Sketch

Sketch (pronounced skech)

(1) A simply or hastily executed drawing or painting, especially a preliminary one, giving the essential features without the details, later to be elaborated.

(2) A rough design, plan, or draft, as of a book.

(3) A brief or hasty outline of facts, occurrences etc.

(4) As thumbnail sketch, a piece of text which summaries someone or something.

(5) A short, usually descriptive, essay, history, or story.

(6) A short play or slight dramatic performance, as one forming part of a variety or vaudeville program; a short comedy routine (a skit).

(7) To make a sketch.

(8) To summarize, to set forth in a brief or general account.

(9) In metallurgy, to mark a piece of metal for cutting.

(10) In music, a short evocative instrumental piece, used especially with compositions for the piano.

(11) In the slang of the Irish criminal class, as “to keep (a) sketch), to maintain a lookout; to be vigilant; watch for something.

(12) In journalism, as parliamentary sketch, a newspaper article summarizing political events which attempts to make serious points in a lest than obviously serious manner (mostly UK).

(13) In category theory, a formal specification of a mathematical structure or a data type described in terms of a graph and diagrams (and cones (and cocones)) on it. It can be implemented by means of “models” (functors) which are graph homomorphisms from the formal specification to categories such that the diagrams become commutative, the cones become limiting (ie products) and the cocones become colimiting (ie sums).

1660–1670: From the Dutch schets (noun), from the Italian schizzo, from the Latin schedium (extemporaneous poem), noun use of neuter of schedius (extempore; hastily made), from the Ancient Greek σχέδιος (skhédios) (made suddenly, off-hand, unprepared), from σχεδόν (skhedón) (near, nearby), from ἔχω (ékhō) (I hold).  The German Skizze, the French esquisse & the Spanish esquicio are also from the Italian schizzo.  Sketch,  sketcher, sketchist & sketchiness are nouns, verb & adjective, sketching is a noun & verb, sketched is a verb, sketchlike, sketchy, sketchier, sketchiest & sketchable are adjectives, and sketchily & sketchingly are adverbs; the noun plural is sketches.  When a sketcher (or sketchist) sketches their sketches, they appear often in a sketchbook.

Six photographs of Lindsay Lohan, rendered in software as pencil sketches.

Sketch became a verb in the 1660s in the sense of “present the essential facts of" and was derived from the earlier noun. This idea of a sketch as a “brief account” by 1789 had enlarged to a "short play or performance, usually comic", still maintaining the connection from art as something less than full-scale, the reference to comedy suggesting something slight rather than a serious work.  The sketch-book was first recorded in 1820.  That sense extended beyond text to art and design from 1725 when it came also to mean "draw, portray in outline and partial shading", firstly to describe simple drawings, referring later to preparatory work for more elaborate creations.  The adjective sketchy is noted from 1805, describing art “having the form or character of a sketch".  The colloquial sense of "unsubstantial, imperfect, flimsy" is from 1878, possibly to convey the sense of something "unfinished".  Adumbrate (faint sketch, imperfect representation), actually pre-dates sketch, noted first in the 1550s.  It was from the Latin adumbrationem (nominative adumbratio) (a sketch in shadow, sketch, outline).  The meaning "to overshadow" is from the 1660s at which time emerged the derived forms adumbrated and adumbrating and related forms are adumbration (noun), adumbrative (adjective) and adumbratively (adverb).

Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), illustrated by George Cruikshank (1792–1878).

Charles Dickens' first book, Sketches by “Boz” was a collection of 56 short pieces, originally published in various newspapers and other periodicals between 1833-1836. They were re-issued in a two-volume set in 1836 with a single edition appearing in 1839.  Very different from the work with which Dickens most is associated, the theme of 56 sketches was the people and scenes of London (the built environment best understood also as a “character” in the narratives.  Divided into four sections (Our Parish, Scenes, Characters & Tales), the first three contained non-narrative pen-portraits while the final wholly was fictional.  In Sketches by “Boz”, there are passages which constitute classic “thumbnail sketches” (in literature, concise, vivid descriptions (classically in a single paragraph of no more than a few sentences) that captures the fundamental essence, appearance, or personality of a character, setting or scene).  The term was a borrowing from the visual arts, where a thumbnail sketch was a quickly composed, rough drawing to map out an idea, the notion being it looked “sketchy enough to have been drawn by the artist's thumb”.  In both graphics and text, the shared definition was an entire concept rendered by the depiction of its most recognizable and striking elements with no extraneous detail.

