Liberal

Liberal (pronounced lib-ruhl (U) or lib-er-uhl (non U))

(1) Favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs (and in this context a synonym of progressive and antonyms of reactionary.

(2) Noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform (used often with an initial capital letter, something in some cases perhaps influenced by the existence of political parties with the name (where the initial capital is correct)).

(3) Of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.

(4) Favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties (now better described as libertarian now the definitions of “liberal” are so fluid).

(5) As “liberal education”, of or relating to an education that aims to develop general cultural interests and intellectual ability (as distinct from specific vocational training).

(6) Favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression.

(7) Of or relating to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.

(8) Free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant, unprejudiced, broad-minded

(9) Open-minded, free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values etc.

(10) Characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts; unstinting, munificent, openhanded, charitable, beneficent; lavish.

(11) Given or supplied freely or abundantly; generous.

(12) Abundant in quantity; lavish.

(13) Not strict or rigorous; not literal (often of translations, interpretations etc).

(14) Of, relating to, or based on the liberal arts.

(15) Of, relating to, or befitting a freeman (now rare).

(16) A person of liberal principles or views, especially in politics or religion.

(17) A member of a “liberal” party in politics (if applied to a part actually named “Liberal”, in some contexts an initial capital should be used).

(18) Unrestrained, licentious (obsolete although the sense seems still to be understood by the Fox News audience).

1350–1400: From the Middle English, from the twelfth century Old French liberal (befitting free people; noble, generous; willing, zealous), from the Latin līberālis (literally “of freedom, pertaining to or befitting a free person” and used also in the sense of “honorable”), the construct being līber (variously “frank, free, open unrestricted, unimpeded; unbridled, unchecked, licentious”) + -ālis.  The –alis suffix was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –āris and there may be some relationship with hel- (to grow); -ālis (neuter -āle) was the third-declension two-termination suffix and was suffixed to (1) nouns or numerals creating adjectives of relationship and (2) adjectives creating adjectives with an intensified meaning.  The suffix -ālis was added (usually, but not exclusively) to a noun or numeral to form an adjective of relationship to that noun. When suffixed to an existing adjective, the effect was to intensify the adjectival meaning, and often to narrow the semantic field.  If the root word ends in -l or -lis, -āris is generally used instead although because of parallel or subsequent evolutions, both have sometimes been applied (eg līneālis & līneāris).  The noun came into use early in the nineteenth century.  The antonym in the sense of “permitting liberty” is “authoritarian” while in the sense of “open to new ideas and change”, it’s “conservative”.  Liberal is a noun & adjective, liberalism, liberalizer, liberalization, liberalist & liberality are nouns, liberalize is a verb and liberally is an adverb; the noun plural is liberals.

The mid-fourteenth century adjective meant “generous” (in the sense of “quantity”) and within decades this has extended to “nobly born, noble, free” and from the late 1300s: “selfless, magnanimous, admirable” although, as a precursor of what would come, by early in the fifteenth century it was used with bad connotations, demoting someone “extravagant, undisciplined or unrestrained”; Someone something of a libertine (in the modern sense) therefore and it was in this sense Don Pedro in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) Much Ado About Nothing (1599) spoke of the lustful villain in Act 4, Scene 1:

Why, then are you no maiden, Leonato,
I am sorry you must hear. Upon mine honor,
Myself, my brother, and this grievèd count
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window
Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
Confessed the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

The evolution in use continued and while in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries “liberal” was used as a term of reproach suggesting “lack of restraint in speech or action”, with the coming of the Enlightenment there was a revival of the positive sense, the word now used also to mean “free from prejudice, tolerant, not bigoted or narrow” and that seems to have emerged in the late 1770s although by the nineteenth century, use often was theological rather than political, a “liberal” church (Unitarians, Universalists et al) one not so bound the rigidities in doctrine & ritual as those said to be “orthodox” (not to be confused with the actual Orthodox Church).  It was also in the nineteenth century that in England the phrase “liberal education” became widely used although what to claimed to described had a tradition in pedagogy dating from Antiquity although the it path to modernity was hardly uninterrupted, various forms of barbarism intervening and in this context it probably is accurate to speak of some periods of the Medieval era as “the Dark Ages”.  There was never anything close to a standard or universal curriculum but theme understood in the nineteenth century was it was the only fitting education for what used to be called “a gentlemen” (a term related in sense development to the Classical Latin liber (a free man)) and contrasted with technical, specialist or vocational training.  Historically, the “liberal arts” inherited from the late Middle Ages were divided into the trivium (grammar, logic & rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music & astronomy).

Much associated with the worst of America’s “corrupting coasts” (New York City & Hollywood), Lindsay Lohan is a classic liberal.

