Ultracrepidarian

Ultracrepidarian (pronounced uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uhn)

Of or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of expertise

1819: An English adaptation of the historic words sūtor, ne ultra crepidam, uttered by the Greek artist Apelles and reported by the Pliny the Elder.  Translating literally as “let the shoemaker venture no further” and sometimes cited as ne supra crepidam sūtor judicare, the translation something like “a cobbler should stick to shoes”.  From the Latin, ultra is beyond, sūtor is cobbler and crepidam is accusative singular of crepida (from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís)) and means sandal or sole of a shoe.  Ultracrepidarian is a noun & verb and ultracrepidarianism is a noun; the noun plural is ultracrepidarians.  For humorous purposes, forms such as ultracrepidarist, ultracrepidarianish, ultracrepidarianize & ultracrepidarianesque have been coined; all are non-standard.

Ultracrepidarianism describes the tendency among some to offer opinions and advice on matters beyond their competence.  The word entered English in 1819 when used by English literary critic and self-described “good hater”, William Hazlitt (1778–1830), in an open letter to William Gifford (1756–1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, a letter described by one critic as “one of the finest works of invective in the language” although another suggested it was "one of his more moderate castigations" a hint that though now neglected, for students of especially waspish invective, he can be entertaining.  The odd quote from him would certainly lend a varnish of erudition to trolling.  Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion, Pliny the Elder (circa 24-79) recording the habit of the famous Greek painter Apelles (a fourth century BC contemporary of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356-323 BC)), to display his work in public view, then conceal himself close by to listen to the comments of those passing.  One day, a cobbler paused and picked fault with Apelles’ rendering of shoes and the artist immediately took his brushes and pallet and touched-up the sandal’s errant straps.  Encouraged, the amateur critic then let his eye wander above the ankle and suggested how the leg might be improved but this Apelles rejected, telling him to speak only of shoes and otherwise maintain a deferential silence.  Pliny hinted the artist's words of dismissal may not have been polite.

So critics should comment only on that about which they know.  The phrase in English is usually “cobbler, stick to your last” (a last a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning “to follow a track'' hence footstep) and exists in many European languages: zapatero a tus zapatos is the Spanish, schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest the Dutch, skomager, bliv ved din læst the Danish and schuster, bleib bei deinen leisten, the German.  Pliny’s actual words were ne supra crepidam judicaret, (crepidam a sandal or the sole of a shoe), but the idea is conveyed is in several ways in Latin tags, such as Ne sutor ultra crepidam (sutor means “cobbler”, a word which survives in Scotland in the spelling souter).  The best-known version is the abbreviated tag ultra crepidam (beyond the sole), and it’s that which Hazlitt used to construct ultracrepidarian.  Crepidam is from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís) and has no link with words like decrepit or crepitation (which are from the Classical Latin crepare (to creak, rattle, or make a noise)) or crepuscular (from the Latin word for twilight); crepidarian is an adjective rare perhaps to the point of extinction meaning “pertaining to a shoemaker”.

The related terms are "Nobel disease" & "Nobel syndrome" which are used to describe some of the opinions offered by Nobel laureates on subjects beyond their specialization.  In some cases this is "demand" rather than "supply" driven because, once a prize winner is added to a media outlet's "list of those who comment on X", they are sometimes asked questions about matters of which they know little.  This happens because some laureates in the three "hard" prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine) operate in esoteric corners of their discipline; asking a particle physicist something about plasma physics on the basis of their having won the physics prize may not elicit useful information.  Of course those who have won the economics or one of what are now the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) prizes (peace & literature) may be assumed to have helpful opinions on everything.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956): Blue Poles

In 1973, when a million dollars was a still lot of money, the National Gallery of Australia, a little controversially, paid Aus$1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 11, 1952, popularly known as Blue Poles since it was first exhibited in 1954, the new name reputedly chosen by the artist.  It was some years ago said to be valued at up to US$100 million but, given the increase in the money supply (among the rich who trade this stuff) over the last two decades odd, that estimate may now be conservative and some have suggested as much as US$400 million might be at least the ambit claim.

Number 11 (Blue poles, 1952), Oil, enamel and aluminum paint with glass on canvas.

Blue Poles emerged during Pollock’s "drip period" (1947-1950), a method which involved techniques such throwing paint at a canvas spread across the floor.  The art industry liked these (often preferring the more evocative term "action painting") and they remain his most popular works, although at this point, he abandoned the dripping and moved to his “black porings phase” a darker, simpler style which didn’t attract the same commercial interest.  He later returned to more colorful ways but his madness and alcoholism worsened; he died in a drink-driving accident.

Alchemy (1947), Oil, aluminum, alkyd enamel paint with sand, pebbles, fibers, and broken wooden sticks on canvas.

