Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (pronounced koz-muh-pol-i-tn)

(1) One free from local, provincial, or national ideas, prejudices, or attachments; an internationalist.

(2) One with the characteristics of a cosmopolite.

(3) A cocktail made with vodka, cranberry juice, an orange-flavored liqueur, and lime juice.

(4) Sophisticated, urbane, worldly.

(5) Of plants and animals, wildly distributed species.

(6) The vanessa cardui butterfly.

(7) A moth of species Leucania loreyi.

1828:  An adoption in Modern English, borrowed from the French cosmopolite (citizen of the world), ultimately derived from the Ancient Greek kosmopolitēs (κοσμοπολίτης), the construct being kósmos (κόσμος) (world) + politēs (πολίτης) (citizen); word being modeled on metropolitan.  The US magazine Cosmopolitan was first published in 1886.  Derived forms (hyphenated and not) have been constructed as needed including noncosmopolitan, subcosmopolitan, ultracosmopolitan, fauxcosmopolitan, anticosmopolitan & protocosmopolitan.  Because cosmopolitanness is a spectrum condition, the comparative is “more cosmopolitan” and the superlative “most cosmopolitan”.  Cosmopolitan is a noun & adjective, cosmopolitanism & cosmopolitanness are nouns, cosmopolitanize is a verb, cosmopolitanist is an adjective (and plausibly a noun) and cosmopolitanly is an adverb; the noun plural is cosmopolitans.

An aspect of Soviet Cold War policy under comrade Stalin

The phrase rootless cosmopolitans was coined in the nineteenth century by Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848), a Russian literary critic much concerned about Western influences on both Russian literature and society.  He applied it to writers he felt “…lacked Russian national character” but as a pejorative euphemism, it’s now an anti-Semitic slur and one most associated with domestic policy in the Soviet Union (USSR) between 1946 and Stalin's death in 1953.  Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) liked the phrase and applied it to the Jews, a race of which he was always suspicious because he thought their lack of a homeland made them “mystical, intangible and other-worldly”.  Not a biological racist like Hitler and other rabid anti-Semites, Stalin’s enemies were those he perceived a threat; Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Grigory Zinoviev (1883–1936) and Lev Kamenev (1883–1936) were disposed of not because they were Jewish but because Stalin thought they might threaten his hold on power although the point has been made that while it wasn’t because he was Jewish that Trotsky was murdered, many Jews would come to suffer because Stalin associated them with Trotsky.

Comrade Stalin signing death warrants.

It was the same with institutions.  He found disturbing the activities of Moscow’s Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) and did not approve them being accepted by Western governments as representing the USSR.  Further, he feared the JAC’s connections with foreign powers might create a conduit for infiltration by Western influences; well Stalin knew the consequences of people being given ideas; the campaign of 1946-1953 was thus more analogous with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opposition to the Falun Gong rather than the pogroms of Tsarist times.  Authoritarian administrations don’t like independent organisations; politics needs to be monolithic and control absolute.  In a speech in Moscow in 1946, he described certain Jewish writers and intellectuals, as “rootless cosmopolitans” accusing them of a lack of patriotism, questioning their allegiance to the USSR.  This theme festered but it was the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, fostering as it did an increased self consciousness among Soviet Jews, combined with the Cold War which turned Stalin into a murderous anti-Semite.

Rootless cosmopolitan Comrade Trotsky, murdered with an ice axe on comrade Stalin's orders.

Before the formation of the state of Israel, Stalin's anti-Semitism was more a Russian mannerism than any sort of obsession.  For years after assuming absolute power in the USSR, he expressed no disquiet at the preponderance of Jews in the foreign ministry and it was only in 1939, needing a temporary diplomatic accommodation with Nazi Germany, that he acted.  Having replaced the Jewish Foreign Commissar, Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951; People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union 1930–1939) with Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986; USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs 1939-1949 & 1953-1956), he ordered him to purge the diplomatic corps of Jews, his memorable phrase being "clean out the synagogue".  Concerned the presence of Jews might be an obstacle to rapprochement with Hitler, Stalin had the purge effected with his usual efficiency: many were transferred to less conspicuous roles and others were arrested or shot.

Meeting of minds: Joachim von Ribbentrop (left), comrade Stalin (centre) and comrade Molotov (right), the Kremlin, 23 August 1939.

Negotiations began in the summer of 1939, concluding with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) leading a delegation to Moscow to meet with Molotov and Stalin.  It proved a remarkably friendly conference of political gangsters and agreement was soon reached, the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (usually called the Nazi-Soviet Pact or Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) being signed on 23 August.  The pact contained also a notorious secret protocol by which the two dictators agreed to a carve-up of Poland consequent upon the impending Nazi invasion and the line dividing Poland between the two was almost identical to the Curzon Line, a demarcation between the new Polish Republic created in the aftermath of World War I (1914-1918) and the emergent Soviet Union which had been proposed by Lord Curzon (1859–1925; UK foreign secretary 1919-1924).  At the Yalta Conference in 1945, during the difficult negotiations over Polish borders, Molotov habitually referred to "the Curzon Line" and the UK Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden (1897–1977; thrice UK foreign secretary & prime minister 1955-1957), in a not untypically bitchy barb, observed it was more common practice to call it the “Molotov-Ribbentrop line”.  "Call it whatever you like" replied Stalin, "we still think it's fair and just".  Comrade Stalin rarely cared much to conceal the nature of the regime he crafted in his own image.  When asked by Franklin Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) if Molotov had been to New York during his visit to the US, Stalin replied: "No, he went to Chicago to be with the other gangsters".

Whatever the motives of Stalin, rootless cosmopolitans has joined the code of dog-whistle politics, a part of the core demonology to label the Jews a malign race, a phrase in the tradition of "Christ killers", "Rothschild-Capitalists and Untermenschen (the sub-humans).  Despite that, there are always optimists, Jewish writer Vincent Brook (b 1946), suggesting the term could convey the positive, a suggestion the Jews possess an “adaptability and empathy for others”.  It’s not a view widely shared and rootless cosmopolitan remains an anti-Semitic trope although it's not unknown for Jews to use it ironically.