The now familiar use in politics began in the first decade of the nineteenth century, one of the many ripples from the French Revolution (1789) when it was used to suggest a tendency to “favor freedom and democracy” over the long dominant hierarchical systems which characterized feudal European society.  In English, the label was initially applied by opponents to whichever party or politicians championed individual political freedoms and it seems the word often was spoken with a French accent, the implications being that such notions were associated with chaos and ruin; the revolution of 1789 had shocked and frightened the ruling establishment(s) just about everywhere.  However, there seems to have been a fork in the sense development in the US which came from a tradition which of course viewed more approvingly revolutions which swept away tyranny and there, certainly by the 1820s, “liberal” was already being used to mean “favorable to government action to effect social change” and some historians have linked this to the religious sense of “free from prejudice in favor of traditional opinions and established institutions” (and thus open to new ideas and plans of reform); this theme has continued to this day.  From the very foundations of the first colonial settlements, in what became the US there has always been a tension between the lure of freedom & democracy and that of religious purity, the notion what was being created was a society ordained by God.

In politics the usual brute-force distinction is of course between “liberals” and “conservatives” and while the nuances and exceptions are legion, it does remain the core template by which politics is reported and it applies to institutions as varied as the Roman curia, the Israeli cabinet, the Church of England and presidential elections in the Islamic republic or Iran; while not entirely accurate, it remains useful.  What is less useful is the noun “liberalism” which in the nineteenth century did have a (more or less) accepted definition but which since has become so contested as to now be one of those words which means what people want it to me in any given time and place.  That the title of the “true inheritor” of liberalism has been claimed groups as diverse as certain neo-Marxists and the now defunct faction of the US Republican Party which used to be called the “Rockefeller Republicans” illustrates the problem.  Also suffering from meaning shifts so severe as to render it a phrase best left to professional historians is “neo-liberal”, first used in 1958 as a reference to French politics and theology but re-purposed late in the twentieth century to describe a doctrine which was a synthesis of laissez-faire economics, deregulation and the withdrawal of the state from anything not essential to national security, law & order and economic efficiency.  Some critics of latter day neo-liberalism call it "an attempt to repeal the twentieth century" which captures the spirit of the debate.

1972 Chrysler Valiant Charger R/T E49 (left) and 1974 Ford Falcon XB GT Hardtop (right), 1974 RE-PO 500K endurance race, Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia, November 1974.

The fifth round of the 1974 Australian Manufacturers' Championship, the 1974 RE-PO 500K event was run under Group C (Touring Cars) regulations over 106 laps (501 km (311 miles)) and one quirky thing about the race was it being a footnote in Australian political history, both the E49 Charger of Lawrie Nelson (b 1943) and the Falcon GT of Murray Carter (b 1931) carrying “Liberal” signage as part of a paid sponsorship deal arranged by the Liberal Party of Australia.  Carter finished second (like the Liberal Party in that year's federal election (ie, they lost), although then party leader, Sir  Billy Snedden (1926–1987), provided one of the more memorable post election statements when he claimed "We didn't lose, we just didn't win enough votes to win." and he'd today be most remembered for that had it not be for the circumstances of his death which passed into legend.  Carter would later reveal that despite his solid result, the Liberal Party never paid up, the sponsorship deal apparently what later Liberal Party leader John Howard (b 1939; prime minister of Australia 1996-2007) might have called a "non-core promise".  

Death of former Australian Liberal Party leader Sir Billy Snedden.

The Liberal Party was in 1944 founded by Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; prime-minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) as essentially an “anti-Labor Party” aggregation of various groups and he emphasized at the time and often subsequently that he wanted his creation truly to be a “liberal” and not a “conservative” party; it was to be a “broad church” in which some diversity of opinion was not merely tolerated but encouraged.  Mostly he stuck to that although some would note as the years passed, perhaps he became a little less tolerant.  By 2024, the Liberal Party of Australia has fallen under the control of right-wing fanatics, religious fundamentalists & soft drink salesmen and it doubtful someone like Sir Robert would now want to join the party, even if they’d have him.  The current party leader is Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) and interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

The arrival of political parties called “Liberal Party” & “Conservative Party” (often with modifiers (Liberal Democrats, Liberal Movement etc) created the need for labels which distinguish between the “liberal” and “conservative” factions within each: while all members of a Liberal Party are “big L Liberals” some will be “small c conservatives” and some “small l liberals” which sounds a clumsy was of putting things but it’s well-understood.  Some though noted there were sometimes more similarities than differences, the US writer Ambrose Bierce (1842-circa 1914) in an entry in his Devil's Dictionary (1911) recording: "Conservative (noun), a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."  These days it he might be called a cynical structuralist.  Bierce, a US Civil War (1861-1865) veteran, never lost his sense of adventure and, aged 71, vanished without a trace in one of the great mysteries in American literary history.  The consensus was he probably was shot dead in Mexico and in one of his last letters there’s a hint he regarded such as fat as just an occupational hazard: “Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life.  It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!”