Although the general public remained uninterested (except by the price tags) or sceptical, there were critics, always drawn to a “troubled genius”, who praised Pollock’s work and the industry approves of any artist who (1) had the decency to die young and (2) produced stuff which can sell for millions.  US historian of art, curator & author Helen A Harrison (b 1943; director (1990-2024) of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, the former home and studio of the Abstract Expressionist artists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in East Hampton, New York) is an admirer, noting the “pioneering drip technique…” which “…introduced the notion of action painting", where the canvas became the space with which the artist actively would engage”.  As a thumbnail sketch she offered:

Number 14: Gray (1948), Enamel over gesso on paper.

“Reminiscent of the Surrealist notions of the subconscious and automatic painting, Pollock's abstract works cemented his reputation as the most critically championed proponent of Abstract Expressionism. His visceral engagement with emotions, thoughts and other intangibles gives his abstract imagery extraordinary immediacy, while his skillful use of fluid pigment, applied with dance-like movements and sweeping gestures that seldom actually touched the surface, broke decisively with tradition. At first sight, Pollock's vigorous method appears to create chaotic labyrinths, but upon close inspection his strong rhythmic structures become evident, revealing a fascinating complexity and deeper significance.  Far from being calculated to shock, Pollock's liquid medium was crucial to his pictorial aims.  It proved the ideal vehicle for the mercurial content that he sought to communicate 'energy and motion made visible - memories arrested in space'.”

Number 13A: Arabesque (1948), Oil and enamel on canvas.

Critics either less visionary or more fastidious seemed often as appalled by Pollock’s violence of technique as they were by the finished work (or “products” as some labelled the drip paintings), questioning whether any artistic skill or vision even existed, one finding them “…mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless.”  The detractors used the language of academic criticism but meant the same thing as the frequent phrase of an unimpressed public: “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”

Number 1, 1949 (1949), Enamel and metallic paint on canvas. 

There have been famous responses to that but Ms Harrison's was practical, offering people the opportunity to try.  To the view that “…people thought it was arbitrary, that anyone can fling paint around”, Ms Harrison conceded it was true anybody could “fling paint around” but that was her point, anybody could, but having flung, they wouldn’t “…necessarily come up with anything.”  In 2010, she released The Jackson Pollock Box, a kit which, in addition to an introductory text, included paint brushes, drip bottles and canvases so people could do their own flinging and compare the result against a Pollock.  After that, they may agree with collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) that Pollock was “...the greatest painter since Picasso” or remain unrepentant ultracrepidarians.  Of course, many who thought their own eye for art quite well-trained didn't agree with Ms Guggenheim.  In 1945, just after the war, Duff Cooper (1890–1954), then serving as Britain's ambassador to France, came across Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) leaving an exhibition of paintings by English children aged 5-10 and in his diary noted the great cubist saying he "had been much impressed".  "No wonder" added the ambassador, "the pictures are just as good as his".   

Helen A Harrison, The Jackson Pollock Box (Cider Mill Press, 96pp, ISBN-10:1604331860, ISBN-13:978-1604331868).

Dresses & drips: Three photographs by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), shot for a three-page feature in Vogue (March 1951) titled American Fashion: The New Soft Look which juxtaposed Pollock’s paintings hung in New York’s Betty Parsons Gallery with the season’s haute couture by Irene (1872-1951) & Henri Bendel (1868-1936).

Beaton choose the combinations of fashion and painting and probably pairing Lavender Mist (1950, left) with a short black ball gown of silk paper taffeta with large pink bow at one shoulder and an asymmetrical hooped skirt by Bendel best illustrates the value of his trained eye.  Critics and social commentators have always liked these three pages, relishing the opportunity to comment on the interplay of so many of the clashing forces of modernity: the avant-garde and fashion, production and consumption, abstraction and representation, painting and photography, autonomy and decoration, masculinity and femininity, art and commerce.  Historians of art note it too because it was the abstract expressionism of the 1940s which was both uniquely an American movement and the one which in the post-war years saw the New York supplant Paris as the centre of Western art.  There have been interesting discussions about when last it could be said Western art had a "centre".

Eye of the beholder: Portrait of Lindsay Lohan in the style of Claude Monet at craiyon.com and available at US$26 on an organic cotton T-shirt made in a factory powered by renewable energy.

Whether the arguments about what deserves to be called “art” began among prehistoric “artists” and their critics in caves long ago isn’t known but it’s certainly a dispute with a long history.  In the sense it’s a subjective judgment the matter was doubtless often resolved by a potential buyer declining to purchase but during the twentieth century it became a contested topic and there were celebrated exhibits and squabbles which for decades played out before, in the post modern age, the final answer appeared to be something was art if variously (1) the creator said it was or (2) an art critic said it was or (3) it was in an art gallery or (4) the price tag was sufficiently impressive.

So what constitutes “art” is a construct of time, place & context which evolves, shaped by historical, cultural, social, economic, political & personal influences, factors which in recent years have had to be cognizant of the rise of cultural equivalency, the recognition that Western concepts such as the distinction between “high” (or “fine”) art and “folk” (or “popular”) art can’t be applied to work from other traditions where cultural objects are not classified by a graduated hierarchy.  In other words, everybody’s definition is equally valid.  That doesn’t mean there are no longer gatekeepers because the curators in institutions such as museums, galleries & academies all discriminate and thus play a significant role in deciding what gets exhibited, studied & promoted, even though few would now dare to suggest what is art and what is not: that would be cultural imperialism.

