Apestail

Apestail (pronounced eypse–teyl)

A name for the symbol “@”, adapted from its Dutch name.

1990s: An adaptation of the Dutch word aapestaartje (literally “little monkey's tail”, coined as a jocular term for the @ symbol, the etymology reflecting the symbol's spiral or curled shape, said to resemble the tail of a monkey, the construct being aap (monkey) + staart (tail) + -je (indicating something small or endearing).  Unlike German, the Dutch language has a tradition of humorous descriptive terms although the Germans did retaliate with Klammeraffe (spider monkey.  Other forms have included the Italian chiocciola (snail), the Polish małpa (monkey) and the Hebrew shtrudel (strudel pastry).  An English alternative was ampersat, the construct being ampersa(nd) + at.  Apestail is a noun; the noun plural is apestails.

Apestail in the Algerian font.

One of the curious linguistic paradoxes produced by the internet is that the “@” symbol, although one of the most widely used of those on the standard keyboard, it has never gained a universally accepted “official” name (such as “ampersand” for the “&”).  In English, when referred to it’s usually as “at”.  It was of course its adoption as the divider between the user name and the domain (UserName@domain.x) in email addresses which meant the once neglected key on the keyboard became widely used and although the rise of SMS (short message service), social media platforms, instant messaging services and such has meant there are now many alternatives for electronic communications, so entrenched in corporate life is the email protocol that it’s estimated that every day in 2024, over 350 billion emails are sent, an increase of some 4% from the previous year.  That does make modern capitalism sound industrious but the same researchers also reckoned some 85% of the volume was spam.  As early as the 1960s there had been forms of electronic messaging but all were parochial and it wasn’t until 1971 when programmer Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) included the @ symbol in ARPANET’s (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network; the operation which created the underpinnings of what became the modern internet) implementation and although much has changed in terms of packets and protocols, the @ endures.  From the very start, it was understood to mean “at” thus lindsaylohan@disney.com would universally be understood to mean “Lindsay Lohan at Disney Corporation”.  There was a element of chance in the choice, Mr Tomlinson selecting @ because it was one of the least used ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters and one thus unlikely to conflict with objects elsewhere in code or operating system routines.

Apestail in the Agency FB font.

So the basic syntax of the email address predated the development of the familiar PC or laptop keyboard but in that context it was of very little use because it wouldn’t be until well into the 1990s that email achieved a critical mass of users.  Despite that, from the very first, the @ appeared on most keyboards and that was because substantially they emulated the layout of those which had become familiar on typewriters.  Probably few typewriter users had much need for the symbol either but for those who did it was essential and its long history in typography and commercial transactions justified a key although often it wasn’t included on smaller, cheaper typewriters aimed at the consumer market and even in the computer industry, it wasn’t until @ was included in the ASCII character set that computer keyboards were (more or less) standardized.  In commerce, by the sixteenth century “2” widely was used by merchants to signify a rate or price, such as “7 jars of olives @ 5 drachmas” was understood as 7 x 5 =35 so it was 35 drachmas for 7 jars of olives.  Like the Arabic numeric system, the commercial use spread across Europe and became a standard notation, facilitating a certainty of trading terms between those who shared neither a language now spoke the lingua franca.  Because of its importance and utility in bookkeeping and commerce, it was included on keyboards for the convenience of businesses.  Occasionally, @ would appear in specific academic or technical applications but these instances were rare, localized and none seem to have endured although, for all we know, it may have some secret meaning in Freemasonry.  Some jurisdictions have banned the use of “@” and an element when registering the name of an infant, the implication of that being that some parents must have tried.

Apestail in the Berlin Sans font.

The first time many computer users became aware of the mysterious @ was when it was included as the prefix for built-in functions in the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the so-called “killer app” which in 1983 did so much to legitimize the personal computer in corporate life.  Released in 1979, VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet but it was the more capable Lotus 1-2-3 (soon laden with macros and add-ins) which captured the market and anyone familiar with VisiCalc would have found the transition relatively simple: whereas in VisiCalc SUM(B1:B10) would have calculated the sum of the range A1 to A10, in 1-2-3 it was @SUM(A1..A10). and statements like @IF(condition, value_if_true, value_if_false) were used for conditional logic.  The arrival of Microsoft Windows 3.x in 1990 and especially Windows 95 in 1995 shifted the universe and over time Excel captured the spreadsheet market and while it moved away from the use of @ as a universal function prefix, it does still exist in aome of Excel’s advanced functions such as structured references in arrays.  In many computer languages, @ is used for a variety of purposes.

Apestail in the Niagara Solid font.