So, “liberal” being somewhat contested, while the comparative was “more liberal” and the superlative “most liberal”, modified forms appeared including anti-liberal, half-liberal, non-liberal, over-liberal, pre-liberal, pseudo-liberal, quasi-liberal, semi-liberal, uber-liberal, ultra-liberal, arch-liberal, classical-liberal, neoclassical-liberal and, of course, liberal-liberal & conservative-liberal.  In modern use there have been linguistic innovations including latte-liberal (the sort of “middle class” liberal who, stereotypically, orders complicated forms of coffee at the cafés & coffee shops in up-market suburbs, the term very much in the vein of “Bollinger Bolshevik” or “champagne socialist”.  A latte liberal is a variation of the earlier wishy-washy liberal (someone who will express fashionable, liberal views but will not deign to lift a finger to further their cause) with the additional implication they are of the middle class and committed only to the point of "virtue signaling".  The portmanteau word milliberal (the construct being mill(ennial) +‎ (li)beral is a liberal of the millennial generation (those born between 1981-1986).  The term boba-liberal comes from internet-based (notably X, formerly known as Twitter) political discourse (mostly in the US it seems) and is a slur describing a liberal-leaning Asian American with politics or attitudes considered too tepid or whitewashed by other Asian Americans, stereotyped as focusing on superficial gestures over more meaningful actions especially in regards to Asian American activism.  Those who comment on stories on Fox News have also contributed to the lexicon, the portmanteau libtard (the construct being lib(eral) + (re)tard) and the meaning self explanatory, as it is for NazLib, the construct being Naz(i) + Lib(eral).  So, especially in the US, “liberal” is a word which must be handled with care, to some a mere descriptor, to some a compliment and to others an insult.  While there are markers which may indicate which approach to adopt (is one's interlocutor carrying a gun, driving a large pick-up truck, listening to country & western music etc), none are wholly reliable and probably the best way is to work into the conversation a “litmus paper” phrase like “liberal gun laws”.  From the reaction, one's path will be clear.

But although there are some for who it seems a calling, being a liberal is not in the DNA and there have been some who became conservative, just as there are conservatives who converted to liberalism.  Indeed, were the views of many to be assessed, it’d like be found they are various to some degree liberal on some issues and conservative on others, a phenomenon political scientists call “cross-cutting cleavages”.  Political journeys are common and may be endemic to one’s aging (and certainly financial) path, there being many youthful anarchists, socialists and nihilists who have ended up around the boardroom table, very interested in preserving the existing system.  The path from liberalism can also be a thing of blatant opportunism.  It is no criticism of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) that he re-invented himself as an anti-liberal because that was the way to become POTUS (president of the United States), despite for decades his stated positions on many social issues revealing his liberal instincts.  It’s just the way politics is done.  It’s also the way business is done and it was unfortunate Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) elected to settle in the matter of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News to ensure no more of Fox’s internal documents entered the public domain.  Those which did appear were interesting in that far from Fox’s anti-liberal stance being Mr Murdoch’s ideological crusade, it was more the path to profit and were Fox’s audience to transform into something liberal, there would go Fox News.

Once was liberal: Candace Owens Farmer (née Owens and usually styled “Candace Owens”; b 1989) with "Candace Coffee Mug", one item in a range of Candace merchandise.

Because race remains the central fault-line in US politics, political cartoonists and commentators have never been prepared to have as much fun with the black conservatives as they enjoyed with “gay Republicans”, the latter a breed thought close to non-existent as last as the 1990s.  Black conservatism is to some extent aligned with black Christian religiosity but it’s a creature also of that under-reported demographic, the successful, black middle class, a diverse group but one which appears to have much in common with the priorities of their white counterparts.  In that sense Candace Owens is not wholly typical but she is much more entertaining and here early political consciousness was as a self-declared (though apparently retrospectively) liberal before moving to a nominally conservative stance although whether this was an ideological shift or a pursuit of clicks on the internet (on the model Mr Murdoch values to maximize revenue from Fox News) isn’t clear.  What is clear is Ms Owens knows about the Freemasons, her research into the cult beginning apparently when she “freaked out” after learning Buzz Aldrin (b 1930; who in 1969 was the second man to set foot on the Moon) is a confessed Freemason.  On 30 September, 2024, she discussed the Freemasons on her YouTube channel:

What is Freemasonry?  OK, so during the late Middle Ages, the world was united under the holy Roman Catholic church.  OK?  So if you had any opposition to the church throughout Europe, you were forced to go underground.  Right?  We were a Christian society.  And among the only organized groups that were able to move freely throughout Europe were these guilds of stonemasons, and they would then be, therefore, because they could move freely, hence, Freemasons.  They were able to maintain the meeting halls or lodges in virtually every major city, and the Masons were, essentially, very talented at architecture, and they had a bunch of secret knowledge — sometimes secret knowledge of architecture and of other topics.  And that knowledge was dated back to the times of Egypt. Right?  And it was essential maintaining this knowledge in the construction of European churches and cathedrals.

So one of the things that is well known is that Freemasons were in opposition to the church.  Right? They wanted to crush the church, which is why it is not ironic that the person who founded the Mormon church, as just one example — many of the churches, the very many Protestant faiths that we have — was Joseph Smith and he was a Freemason.  That's a fact, just as one example. Now, you may know some people that are Freemasons and you're going, well, I know this person and he goes to a lodge and he's completely harmless.  Yes. It is a known thing that 97 — like, something like 97% of Freemasons are not in the top tier degree of Freemasonry.  And it is understood that at the top tier degree of Freemasonry, you essentially become one of the makers of the world.