In the twentieth century it seemed to depend on artistic intent, something which transcended a traditional measure such as aesthetic value but as the graphic art in advertising and that with a political purpose such as agitprop became bigger, brighter and more intrusive, such forms also came to be regarded as art or at least worth of being studied or exhibited on the same basis, in the same spaces as oil on canvas portraits & landscapes.  Once though, an unfamiliar object in such places could shock as French painter & sculptor Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) managed in 1917 when he submitted a porcelain urinal as his piece for an exhibition in New York, his rationale being “…everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice.”  Even then it wasn’t a wholly original approach but the art establishment has never quite recovered and from that urinal to Dadaism, to soup cans to unmade beds, it became accepted that “anything goes” and people should be left to make of it what they will.  Probably the last remaining reliable guide to what really is "art" remains the price tag.

1948 Cisitalia 202 GT (left; 1947-1952) and 1962 Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974; right), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City.

Urinals tend not to be admired for their aesthetic qualities but there are those who find beauty in things as diverse as mathematical equations and battleships.  Certain cars have long been objects which can exert an emotional pull on those with a feeling for such things and if the lines are sufficiently pleasing, many flaws in engineering are often overlooked.  New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) acknowledged in 1972 that such creations can be treated as works of art when they added a 1948 Cisitalia 202 GT finished in “Cisitalia Red” (MoMA object number 409.1972) to their collection, the press release noting it was “…the first time that an art museum in the U.S. put a car into its collection.”  Others appeared from time-to-time and while the 1953 Willys-Overland Jeep M-38A1 Utility Truck (MoMA object number 261.2002) perhaps is not conventionally beautiful, its brutish functionalism has a certain simplicity of form and in the exhibition notes MoMA clarified somewhat by describing it as a “rolling sculpture”, presumably in the spirit of a urinal being a “static sculpture”, both to be admired as pieces of design perfectly suited to their intended purpose, something of an art in itself.  Of the 1962 Jaguar E-Type (XKE) open two seater (OTS, better known as a roadster and acquired as MoMA object number 113.996), there was no need to explain because it’s one of the most seductive shapes ever rendered in metal.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) attended the 1961 Geneva Motor Show (now defunct) when the Jaguar staged its stunning debut and part of E-Type folklore is he called it “the most beautiful car in the world”.  Whether those words ever passed his lips isn’t certain because the sources vary slightly in detail and il Commendatore apparently never confirmed or denied the sentiment but it’s easy to believe and many to this day agree just looking at the thing can be a visceral experience.  The MoMA car is finished in "Opalescent Dark Blue" with a grey interior and blue soft-top; there are those who think the exhibit would be improved if it was in BRG (British Racing Green) over tan leather but anyone who finds a bad line on a Series 1 E-Type OTS is truly an ultracrepidarian.   

Purple

Purple (pronounced pur-puhl)

(1) Any color having components of both red and blue (often highly saturated), the darker the hue, the more likely to be described thus.

(2) In color theory, any non-spectral color on the line of purples on a color chromaticity diagram or a color wheel between violet and red.

(3) A dye or pigment producing such a colour

(4) Cloth or clothing of this hue, especially as formerly worn distinctively by persons of imperial, royal, or other high rank.

(5) In the Roman Catholic Church, a term at various times used to describe a monsignor, bishop or cardinal (or their office), now most associated with the rank, office or authority of a cardinal.

(6) Imperial, regal, or princely in rank or position.

(7) Any of several nymphalid butterflies including the red-spotted purple and the banded purple)

(8) Of or pertaining to the color purple (or certain things regarded as purple).

(9) In writing, showy or overwrought; exaggerated use of literary devices and effects; marked by excessively ornate rhetoric (purpureal).

(10) In language, profane or shocking; swearing.

(11) In modern politics, relating to or noting political or ideological diversity (in the US based on the blending of Democrat (blue) and Republican (red); in other places red & blue indicate different places on the political spectrum).

(12) In drug slang; the purple haze cultivar of cannabis in the kush family, either pure or mixed with others, or by extension any variety of smoked marijuana (“purple haze” a popular name for commercially available weed in those places where such thing are lawful.  Purple haze was originally slang for LSD.

(13) In agriculture, earcockle, a disease of wheat.

(14) To make or become purple (or, in ecclesiastical use, to put on one’s purple vestments) .