The sketch (a short, often topical comedic performance) quickly became a staple of television variety shows and such productions have (thankfully) declined in number, the format is still used.  In literary theory, there are two basic categories of sketch: (1) a short prose piece (perhaps between one to two thousand words) which tends to be of the descriptive kind once most associated with newspapers and magazines (and still often appearing in the latter).  In newspapers, one notable survivor is the “parliamentary sketch” in which some (often anecdotal) “color” is added to political reporting.  A feature of British political journalism since the 1700s when the reporting of the antics of politicians was more restricted (to avoid the truth being told about the lies they told, that strategy seen still in the laws of defamation in some jurisdictions), many of the early parliamentary sketches used pseudonyms for those described and the art of a fine sketch writer was providing just enough for the well-informed reader to “read between the lines”.  In literary use, because of the nature of the form, stylistically some sketches could overlap with the short story and there's is little point attempting to be prescriptive about where one ends and the other begins; the classic example of a sketch was Charles Dickens's Sketches by "Boz", a series of sketches of life and manners.  (2) A brief dramatic piece of the kind one might find in a revue or as a curtain raiser or as part of some other kind of theatrical entertainment, exemplars being Harold Pinter's (1930-2008) Request Stop, Last to Go & Special Offer, performed in the revue Pieces of Eight, which opened at the Apollo Theatre, London, in September 1959.  For better or worse, ambitious monologists including Ruth Draper (1884-1956) and Joyce Grenville (1910-1979) extended the concept of the sketch into a particular dramatic form described as "a kind of monodrama".  Nor were sketches dependent on oral delivery, the solo mime artist Marcel Marceau (1923-2007) sometimes referring to his performances as un sketch dramatique (a dramatic sketch).

Sketches of Spain

Although not yet regarded as the landmark in jazz it would come to be in the decades which followed its release in 1959, even in 1960 Miles Davis’s (1926-1991) Kind of Blue had already created among some aficionados an expectation; realising it was something special, this was what they hoped would be the definitive Davis style and they were anxious for more.  The next release however, wasn’t indicative of what was to come, Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1960 Cat# Prestige P-7166) was the third of four albums assembled from sessions recorded long before the Kind of Blue sessions and released to fulfil contractual obligations to the independent label Prestige.  Although some purists were pleased, after Kind of Blue, the music seemed old-fashioned.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8163).

Davis had enjoyed considerable success in the 1950s but, needing the distribution and promotional network of a major label to reach a wider audience, he’d signed with Colombia (CBS internationally).  The early Colombia releases had been well received but it was the sixth, Kind of Blue, which made him a star beyond the world of jazz, the album selling in volumes unprecedented in the genre; to date, over four million copies are said to have been shipped.  Davis had been innovative before, his performance at the 1954 Newport Jazz Festival defining what had come to be called “hard bop” (a flavor of jazz influenced by other forms, especially rhythm and blues) but the appeal extended little beyond already established audiences.  What made Kind of Blue so significant was that Davis effectively invented modal jazz which shifted the technique from one where the players worked within a set chord progression to soloists creating melodies using modes which could be deployed alone or in multiples.  Musicians explain the significance of this as a movement to the horizontal (the scale) rather than the traditional vertical (the chord).  In the somewhat insular world of jazz, that would anyway have been interesting but the sound captivated those beyond and was a landmark in what would come to be known as musical fusion, the cross-fertilisation of sound and technique.  Among composers, fusion was nothing new but Kind of Blue realised its implications in a tight, seductive package.

Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8271).

Sketches of Spain too was a fusion but it was different to what had come before and was no attempt to be "Kind of Blue II".  For one thing, the sound was big, recorded in the famously cavernous converted church in Manhattan which for decades was Colombia’s recording studio.  Lined with old timber and with a ceiling which stretched 100 feet (30 m) high, technicians called it the “temple of sound” because of the extraordinary acoustic properties.  The ensemble too was big, a necessity because this time the fusion was with the orchestral, the long opening track an arrangement by Davis and Gil Evans (1912-1988) of the adagio movement of Joaquín Rodrigo’s (1901-1999) guitar concerto, Concierto de Aranjuez  (1939).  Such was the extent of the fusion there were traditionalists who doubted Sketches of Spain could still be called jazz; they saluted the virtuosity but seemed to miss the sometimes arcane complexities in construction inaccessible except to the knowing few.

Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (1970, CBS, Cat# S 66236).

The wider world however was entranced and technical progress needs also to be noted.  Colombia had recorded Davis before in the then still novel stereo but even fans acknowledged the mono pressings remained superior and it wasn’t until 1960, after extensive testing and the refinement of equipment that the technique had been perfected.  Sketches of Spain was lush or austere as the moment demanded, listeners new to stereo especially enchanted at being able to hear the sounds hanging in a three-dimensional space, each instrument a distinct object in time and place.  Nobody asked for mono after that.  Influential as it was, to Davis, Sketches of Spain was just another phase.  Ten years later, noting the increasingly sparse audiences in jazz clubs and aware a new generation had different sensibilities, Davis would fuse with other, more recent traditions and Bitches Brew would cast his shadow over a new decade.  A footnote to the change of direction Bitches Brew flagged came with the release of material from Davis's performance at the Isle of Wight Festival (1970) which included, inter alia, a 17 minute passage substantially from the album.  Noting the discursiveness, producers from Columbia contacted Davis and asked him what the piece should be titled.  "Call it anything" he told them, repeating the answer he'd given to the musicians at the Festival who had asked him what he was about to play.  Liking that, Colombia's literalists included the track Call it Anything when the album The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies (1971) was released.   