So I'm — just for those of you guys who've never even heard of that, and like I said, I would have been among you. I'm very new to relearning American history through the lens of Freemasonry. Some known Freemasons — George Washington was a Freemason, Thomas Jefferson was a Freemason, Benjamin Franklin was a Freemason, Buzz Aldrin was a Freemason — don't get me started. For those of you that have been listening to this podcast for a long time, you already know where I'm at — or where I'm at when it comes to NASA and the weird satanic chants that they were doing to establish the Apollo program and all the weird stuff that happened leading up to the moon landing. So I freaked out when I learned Buzz Aldrin was a Freemason.  It's not helping my case in believing those moon landings, I'll tell you that for free.  Franklin Roosevelt was another Freemason.

Autographed publicity photo of Buzz Aldrin issued by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) prior to the Apollo 11 Moon mission (16-24 July 1969).

Whether Ms Owens changed her views on matters Masonic after hearing Mr Aldrin had endorsed Mr Trump isn’t known but he issued an unambiguous statement of support, sentiments with which presumably she’d concur.  The former astronaut was especially impressed the Republican candidate had indicated that in a second term he would elevate space exploration as a “policy of high importance again” and that his first administration had “reignited national efforts to get back to the Moon and push on to Mars.”  Beyond that, Mr Aldrin noted: “The Presidency requires clarity in judgement, decisiveness, and calm under pressure that few have a natural ability to manage, or the life experience to successfully undertake. It is a job where decisions are made that routinely involve American lives – some urgently but not without thought.  For me, for the future of our country, to meet enormous challenges, and for the proven policy accomplishments above, I believe we are best served by voting for former President Trump. I wholeheartedly endorse him for President of the United States. Godspeed President Trump, and God Bless the United States of America.”  Masonic votes having the same value as any other, Mr Trump welcomed the support.

Ms Owens had been scheduled to speak at a number of engagements in Australia  & New Zealand but interestingly, in October 2024, the Australian government issued a press statement confirming her visa had been "canceled", based on her "capacity to incite discord", leading immediately to suspicions her silencing had been engineered by the Freemasons.  It’s good we have Ms Owens to warn us about liberals and the Freemasons, an axis of evil neglected by political scientists who tend often to take a structralist approach to the landmarks in the evolution of the use of the term “liberal” which they classify thus:

(1) Classical Liberalism which emerged in the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries, was rooted in the ideas of the Enlightenment with an emphasis on limited government, a free market (ideas as well as goods & services), individual liberty, freedom of speech, the rule of law and the enforcement of private property rights.  The movement was a reaction to absolute monarchies and state-dominated mercantilist economies.

(2) Social Liberalism (understood as “liberal” in modern US use) was a layer of rather than a fork off classical liberalism but it did accept a greater role for the state in regulating the economy and providing social welfare to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth and opportunity.  It was a nineteenth century development to address the excesses of “unbridled” capitalism” and its critique of economic inequality was remarkably similar to that familiar in the twenty-first century.

(3) Neoliberalism as a term first appeared in the late 1950s but in the familiar modern sense it was defined in the era of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) & Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) who embarked on project built around a philosophy which afforded primacy to free markets, deregulation, privatization and a reduction in government spending, often combined with globalization.  Their program simultaneously to restrict the money supply while driving up asset prices had implications which wouldn’t be understood for some decades.  The Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal project was a reaction to the post oil-crisis stagflation (a portmanteau word, the construct being stag(nation) + (in)flation)) and the alleged failure of the welfare state & the orthodoxy of Keynesian economics, named after English economist and philosopher John Maynard Keynes (later Lord Keynes) 1883-1946).

(4) Political Liberalism was most famously articulated by US philosopher John Rawls (1921–2002) in his book A Theory of Justice (1971), a work nobody much under forty should attempt because few younger than that would have read enough fully to understand the intricacies.  In summary, it does sound remarkably simple because it calls for a pluralist society built on principles of justice and fairness, administered by a system of governance which permits a diversity of viewpoints while maintaining a fair structure of cooperation.  Rawls’ political liberalism draws one in to what soon becomes and intellectual labyrinth; once in, it’s hard to get out but it’s a nice place to spend some time and most rewarding if one can maintain the same train of thought for several weeks.

(5) Cultural Liberalism is not new but from the mid-twentieth century, its range of application expanded as previously oppressed groups began to enjoy a recognition of their rights, initially usually as a result of a change in societal attitudes and later, by a codification of their status in law, the matters addressed including ethnicity, feminism, civil liberties, reproductive rights, religion and the concerns of the LGBTQQIAAOP community.

(6) Liberal Internationalism is an approach to foreign policy (really a formal doctrine in some countries) advocating global cooperation, international institutions, human rights, and the promotion of democracy.  Its core tenants included support for multilateralism, international organizations like the United Nations (UN), global trade and the promotion of liberal democratic governance worldwide.  What is called the “liberal world order” has underpinned the western world since 1945 but its dominance is now being challenged by other systems which have their own methods of operation.