The Cosmopolitan cocktail

A brace of Cosmos.

The Cosmopolitan was based on the "Cosmopolitan 1934" cocktail, a mix from inter-war New York which included gin, Cointreau & and lemon juice, raspberry syrup lending the trademark pink hue.  The modern Cosmopolitan was also concocted in New York and seems to have appeared first in the Mid-1980s although it was appearances in the HBO (Home Box Office) television series Sex and the City (1998-2004) which made it as emblematic of a certain turn-of-the-millennium New York lifestyle as Manolo Blahnik’s stilettos but, the implications of that connotation aside, the enticing pink drink survived to remain a staple of cocktail lists.  Cosmopolitans can be made individually or as a batch to be poured from a pitcher; just multiply the ingredient count by however many are to be served.

Ingredients

2 oz (¼ cup) vodka (or citrus vodka according to taste)

½ ounce (1 tablespoon) triple sec, Cointreau (or Grand Marnier)

¾ oz (1½ tablespoons) cranberry juice

¼-½ ounce (1 ½-3 teaspoons) fresh lime juice

One 2-inch (50 mm) orange peel/twist

Instructions

(1) Add vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and lime juice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice.

(2) Shake until well chilled.

(3) Strain into a chilled cocktail glass (classically a coupé or Martini glass).

(4) An orange or lemon twist is the traditional garnish.

Notes

(1) As a general principle, the higher the quality of the vodka, the better the Cosmopolitan, the lower priced sprits tending to taste rather more abrasive which for certain purposes can be good but doesn’t suit a “Cosmo”.

(2) The choice of unsweetened or sweetened cranberry juice (the latter sold sometimes as “cranberry juice cocktail”) is a matter of taste and if using the unsweetened most will prefer if a small splash of sugar syrup (or agave) is added because tartness isn’t associated with a Cosmopolitan.

(3) There is however a variant which is sometimes mixed deliberately to be tart.  That’s the “White Cosmo”, made by using white cranberry juice.

(4) Of the orange liqueur: Most mixologists recommend Cointreau but preference is wholly subjective and Cointreau & Grand Marnier variously are used, the consensus being Cointreau (a type of Triple Sec) is smoother, stronger and more complex.  Grand Marnier is also a type of Triple Sec, one combined with Cognac so the taste is richer, nutty and caramelized which some prefer.

(5) Of the lime juice: It really is worth the effort to cut and squeeze a fresh lime.  Packaged lime juice will work but something of the bite of the citrus always is lost in the processing, packaging, storage and transporting the stuff endures.

(6) Art of the orange peel: The use of the term “garnish” of suggests something which is merely decorative: visual bling and ultimately superfluous but because cocktails are designed to be sipped, as one lingers over ones’s Cosmopolitan, from the peel will come a faint orange aroma, adding to the experience as the fumes of a cognac enhance things; spirits and cocktails are “breathed in” as well as swallowed.

(7) Science of the orange peel: When peeling orange, do it over glass so the oil spurting (viewed close-up under high-magnification, it really is more spurt than spray) from the pores in the skin ends up in the drink.  For the ultimate effect, rub the rim of the glass with the peel, down a half-inch on the outside so lips can enjoy the sensation.

The presidential “parade convertible” 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, parked outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.

In the US, the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) produced the Lincoln Cosmopolitan between 1949-1954 but only in its first season was it the “top-of-the-range” model, “designation demotion” something which would over the decades become popular in Detroit.  Political legend has it Harry Truman (1884–1972; US president 1945-1953) personally selected Lincoln to supply the presidential car fleet as an act of revenge against General Motors (GM), the corporation having declined to provide him with cars to use during the 1948 election campaign.  It’s assumed GM’s management was reading the polls and assumed they’d need only to wait to wait for a call from president elect Thomas Dewey (1902–1971) but as things turned out, Mr Dewey never progressed beyond president-presumptive so GM didn’t get the commission, the keys to Cadillacs not returning to the Oval Office until the administration of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989).  While it wouldn’t much have consoled the GM board, there was some of their technology in the Lincolns because, FoMoCo was compelled to buy heavy-duty Hydra-Matic transmissions from Cadillac, their own automatic gearbox not then ready for production.

The presidential “parade convertible” 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan with “Bubbletop” fitted.

The White House leased ten Lincoln Cosmopolitans which were modified by coach-builders who added features such as longer wheelbases and raised roof-lines.  Nine were full-enclosed limousines while one was an armoured “parade convertible” (a “cabriolet D” in the Mercedes-Benz naming system) which was an impressive 20-odd feet (6 metres) in length.  The car used a large-displacement version of the old Ford flathead V8 (introduced in 1932) and weighing a hefty 6,500 lb (2,900 kg), performance wasn’t sparkling but given its role was slowly to percolate along crowd-lined boulevards, it was “adequate.  In 1954, during the administration of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961), the parade convertible was fitted with a Plexiglas roof (a material the president would have been familiar with because it was used on some World War II (1939-1945) aircraft and in this form the Lincoln came to share the aircrafts’ nickname: “Bubbletop”.  The “Bubbletop” Cosmopolitan remained in service in the White House fleet until 1967.

The Glossies

Lindsay Lohan, Cosmopolitan, various international editions: April, May & June, 2006.

Cosmopolitan Magazine was launched in 1886 as a family journal of fashion, household décor, cooking, and other domestic interests.  It survived in a crowded market but its publisher did not and within two years Cosmopolitan was taken over by another which added book reviews and serialized fiction to the content.  This attracted the specialist house founded by John Brisben Walker (1847-1931), which assumed control in 1889, expanding its circulation twenty-fold to become one of America’s most popular literary magazines.  The Hurst Corporation acquired the title in 1905, briefly adding yellow-journalism before settling on a format focused on short fiction, celebrities and public affairs.  The formula proved an enduring success, circulation reaching two million by 1940 and this was maintained until a decline began in the mid 1950s, general-interest magazines being squeezed out by specialist titles and the time-consuming steamroller of television.