Rebarbative

Rebarbative (pronounced ree-bahr-buh-tiv)

(1) Causing annoyance, irritation, or aversion; repellent (usually of people but can be applied to concepts or objects such as unpleasing buildings.

(2) Fearsome; forbidding (obsolete).

(3) An object (typically a fabric or other surface) having a coarse or roughly finish (rare and usually a literally device). 

1885: From the French rébarbative, the feminine form of the fourteenth century rébarbatif (disagreeable; repellent; unattractive), from the Middle French rébarber (to oppose; to stand up to;to be unattractive) from the Old French rebarber (to repel (an enemy), to withstand (him) face to face).  The construct was ré- + barbe (beard) + -atif (-ative).  The re- prefix was from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.

Barbe was from the Latin barba (beard), literally “to stand beard to beard against”.  The French suffix -atif was used in to indicate “of, related to, or associated with the thing specified”.  The English equivalent was -ative, the construct of which was -at(e) + -ive.  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  The –ive suffix was from the Anglo-Norman -if (feminine -ive), from the Latin -ivus.  Until the fourteenth century, all Middle English loanwords from the Anglo-Norman ended in -if (actif, natif, sensitif, pensif etc) and, under the influence of literary Neolatin, both languages introduced the form -ive.  Those forms that have not been replaced were subsequently changed to end in -y (hasty, from hastif, jolly, from jolif etc).  Like the Latin suffix -io (genitive -ionis), the Latin suffix -ivus is appended to the perfect passive participle to form an adjective of action.  Rebarbative is an adjective, rebarbativeness is a noun and rebarbatively is an adverb.

Although now applied almost always to tiresome people, rebarbative has been applied to buildings (modern architecture offering much scope for use), music (many the compositions of the twentieth century and beyond well deserving the critique) and poetry (again, modernism the culprit).  The French rébarbatif (repellent or disagreeable) was from the Middle French rebarber (to oppose), the construct being re- (in the sense of “again”) + barbe (beard) from the Latin barba (the distant relative of the English “beard” & “barber”) and etymologists say the literal meaning was “to stand beard to beard against”, leading etymologists to conclude the origin of the modern sense lay in the “itchy, irritating quality of a beard”, extended to anything or anyone “irritating or annoying”.  As recently as the 1930s it was also used in the literal sense of the tactile sensation engendered a surface “coarse or roughly finished”, applied to the fabric called “drugget”, from the French droguet, from drogue (cheap), of uncertain origin.  Dating from the sixteenth century, drugget was an inexpensive and coarse woolen cloth, used mainly for clothing.

Mutually rebarbative: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021, left) & crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013, right), second presidential debate, 9 October 2016, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri.  Given recent events, crooked Hillary can now start calling him “crooked Donald”.

Since the 1890s rebarbative has applied now to anyone really annoying, repellent or generally disagreeable, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) listing the earliest known instance of the adjective rebarbatively as dating from 1934.  The state of disagreeability being obviously as spectrum, the comparative is “more rebarbative” and the superlative “most rebarbative”.  It’s not as if English lacks words with which to describe someone as “annoying or objectionable” but the charm of rebarbative is its rarity.  The meaning will however be obscure to many so if an immediate impact is important, the more commonly used synonyms include irritating, annoying, frustrating, disturbing, abrasive, exasperating, irksome, maddening, painful, bothersome, pesky, galling, peeving, carking, riling, rankling, chafing, troublesome, infuriating, disquieting, mischievous, burdensome, displeasing, discomforting, biting, troubling, offensive, importunate, distressing, stressful, upsetting, thorny, enraging, angering, worrisome, trying, jarring, grating & jangling; less heard forms include pestilential, pestiferous, vexatious, vexing, nettlesome, nettling, pestilent, plaguey, plaguy, pesty, distractive, brattish, bratty, spiny & importune.  Bridget Jones in Helen Fielding's (b 1958) Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) liked "vile" which is a wonderful word and one which for some reason is a genuine pleasure to say, the meaning emphasized by lengthening the sound.  Vile was from the Middle English vile, vyle & vyl, from the Anglo-Norman ville, from the Old French vil & vile, from Latin vīlis (cheap, inexpensive; base, vile, mean, worthless, cheap, paltry), from the Proto-Italic weslis, from the primitive Indo-European weslis, a deverbal adjective with passive meaning (which can be bought), from the root of venus (sale).  In Latin the comparative was vīlior and the superlative vīlissimus.

Ever the trendsetter, during one of her appearances in court (Los Angeles, July 2010), Lindsay Lohan illustrated a novel means by which rebarbativeness could be expressed: fingernail art.  However, after paparazzi photographs were published, Ms Lohan tweeted the message was not directed at the judge but was done “as a joke”, adding “It had nothing to do w/court… it’s an airbrush design from a stencil.”  Now we know, but it’s still a good technique.