Pre 1000: From the Middle English noun and adjective purple, purpel & purpur, from Old English purpuren & purpul, a dissimilation (first recorded in Northumbrian, in the Lindisfarne gospel) of purpure (purple dye, a purple garment), from the adjective purpuren (purple; dyed or colored purple), from purpura (a kind of shellfish, Any of various species of molluscs from which Tyrian purple dye was obtained, especially the common dog whelk; the dye; cloth so dyed; splendid attire generally), from the Ancient Greek πορφύρα (porphýra or porphura) (the purple fish (Murex)), perhaps of Semitic origin.  Purpur continued as a parallel form until the fifteenth century and was maintained in the rules of heraldry until well into the nineteenth.  The verb purple (to tinge or stain with purple) was from the noun and emerged circa 1400.  The earlier form was purpured, a past-participle adjective.  The adjective purplish (somewhat purple, tending to purple) was from the noun and dates from the 1560s.  Purple is a noun, verb & adjective, purpled & purpling are verbs, purplish, purpler, purply & purplest are adjectives and purpleness is a noun; the noun plural is purples.

1974 Triumph Stag in magenta.  Some of the shades of brown, beige, orange and such used in the 1970s by British Leyland are not highly regarded but some were quite striking.

The rhetorical use in reference to “the splendid; the gaudy” began as a description of garments (classically imperial regalia) and since the mid-eighteenth century, as “purple prose” of writing.  In US political discourse and commentary, purple has since been used (often in graphical or cartographic form) to indicating the sectional or geographical spaces in which the increasing division of the country into red (Republican) and blue (Democratic) was less apparent.  That this came into widespread use only by around 2004 is because the use of red & blue by the US news media became (more or less) standardized only by the 1990s, use have begun circa 1980, something without any relationship to the linking of the colors (red=left; blue=right) traditional in other parts of the English-speaking world.  Other words used to describe purplish shades include lavender, mauve, amethyst, violet (with many sub-types) lilac, orchid, indigo, mulberry, plum, eggplant (aubergine seems rare but is used in commerce), fuchsia, heliotrope, periwinkle, purpureus & thistle and while many directly reference the flowers of plants, one curiosity is magenta: It was so called because the dye of that shade was created at the time of the Battle of Magenta (1559) in which French and Sardinian forces defeated those of the Austrians.  Purple is widely used in zoology and botany to create common names of species to some extent colored purple.

Purple patch: 1970 Dodge Challenger (440 Six-Pack) in Plum Crazy (left) and 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda in In Violet) (clone; right).

Chrysler had some history in the coining of fanciful names for colors dating from the psychedelic era of the late 1960s when the choices included Plum Crazy, In-Violet, Tor Red, Sub Lime, Sassy Grass, Panther Pink, Moulin Rouge, Top Banana, Lemon Twist & Citron Yella.  Although it may be an industry myth, the story told was that Plum Crazy & In-Violet (lurid shades of purple) were late additions because the killjoy board refused to sign-off on Statutory Grape.  The lurid colors soon disappeared, not only because fashions change but because at the time they depended on the use of lead which was banned from paint in the early 1970s.  Not until the early twenty-first century did manufacturers perfect ways economically to replicate the earlier colors without using lead.

Salma Hayek in eye-catching purple,  Cannes Film Festival May 2015.

In idiomatic use, purple is popular.  One “born into the purple” was literally one of royal or exalted birth although it’s now often used even of those from families somewhere in the upper middle class.  The “purple death” was hospital slang for Spanish influenza and it was an allusion to the cyanosis which, because of the difficulty breathing, which would turn the skin purple.  In the early post-war years “purple death” was also used to describe a cheap Italian wine.   The phrase “once in a purple moon” was a variation of “once in a blue moon” and some dictionaries include an entry, apparently only for the purpose of assuring us that not only is it extinct but it may never have been in common use.  “Purple bacteria” (the form only ever used in the plural) are a proteobacteria which produce their own food using photosynthesis; they are all classed as purple, even though some are orange, red or brown.  In the analogue-era world of the phone phreaks (hackers who used the telephone networks for other than the intended purpose), a “purple box” was a device which added a hold facility to a telephone line.  It was an allusion to the general term “black box” used in engineering and electronics to describe small devices with specific purposes; not all “purple boxes” were actually purple.  “Purple gas” was a Canadian term which described the gas (motor spirit; petrol) colored with a purple dye to indicate it was sold subject to a lower rate of taxation and for use only in agriculture and not on public roads.  Anyone found using “purple gas” beyond a farm could be charged and many countries use similar methods though the dye is not always purple.  “Purple gold” was a synonym of amethyst gold (a brittle alloy of gold and aluminium, purple in colour).

1994 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.6  (964) in Amethyst Metallic over Classic Gray.