It was the appointment in 1965 of Helen Gurley Brown (1922–2012) as editor which signalled Cosmopolitan’s shift to a magazine focused exclusively on an emerging and growing demographic with high disposable income: the young white women of the baby boom.  In what proved a perfect conjunction, a target market with (1) economic independence, (2) social freedom, (3) an embryonic feminist awareness and (4) the birth control pill, the magazine thrived, surviving even the rush of imitators its success spawned.  Gurley Brown had in 1962 published the best seller advice manual, Sex and the Single Girl and Cosmopolitan essentially, for decades, reproduced variations on the theme in a monthly, glossy package.  It was clearly a gap in the market.  The approach was a success but there was criticism.  Conservatives disliked the choices in photography and the ideas young women were receiving.  Feminists were divided, some approved but others thought the themes regressive, a retreat from the overtly political agenda of the early movement into something too focused on fun and fashion, reducing women yet again to objects seeking male approbation.

Taylor Swift (b 1989), in purple on the cover of Cosmopolitan, December, 2014.

Still published in many international editions, Cosmopolitan Australia was one casualty of market forces, closed after a final printing in December 2018.  However, surprising many, Katarina Kroslakova (b 1978) in April 2024 announced her publishing house KK Press, in collaboration with New York-based Hearst Magazines International, would resume production of Cosmopolitan Australia as a bi-monthly and the first edition of the re-launched version was released in August, 2024.  Other than appearing in six issues per year rather than the traditional twelve, the format remained much the same, echoing Elle Australia which re-appeared on newsstands in March, ending a four-year hiatus.  Both revivals would as recently as 2023 have surprised industry analysts because the conventional, post-Covid wisdom was there existed in this segment few niches for time consuming and expensive titles in glossy print.

Amelia Dimoldenberg (b 1994) in polka-dots, on the cover of Cosmopolitan Australia April | May, 2025 (Issue 5, digital edition) which is downloadable file (96 MB in Adobe's PDF (portable document format) format.  Where digital titles have a history in print, the convention is to use the traditional cover format.  Even in the digital age, some legacy items have a genuine value to be exploited.

Ms Kroslakova clearly saw a viable business model and was quoted as saying print magazines are “the new social media” which was an interesting way of putting it but she explained the appeal by adding: “We need that 15 minutes to drop everything and actually have something tangible and beautiful in our hands to consume.  If we can present content which is multi-layered and deep and has authenticity and connection with the reader – that’s a really excellent starting point.”  She may have a point because in an age where screen-based content is intrinsically impermanent, the tactile pleasure of the traditional glossy may have genuine appeal, at least for an older readership who can remember the way things used to be done, something perhaps hinted at by her “15 minutes” reference, now regarded by many media analysts as a long-term connection given the apparent shortening of attention spans and after all, bound glossy pages are just another technology.  The revival of the print editions of Elle and Cosmopolitan will be an interesting experiment in a difficult economic environment which may get worse before it gets better.  Whether the novelty will attract enough of the "affluent readers" (what used to be called the A1, A2 & B1 demographic) to convince advertisers that it's a place to run their copy will likely decide the viability of the venture and while it's not impossible that will happen, Cosmopolitan is a couple of rungs down the ladder from the "prestige" titles (Vogue the classic mainstream example) which have maintained an advertising base. Cosmopolitan Australia offers a variety of subscription offers, the lowest unit cost available with a two-year, print + digital bundle (12 issues for Aus$105).

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Cleo: March 2005 (left) and May 2009 (right).

Published in Australia between 1972-2016, Cleo was a monthly magazine targeted broadly at the demographic buying Cosmopolitan.  It was for decades successful and although there was some overlap in readership (and certainly advertising content), there was a perception there existed as distinct species “Cleo women” and “Cosmo women”.  Flicking through the glossy pages, husbands and boyfriends might have struggled to see much thematic variation although it’s likely they looked only at the pictures.  In the same vein, other than the paint, actual Cleo & Cosmo readers mostly probably wouldn’t have noticed much difference between Ford & Chevrolet V8s so it’s really a matter of where one’s interests lie (just because something is sexist stereotyping doesn’t mean it’s not true).  Had the men bothered to read the editorial content, they wouldn’t have needed training in textual deconstruction to detect both titles made much use of “cosmospeak”, a sub-dialect of English coined to describe the jargon, copy style and buzzwords characteristic of post 1950s Cosmopolitan magazine which contributed much to the language of non-academic “lipstick feminism”.  To summarize the market differentiation in women’s magazines, the industry joke was: “Cosmopolitan teaches you how to have an organism”, Cleo teaches you how to fake an organism and the Women’s Weekly teaches you how to knit an organism”.  As a footnote, when in 1983 the Women’s Weekly changed from a weekly to monthly format, quickly rejected was the idea the title might be changed to “Women’s Monthly”.

Martyrdom of the Saints Cosmas and Damian, oil on canvas by Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro, circa 1395-1455), Musée du Louvre, Paris, France).  Fra was from the Italian frate (monk) and was a title for a Roman Catholic monk or friar (equivalent to Brother).

“Cleo” was a spunky two syllables but “Cosmopolitan” had a time-consuming five so almost universally it was used as “Cosmo”.  In Italy, Cosmo is a male given name and a variant of Cosimo, from the third century saint Cosmas who, with his brother Damian, was martyred in Syria during one of the many crackdowns on Christianity.  The name was from the Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos) (order, ordered universe), source of the now familiar “cosmos”.  Cosmas and Damian were Arab physicians who converted to Christianity and while ostensibly they suffered martyrdom for their faith, there may have been a financial motive because the brothers practiced much “free medicine”, not charging the poor for their “cures” so their services were understandably popular and thus a threat to the business model of the politically well-connected medical establishment.  The tension between medicine as some sort of social right and an industry run by corporations for profit has occasionally been suppressed but it’s never gone away, illustrated by the battles fought when the (literally) socialist post-war Labour government (1945-1951) established the UK’s NHS (National Health Service) and the (allegedly) socialist “Obamacare” (Affordable Care Act (ACA, 2010)) became law in the US.  By the twenty-first century, the medical establishment could no longer arrange decapitations of cut-price competitors threatening the profit margins but the conflicts remain, witness the freelancing of Luigi Mangione (1998).