Crapper

Crapper (pronounced krap-er)

(1) A proprietary trade name for a brand of loo; toilet; lavatory etc.

(2) A slang term for the loo; toilet; lavatory etc.

1920s: The construct was crap + er.  Dating from 1375-1425, crap was from the Middle English crappe (which at various times existed in the plural as crappen, crappies and craps) (chaff; buckwheat) from the Old French crappe & crapin (chaff; siftings, waste or rejected matter).  In the Medieval Latin there were the plural forms crappa & crapinum, apparently from the Old Dutch krappen (to cut off, pluck off) from which Middle Dutch gained crappe & crap (a chop, cutlet) and Modern Dutch krip (a steak); the most obvious modern relative is crop.  The Middle English agent suffix er was from the Old English ere, from the Proto-Germanic ārijaz and generally thought to have been borrowed from the Latin ārius.  The English forms were cognate with the Dutch er & aar, the German er, the Swedish are, the Icelandic ari and the Gothic areis.  Related are the Ancient Greek ήριος (ḗrios) and the Old Church Slavonic арь (arĭ).  Although unrelated, the development of er was reinforced by the synonymous Old French or & eor and the Angle-Norman variant our, all derived from the Latin (ā)tor, the ultimate root being the primitive European tōr.  Dating from 1846, crap was the English slang for the proper term crapping ken which is crap’s first documented application to bodily waste although etymologists suspect it had been in widespread use for some time prior.  In this context, crap was used in the earlier English and French sense of “siftings, waste or rejected matter” and ken was an existing term for a small building or house.

The urban myth is part-truth, part-crap

The brand-name Crapper was first applied to a toilet designed and by plumber Thomas Crapper (1836-1910) and manufactured by the company he founded, Thomas Crapper & Co, Licenced Plumbers & Sanitary Engineers.  In 1884, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII (1841–1910; King of the UK & Emperor of India 1901-1910)) purchased Sandringham House and asked Mr Crapper to supply the plumbing, including thirty flushing loos with cedarwood seats and enclosures.  Impressed with the quality, the prince granted the company their first Royal Warrant.  The occupational surname Crapper is a dialectal variant of cropper (harvester of crops, farmer).

It’s a linguistic coincidence that a Mr Crapper choose to become a plumber and begin manufacturing loos bearing his name which bore such similarity to both crap and crapping which had earlier been used to describe bodily and other waste.  Despite being a coincidence, decades before the internet spread fake news, the urban myth was well-established that the terms words crap and crapper, in their scatological sense, all derive from the efforts and products of Mr Crapper.  The myth is often fleshed-out with reference to US soldiers stationed in England during World War One popularizing the phrase "I'm going to the crapper", after seeing the name on barracks’ cisterns.  In the way army slang does, it was taken home when the servicemen returned to the US.  Despite this, most dictionaries cite the origin of the slang term to the 1920s with popular use becoming widespread by the mid 1930s.  It spread with the empire and was noted in the era to be in use in the Indian Army although, after 1947, the troops came often to prefer "I am going to Pakistan".

ride) and (4), spit out after brushing and do not rinse (this maintains the fluoride concentration level).

Selfie with crapper backdrop: Lindsay Lohan on the set of HBO's Eastbound & Down (2013), brushing teeth while smoking.  It's an unusual combination but might work OK if one smokes a menthol cigarette and uses a nurdle of mint toothpaste.  Other combinations might clash.

By one's name, one shall be remembered.

The long-standing urban myth that Mr Crapper actually invented the flushing loo seems to lie in the 1969 book Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper by New Zealand-born humorist Wallace Reyburn (1913–2001) which purported to be a legitimate history.  Reyburn later wrote a "biography" of an influential inventor who created another product without which modern life also (for half the population) would be possible but less comfortable.  His 1971 volume Bust-Up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling and the Development of the Bra detailed the life of the putative inventor of the brassiere, Otto Titzling.  Unlike Mr Crapper, Herr Titzling (Reyburn helpfully mansplaining that the correct pronunciation was "tit-sling") never existed.  In truth, the flushing loo has probably existed in a recognizably modern form since the 1400s but, although the designs were gradually improved, they remained expensive and it was not until the nineteenth century they achieved any real popularity and it was well into the next century with the advent of distributed sanitation systems that they became expected, everyday installations.  To mark the day of his death in 1910, 27 January is designated International Thomas Crapper Day.  Each year, on that day, at the right moment, briefly, all should pause, reflect and then with gratitude, proceed.

Lindsay Lohan mug shots on the doors of the crappers at the Aqua Shard restaurant.  Located on the 31st floor of The Shard in London, the view is panoramic.

Maiden

Maiden (pronounced meyd-n)

(1) A girl or young unmarried woman; a maid (archaic but still in literary and poetic use).

(2) A female virgin (archaic); used also of unmarried young females in the sense of a “bachelorette” (a spinster being “a maiden aunt”).

(3) In horse racing, a horse which has never won a race.