A “purple passage” (also as “purple prose”) was any form of writing thought showy or overwrought, using an exaggerated array of literary devices and effects or marked by excessively ornate rhetoric.  It was a criticism but the later “purple patch” which describes any particular good period or performance (in any context) was wholly positive.  The “purple pill” was an advertising slogan used by a pharmaceutical company but unlike “little blue pill” (Viagra), it never entered the vernacular.  “Purple plague” has specific meanings in chemistry and electronics (relating to a chemical reaction which produces an undesirable purple compound) but a more amusing use is by Roman Catholic bishops noting a unwanted number of monsignors (who wear a purple sash) in their dioceses, sent there by the Vatican.  In US politics a “purple state” is a “swing state”, one which, depending on this and that, may vote either Republican (red) or Democrat (blue).  The “purple star” was the symbol worn by Jehovah's Witnesses in concentration camps in Nazi Germany (1933-1945), one of a number of color-coded patches, the best-known of which was the yellow Jewish star.  The Jehovah's Witnesses were an interesting case in that uniquely among the camp inmates, they could at any time leave if they were prepared to sign a declaration denying their religious beliefs.  In international air-traffic management, a “purple zone” (also “purple airway”) describes a route reserved for an aircraft on which a member of a royal family is flying.  In US military use, the “Purple Heart” dating from 1932, is still awarded to service personnel wounded in combat.  It’s origin was a decoration in purple cloth first awarded in 1782 which came to be known as the “wound stripe”.  In the mid 1960s, “purple haze” was slang for LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide, a psychedelic drug with a long history verging on academic respectability before becoming a popular hallucinogenic, users clipping the term to "acid"); it was later repurposed for various strains of weed.

Lindsay Lohan, admirer of all things purple.

The dye tyrian purple (all the evidence suggests it would now be thought a crimson), was produced around Tyre and was prized as dye for royal garments, hence the figurative use in the sixteenth century of purple for “imperial or regal power” (it was also the color of mourning or penitence among royalty or the upper reaches of the clergy).  Tyrian purple (also known as shellfish purple) was for long periods the most expensive substance in Antiquity (often (by weight) three times the value of gold, the exchange rate set by a Roman edict issued in 301 AD.  By the fifteenth century when the intricate process to extract and process the dye was lost, Tyrian purple had for millennia been variously a symbol of strength, sovereignty and money and its use had spread from the Classical world to Southern Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia and was so associated with the civilization of the Phoenicians (the color named after their city-state Tyre) that they were known as the “purple people”.  What many didn’t know was that the dye associated with the illustrious came not from a gemstone or some vivid coral but from the slimy mucous of sea snails in the Murex family.  Debate continues about what must have been the process used in extraction and production although, given many factories and artisans were involved over the years, there may have been many variations of the method.

It was in 1453 when the Byzantine capital Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) fell to the Ottomans that the knowledge of Tyrian purple was lost, something of a footnote to the end of the Eastern Roman Empire but still a loss.  Then, the infamously smelly dyeworks of the old city were the hub of purple production although, after a series of punitive taxes, the Catholic Church had lost control of the pigment which is the origin of the pope’s decision that red would become the new symbol of Christian power and this was adopted for the garb of cardinals; the story that the vivid red symbolized the blood cardinals mush be prepared to spill in the defense of their pope was just a cover story although one obviously approved of by the pontiff.

Beginning in 1968 with Shades of Deep Purple (left), the rock band Deep Purple sometimes used purple-themed album cover art and may have wished they'd stuck with that for their eponymous third album (1969).  The original cover (centre), featuring a fragment of one panel of the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510) by Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450-1516), was declared "demonic" by the US distributors so an alternative needed hastily be arranged and whether because of the tight schedule or just wanting to play it safe, they stuck to purple (right).  They'd earlier had a similar difficulty with their US label when releasing their second album (The Book of Taliesyn (1968)), the objection that time that one song title (Wring That Neck) was "too violent" (it was an instrumental piece and the reference was to a technique used with the neck of a guitar but it was anyway changed to Hard Road).  Times have changed.

In literary theory, “to etiolate” a text is to remove or revise the “purple passages”.  In literature, purple passages are those sections of a text which are overly elaborate, flowery, or extravagant in style, often prioritizing ornate or decorative language and the use of needlessly long words, the meaning of which is often obscure.  Such writing is thought a literary self-indulgence or a mere pretentious display of knowledge; grandiose execution at the expense of clarity, the usual critique being “style over substance”.  The phrase is almost certainly derived from the historic use of the once rare and expensive purple dye being restricted (actually by statute or edict in some places) to royalty and even when availability became wider, the association with luxury & wealth continued.  The idea has long been a tool of critics, Roman lyric poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC) in his Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry, 19 BC) referring disapprovingly to the purpureus… pannus (a purple piece of cloth), the irrelevant insertion of a grandiloquent or melodramatic passage into a work.  Horace thought this disruptive at best and absurd at worst and “purple passages” continues to be used to describe writing which is needlessly ornate, florid and usually discordantly incongruous.  Used almost always pejoratively (although there do seem to be some admirers), comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) might have called such flourishes “formalism”.

Fag

Fag (pronounced fag)

(1) Something hanging loose, a flap (mostly archaic except in US technical use in industrial production of textiles where, in the process of quality inspections, a fag is a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric).

(2) Slang for a boring or wearisome task (archaic).

(3) The worst part or end of a thing (mostly UK, now archaic).

(4) Offensive slang for a contemptible or dislikable person (archaic).