The Mazda Cosmo

1968 Mazda Cosmo 110S (110S the export designation).

Although the Mazda corporation dates from 1920, it was another 40 years before it produced its first cars (one of the tiny 360 cm³ “kei cars” (a shortened form of kei-jidōsha, (軽自動車) (light vehicle)) so the appearance at the Tokyo Motor Show of the Cosmo Sport created quite an impression and that it was powered by a two-rotor Wankel rotary engine produced under licence from the German owners added to international interest.  Over two series, series production lasted from 1967 until 1972 but the intricate design was labour intensive to build and being expensive, demand was limited so in five years fewer than 1,200 were sold.  That makes it more of a rarity than a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing (the W198, 1,400 of those built 1954-1957) and while Cosmo prices haven’t reached the level of the German car, it is a collectable and a number are now in museums and collections.  Mazda continued to use the Cosmo name until 1996 and while none of the subsequent models were as intriguing as the original, some versions of the JC Series Eunos Cosmo (1990–1996) enjoy the distinction of being the world’s only production car fitted with a three-rotor Wankel engine (the 1969 Mercedes-Benz C111 was a Wankel test-bed). 

1975 Mazda Roadpacer (HJ model)

The Eunos Cosmo was not the only Mazda with a unique place in the troubled history of the Wankel engine, the Roadpacer (1975-1977) also a footnote.  Most Holden fans, as one-eyed as any, don’t have especially fond memories of the HJ (1974-1976) range; usually, all they’ll say is its face-lifted replacement (the HX (1976-1977)), was worse.  With its chassis not including the RTS (radial tuned suspension) which lent the successor HZ (1975-1980) such fine handling and with engines strangled by the crude plumbing used in the era to reduce emissions, driving the HJ or HX really wasn’t a rewarding experience (although the V8 versions retained some charm) so there might have been hope Mazda’s curious decision to use fit their smooth-running, two-rotor Wankel to the HJ Premier and sell it as their top-of-the range executive car might have transformed the thing.  That it did but the peaky, high-revving rotary was wholly unsuited to the relatively large, heavy car.  Despite producing less power and torque than even the anaemic 202 cubic inch (3.3 litre) Holden straight-six it replaced, so hard did it have to work to shift the weight that fuel consumption was worse even than when Holden fitted their hardly economical 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8 for the home market.  Available only in Japan and sold officially between 1975-1977, fewer than eight-hundred were built, the company able to off-load the last of the HXs only in early 1980.  The only thing to which Mazda attached its name not mentioned in their corporate history, it's the skeleton in the Mazda closet and the company would prefer we forget the thing which it seems to think of as "our Edsel".  The Roadpacer did though provide one other footnote, being the only car built by General Motors (GM) ever sold with a Wankel engine.  

The archbishop and the abdication

Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang (1932), oil on canvas by Anglo-Hungarian society portraitist Philip Alexius László de Lombos (1869–1937 and known professionally as Philip de László).  Lang was christened Cosmo in honor of the local Laird (in Scotland, historically a feudal lord and latterly the “courtesy title” of an area’s leading land-owner, most prominent citizen etc).  The noun Laird was from the northern or Scottish Middle English lard & laverd (a variant of lord).

Scottish Anglican prelate Cosmo Gordon Lang (First Baron Lang of Lambeth, 1864–1945; Archbishop of York 1908–1928 & Archbishop of Canterbury 1928–1942 was a clergyman with uncompromising views about much.  This type was once common in pulpits and although those of his faction exist still in the the modern Church of England, fearing cancellation, they tend now to exchange views only behind closed doors.  He’d probably be today almost forgotten were it not for an incendiary broadcast he made (as Archbishop of Canterbury and thus spiritual head of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican community) on BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) Radio on 13 December, 1936, two days after the abdication of Edward VIII (1894–1972; King of the UK & Emperor of India, January-December 1936, subsequently Duke of Windsor).  The address to the nation remains the most controversial public intervention made by a Church of England figure in the twentieth century, judged by many to be needlessly sanctimonious and distastefully personal, its political dimension the least objectionable aspect.

As a piece of text it did have a pleasingly medieval feel, opening with some memorable passages including: “From God he received a high and sacred trust. Yet by his own will he has abdicated” and “It is tragic that the sacred trust was not held with a firmer grip”.  That set the tone although when he said: “There has been much sympathy with the king in his great personal difficulty, and I do not forget how deeply he has touched the hearts of millions with his warm interest in the homes and lives of his people” his large audience may have thought some Christian charity did lurk in the Archbishop’s soul but quickly he let that moment pass, returning to his theme: “The causes which led to the king's decision are fully known to the nation.  But it has been made plain that the reigning sovereign of this country must be one whose private life and public conduct can be trusted to reflect the Christian ideal."

Unlike many modern Archbishops, there was no ambiguity about Lang so in his defense it can be argued he provided the Church with a moral clarity of greater certainty than anything which has in recent decades emanated from Lambeth Palace.  So there was that but by the 1930s the mood of opinion-makers in the UK had shifted and Lang’s text was seen as morally judgmental and the idea Edward VIII had failed not so much as a constitutional monarch but in his divine duty seemed archaic, few in the country framing things as the king’s personal failure before God.  What was clear was old Lang's point Edward’s relationship with a twice-divorced woman disqualified him morally and spiritually from being king which many critics within the church thought a bleak approach to a clergyman’s pastoral role.  In a sermon from the pulpit to the faithful it might have gone down well but as a national address, the tone was misplaced.  In self-imposed exile, privately Edward privately described the broadcast as “a vile and vindictive attack” and in his ghost-written memoirs (A King's Story (1951)), he accused the archbishop of “cruelty”.

