeks, gave Vienna the infamous “German blank cheque” of support.  Belgrade accordingly turned to its traditional supporters in Moscow who agreed to offer military support; that came after the Kremlin had received confirmation from Paris that France would honor its treaty arrangement with Russia.  From all this came the outbreak of war in August 1914 by which time the British (for a variety of reasons) had become involved and by 1917 the US had become a belligerent; this was conflict which came to be called “The World War” before in the 1940s being renamed “World War I” (1914-1918).

Even in 1945, the phrase “unconditional surrender” (the origin an apparently chance remark (although subsequently he would cite a precedent from the US Civil War (1861-1865)) by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) at the Casablanca Conference (January 1943)) had been controversial because of the concern it had lengthened the war against Germany by dissuading (the probably chimerical) opposition forces within the country from staging a coup with a view to negotiating peace.  Despite that, at the Potsdam Conference (July-August 1945) the Allied powers (China, the UK & US, the Soviet Union not then at war with Japan) served Tokyo with the Potsdam Declaration demanding exactly that.  After the two A-bombs were dropped, the Japanese agreed to a surrender that fell a little short of being “unconditional” but the Americans decided to accept the offer, concluding having a “puppet emperor”.

Trump: The Art of the Deal (First Edition, 1987) by Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz.

One once improbable text in 2016 added to the reading lists of political analysts was Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987) by Donald J. Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) with Tony Schwartz (b 1952).  It’s a useful book because in it Mr Trump (or Mr Schwartz depending on one’s spin of choice) provided examples of negotiating techniques.  That book was about commerce, notably property deals, but it gave an insight into why Mr Trump later succeeded so well in reality TV, his understanding of the potency of mixing fact, threats, spectacle and blatant untruths underlining that second career.  He may not, while the book was being drafted, have been contemplating politics as a third career but he did find many of its techniques could be adapted to international diplomacy.  In that he proved an innovator but there are limitations to how well things translate.  One weapon in the arsenal is the ultimatum which can be used in real-estate deals with few consequences beyond the relatively few individuals concerned but in international relations, such things can have cascading global effects.

If within the White House there were any doubts the issuing of ultimatums might have consequences other than what was desired, the path of the conflict in the Middle East should have given them some interesting case studies.  What’s also interesting is whether in the White House the possible reactions to ultimatums were discussed prior to them being presented.  Giving the Ayatollahs 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face withering new airstrikes on Iran’s power generation infrastructure sounded decisive on Truth Social (which definitely is part of the modern calculation in such matters) but Tehran responded by threatening to target the energy and water desalination facilities in the neighboring Gulf states.  As threats go, it was a stark warning because those nations can rely on desalinated water for as much as 90% of their needs and have no practical alternative so it would have been an escalation with potentially devastating regional consequences.

Not a model easily translatable to Iran.  Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela 2013-2026, right) and his lawyer Barry Pollack (b 1964, left), US Federal Court, Manhattan, New York City, March 2026, illustration by Jane Rosenberg (b 1949).

Accordingly, prior to the deadline, Mr Trump announced he’d “temporarily” called of the strikes, claiming that was induced not by Tehran’s counter-threat but by “productive” talks with “the right people”.  He didn’t descent to specifics (something not unusual in back channel diplomacy) but did add the talks had revealed “major points of agreement” and “they want very much to make a deal, we'd like to make a deal, too.”  Apparently unimpressed, Iranian state media, claimed the president had backed down in the face of their threats and denied talks of any significance were taking place.  Again, in diplomacy of this kind, denials are standard procedure.  A few hours later, Mr Trump assured an audience the US was conducting “very, very good discussions” with Iran.  So it’s competing narratives and analysts made no attempt to try to work out how much truthfulness was coming from either side but more than one observed that if the president had realized he’d painted himself into a corner by delivering the ultimatum, revealing previously unannounced back-channel discussions was a quick and face-saving way to buy some time to hope plan A (missiles and bombs) works.  There was though from some sources the notion the mention of “the right people” may put in the mind of the regime the audacious kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro (b 1962; President of Venezuela 2013-2026), an operation made possible by the cooperation of “the right people” in Caracas.  Some suspicion of one’s colleagues might be understandable given the extraordinary success achieved in assassinating leading figures in the Iranian political establishment and the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).

While it can be guaranteed US-Iran “talks” are taking place in some form, trying to predict the course of this conflict is difficult because there are relatively few models from the past which might provide something of indicative value.  Since the end of the Cold War, one endlessly repeated admonition issued by those in the Middle East to successive occupants of the White House has been not to do this or that because “you will open the gates of Hell”.  Many probably suspect that at some point in that last few years, those gates were at least pushed ajar but if things do escalate they could be torn from their hinges and the most worrying scenario is that US land forces will be deployed against Iran with the active cooperation of the Gulf States, something unthinkable as recently as a few weeks ago.  The theory supporting this is based on the notion that the attacks on Iran conducted over the past year have made irrevocable the Ayatollah’s determination to acquire an IND (independent nuclear deterrent), a quite rational response by any regime reviewing military matters since 1945.  Of course, ayatollahs with A-bombs would trigger a chain reaction because a number of states in the region would also demand their own IND with a genuinely autonomous launch capacity because, just as Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969) felt compelled to acquire the capacity because he doubted “a US president would risk New York to save Paris” the same concerns would extend to the fate of Dubai and Riyadh.

The power behind the curtain: Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (b 1969; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 2026, left) looking at his father Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-2026; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran 1989-2026).  Mojtaba Khamenei’s nickname is reputed to be “The power behind the robes”, an allusion to the power he exercised while his father was supreme leader (something like the role fulfilled by Lieutenant General Oskar von Hindenburg (1883–1960) while serving as ADC (aide-de-camp) Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; President of Germany 1925-1934).

What Mr Trump has done is to abandon the “power realist” approach to dealing with the Islamic Republic.  As explained by its high priest (Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977)), the approach was an acknowledgment that “solving” some problems was either impossible or so dangerous to attempt that the preferred approach was endlessly to “manage” things, thereby either maintaining the problem at an acceptable level or allowing it, over time, to “solve itself”.  Mr Trump probably genuinely believes there is not a problem on the planet he can’t solve by “making a deal”, achieved by a combination of threats, inducements, spectacle and ultimatums.  In some fields, such optimism is a virtue but when dealing with Ayatollahs with a nuclear weapons programme and the dream of a global caliphate under their interpretation of Shi'i Islam, it’s at least potentially dangerous.  One can argue about whether the ayatollahs had, prior to the last two rounds of attack, already decided to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon but now there can be no doubt.  No US president before Mr Trump would have dared do what’s been done in the last twelve months but now he’s in the position of not daring to stop because nothing short of regime change can now make things better; all alternatives are worse.  On paper, given the regime’s internal contradictions and the widespread dissatisfaction among the population, there should be paths to regime change without a land invasion but the Ayatollahs and IRGC appear still to possess a formidable defensive apparatus.  As the missile exchanges continue, Mr Trump has announced a ten-day extension to the deadline to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.  Whether this will come to be regarded as ultimatum 1.1 or 2.0 will be one of the footnotes when the histories of this conflict are written.