(5) Offensive slang for a homosexual male, applied most often to an obvious, especially effeminate or “unusual” one (now regarded generally as especially disparaging and contemptuous although within the LGBTQQIAAOP communities it can be neutral or even endearing).

(6) To tire or weary by labor; to be exhausted (usually in the phrase “fagged out”).

(7) One allocated to do menial chores for an older school pupil (mostly in the English public school system but said to be extinct since the late 1990s although apparently still practiced in some Commonwealth countries with public (private) schools based on the old English model).

(8) Slang for a cigarette (now rare, especially in North America); the Cockney rhyming slang was “oily rag”.

(9) As "fag-end" (as in the last un-smoked end of a cigarette), a remnant of something once larger, longer etc such as the frayed end of a length of cloth or rope.

(10) As "fag-end administration", the last months or weeks of a government prior to an election.

1425–1475: From the late Middle English fagge (flap; broken thread in cloth, loose end (of obscure origin)), the later sense-development to the intransitive verb meaning “to droop, to tire, to make weary; drudgery” apparently based on the idea of “a drooping end” or “something limply hanging” dating from the 1520s.  The transitive sense of "to make (someone or something) fatigued, tire by labor" was first noted in 1826.  Those fagged-out fatiguing labor were in the 1850s said to have been engaged in “faggery” and from the same era “brain-fag described "mental fatigue."  Fag is a noun and verb, fagging or fagged are verbs and faggish & fagged are adjectives.  Apparently un-fagged is a correct construction which may be used to describe the process of cutting the ties binding a bundle of sticks.  Functional forms (fag butt, fag lighter, fag grave (an ashtray) are created as required. Fag is a noun & verb; the noun plural is fags.   

A GIF of Lindsay Lohan enjoying a fag.

The meaning “cigarette” dates only from 1888 and was derived from fag-end (applied to many things and attested since the 1610s) and thus a cigarette butt was one of many fag-ends but “fag” (and the plural “fags”) came much to be associated with cigarettes.  Fag may be variant of the verb “flag” in the sense of “droop, tire” and related (perhaps remotely) to the Dutch vaak (sleepiness).  The use of the term to refer to cigarettes is still heard in parts of the English-speaking world but is almost unknown in the US where use is not advised because there, almost exclusively, it's exclusively a gay slur.

Inhaling a known carcinogen is of course a bad idea and not recommended but Lindsay Lohan did make smoking look sexy.

Faggery (or faggotry) was the system in English public schools in which the younger students acted as servants (there were sometimes other purposes) for the older.  It was part of public school environment which Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) said was designed primarily to teach pupils life was “inherently unfair”.  Still, he valued the process and described any chap who hadn't benefited from the experience as having "no background".  The use in English public schools to describe a junior student who performs "certain duties" for a senior seems first to have been used in 1785 although the practice is documented from the seventeenth century.  The schoolboy slang describing the offices of the institution as “fagdom” & “fagmaster” dates from 1902.  In modern use, faggery (less so faggotry but like faggotness, faggotize & faggotism) is used as a gay slur.  The term "faggot voter" was a historic term in the UK & Ireland used when there was a property qualification attached to the electoral franchise.  A legal loophole, it described someone entitled to vote by virtue of holding some form of property title short of freehold, typically to a subdivision.  The origin of the term was based on the idea of “faggot” in the sense of the sticks gathered together and bound to make a whole (ie one property with one title fragmented for electoral purposes while not diminishing the quality of the ultimate ownership).  The “loophole” was one of those things which began as an “unintended consequence” of changes to the rules of real property but it wasn’t reformed until the late 1800s because so many land-owners and members of parliament made use of it to “stack their constituencies” with voters.

As a shortening of faggot, “fag” is documented as being applied as a term of disparagement to homosexual males from 1914, an invention of American English slang, though related to the earlier (1590s) contemptuous term for a woman, especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot in the sense of "bundle of sticks", ie something awkward that has to be carried in the sense of "worthless baggage” (and therefore “worthless woman").  More speculatively, there may be a link with the Yiddish פֿייגעלע‎ (feygele) (literally "little bird” but used (1) as a term of endearment for a loved one, especially a man's wife and (2) in a derogatory manner: a faggot homosexual man).  There may also have been some connection with the English public school slang noun fag which even then carried the suggestion of catamite (From the Latin catamītus (boy kept as a sexual partner), from Catamītus, from the Etruscan catmite, from the Ancient Greek Γανυμήδης (Ganumḗdēs) (Ganymede), in Greek mythology an attractive Trojan boy abducted by Zeus and taken to Mount Olympus to become his cupbearer and lover (and Ganymede endures as a doublet in that sense)).  The term “faggot marriage” was not a synonym of “lavender marriage” (an arrangement in which a gay man would marry a lesbian for purposes of social or professional respectability) but a disparaging reference to gay marriage.