Remembered also from the broadcast’s aftermath was a satirical verse printed in Punch by the novelist Gerald Bullett (1893–1958 (who published also under the pseudonym Sebastian Fox)).  Bullet’s included the words “how full of cant you are!”, using “cant” in the sense of “to speak in a manner speak in a hypocritical or insincere), an allusion to Lang signing his documents : “Cosmo Cantuar” (Cantuar the abbreviation for Cantuarium (Latin for Canterbury)):

“My Lord Archbishop, what a scold you are!
And when your man is down, how bold you are!
Of Christian charity how scant you are!
And, auld Lang swine, how full of cant you are!” 

Bunker

Bunker (pronounced buhng-ker)

(1) A large bin or receptacle; a fixed chest or box.

(2) In military use, historically a fortification set mostly below the surface of the ground with overhead protection provided by logs and earth or by concrete and fitted with above-ground embrasures through which guns may be fired.

(3) A fortification set mostly below the surface of the ground and used for a variety of purposes.

(4) In golf, an obstacle, classically a sand trap but sometimes a mound of dirt, constituting a hazard.

(5) In nautical use, to provide fuel for a vessel.

(6) In nautical use, to convey bulk cargo (except grain) from a vessel to an adjacent storehouse.

(7) In golf, to hit a ball into a bunker.

(8) To equip with or as if with bunkers.

(9) In military use, to place personnel or materiel in a bunker or bunkers (sometimes as “bunker down”).

1755–1760: From the Scottish bonkar (box, chest (also “seat” (in the sense of “bench”) of obscure origin but etymologists conclude the use related to furniture hints at a relationship with banker (bench).  Alternatively, it may be from a Scandinavian source such as the Old Swedish bunke (boards used to protect the cargo of a ship).  The meaning “receptacle for coal aboard a ship” was in use by at least 1839 (coal-burning steamships coming into general use in the 1820s).  The use to describe the obstacles on golf courses is documented from 1824 (probably from the extended sense “earthen seat” which dates from 1805) but perhaps surprisingly, the familiar sense from military use (dug-out fortification) seems not to have appeared before World War I (1914-1918) although the structures so described had for millennia existed.  “Bunkermate” was army slang for the individual with whom one shares a bunker while the now obsolete “bunkerman” (“bunkermen” the plural”) referred to someone (often the man in charge) who worked at an industrial coal storage bunker.  Bunker & bunkerage is a noun, bunkering is a noun & verb, bunkered is a verb and bunkerish, bunkeresque, bunkerless & bunkerlike are adjectives; the noun plural is bunkers.

Just as ships called “coalers” were used to transport coal to and from shore-based “coal stations”, it was “oilers” which took oil to storage tanks or out to sea to refuel ships (a common naval procedure) and these STS (ship-to-ship) transfers were called “bunkering” as the black stuff was pumped, bunker-to-bunker.  That the coal used by steamships was stored on-board in compartments called “coal bunkers” led ultimately to another derived term: “bunker oil”.  When in the late nineteenth century ships began the transition from being fuelled by coal to burning oil, the receptacles of course became “oil bunkers” (among sailors nearly always clipped to “bunker”) and as refining processes evolved, the fuel specifically produced for oceangoing ships came to be called “bunker oil”.

Bunker oil is “dirty stuff”, a highly viscous, heavy fuel oil which is essentially the residue of crude oil refining; it’s that which remains after the more refined and volatile products (gasoline (petrol), kerosene, diesel etc) have been extracted.  Until late in the twentieth century, the orthodox view of economists was its use in big ships was a good thing because it was a product for which industry had little other use and, as essentially a by-product, it was relatively cheap.  It came in three flavours: (1) Bunker A: Light fuel oil (similar to a heavy diesel), (2) Bunker B: An oil of intermediate viscosity used in engines larger than marine diesels but smaller than those used in the big ships and (3) Bunker C: Heavy fuel oil used in container ships and such which use VLD (very large displacement), slow running engines with a huge reciprocating mass.  Because of its composition, Bucker C especially produced much pollution and although much of this happened at sea (unseen by most but with obvious implications), when ships reached harbor to dock, all the smoke and soot became obvious.  Over the years, the worst of the pollution from the burning of bunker oil greatly has been reduced (the work underway even before the Greta Thunberg (b 2003) era), sometimes by the simple expedient of spraying a mist of water through the smoke.

Floor-plans of the upper (Vorbunker) and lower (Führerbunker) levels of the structure now commonly referred to collectively as the Führerbunker.

History’s most infamous bunker remains the Berlin Führerbunker in which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) spent much of the last few months of his life.  In the architectural sense there were a number of Führerbunkers built, one at each of the semi-permanent Führerhauptquartiere (Führer Headquarters) created for the German military campaigns and several others built where required but it’s the one in Berlin which is remembered as “the Führerbunker”.  Before 1944 when the intensification of the air raids by the RAF (Royal Air Force) and USAAF (US Army Air Force) the term Führerbunker seems rarely to have been used other than by the architects and others involved in their construction and it wasn’t a designation like Führerhauptquartiere which the military and other institutions of state shifted between locations (rather as “Air Force One” is attached not to a specific airframe but whatever aircraft in which the US president is travelling).  In subsequent historical writing, the term Führerbunker tends often to be applied to the whole, two-level complex in Berlin and although it was only the lower layer which officially was designated as that, for most purposes the distinction is not significant.  In military documents, after January, 1945 the Führerbunker was referred to as Führerhauptquartiere.

Führerbunker tourist information board, Berlin, Germany.

Only an information board at the intersection of den Ministergärten and Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, erected by the German Goverment in 2006 prior to that year's FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football)) World Cup now marks the place on Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse 77 where once the Führerbunker was located.  The Soviet occupation forces razed the new Reich Chancellery and demolished all the bunker's above-ground structures but the subsequent GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) abandoned attempts completely to destroy what lay beneath.  Until after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) the site remained unused and neglected, “re-discovered” only during excavations by property developers, the government insisting on the destruction on whatever was uncovered and, sensitive still to the spectre of “Neo-Nazi shrines”, for years the bunker’s location was never divulged, even as unremarkable buildings (an unfortunate aspect of post-unification Berlin) began to appear on the site.  Most of what would have covered the Führerbunker’s footprint is now a supermarket car park.