The very origin of @ is murky but it seems to have appeared during the later medieval period when it was known in Spanish and Portuguese as arroba, from the Old Spanish arroua and the Old Galician-Portuguese arrova, from Andalusian Arabic and Arabic اَلرُّبْع (ar-rubʕ) (one-fourth), the reference to it making up one fourth of a quintal (the capacity of a standard amphora, a vessel used to store and transport liquids, cereals and other goods) The symbol was used as a shorthand form of the Latin ad (at; to) and one of a range of truncated or stylized forms which saved (1) the time of scribes, (2) ink and (3) paper, all commodities which cost money and some were expensive.  In countries where Spanish and Portuguese were spoken, arroba also referred to a measure of weight, typically around 11.5 kg (25 lb) although regional variations were common.  In that sense, by the operation of local custom, @ was a (regionally) standardized measure like a pood but unlike the pood, it never spread.

Buffalo

Buffalo (pronounced buhf-uh-loh)

(1) An animal from the subtribe Bubalina, also known as true buffalos, such as the Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, or the water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis.

(2) A related North American animal, the American bison (zoologically incorrect but in use thus since the 1630s).

(3) An ellipsis of buffalo robe.

(4) As the buffalo fish, the Ictiobus spp.

(5) In numismatic slang, a clipping of Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938) and still (rarely) used of nickels.

(6) In numismatic slang, a clipping of “American buffalo” (a gold bullion coin), still used by collectors.

(7) A locality name most prevalent in North America, the Lake Erie port in western New York, the best-known,

(8) A shuffling tap-dance step (associated with the popular song “Shuffle Off to Buffalo”, from the musical film 42^nd Street (1933).

(9) As “buffaloed by”, to be puzzled or baffled; to be confused or mystified.

(10) As “to buffalo”, to impress or intimidate by a display of power, importance etc.

(11) To hunt buffalo (archaic).

(12) To assault (historically, to “pistol-whip”).

1535–1545: An early Americanism (replacing buffel, from the French, noted since the 1510s), from the Spanish or Portuguese búfalo (water buffalo), from the Italian buffalo, from Late Latin būfalus (an alteration of the Classical Latin būbalus (wild ox)), from the Ancient Greek βούβαλος (boúbalos).  The Greek form was originally the name of a kind of African antelope, later used of a type of domesticated ox in southern Asia and the Mediterranean lands.  I’s a word of uncertain origin and the elements may include bous (ox, cow, from the primitive Indo-European root gwou- (ox, bull, cow) but it may be a Greek folk-etymology.  The use of “buffalo” to describe the American bison is a mistake dating from the 1630s and it has endured so long as to become institutionalized.  The other Germanic words (the Dutch buffel, the German Büffel, the Danish böffel etc) are from the French while the Russian buivolu, the Polish bujwoł and the Bulgarian bivol came from the Medieval Latin.  The “Buffalo gnat” was first recorded in 1822 while the term “Buffalo chip” (dung of the American bison used as a fuel) was in use by at least the 1840s.  The origin of the name of the city Buffalo in western New York is disputed, not least because there were never any bison in close proximity to the place.  It may have been based on the name of a native American (ie Red Indian) chief or a corruption of the French beau fleuve (beautiful river).  The use of “buffalo” as a verb meaning “alarm” was documented early in the twentieth century and is probably related to the tendency of the beasts to mass panic.  In many fields, “buffalo” is used as a modifier for many words.  The old synonym buffle is extinct.  Buffalo is a noun & verb, buffaloed & buffaloing are (informal) verbs and buffaloish (non-standard) & buffalo-like are adjectives; the noun plural is buffaloes or buffalos but if used collectively (ie of a herd) buffalo is the usual spelling.  The common collective noun for a group of buffalo is “herd” although “gang” is a recorded US regionalism and some prefer the more evocative “obstinacy”, the label gained by virtue of the beast’s well-documented quality of stubbornness.

Classy Leather’s illustration of the difference in texture between bison and buffalo leather.