(4) In horse racing, a race open only to maiden horses.

(5) As “clothes maiden”, a northern English dialect form describing a frame on which clothes are hung to dry (a clothes horse).

(6) A machine for washing linen (obsolete).

(7) An instrument resembling the guillotine, once used in Scotland for beheading criminals.

(8) As “maiden name”, a woman’s surname, prior to taking that of her husband upon marriage.

(9) In land management, as virgin soil, virgin forest etc, an area in its natural state; unexploited.

(10) In pre-modern agriculture, the last sheaf of grain harvested, decorated with ribbons and regarded as a talisman (by extension the end of the harvest) (archaic).

(11) In botany, a tree or shrub grown from seed and never pruned.

(12) In cricket, as “maiden over”, for a bowler to complete an over (now six legitimate deliveries) without conceding a run; a “wicket maiden” is an over in which a wicket fell with no runs being scored (thus double-wicket maiden & hat-trick maiden).

(13) Of, relating to, or befitting a girl or unmarried woman (archaic but preserved in phrases such as “her maiden virtues”. “a maiden blush” et al).

(14) Of an unmarried woman, older than a certain age (generally past middle age), often in the form “maiden aunt”.

(15) Something made, tried, appearing etc, for the first time (maiden flight, maiden speech, maiden voyage etc).

(16) In military slang, an untested (or untried in battle) knight, soldier or weapon; a fortress never captured or violated.

Pre-1000: From the Middle English mayden & meiden, from the Old English mæden  & mægden (unmarried woman (usually young); virgin; girl; maidservant), originally a diminutive of mægð or mægeð (virgin, girl; woman, wife), the construct being mægd, mægth or mægeth, from the Proto-West Germanic magaþ, from the Proto-Germanic magaþs & magadin (young womanhood, sexually inexperienced female) (and cognate with the Old Norse mogr (young man), the Old Irish maug & mug (slave), and the Gothic magaths) + -en (the diminutive suffix).  The Proto-Germanic was the source also of the Old Saxon magath, the Old Frisian maged, Old High German magad (virgin, maid), the German Magd (maid, maidservant), the German Mädchen (girl, maid) from Mägdchen (little maid), the feminine variant of the primitive Indo-European root maghu- (“young of either sex; “unmarried person” and the source also of the Old English magu (child, son, male descendant), the Avestan magava- (unmarried) and the Old Irish maug & mug (slave)).  Maiden is a noun & adjective, maidenly is an adjective, maidenship & maidenhood  are nouns and maidenish is an adjective; the noun plural is maidens.

Iron Maiden is a heavy metal band active since 1975, their eponymous album in 1980 the debut release of studio-recorded material.  Their album cover-art has become something of a motif and is widely reproduced in posters, T-shirts and such, their music is said to possess a similar consistency.

In thirteenth century Middle English, “maiden” could be used as a slur to refer to “a man lacking or abstaining from sexual experience” and in Scotland it was the official term for a guillotine-like device used to behead criminals.  In horse racing, a maiden horse is one which has never won a race (although in the mid-eighteen century it was sometimes used of horses which had not previously contested a race.  A maiden race is one restricted to maiden horses (which can be mares, stallions or geldings).  The figurative sense of "new, fresh, untried” (maiden flight, maiden speech, maiden voyage etc) seems first to have been used in the 1550s.  The idea of the maiden name (a woman’s surname, prior to taking that of her husband upon marriage) dates from the 1680s.  The noun maidenhood (state of being a maiden; state of an unmarried female; virginity) was from the Old English mægdenhad while the adjective maidenly (like a maid, becoming to a maid; gentle, modest, reserved) was first documented in the mid 1600s.

Headbanger Lindsay Lohan in Iron Maiden T-shirts.

The term Hiroshima maiden (or A-bomb maiden) was in the 1950s used to refer to the Japanese & Korean women disfigured by the radiation from the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August 1945, the term coming into use in 1955 when they were sent to the US for reconstructive plastic surgery.  In Norse mythology, the billow maidens were any of the nine daughters of the sea-god Ran and a skjaldmær (shieldmaiden) was a female virgin who had chosen to fight as a warrior in battle.  In several tales from mythology, an ice maiden was one of the ice people (or people of the ice), a woman from a place of snow and ice (in popular culture, the idea was borrowed in fantasy writing.  In idiomatic use, an ice maiden (also ice princess or ice queen) is a beautiful but cold (heartless) woman.  In Westminster parliamentary systems, the maiden speech of a member is their first substantive address to a chamber.  By convention it is (1) uncontroversial and (2) listened to by the house in polite silence although in cases where the member has not followed the convention, there have been some famous interjections.  Maiden ventures by machinery have sometimes become infamous.  Ships have sunk on their maiden voyages including RMS Titanic (1912) and the Wasa (or Vasa), a Swedish warship at the time one of the fastest and most heavily gunned in the world (1628).  In aviation, many aircraft have crashed on their maiden flights (test pilots are truly intrepid types) although it’s a myth that included the Supermarine Spitfire.  Less fortunate was the German industry in the later stages of World War II (1939-1945) when development was being rushed and at least two prototypes are known to have either crashed or suffered severe damage during their maiden test flights including the Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (People's Fighter).  In the case of the He 162 the maiden flight actually ended without incident and it was only a subsequent investigation of the airframe (after another prototype He 162 had crashed) which revealed the adhesive used to bond wooden components was so acidic it caused the timber to disintegrate.