The first part of the complex to be built was the Vorbunker (upper bunker or forward bunker), an underground facility of reinforced concrete intended only as a temporary air-raid shelter for Hitler and his entourage in the old Reich Chancellery.  Substantially completed during 1936-1937, it was until 1943 listed in documents as the Luftschutzbunker der Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter), the Vorbunker label applied only in 1944 when the lower level (the Führerbunker proper) was appended.  In mid January, 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker and, as the military situation deteriorated, his appearances above ground became less frequent until by late March he rarely saw the sky,  Finally, on 30 April, he committed suicide.

Bunker Busters

Northrop Grumman publicity shot of B2-Spirit from below, showing the twin bomb-bay doors through which the GBU-57 are released.

Awful as they are, there's an undeniable beauty in the engineering of some weapons and it's unfortunate humankind never collectively has resolved exclusively to devote such ingenuity to stuff other than us blowing up each other.  That’s not a new sentiment, being one philosophers and others have for millennia expressed in various ways although since the advent of nuclear weapons, concerns understandably become heightened.  Like every form of military technology ever deployed, once the “genie is out of the bottle” the problem is there to be managed and at the dawn of the atomic age, delivering a lecture in 1936, the British chemist and physicist Francis Aston (1877–1945) (who created the mass spectrograph, winning the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his use of it to discover and identify the isotopes in many non-radioactive elements and for his enunciation of the whole number rule) observed:

“There are those about us who say that such research should be stopped by law, alleging that man's destructive powers are already large enough.  So, no doubt, the more elderly and ape-like of our ancestors objected to the innovation of cooked food and pointed out the great dangers attending the use of the newly discovered agency, fire.  Personally, I think there is no doubt that sub-atomic energy is available all around us and that one day man will release and control its almost infinite power.  We cannot prevent him from doing so and can only hope that he will not use it exclusively in blowing up his next door neighbor.”

The use in June 2025 by the USAF (US Air Force) of fourteen of its Boeing GBU-57 (Guided Bomb Unit-57) Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) bombs against underground targets in Iran (twelve on the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant and two on the Natanz nuclear facility) meant “Bunker Buster” hit the headlines.  Carried by the Northrop B-2 Spirit heavy bomber (built between 1989-2000), the GBU-57 is a 14,000 kg (30,000 lb) bomb with a casing designed to withstand the stress of penetrating through layers of reinforced concrete or thick rock.  “Bunker buster” bombs have been around for a while, the ancestors of today’s devices first built for the German military early in World War II (1939-1945) and the principle remains unchanged to this day: up-scaled armor-piercing shells.  The initial purpose was to produce a weapon with a casing strong enough to withstand the forces imposed when impacting reinforced concrete structures, the idea simple in that what was needed was a delivery system which could “bust through” whatever protective layers surrounded a target, allowing the explosive charge to do damage where needed rtaher than wastefully being expended on an outer skin.  The German weapons proved effective but inevitably triggered an “arms race” in that as the war progressed, the concrete layers became thicker, walls over 2 metres (6.6 feet) and ceilings of 5 (16) being constructed by 1943.  Technological development continued and the idea extended to rocket propelled bombs optimized both for armor-piercing and aerodynamic efficiency, velocity a significant “mass multiplier” which made the weapons still more effective.

USAF test-flight footage of Northrop B2-Spirit dropping two GBU-57 "Bunker Buster" bombs.

Concurrent with this, the British developed the first true “bunker busters”, building on the idea of the naval torpedo, one aspect of which was in exploding a short distance from its target, it was highly damaging because it was able to take advantage of one of the properties of water (quite strange stuff according to those who study it) which is it doesn’t compress.  What that meant was it was often the “shock wave” of the water rather than the blast itself which could breach a hull, the same principle used for the famous “bouncing bombs” used for the RAF’s “Dambuster” (Operation Chastise, 17 May 1943) raids on German dams.  Because of the way water behaved, it wasn’t necessary to score the “direct hit” which had been the ideal in the early days of aerial warfare.

RAF Bomber Command archive photograph of Avro Lancaster (built between 1941-1946) in flight with Grand Slam mounted (left) and a comparison of the Tallboy & Grand Slam (right), illustrating how the latter was in most respects a scaled-up version of the former.  To carry the big Grand Slams, 32 “B1 Special” Lancasters were in 1945 built with up-rated Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engines, the removal of the bomb doors (the Grand Slam carried externally, its dimensions exceeding internal capacity), deleted front and mid-upper gun turrets, no radar equipment and a strengthened undercarriage.  Such was the concern with weight (especially for take-off) that just about anything non-essential was removed from the B1 Specials, even three of the four fire axes and its crew door ladder.  In the US, Boeing went through a similar exercise to produce the run of “Silverplate” B-29 Superfortresses able to carry the first A-bombs used in August, 1945. 