For those who wish to convey a sense of resigned weariness the best choice is probably "tiresome" but a synonym of rebarbative which does sometimes annoy (though not aggravate) the pedants is "aggravate" which in Modern English has three senses: (1) To make worse or more severe; intensify (as anything evil, disorderly, or troublesome), (2) To annoy; to irritate; to exasperate and (3) In law (as aggravated), a class of criminal offence made more serious by certain circumstances which prevailed during its commission (violence, use of a weapon, committed during hours of darkness etc).  Dating from the 1420s, aggravate was from the late Middle English aggravate (make heavy, burden down), from the Latin aggravātus, past participle of aggravāre (to render more troublesome (literally to make heavy or heavier, add to the weight of)), the construct being ad- (to) + gravare (add to; to make heavy), from gravis (heavy), from the primitive Indo-European root gwere- (heavy).  The earlier English verb was the late fourteenth century aggrege (make heavier or more burdensome; make more oppressive; increase, intensify, from the Old French agreger.  Aggravate is a verb, aggravated & aggravative are adjectives, aggravator is a noun and aggravating a verb.

The literal sense in English (make heavier) has been long obsolete, the modern meanings (1) "to make a bad thing worse" dates from the 1590s while (2) the colloquial sense (to exasperate or annoy) is from 1611.  So, although it has for centuries disturbed the usage mavens, the meaning "to annoy or exasperate” has been in continuous use since the sixteenth century.  There are sources which note the later meaning emerged within twenty years of the first but it’s a highly technical point of definition and the original meaning, “to make worse” did have roots in Classical Latin.  Henry Fowler (1858-1933) in his authoritative A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) was emphatic in saying aggravate has properly only one meaning: “to make (an evil) worse or more serious” and that to “use it in the sense of annoy or exasperate is a vulgarism that should be left to the uneducated.”  Henry Fowler was always a model of clarity.  He was also a realist and acknowledged “usage has beaten the grammarians” and that condemnation of the vulgarism had “become a fetish.  The meaning “to annoy” is now so ubiquitous that it should be thought correct; that’s how the democratic, unregulated English language works.  However, for the fastidious, it may be treated in the same way as the split infinitive, something tolerated in casual but not formal discourse and certainly never in writing.

Retard

Retard (pronounced ri-tahrd and ree-tahrd (depending on definition))

(1) To make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process etc); hinder or impede (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(2) To be delayed (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(3) a slowing down, diminution, or hindrance, as in a machine (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(4) A contemptuous term of US origin (as a clipping of “mental retardation”) used to refer to a person who is cognitively impaired (now disparaging & offensive slang) (pronounced ree-tahrd).

(5) A person who is stupid, obtuse, or ineffective in some way (now disparaging & offensive slang) (pronounced ree-tahrd).

(6) In the tuning and maintenance of internal combustion engines, an adjustment made in the setting of the distributor so the spark for ignition in each combustion chamber is generated later in the cycle; the opposite procedure is “to advance” (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(7) In physics, as retarded, designating a parameter of an electromagnetic field which is adjusted to account for the finite speed of radiation (pronounced ri-tahr-did).

1480–1490: From the Old French retarder, from the Latin retardāre (to delay, protract), the construct being re- + tardāre (to loiter, to make slow; to be slow), from tardus (slow, sluggish, late, lingering; dull, stupid, slow-witted) (of unknown origin but one etymologist suggests it may have some relationship to the Etruscan), from which English gained tardy (late to arrive; slow in action).  The re- prefix is from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.

Retard is a noun & verb (used with and without object), retardation is a noun, retarded & retardative are adjectives, retarding is a verb and retardingly an adverb.  The (now proscribed except in historic reference) noun plural was retards; retardings remaining acceptable when used in science and engineering.  Words related in meaning in these later contexts include choke off, crimp, decelerate, hamper, handicap, impede, lessen, arrest, baffle, balk, bog, brake, check, choke, clog, dawdle, decrease, defer, delay & detain.

The general sense of “delayed; delayed in development, hindered; impeded” dates from the seventeenth century and in the nineteenth was absorbed into the early technical language of psychology (having mental retardation; mentally deficient or underdeveloped) as a clipping of “mentally retarded”.  Later it was part of the formalized system of classification of intelligence, a retard defined as having an IQ below 70.  From the jargon of the profession it was picked up in twentieth century US colloquial use to describe (1) those then defined as mentally retarded, (2) those thought stupid and (3) a derogatory term to be applied as wished.  From the 1980s it came to be regarded as offensive, use disapproved of in polite society.

President John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) addressing the thirteenth annual convention luncheon of the National Association for Retarded Children (NARC). Mayflower Hotel, Washington DC, 24 October 1963.