The clipping “buff” also tracked a varied path.  Predictably, the word seems first to have been simply a short form of “buffalo” but by the 1560s traders were using it to describe the thick, soft leather obtained from the hides of the creatures which were being slaughtered by the million although then it was almost always spelled “buffe” (ie as “buffe leather”) from the French buffle.  Buff was by the 1780s used generally to describe a “light brownish-yellow” color, based on the hue assume by the buffalo leather in its process form and as early as circa 1600 the old association of “hide” with “skin” led to the phrase “in the buff” (naked), strengthened by buff leather and pale human skin being similar in hue.  Over time, “buff naked" emerged and this morphed into "buck naked," possibly influenced by use of the word “buck” which, in American slang, had been used to refer to male deer, Native Americans, or African-American men in certain contexts. The exact etymological connection is debated, but “buck” here may have been used to evoke an image of primal or raw naturalism.  The evolution continued and by the early nineteenth century there was also “butt naked” obviously more explicit and descriptively accessible to a modern audience, emphasizing the state of stark nudity by referencing the buttocks.  It’s now the most popular of the three slang forms.  All three are unrelated to the use of “buff” to mean “polish a metal to a high gloss”, that based on the original “buffing cloths” being off-cuts of a “buff-coat” (a military overcoat originally made from the hide).  A tool for this purpose is often still called “a buff”.  The noting of “polishing up” by “buffing” was taken up in video gaming (especially role-playing) where it meant “to make a character or an item stronger or more capable”.

Jessica Simpson.

The use of buff to mean “an enthusiast for something with a great knowledge of the topic” (eg Ferrari buff (a very devoted crew); film buff (an obsessive lot who take things very seriously); Lindsay Lohan buff (a calling for some)) was related to the color.  Since the 1820s New York City’s volunteer fire-fighters since had been issued buff-colored protective clothing and their image of daring with more than a whiff of danger in the 1890s attracted a following among young men who cherish ambitions to be firemen some day.  This manifested them rushing to the sites of fires at any time of the day or night, just so they could watch the firemen at work, fighting the fire.  There is something about fire which attracts some and in Australia, where bush firs have always been a feature of the hot, dry seasons, there have been cases of volunteer fire-fighters starting fires, apparently just so they can experience the thrill of extinguishing them; fire being fire, sometimes things end very badly.  As early as 1903 the New York Sun was referring to these enthusiasts (had it been later they might have been called “fire groupies”) as “the buffs” and from this use cam the idea of a “buff” being someone devoted to anything although there’s now more often the implication of “great knowledge of the topic).  In the UK military (mostly in plural) a “Buff” was a member of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment (1572-1961)) and in numismatic slang, a “buff” was a clipping of Buffalo nickel (a copper–nickel five-cent piece struck by the US Mint 1913-1938.).  In UK slang, Buff also meant “a member of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes” (which is sort of like the Freemasons but without the plotting and scheming”).  The finger food “Buffalo wings” made famous by the admirable Jessica Simpson (b 1980) gained the name because they were first served in 1964 at Frank & Teressa's Anchor Bar on Main Street, Buffalo.  Ms Simpson’s confusion about the dish (made with chicken wings) may have been caused by them often appearing on menus as “buffalo wings) with no initial capital.

The BUFF.

In USAF (US Air Force) slang, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-1962 and still in service) is the BUFF (the acronym for Big ugly fat fellow or Big ugly fat fucker depending on who is asking).  From BUFF was derived the companion acronym for the LTV A-7 Corsair II (1965-1984, the last in active service retired in 2014) which was SLUFF (Short Little Ugly Fat Fellow or Short Little Ugly Fat Fucker).  In rail-transport, a “buff” describes the compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition (and is related in that sense to “buffer” which is a physical barrier placed to halt the progress of a train to prevent damage to a structure).  In the slang of the dealers of street drugs, “buff” is any substance used to dilute drugs (by volume) in order to increase profits.  The noun “buffware” is not an IT term (although SysAdmins (system administrators) could probably think of a few products which should be so described); it describes pottery in a buff color. 

Highly qualified porn star Busty Buffy.

A “buffster” is someone who is “buffed” (lean, physically fit) and that use of the word emerged from gym culture during the 1980s, under the influence of buff in the sense of “polish to perfection”.  That influenced also the use of buff to mean “physically attractive; desirable” which began in MLE (Multicultural London English) before spreading to other linguistic tribes; the adverb buffly (in a buff manner; attractively or muscularly) can be used of a buffster (one who is fit and with good muscle definition).  In hospital slang, “to buff” means “to alter a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner”, something which hints there may be something in Evelyn Waugh’s (1903-1966) warning that the greatest risk to one in hospital is “being murdered by the doctors”.  In the slang of graffiti writers (the term “graffiti artist” does now seem accepted by the art market) a “buff” is the act of remove a piece of graffiti by someone other than the creator.  Buffy is an adjective meaning “of or tending to a buff color” (the comparative buffier, the superlative buffiest) but it’s probably now most associated with the pop-culture character “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (which seems to have made it a popular name also for porn stars).  Of the color, “buffish” is the alternative adjective.

The phrase “It’ll buff out” is a joke-line in the collector car market which references attempts to downplay the extent or significance of damage.