An iron maiden towering above other instruments of torture.

The infamous torture chamber known as the iron maiden is now though to be mythical and an invention of those who wished to characterize the Middle Ages as a time of barbarism and savagery.  It was said to be a solid iron cabinet with a hinged front, large spikes fitted throughout the interior and designed to be large enough to accommodate an adult human.  Once the door was closed, it was said to be impossible to avoid being “spiked” and with every movement, one became “more spiked”.  Although their existence has been disproved, iron maidens (most apparently built in the nineteenth century) are a popular exhibit in “museums of torture”, some probably genuine “torture coffins” to which the spikes were a latter addition.  Quite why it was felt necessary to “invent” the iron maiden given there were so many examples of equally gruesome Medieval torture devices isn’t clear but it may be there was some desire to exonerate the torturers of Antiquity who really did use such things; among post Renaissance historians, such was the veneration for the Classical world that wherever possible, things were blamed on the Middle Ages.

In the English legal system, maiden assize came to mean an assize (periodic courts with on a circuit basis were conducted around England and Wales until 1972,) at which there were no criminal cases to be heard although originally it was an assize at which no prisoner was condemned to die.  There used to be some ritualism attached to the declaration of a maiden assize and the tradition wasn’t unknown in the US:  If a judge, upon opening a session of their assize found there were no cases to be heard, the clerk of the court would present him with a pair of white gloves, the marker of a maiden assize, the significance being that judges, as a mark of submission to the Crown, were always gloveless when executing the royal commission.

Mugwump

Mugwump (pronounced muhg-wuhmp)

(1) A member or supporter of the Republican Party who declined to support the party's nominee James Blaine (1830–1893) during the 1884 US presidential election, (claiming he was corrupt) lending their support to the Democratic Party's candidate Grover Cleveland (1837–1908).

(2) A person who is unable to make up their mind on an issue, especially in politics (mostly US & Australia).

(3) Someone who remains neutral on a controversial issue; a person who purports to stay aloof from party politics (mostly US & Australia).  In a derogatory sense it’s used to suggest someone is a “fence sitter” or maintains an aloof and often self-important demeanor.

(4) One who switches from supporting one political party to another, especially for personal benefit (also used in this sense in Australia).

(5) Used informally (usually humorously), a (male) leader; an important (male) person (sometimes as “big mugwump”).

(6) A foolish person (a now rare Australian slang term which emerged apparently because it was conflated with “mug”).

1832: An Americanism and an artificial, nineteenth century revival of the Massachusett (English spelling) mugquomp & mummugquomp (war leader), a syncopated form of muggumquomp (war leader), the construct being the (unattested) Proto-Algonquian memekw- (assumed to mean “swift”) + -a·pe·w (man).  The alternative etymology was the Algonquian (Natick) mogki (great) + a·pe·w (thus something like “great chief).  It was folk etymology which re-interpreted the word, the re-purposed meaning referring to a person who sat on the fence, deconstructed as “their mug (face) on one side and wump (rump) on the other”.  This graphical description produced a slew of political cartoons in this vein during the 1884 US presidential election.  The original Americanism emerged in 1832 in the New England region and was a jocular word for “a great man, boss; very important person”.  By 1840 it was in satirical use as “one who thinks himself important” but faded from used before being revived for the 1884 presidential contest, originally as a term of abuse but the independents embraced it and from that it picked up the specific sense “one who holds themselves aloof from party politics."  Mugwump is a noun & verb, mugwumpery & mugwumpism are nouns, mugwumpian, mugwumping & mugwumped are verbs and mugwumpian, mugwumpesque & mugwumpish are adjectives; the noun plural is mugwumps.

Originally, the Mugwumps were those Republican Party members (or supporters) who claimed to be appalled by the corruption they said was associated with James Blaine (1830–1893), declining to support his candidacy in the 1884 US presidential election.  Unlike some of the dissident movements in US politics (the Tea Party, the Know Nothings, the Progressives et al) the Mugwumps never formed any sort of organizational structure or even self-identified as a faction.  They gained the name because they “switched sides”, supporting the Democratic Party’s Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) although in their public statements, some Mugwumps would say they were “still Republicans”, hence the association with “fence-sitting”, the term adapted for the purpose because they were sitting with “their mug (face) on one side and wump (rump) on the other”, a theme cartoonists and caricaturists took to with gusto.