The names used by the NARC are interesting in that it wasn’t until the 1990s that the word “retard” was removed.  The organization was called the National Association for Retarded Children (1953-1973), the National Association for Retarded Citizens (1973-1981) & the Association for Retarded Citizens of the United States (1981-1992) before assuming the name Arc of the United States in 1992.  While hardly illustrative of the euphemism treadmill familiar elsewhere, it does hint at the difficulties changes in the social acceptability of words can cause institutions with a corporate history or identity vested in a brand name.  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), formed in 1909, retained the name even after “colored people” had been declared an unacceptable form and replaced by “people of color”, because the brand NAACP was thought too valuable to alter.  However, acronyms and abbreviations can continue even if divorced from their historic connections.  The oil company British Petroleum, in filings with the various regulatory agencies with which it deals, explained that it now positions itself as “an energy company” and expected to remain trading as BP, even if the day came when it no longer dealt with fossil fuels or petro-chemicals.

Retard is an interesting example of a word in English, the use of which is socially proscribed in one historical context (human intelligence) but still acceptable in other adaptations (engineering & physics).  In this it differs from other words which began as something uncontroversial and perhaps merely descriptive but which, for associative reasons, became “loaded terms” and socially (and even legislatively) proscribed, including, the other “n-word” (negro) which as late as the 1960s was socially respectable but now, even for historic purposes (such as the description of the specific stream of music once called the “negro spiritual” or the “negro league” in baseball) should probably be replaced with an uncontroversial substitute unless use is deemed essential by virtue of the context of use.  The conventions of use may yet evolve to the point reached with the original n-word word whereby it can in certain circumstances be acceptable for it to appear in print but which may never be spoken (unless by (at least some) persons of color).       

In less globalized times, the loading could be geographically (and thus circumstantially) specific; as late as the early 1980s, the television network in Australia which held the broadcast rights to international cricket could include in their televised promotions for a series involving teams from the West Indies, Pakistan & Australia a jingle with the phrase “the Windies, the Pakis, the Aussies”.  Although all three were ostensibly affectionate diminutives of the country names and thus neutral, linguistic equivalents, “Paki” in the United Kingdom had by the 1960s come to be regarded as an offensive, ethnic slur referencing either (1) an actual Pakistani, (2) a person of Pakistani descent, (3) anyone whose origins were perceived to be South Asian or even (4) any person of color (Africans, Arabs etc).  Actually, structural linguistic equivalency is never of necessity any sort of guide to what a word has come to denote, “Chinaman” thought pejorative while “Englishman” is not.

Definitely not a word for the twenty-first century unless one is a mechanic.  

Paki acquired the offensive connotations in the 1960s from a pattern of use in the UK, reinforced by the Fleet Street (and regional) tabloids which used the word to refer to subjects of former colonies, with no attempt to disguise that it was being done in a derogatory and racist manner.  Use persists in certain sections of the community although the popular press has been forced to adopt an uncharacteristic subtlety when making their point about people of color.  Interestingly, like some other disparaging slurs (n-word, slut), there has been noted a trend of reclamation, an adoption by second and third-generation youth of Pakistani extraction to claim exclusive use of the term, excluding all outsiders, even Indians, Bangladeshis and others at whom it was originally and offensively directed.

No such phenomenon appears to have happened with “retard”, presumably because it was not a word which (in the context of human intelligence or behavior) never had any history of enjoying a neutrality of meaning, either by definition or inference always being in the negative.  Despite that, when the medical profession introduced retard, retarded & retardation to their system of classifications, genuinely it was an attempt to de-stigmatize those once labeled idiots, imbeciles & morons, the early twentieth century classifications being:

Idiots: Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that or a normal child of about two years.

Imbeciles: Those whose development is higher than that of an idiot, but whose intelligence does not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years.

Morons: Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years.

Retard was used in relation to developmental delay in 1895 and was introduced as an alternative to idiot, moron, and imbecile because at the time it wasn’t derogatory, being a familiar technical term from engineering and mathematics but the associative connection meant that it soon became an frequently heard insult.  Indeed, following the example of the n-word, there is in the United States much lobbying by interested groups socially to construct retard as “the r-word” and render its use just as unacceptable.

US legislation in 2010 required the terms "mental retardation" and" mentally retarded" be removed from federal records and replaced with "intellectual disability" and "individual with an intellectual disability", a change reflected in the publication in 2013 of the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).  The US National Institutes of Health, which took several years to scrub “retarded” and related terms from their archival material, recommend “intellectually and developmentally disabled”, the acronym IDD being one which rolls not easily from the tongue and is therefore less susceptible to entering the vernacular as an insult.  Other organizations focused on specific conditions have also made suggestions but constructions such as “differently-abled” do seem likely to attract derision and be applied as insults, as happened with “special”.

Ignition timing: Advancing and retarding the ignition

Intake, compression, power, exhaust: the four-stroke cycle.