In 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster.  It didn’t end well.  Based on the R230 (2001-2011) platform, the SL 65 AMG was produced between 2004-2012, all versions rated in excess of 600 horsepower, something perhaps not a wise choice for someone with no background handling such machinery though it could have been worse, the factory building 350 of the even more powerful SL 65 Black Series, the third occasion an SL was offered without a soft-top and the second time one had been configured with a permanent fixed-roof.

Classy Leather’s “Buffalo Hunter”.

Buffalo leather isn’t suitable for all purposes but it is greatly valued because of the combination of its thickness (compared to cow or goat leather or pig skin) and the unique and different grain patterns.  It’s the thickness which adds to the durability of buffalo leather but despite that it remains soft and flexible, making it an ideal material for premium leather goods such as leather bags, leather accessories, jackets etc.  The Classy Leather operation published an informative guide to buffalo leather and included technical information including what must have be a revelation to some: Although the terms “buffalo” and “bison” tend interchangeably to be used in North America, the leathers are quite distinct and what the industry calls “buffalo leather” usually means leather derived from the Asian Water Buffalo.  Buffalo leather comes from domestic buffalos (almost always Asian Water Buffalo) which mostly are raised for milk or meat; at the end of their productive life, the hides are used to make leather and a variety of processing methods are used, designed to suit the skin structure which has large pores.

1974 Suzuki GT750: The “Water Buffalo”.  The front twin disc setup was added in 1973 and was one of the first of its kind.

The Suzuki GT750 was produced between 1971-1977 and was an interesting example of the breed of large-capacity two-stroke motorcycles which provided much excitement and not a few fatalities but which fell victim to increasingly stringent emissions standards and the remarkable improvement in the performance, reliability and refinement of the multi-cylinder four-stroke machines.  One novelty was the GT750 was water-cooled, at the time rarely seen although that meant it missed out on one of Suzuki’s many imaginative acronyms: the RAC (ram air cooling) used on the smaller capacity models.  RAC was a simple aluminum scoop which sat atop the cylinder head and was designed to optimize air-flow.  It was the water-cooling of the GT750 which attracted nicknames but, a generation before the internet, the English language tended still to evolve with regional variations so in England it was “the Kettle”, in Australia “the Water Bottle” and in North America “the Water Buffalo”.  Foreign markets also went their own way, the French favoring “la bouillotte” (the hot water bottle) and the West Germans “Wasserbüffel” (water buffalo).  Suzuki called those sold in North America the "Le Mans" while RoW (rest of the world) models were simply the "GT750".

Atavism

Atavism (pronounced at-uh-viz-uhm)

(1) In biology (most often in zoology & botany), the reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some (typically) remote ancestor which have not manifested in intervening generations.

(2) An individual embodying such a reversion.

(3) Reversion to an earlier or more primitive type (a “throwback” in the vernacular).

(4) In sociology and political science, the recurrence or reversion to a past behavior, method, characteristic or style after a long period of absence, used especially of a reversion to violence.

1825-1830: The construct was the Latin atav(us) (great-great-great grandfather; remote ancestor, forefather” (the construct being at- (akin to atta (familiar name for a father) and used perhaps to suggest “beyond”)  + avus (grandfather, ancestor) + -ism.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Atavism & atavist are nouns, atavic, atavistic & atavistical are adjectives and atavistically is an adverb; the noun plural is atavisms.

The primitive Indo-European awo meant “adult male relative other than the father”, the most obvious descendent the modern “uncle”.  The English form was influenced by the French atavisme (the coining attributed usually to the botanist Antoine Nicolas Duchesne (1747-1827 Paris) and was first used in biology in the sense of “reversion by influence of heredity to ancestral characteristics, resemblance of a given organism to some remote ancestor, return to an early or original type”.  The adjective atavistic (pertaining to atavism) appeared in 1847, joined three year later by the now rare atavic (pertaining to a remote ancestor, exhibiting atavism).  Atavism (and its related forms) are none of those words which can be used as a neutral descriptor (notably in botany) or to denote something positive or negative.  Although the core meaning is always some “past or ancestral characteristic”, it tends to be pejorative if use of people or human cultures reverting to some “primitive characteristics” (especially if they be war or other forms of violence.  In the vernacular, the earthier “throwback” has been more common than the rather formal “atavistic” although the circumlocution “skip a generation” is often used for traits that occur after a generation of absence and “throwback” anyway became a “loaded” term because of its association with race (in the sense of skin-color).