In the same way the infamous N-word has been re-claimed by certain sub-sets of people of color and is, in context, an acceptable use by or between them, “faggot” similarly, although now regarded generally as especially disparaging and contemptuous, within the LGBTQQIAAOP communities it can be neutral or even endearing.  Two inventive variations were “fag hag” (a heterosexual woman who socializes with homosexual men (1969)) and “fag stag” (a heterosexual man who socializes with homosexual men (circa 1995)).  The less common companion slang for men who have many lesbian friends was “dutch boy”, “lesbro” or “dyke tyke”.  Covering all bases, it transpires that those of both sexes who associate with lesbian, gay and bisexual people are “fruit flies”.  The story that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an urban legend with no etymological or historical basis. Burning sometimes was a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (which relied on the scriptural suggestion invoked as the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, although parliament had declared homosexuality a capital crime in 1533, the prescribed method of execution was to be hanged.  While the inquisitorial and judicial organs of the Roman Catholic Church may over the centuries have burned at the stake a good many homosexuals, that really was incidental to the process (sort of the "collateral damage" of the day), the actual sentence imposed usually for other offences.

Faggot was from the Middle English fagot, from the Middle French fagot (bundle of sticks), from the Medieval Latin and Italian fagotto and related to the Old Occitan fagot, the Italian fagotto & fangotto and the Spanish fajo (bundle, wad).  In Italian a fagotto was (1) a bundle or sack, (2), (figuratively) a clumsy or awkward person; a klutz or (3), in music, a bassoon and was probably from the Italian fagotto (diminutive of Vulgar Latin facus, from the Classical Latin fascis (bundle of wood), or perhaps the Ancient Greek φάκελος (phákelos) (bundle).  The senses relating to persons, though possibly originating as an extension of the sense "bundle of sticks", could have been reinforced by Yiddish פֿייגעלע‎ (feygele) (literally "little bird” but used (1) as a term of endearment for a loved one, especially a man's wife and (2) in a derogatory manner: a homosexual man).  In English, “fagot” was long the alternative spelling.

A sincere form of flattery: North American F-86 Sabre (first flown October 1947, left) and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (first flown December 1947, right).

A well-crafted amalgam of technology stolen from the West (the airframe construction techniques from the US, the jet-engine a blatant copy of the British Rolls-Royce Nene and the aerodynamics the result of wartime German research), the USSR’s Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 was a short-range interceptor, the appearance of which in the skies of the Korean War (1950-1953) theatre was such a shock to the UN forces that the US Air Force (USAF) had to scramble to assemble squadrons of North American F-86 Sabres for deployment.  Made in both the USSR and by licensed overseas constructors, the MiG-15 was produced in extraordinary numbers (some sources suggest as many as 17,700) and equipped not only Warsaw Pact militaries, some three dozen air forces eventually using the type and it was widely used in front-line service well into the 1960s.  Simple, robust and economical to operate, many still fly in private hands and some continue to be used as jet-trainers, ideal for the role because of their predictable characteristics and good handling.

The MiG-15’s NATO reporting name was Fagot.  NATO reporting names have no linguistic or etymological significance, being chosen (1) with an initial letter indicating type (B=bomber; F=fighter; C=commercial & cargo; H=helicopter; M= miscellaneous) and (2) a one-syllable name for propeller aircraft and a two-syllable name for jets.  Fagot was just another reporting name picked from NATO’s list of the possible for allocation to fighters:

Fairytale of New York (1987) is a song by the Irish pop-band The Pogues, augmented for the occasion by the late Kirsty MacColl (1959-2000).  One stanza includes the lines:

You're a bum

You're a punk

You're an old slut on junk

Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed

You scumbag, you maggot

You cheap lousy faggot

Happy Christmas your arse

I pray God it's our last

The offending line quickly became: "You cheap lousy faggot" and for many years, every Christmas, there was in England an almost ritualistic argument about whether it was appropriate to play the piece on radio, a matter of some interest because Fairytale of New York was frequently voted the nation’s most popular Christmas song.

In the late 1980s the BBC seemed unconcerned at the possibility of a gay slur being thought at least implied but found the anatomical slang offensive, asking that "arse" be replaced with “ass” which was a liberal approach compared with the old BBC tradition of outright bans but sensitivities shifted to gender in the 1990s and in subsequent live performances MacColl sometimes adjusted the lyrics further, singing "You're cheap and you're haggard".  Since then broadcasts have varied in the version carried, the BBC even permitting all or some of “arse”, “slut” & “faggot” on some of their stations but not others.  There’s was also use of the old practice “bleeping out” (actually scrambling) “arse”, “slut” & “faggot” as required and it’s now fairly unpredictable just which version will be played.  It did seem one of the more improbable battlefields of the culture wars but was emblematic of the new censorship.  Although, in the context of the song, it was obvious “faggot” was being used in the old sense of meaning “someone worthless” rather than “someone a bit of a homosexual”, the objection was to the very word which many activists demand should be proscribed, the same fate suffered by "niggardly" a form with an etymology as unrelated to the infamous "N-word" as the meaning.