In a four-stroke, internal combustion engine, the ignition timing is measured in degrees of a crankshaft rotation before top dead centre (BTDC).  To ensure the power stroke is at this point achieved, the spark plugs need to fire at the right time and this is achieved by advancing or retarding the timing of the engine.  Advancing the timing means the spark plugs fire earlier in the compression stroke, further from the TDC, meaning the fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber doesn’t burn immediately.  The primary advantage in advancing the timing of ignition is an increase in top-end horsepower at the expense of some low end response.  Retarding the ignition causes the spark plug to fire later in the compression stroke which can reduce engine detonation, which is combustion inside the cylinders after the spark plug fires, commonly referred to as “engine knocking”.  In the early days of emission control systems, retardation was usually part of the process.  In the special (although now quite common) case of engines which use forced aspiration (by turbocharging or supercharging), retarding can be beneficial because it adjusts for the increased pressure, compensating for the denser fuel/air mixtures.

Consecrate

Consecrate (pronounced kon-si-kreyt)

(1) To make or declare sacred; set apart or dedicate to the service of a deity (most often in the context of a new church building or land).

(2) To make something an object of honor or veneration; to hallow.

(3) To devote or dedicate to some purpose (usually in the form “a life consecrated to something”) usually with some hint of solemnly.

(4) In religious ritualism, to admit or ordain to a sacred office, especially (in the Roman Catholic Church) to the episcopate.

(5) In Christianity to sanctify bread and wine for the Eucharist to be received as the body and blood of Christ.

1325–1375: From the Middle English consecraten (make or declare sacred by certain ceremonies or rites), from the Latin & cōnsecrātus & cōnsecrāre (to make holy, devote), perfect passive participle of cōnsecrō, the construct being con- (from the Latin prefix con-, from cum (with); used with certain words (1) to add a notion similar to those conveyed by with, together, or joint or (2) to intensify their meaning) +‎ sacrāre (to devote) (from sacrō (to make sacred, consecrate”), from sacer (sacred; holy).  The most frequently used synonyms are sanctify & venerate (behallow is now rare); the antonyms are desecrate & defile.  The original fourteenth century meaning was exclusively ecclesiastical, the secular adoption in the sense of "to devote or dedicate from profound feeling" is from the 1550s.  The verb was the original for, the noun consecration developing within the first decade of use; it was from the Latin consecracioun (the act of separating from a common to a sacred use, ritual dedication to God) and was used especially of the ritual consecration of the bread and wine of the Eucharist (from the Latin consecrationem (nominative consecratio)), a noun of action from past-participle stem of consecrare.  In the Old English, eallhalgung was a loan-translation of the Latin consecratio.  Consecrate is a verb & adjective, consecration, consecratee, consecratedness & consecrater (also as consecrator) are nouns, consecrates, consecrated & consecrating are verbs and consecratory & consecrative are adjectives; the most common noun plural is consecrations.

The common antonym was desecrate (divest of sacred character, treat with sacrilege), dating from the 1670s, the construct being de- + the stem of consecrate.  The de- prefix was from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from (the Old English æf- was a similar prefix).  It imparted the sense of (1) reversal, undoing, removing, (2) intensification and (3) from, off.  In the Old French dessacrer meant “to profane” and a similar formation exists in Italian.  However, the Latin desecrare meant “to make holy” (the de- in this case having a completive sense).  In Christianity, to deconsecrate is not a desecration but an act of ecclesiastical administration in which something like a church or chapel ceases to be used for religious purposes and is able to be sold or otherwise used.  It means that in Christianity the notion of “sacred sites” is not of necessity permanent, unlike some faiths.  The alternative unconsecrated seems now obsolete but was once used as a synonym of deconsecrated (and also in clerical slang to refer to laicization (defrocking)).  The un- prefix was from the Middle English un-, from the Old English un-, from the Proto-West Germanic un-, from the Proto-Germanic un-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥-.  It was cognate with the Scots un- & on-, the North Frisian ün-, the Saterland Frisian uun-, the West Frisian ûn- &  on-, the Dutch on-, the Low German un- & on-, the German un-, the Danish u-, the Swedish o-, the Norwegian u- and the Icelandic ó-.  It was (distantly) related to the Latin in- and the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), source of the English a-, the Modern Greek α- (a-) and the Sanskrit अ- (a-).

The word "consecrate" is of interest to etymologists because of the history.  By the early fifth century, Rome was forced to recall the legions from Britain because the heart of the empire was threatened by barbarian invasion.  This presented an opportunity and not long after the soldiers withdrew, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes landed on the shores of the British Isles, beginning the Germanic invasion which would come to characterize Britain in the early Middle Ages.  As the invaders forced the native Celts to escape to Wales, Ireland and the northern districts of Scotland, the Celtic language and indeed the last residues of Latin almost vanished; in a remarkably short time, the culture and language in most of what is now England was almost exclusively Germanic.  It was the arrival of Christianity in the sixth century which caused Latin to return; with the faith came nuns & priests and the schools & monasteries they established became centres of literacy and stores of texts, almost all in Latin.  For a number of reasons, the Germanic tribes which by then had been resident for five generations, found Christianity and the nature of the Roman Church attractive and readily adopted this new culture.  At this time words like temple, altar, creed, alms, monk, martyr, disciple, novice, candle, prophet and consecrate all came into use and it was the mix of Latin & the Germanic which formed the basis of The Old English, a structure which would last until the Norman (as in "the Northmen") invasion under William the Conqueror (circa 1028-1087; King William I of England 1066-1087) in 1066 at which point Norman-French began to infuse the language.