Best known of the British devices were the so called “earthquake bombs”, the Tallboy (12,000 lb; 5.4 ton) & Grand Slam (22,000 lb, 10 ton) which, despite the impressive bulk, were classified by the War Office as “medium capacity”.  The terms “Medium Capacity” (MC) & “High Capacity” referenced not the gross weight or physical dimensions but ratio of explosive filler to the total weight of the construction (ie how much was explosive compared to the casing and ancillary components).  Because both had thick casings to ensure penetration deep into hardened targets (bunkers and other structures encased in rock or reinforced concrete) before exploding, the internal dimensions accordingly were reduced compared with the ratio typical of contemporary ordinance.  A High Capacity (HC) bomb (a typical “general-purpose” bomb) had a thinner casing and a much higher proportion of explosive (sometimes over 70% of total weight).  These were intended for area bombing (known also as “carpet bombing”) and caused wide blast damage whereas the Tallboy & Grand Slam were penetrative with casings optimized for aerodynamic efficiency, their supersonic travel working as a mass-multiplier.  The Tallboy’s 5,200 lb (2.3 ton) explosive load was some 43% of its gross weight while the Grand Slam’s 9,100 lb (4 ton) absorbed 41%; this may be compared with the “big” 4000 lb (1.8 ton) HC “Blockbuster” which allocated 75% of the gross weight to its 3000 LB (1.4 ton) charge.  Like many things in engineering (not just in military matters) the ratio represented a trade-off, the MC design prioritizing penetrative power and structural destruction over blast radius.  The novelty of the Tallboy & Grand Slam was that as earthquake bombs, their destructive potential was able to be unleashed not necessarily by achieving a direct hit on a target but by entering the ground nearby, the explosion (1) creating an underground cavity (a camouflet) and (2) transmitting a shock-wave through the target’s foundations, leading to the structure collapsing into the newly created lacuna. 

The etymology of camouflet has an interesting history in both French and military mining.  Originally it meant “a whiff of smoke in the face (from a fire or pipe) and in figurative use it was a reference to a snub or slight insult (something unpleasant delivered directly to someone) and although the origin is murky and it may have been related to the earlier French verb camoufler (to disguise; to mask) which evolved also into “camouflage”.  In the specialized military jargon of siege warfare or mining (sapping), over the seventeen and nineteenth centuries “camouflet” referred to “an underground explosion that does not break the surface, but collapses enemy tunnels or fortifications by creating a subterranean void or shockwave”.  The use of this tactic is best remembered from the Western Front in World War I, some of the huge craters now tourist attractions.

Under watchful eyes: Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (b 1939; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989) delivering a speech, sitting in front of the official portrait of the republic’s ever-unsmiling founder, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979-1989).  Ayatollah Khamenei seemed in 1989 an improbable choice as Supreme Leader because others were better credentialed but though cautious and uncharismatic, he has proved a great survivor in a troubled region.

Since aerial bombing began to be used as a strategic weapon, of great interest has been the debate over the BDA (battle damage assessment) and this issue emerged almost as soon as the bunker buster attack on Iran was announced, focused on the extent to which the MOPs had damaged the targets, the deepest of which were concealed deep inside a mountain.  BDA is a constantly evolving science and while satellites have made analysis of surface damage highly refined, it’s more difficult to understand what has happened deep underground.  Indeed, it wasn’t until the USSBS (United States Strategic Bombing Survey) teams toured Germany and Japan in 1945-1946, conducting interviews, economic analysis and site surveys that a useful (and substantially accurate) understanding emerged of the effectiveness of bombing although what technological advances have allowed for those with the resources is the so-called “panacea targets” (ie critical infrastructure and such once dismissed by planners because the required precision was for many reasons rarely attainable) can now accurately be targeted, the USAF able to drop a bomb within a few feet of the aiming point.  As the phrase is used by the military, the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant is as classic “panacea target” but whether even a technically successful strike will achieve the desired political outcome remains to be seen.

Mr Trump, in a moment of exasperation, posted on Truth Social of Iran & Israel: “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing."  Actually, both know exactly WTF they're doing; it's just Mr Trump (and many others) would prefer they didn't do it.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) claimed “total obliteration” of the targets while Grand Ayatollah Khamenei admitted only there had been “some damage” and which is closer to the truth should one day be revealed.  Even modelling of the effects has probably been inconclusive because the deeper one goes underground, the greater the number of variables in the natural structure and the nature of the internal built environment will also influence blast behaviour.  All experts seem to agree much damage will have been done but what can’t yet be determined is what has been suffered by the facilities which sit as deep as 80 m (260 feet) inside the mountain although, as the name implies, “bunker busters” are designed for buried targets and it’s not always required for blast directly to reach target.  Because the shock-wave can travel through earth & rock, the effect is something like that of an earthquake and if the structure sufficiently is affected, it may be the area can be rendered geologically too unstable again to be used for its original purpose.

Within minutes of the bombing having been announced, legal academics were being interviewed (though not by Fox News) to explain why the attacks were unlawful under international law and in a sign of the times, the White House didn't bother to discuss fine legal points like the distinction between "preventive & pre-emptive strikes", preferring (like Fox News) to focus on the damage done.  However, whatever the murkiness surrounding the BDA, many analysts have concluded that even if before the attacks the Iranian authorities had not approved the creation of a nuclear weapon, this attack will have persuaded them one is essential for “regime survival”, thus the interest in both Tel Aviv and (despite denials) Washington DC in “regime change”.  The consensus seems to be Grand Ayatollah Khamenei had, prior to the strike, not ordered the creation of a nuclear weapon but that all energies were directed towards completing the preliminary steps, thus the enriching of uranium to ten times the level required for use in power generation; the ayatollah liked to keep his options open.  So, the fear of some is the attacks, even if they have (by weeks, months or years) delayed the Islamic Republic’s work on nuclear development, may prove counter-productive in that they convince the ayatollah to concur with the reasoning of every state which since 1945 has adopted an independent nuclear deterrent (IND).  That reasoning was not complex and hasn’t changed since first a prehistoric man picked up a stout stick to wave as a pre-lingual message to potential adversaries, warning them there would be consequences for aggression.  Although a theocracy, those who command power in the Islamic Republic are part of an opaque political institution and in the struggle which has for sometime been conducted in anticipation of the death of the aged (and reportedly ailing) Supreme Leader, the matter of “an Iranian IND” is one of the central dynamics.  Many will be following what unfolds in Tehran and the observers will not be only in Tel Aviv and Washington DC because in the region and beyond, few things focus the mind like the thought of ayatollahs with A-Bombs.