Lavender

Lavender (pronounced lav-uhn-der)

(1) As a color, a pale bluish purple, similar to or variations of lilac & violet.

(2) Of or pertaining to something of the shade.

(3) In botany, any of the various Old World perennial shrubs or herbaceous plants or shrubs belonging to the genus Lavandula (family Lamiaceae (labiates)), of the mint family, especially Lavandula angustifolia, and cultivated for its spikes of fragrant mauve or blue flowers and as the source of a fragrant oil.

(4) The dried flowers or other parts of this plant placed among linen, clothes etc (usually in small, porous bags (called lavender bags)), for the scent or as a preservative.

(5) As lavender water (historically also called toilet water), a solution of oil of lavender, used sometimes as an aftershave.

(6) In informal use, of or relating to a homosexual orientation in men (archaic); an effeminate male (used as both noun & adjective).

(7) As lavender marriage, a type of marriage of convenience undertaken by gay man and lesbian women, often as a form of professional protection.

(8) In film production, a kind of film stock for creating positive prints from negatives as part of the process of duplicating the negatives (obsolete).

(9) A washer; one (especially a woman) who washes clothes (archaic).

(10) As a euphemism, a woman employed in prostitution or having loose morals (archaic).

(11) In sexual politics, an only briefly used and now obsolete descriptor: (1) pertaining to LGBT people and rights (as lavender collar which was replaced by rainbow collar (a reference to the gay pride flag)) and (2) a militant strain of lesbian feminism which opposed heterosexism.

1225–1275: From the Middle English lavendre, from the Anglo-French lavendre, from the Old French lavandiere (the lavender plant), from the tenth century Medieval Latin lavandārius & lavendula, a variant of livendula, a nasalized variant (unrecorded) of lividula (a plant livid in color).  The French forms may be from the Latin lividus (bluish; livid), but was certainly influenced by the French lavande and the Italian lavanda (a washing), from the Latin lavare (to wash), from the primitive Indo-European root leue- (to wash), the link being the flower being used to scent washed fabrics and as a bath perfume.  The Latin lavō (I wash, bathe; I wet, moisten) was from the Proto-Italic lawāō, from the primitive Indo-European lewhs (to wash).  It was cognates with the Ancient Greek λούω (loúō) & λοέω (loéō), the Albanian laj, the Old Armenian լոգանամ (loganam) and the Old English lēaþor (from which English gained lather).  Lavender is a noun & adjective, lavendering is a verb and lavendered is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is lavenders).

The adjective in the sense of “a pale purple color, of the color of lavender flowers” dates from 1840", the noun as a color noted since 1882.  The identical Middle English word meant both "laundress; washerwoman" and "prostitute, whore; camp follower", the origin of that probably being the roles being performed by the same personnel, one presumably before sunset, the other after.  In politics, lavender enjoyed a brief currency as (1) pertaining to LGBT people and rights (as lavender collar which was replaced by rainbow collar (a reference to the gay pride flag) and (2) a descriptor of a militant strain of lesbian feminism which opposed heterosexism.

Lindsay Lohan with lavender colored hair, smoking.

The surname does exist as Lavandar but the more common spelling is Lavender, regarded by genealogists as English but of early French origin.  Introduced by the Normans after the conquest of 1066 it is occupational and derived from lavandier, applied especially to workers in the wool industry employed to wash raw wool or rinse the cloth after fulling. Job-descriptive surnames originally denoted the actual occupation of the name-bearer and only later became hereditary when a son or perhaps a daughter followed the father into the same line of business.  The surname first recorded in 1273 on the “Hundred Rolls” of Cambridgeshire and the earliest known instance in the US record is from New York in 1846 although its likely (possibly with variations of spelling) there were earlier cases of immigration.  The first recorded spelling of the family name was la Lauendere which, dated 1253, was entered in the “Pipe Rolls” of Oxfordshire during the reign of Henry III (1207–1272; King of England 1216-1272) and over the centuries, in the British Isles, Europe, the US and the British Empire, the spelling evolved in several forks until the modern Lavender emerged as the most common.

Wedding day of film star Rock Hudson (1925–1985) & Phyllis Gates (1925–2006), Santa Barbara, California, 9 November 1955.They separated in 1957, the divorce granted the next year.

A lavender marriage is one between a man and woman undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the socially stigmatized sexual orientation of one partner or both.  The color lavender had an association with gay men going back centuries and it’s thought the origin was based on the idea of a shade somewhere between pink (girl) & blue (boy).  Although there’s much evidence to suggest there’s a long tradition of the practice in many cultures, the term “lavender marriage” seems to date only from 1895 and came into wide use only in the mid twentieth century where it was used almost exclusively, knowingly to describe marriages in the Hollywood film industry between couples known not to be straight.  In some cases the marriages were a professional necessity because of contracts of employment which essentially proscribed all aspects of homosexuality.  Although in the west the structural reasons for lavender marriages have substantially been dismantled, they are known still to occur, especially in communities where social mores reflect the less progressive views of their countries of ethnic origin.