Bartholomew I (Dimitrios Arhondonis (b 1940); Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople since 1991) consecrating his Patriarchal Exarch in Ukraine to the episcopate, Istanbul, November 2020.

Additionally, just as buildings, land and other objects can be consecrated and deconsecrated, they can subsequently be reconsecrated (to consecrate anew or again), a verb dating from the 1610s.  In the wars of religion in Europe and places east, when buildings often swapped in use between faiths as the tides of war shifted, this lead even to theological debate, some arguing that when a church was re-claimed, there was no need to perform a reconsecration because there had been no valid act of deconsecration while other though “a cleansing reconsecration” was advisable.  The re- prefix was from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.  The Latin prefix rĕ- was from the Proto-Italic wre (again) and had a parallel in the Umbrian re- but the etymology was always murky.   In use, there was usually at least the hint of the sense "back" or "backwards" but so widely was in used in Classical Latin and beyond that the exact meaning is sometimes not clear.  Etymologists suggest the origin lies either in (1) a metathesis (the transposition of sounds or letters in a word) of the primitive Indo-European wert- (to turn) or (2) the primitive Indo-European ure- (back), which was related to the Proto-Slavic rakъ (in the sense of “looking backwards”).

Rose Aymer (1806) by Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

Ah what avails the sceptred race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.

Rose Aylmer is Landor’s best remembered poem, one he dedicated to Rose Whitworth Aylmer (1779-1800), daughter Lord Aylmer and his wife Catherine Whitworth.  Rose sailed to India with an aunt in 1798, dying from cholera within two years. The poem is epigrammatic, written in tetrameters and trimeter iambics with rhyming alternate lines.  It’s a lament for the loss of a divine creature for Rose was imbued with every virtue and grace, the last two lines verse alluding to memories of their night of passion he so vividly recalls, consecrating its memory to her.

Consecration and the Church

Consecrated ground: A church graveyard.

Movie makers sometimes dig into religious themes for plot-pieces or props and one which has been used by those working usually in the horror or supernatural genres is the idea “the dead can’t arise from unconsecrated soil”, one implication being the soul of the deceased cannot ascend to heaven and are compelled for eternity to lie cold and lonely (in horror films there are also other consequences).  However, there’s no basis for this in Christian theology and noting in Scripture which could be interpreted thus but the consecration of burial grounds and the burial of the deceased in consecrated earth seems to have a long tradition in Christianity.  The idea though clearly bothered some and there’s a record of a fifteenth century German bishop assuring seafarers that Seebestattung (burial at sea) is proper, the ceremony alone a sufficient act of consecration.  So, in the Christian tradition, consecrated ground for a burial seems “desirable but not essential”, one’s salvation depending on faith in Jesus Christ and God's grace, not where one’s early remains are deposited.

There were though some other restrictions and in many places the Church did not permit those who had died by their own hand to be laid to rest within the consecrated boundaries of a cemetery; those sinners were buried just outside in unconsecrated ground.  The tradition seems mostly to have been maintained by the Jews and Roman Catholics although it was not unknown among the more austere of other denominations, evidence still extant in the United States.  After the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965), rules in the Catholic Church were relaxed and the burial in consecrated ground of those who had committed suicide became a matter for the parish priest, a referral to the bishop no longer demanded.  The attitude within Judaism doubtlessly varies according to the extent to which each sect conforms to orthodoxy but generally there has probably been some liberalization, even those with tattoos now able to have a plot among the un-inked, the old prohibition based on the prohibition of one of the many abominations listed by Leviticus (Vayikra) in Chapter 19 of the Old Testament (the Torah or Pentateuch): You shall not make cuts in your flesh for a person [who died].  You shall not etch a tattoo on yourselves. I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:28).

The Vatican, the USAVC and Legal Fictions

The United States Association of Consecrated Virgins (USACV) is a voluntary association of consecrated virgins living in the world, the purpose of which is said to be “to provide support members in the faithful living out of their vocation to consecrated virginity” and “…to assist one another in service to the Church as befits their state” (Canon 604, Code of Canon Law).

In 2018, a document from the Vatican discussing the role of consecrated virginity drew criticism from some in the USACV which alleged there was a passage in the text which seemed ambiguous.  The issue was whether entering the Church's "order of virgins" requires women genuinely are virgins (in the accepted sense of the word).  Issued on 4 July, by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago (ESI; The image of the Church as Bride) contained a passage the critics claimed was "intentionally convoluted and confusing" and appeared to suggest “…physical virginity may no longer be considered an essential prerequisite for consecration to a life of virginity.”  The dissenting statement called this implication "shocking", pointing out there “are some egregious violations of chastity that, even if not strictly violating virginity, would disqualify a woman from receiving the consecration of virgins”, adding “The entire tradition of the Church has firmly upheld that a woman must have received the gift of virginity – that is, both material and formal (physical and spiritual) – in order to receive the consecration of virgins.”