Of the word "bust"

The Great Bust: The Depression of the Thirties (1962) by Jack Lang (left), highly qualified porn star Busty Buffy (b 1996, who has never been accused of misleading advertising, centre) and The people's champion, Mr Lang, bust of Jack Lang, painted cast plaster by an unknown artist, circa 1927, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia (right).  Remembered for a few things, Jack Lang (1876–1975; premier of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) 1925-1927 & 1930-1932) remains best known for having in 1932 been the first head of government in the British Empire to have been sacked by the Crown since William IV (1765–1837; King of the UK 1830-1837) in 1834 dismissed Lord Melbourne (1779–1848; prime minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841).

Those learning English must think it at least careless things can both be (1) “razed to the ground” (totally to destroy something (typically a structure), usually by demolition or incineration) and (2) “raised to the sky” (physically lifted upwards).  The etymologies of “raze” and “raise” differ but they’re pronounced the same so it’s fortunate the spellings vary but in other troublesome examples of unrelated meanings, spelling and pronunciation can align, as in “bust”.  When used in ways most directly related to human anatomy: (1) “a sculptural portrayal of a person's head and shoulders” & (2) “the circumference of a woman's chest around her breasts” there is an etymological link but these uses wholly are unconnected with bust’s other senses.

Bust of Lindsay Lohan in white marble by Stable Diffusion.  Sculptures of just the neck and head came also to be called “busts”, the emphasis on the technique rather than the original definition.

Bust in the sense of “a sculpture of upper torso and head” dates from the 1690s and was from the sixteenth century French buste, from the Italian busto (upper body; torso), from the Latin bustum (funeral monument, tomb (although the original sense was “funeral pyre, place where corpses are burned”)) and it may have emerged (as a shortened form) from ambustum, neuter of ambustus (burned around), past participle of amburere (burn around, scorch), the construct being ambi- (around) + urere (to burn),  The alternative etymology traces a link to the Old Latin boro, the early form of the Classical Latin uro (to burn) and it’s though the development in Italian was influenced by the Etruscan custom of keeping the ashes of the dead in an urn shaped like the person when alive.  Thus the use, common by the 1720s of bust (a clipping from the French buste) being “a carving of the “trunk of the human body from the chest up”.  From this came the meaning “dimension of the bosom; the measurement around a woman's body at the level of her breasts” and that evolved on the basis of a comparison with the sculptures, the base of which was described as the “bust-line”, the term still used in dress-making (and for other comparative purposes as one of the three “vital statistics” by which women are judged (bust, waist, hips), each circumference having an “ideal range”).  It’s not known when “bust” and “bust-line” came into oral use among dress-makers and related professions but it’s documented since the 1880s.  Derived forms (sometimes hyphenated) include busty (tending to bustiness, thus Busty Buffy's choice of stage-name), overbust & underbust (technical terms in women's fashion referencing specific measurements) and bustier (a tight-fitting women's top which covers (most or all of) the bust.

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) standing beside his “portrait bust” (1926).

The bust was carved by Swiss sculptor Ernest Durig (1894–1962) who gained posthumous notoriety when his career as a forger was revealed with the publication of his drawings which he’d represented as being from the hand of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) under whom he claimed to have studied.  Mussolini appears here in one of the subsequently much caricatured poses which were a part of his personality cult.  More than one of the Duce's counterparts in other nations was known to have made fun of some of the more outré poses and affectations, the outstretched chin, right hand braced against the hip and straddle-legged stance among the popular motifs. 

“Portrait bust” in marble (circa 1895) of (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire (the "Second Reich") 1871-1890) by the German Sculptor Reinhold Begas (1831-1911).

 In sculpture, what had been known as the “portrait statue” came after the 1690s to be known as the “portrait bust” although both terms meant “sculpture of upper torso and head” and these proved a popular choice for military figures because the aspect enabled the inclusion of bling such as epaulettes, medals and other decorations and being depictions of the human figure, busts came to be vested with special significance by the superstitious.  In early 1939, during construction of the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin, workmen dropped one of the busts of Otto von Bismarck by Reinhold Begas, breaking it at the neck.  For decades, the bust had sat in the old Chancellery and the building’s project manager, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), knowing Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) believed the Reich Eagle toppling from the post-office building right at the beginning of World War I had been a harbinger of doom for the nation, kept the accident secret, hurriedly issuing a commission to the German sculptor Arno Breker (1900–1991) who carved an exact copy.  To give the fake the necessary patina, it was soaked for a time in strong, black tea, the porous quality of marble enabling the fluid to induce some accelerated aging.  Interestingly, in his (sometimes reliable) memoir (Erinnerungen (Memories or Reminiscences) and published in English as Inside the Third Reich (1969)), even the technocratic Speer admitted of the accident: “I felt this as an evil omen”.

The other senses of bust (as a noun, verb & adjective) are diverse (and sometimes diametric opposites and include: “to break or fail”; “to be caught doing something unlawful / illicit / disgusting etc”; “to debunk”; “dramatically or unexpectedly to succeed”; “to go broke”; “to break in” (horses, girlfriends etc): “to assault”; the downward portion of an economic cycle (ie “boom & bust”); “the act of effecting an arrest” and “someone (especially in professional sport) who failed to perform to expectation”.  That’s quite a range and that has meant the creation of dozens of idiomatic forms, the best known of which include: “boom & bust”, “busted flush”, “dambuster”, “bunker buster”,  “busted arse country”, “drug bust”, “cloud bust”, belly-busting, bust one's ass (or butt), bust a gut, bust a move, bust a nut, bust-down, bust loose, bust off, bust one's balls, bust-out, sod buster, bust the dust, myth-busting and trend-busting.  In the sense of “breaking through”, bust was from the Middle English busten, a variant of bursten & bresten (to burst) and may be compared with the Low German basten & barsten (to burst).  Bust in the sense of “break”, “smash”, “fail”, “arrest” etc was a creation of mid-nineteenth century US English and is of uncertain inspiration but most etymologists seem to concur it was likely a modification of “burst” effected with a phonetic alteration but it’s not impossible it came directly as an imperfect echoic of Germanic speech.  The apparent contradiction of bust meaning both “fail” and “dramatically succeed” happened because the former was an allusion to “being busted” (ie broken) while the latter meaning used the notion of “busting through”.