Medicine has constructed its own jargon associated with the phenomenon in which an inherited condition appears to “skip a generation”: it’s described often as “autosomal recessive inheritance” or “incomplete penetrance”.  While the phrase “skipping a generation” is not uncommon in informal use, the actual mechanisms depend on the genetic inheritance pattern of the condition.  Autosomal Recessive Inheritance is defined as a “condition is caused by mutations in both copies of a specific gene” (one inherited from each parent).  This can manifest as an individual inheriting only one mutated copy (which means they will be a carrier but will remain asymptomatic) but if two carriers have issue, there is (1) a 25% chance the offspring will inherit both mutated copies and express the condition, (2) a 50% chance the offspring will be a carrier and (3) a 25% chance the offspring will inherit no mutations.  Thus, the condition may appear (and for practical purposes does) skip a generation in those cases where no symptoms exist; the classic examples include sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis.  Incomplete Penetrance occurs when an individual inherits a gene mutation which creates in them a genetic predisposition to a condition but symptoms do not develop because of environmental factors, other genetic influences or “mere chance” (and in the matter of diseases like those classified as “cancer”, the influence of what might be called “bad luck” is still probably underestimated, and certainly not yet statistically measured.  In such cases, the mutation may be passed to the next generation, where it might manifest, giving the appearance of skipping a generation and the BRCA1 & BRCA2 mutations for (hereditary) breast cancer are well-known examples.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

In political science, “atavism” is used to refer to a reversion to older, more “primitive” means of furthering political ends.  Although it’s most associated with a critique of violence, political systems, ideologies, behaviors or economic policies have all be described as “atavistic” and their manifestation is linked often with ideas presented as representing (and implicitly offering a return to) a perceived “golden age”, a past structure which is idealized; it appear often as a reaction to change, notably modernity, globalization, or what is claimed to be a “decline in values”.  Political scientists identify stands in nominally non-violent atavism including: (1) Nostalgic Nationalism.  Nationalist movements are almost always race-based (in the sense of longing for a return to a “pure” ethnicity in which a population is “untainted” by ethnic diversity.  It’s usually a romanticization of a nation's past (historically, “purity” was less common than some like to believe) offering the hope of a return to traditional values, cultural practices, or forms of governance.  (2) Tribalism and Identity Politics. A call to primordial loyalties (such as ethnic or tribal identities), over modern, pluralistic, or institutional frameworks has been a feature of recent decades and was the trigger for the wars in the Balkans during the 1990s, the conflict which introduced to the language the euphemism “ethnic cleansing”, a very atavistic concept.  Tribalism and identity politics depends on group identities & allegiance overshadowing any broader civic or national unity on the basis of overturning an artificial (and often imposed) structure and returning to a pre-modern arrangement. (3) Anti-modernism or Anti-globalization. These are political threads which sound “recent” but both have roots which stretch back at least to the nineteenth century and Pius IX’s (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) Syllabus Errorum (Syllabus of Errors, 1864) was one famous list of objections to change.  The strategy behind such atavism may be identifiably constant but tactics can vary and there’s often a surprising degree of overlap in the messaging of populists from the notional right & left which is hardly surprising given that in the last ten years both Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; president elect 2024) and Bernie Sanders (b 1941; senior US senator (Independent, Vermont) since 2007) honed their messaging to appeal to the same disgruntled mass.

Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter (1898-1953, left) & Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950, right).  It was his third marriage.

Austrian political economist Joseph Schumpeter used the word “atavism” in his analysis of the dynamics which contributed to the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918), something he attributed to the old, autocratic regimes of Central and Eastern Europe “dragging the modern, liberal West” back in time.  Schumpeter believed that if commercial ties created interdependence between nations then armed conflict would become unthinkable and US author Thomas Friedman (b 1953) in The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999) suggested the atavistic tendency of man to go to war could be overcome by modern commerce making connectivity between economies so essential to the well-being of citizens that no longer would they permit war because such a thing would be so dangerous for the economy; it was an attractive argument because we have long since ceased to be citizens and are merely economic units.  Friedman’s theory didn’t actually depend on his earlier phrase which suggested: “…countries with McDonalds outlets don’t go to war with each other” but that was how readers treated it.  Technically, it was a bit of a gray area (Friedman treated the earlier US invasion of Panama (1989) as a police action) but the thesis was anyway soon disproved in the Balkans.  Now, Schumpeter and Friedman seem to be cited most often in pieces disproving their theses and atavism remains alive and kicking.

Peanut

Peanut (pronounced pee-nuht)

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

(2) The plant itself.

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

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

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

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

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

(8) Made with or from peanuts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phobias

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

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

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

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

Ingredients

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

Filling Ingredients

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

Filling Instructions

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

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

Whisking the mix.

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Oreo on a rheometer.

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