The USAVC did seem to have a point, the ESI instructing that “it should be kept in mind that the call to give witness to the Church's virginal, spousal and fruitful love for Christ is not reducible to the symbol of physical integrity. Thus to have kept her body in perfect continence or to have practiced the virtue of chastity in an exemplary way, while of great importance with regard to the discernment, are not essential prerequisites in the absence of which admittance to consecration is not possible.  The discernment therefore requires good judgment and insight, and it must be carried out individually. Each aspirant and candidate is called to examine her own vocation with regard to her own personal history, in honesty and authenticity before God, and with the help of spiritual accompaniment.”

In the spirit of Vatican II, US-based canon lawyers responded, one (herself a consecrated virgin of the Archdiocese of New York) issuing a statement saying, inter alia: “I don't see this as saying non-virgins can be virgins. I see this as saying in cases where there is a real question, it errs on the side of walking with women in individual cases for further discernment, as opposed to having a hard-dividing line to exclude women from this vocation.  The presumption of the document is that these are virgins who are doing this [consecration].  An important thing to do though is to read the questionable paragraph in context with the rest of the document.  The instruction talks a lot about the value of virginity, Christian virginity, the spirituality of virginity.  The nature of this kind of document as an instruction doesn't change the law that it's intended to explain.  The rite of consecration itself is the law, while the instruction is meant as "an elaboration for certain disputed points; it's just giving you further guidance in places where existing law is vague.”

For those not sure if this helped, she went on, verging close to descending to specifics, saying the ESI was offering a “more generous description” of the prerequisite of virginity in “allowing for people in difficult situations to continue some serious discernment”, adding that what ESI appeared to do was cover those “difficult cases” in which a woman cannot answer whether she is a virgin according to a strict standard; those instances where women might have lost their virginity without willing it or against their will, or out of ignorance. Women might thus have “committed grave sins against chastity but not actually lost their virginity in their minds”.  Such a concept has long been a part of criminal law in common law jurisdictions and the Latin phrase actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea (the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty and usually clipped to “mens rea” (guilty mind)) and is the basic test for personal liability.

Had the Vatican been prepared to descend to specifics it might have avoided creating the confusion and the president of the USAVC, while noting the potentially ambiguous words, stated where “…a woman has been violated against her will and has not knowingly and willingly given up her virginity, most would hold that she would remain eligible for consecration as a virgin. Such a case would require depth of good judgment and insight carried out in individual discernment with the bishop.”  That seemed uncontroversial but the president continued: “In our society, questions of eligibility for the consecration of virgins are raised by those who have given up their virginity, perhaps only one time, and who have later begun again to live an exemplary chaste life.”  What the ESI should have made explicit, she said, was that “…these women do not have the gift of virginity to offer to Christ.  They may make a private vow of chastity, or enter another form of consecrated life, but the consecration of virgins is not open to them.”  Clearly, in the view of the USAVC, the ESI does not change the prerequisites for consecration into the USAVC.  One who is a victim of a violation has surrendered nothing whereas one who willingly succumbed cannot retrospectively re-assume virginity, however sincere the regret or pure their life since.

Pope Innocent VIII wearing the papal triple tiara.

So, according to the Vatican, the state of virginity can, in certain circumstances, be a “legal fiction”, another notion from the common law which allows certain things to be treated by the law as if they were fact however obvious it may be they are not.  That sounds dubious but legal fictions are an essential element in making the legal system work and are not controversial because they have always been well publicized (in a way which would now be called “transparent”) and if analysed, it’s obvious the alternatives would be worse.  Rome actually had “a bit of previous” in such matters.  For example, during the Renaissance, although the rules about the conduct and character of those eligible to become pope were well documented (and had once been enforced), there was Innocent VIII (1432–1492; pope 1484-1492) who, before drifting into an ecclesiastical career, had enjoyed a dissolute youth (something no less common then as now), fathering at least six or seven illegitimate children, one son and one daughter actually acknowledged.  Despite it all, he was created a cardinal and for reasons peculiar to the time proved acceptable as pope while all others did not, not because their pasts were more tainted still but because of curia politics; plus ça change…  After the vote, all the cardinals added their signatures to the document warranting Innocent VIII was of fine character.  Scandalous as it sounds, there were Renaissance popes who were plenty worse; the Vatican in those decades needed plenty of legal fictions.

Witches are also consecrated (by the coven).  Although now most associated with ecclesiastical ceremony & procedure, secular use in the sense of “to devote or dedicate (to something) from profound feeling" has existed since the mid-sixteenth century.  Just for the record, Lindsay Lohan has not been, and has no desire to be consecrated a witch.