Those who rat on political parties, shifting their allegiance to another risk a lifetime of suffering the enmity of their former colleagues, politics attracting haters like few other professions although Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who ratted twice reckoned the trick was to do it with style.  Fence sitters seem to attract less opprobrium but there’s often a sense of exasperation; at least with the rats one knows where one stands.  Sir John Simon (1873–1954; First Viscount Simon, cabinet minister on several occasions 1913-1945, Lord Chancellor 1940-1945) picked up the nickname “slippery Sam” for a reason (actually many) and David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) said of him: ”He has sat on the fence so long the iron has entered into his soul.”  That probably wasn’t quite what Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) had in mind when, as Foreign Secretary, he dismissed Jeremy Corbyn (b 1949; leader of the UK Labour Party 2015-2020) as a “mutton-headed old mugwump”, although with Mr Johnson, one can never quite be sure.

MAGAwump's high priest, Mitt Romney, mugwumping (David Horsey in the Seattle Times, September 18 2023).  Note the carpetbag.

The Mugwumps have been compared with the “Anyone but Trump” movement which was an attempt by what used to be called “mainstream Republicans” to block Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) path to the party’s nomination (and from there the White House).  The movement formed but failed though it’s not far-fetched to imagine if might have gained for traction if it had used a catchy name like MAGAwumps and interestingly, in the “Guilded Age” era of the Mugwumps, their critique of the state their nation sounds little dissimilar to those heard over the last three decades.  Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908; Harvard professor of art) in 1895 contemplated things and confessed “the greatest apprehension… about a miserable end for this century”, the United States afflicted by the “worst spirit in our democracy, … a barbaric spirit of arrogance an unreasonable self assertion.  I fear that American is beginning a long course of errors and wrong and is likely to become more and more a power for disturbance and barbarism.”  Other agreed, the anyway gloomy historian Henry Adams (1838–1918) at the same time reviewing the closing century concluded it was “rotten and bankrupt”, sunk in “vulgarity commonness, imbecility and moral atrophy”.  It all sounds so modern.

One noted for her mugwumpery is Lindsay Lohan.  In 2008 she made clear her support for Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) yet by 2012 was tweeting she was inclined to vote for Mitt Romney (b 1947; governor of Massachusetts 2003-2007, junior US senator (Republican-Utah) since 2019) on the basis that “employment is really important right now”.  That feeling apparently didn’t last and she reaffirmed her support for Obama, latching onto #ProudOfObama although she did once refer to him as the country's “first colored president”, a black mark against anyone who hasn’t updated their list of politically correct descriptors.  Later, her mugwumpian tendencies continued.  In 2017 she tweeted of Donald Trump: “THIS IS our president. Stop #bullying him & start trusting him” later praising the entire Trump family, calling them “kind people” although during the 2016 election she had endorsed crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013), tweeting “I couldn’t understand you more”.  However, like Mr Johnson, while one can always read what Lindsay Lohan has written, what she means can be elusive.  It’s thought she endorsed crooked Hillary but “I couldn’t understand you more” is certainly cryptic.

Mug

Mug (pronounced muhg)

(1) A drinking cup, usually cylindrical in shape, having a handle, and often of a heavy substance, as earthenware; the quantity it holds.

(2) In slang, the face; an exaggerated facial expression; grimace, as in acting; the mouth (mostly archaic).

(3) A thug, ruffian or other criminal (archaic).

(4) To assault or menace, especially with the intention of robbery.

(5) In slang (especially in law enforcement & correctional services), to photograph (a person), especially in compliance with an official or legal requirement.

(6) A stupid, gullible or incompetent person.

(7) In slang (Britain, Australia, Singapore), to learn or review a subject as much as possible in a short time (largely archaic, replaced by cram).

1560–1570: Mug was originally Scots and northern English, denoting an earthenware pot or jug.  In the sense of the small, usually cylindrical drinking vessel, origin was probably Scandinavian; there was the Swedish mugg (earthen cup, jug) and the Norwegian & Danish mugge (pitcher; open can for warm drinks; drinking cup), the sense “face” apparently transferred from the cups because they tended often to be adorned with grotesque faces and from the same source presumably was the Low German mokke & mukke, the German Low German Muck and the Dutch mok.  The relationship to the Old Norse múgr (mass, heap (of corn)) and the Old English muga (stack) is speculative.  The derisive term “mug-hunter”, attested from 1883) was applied to those entering sporting contests solely to win prizes (because they were often in the form of engraved cups).  Mug is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is mugs.

The use to describe a person's mouth or face dates from 1708, thought an extended sense of mug based on the old drinking mugs shaped like grotesque faces, popular in England from the seventeenth century.  The sense of a "portrait or photograph in police records" spread universally with the growth in photography, the first known reference in the Annual Report of the [Boston Massachusetts] Chief of Police for 1873, when it was noted a notorious criminal who had for years been plying his trade all over the country attributed his arrest to “that ‘mug’ of mine that sticks in your gallery”.  Despite that, mug-shot seems to have been used only since 1950.  The meaning "stupid or incompetent person, dupe, fool, sucker" was part of underworld slang by 1851 and was commonly used to describe a criminal in the late nineteenth century, the phrase “mug's game” to describe some foolish, thankless or unprofitable activity emerged around the same time.  The use since 1846 to describe an assault was influenced probably by it meaning "to beat up" (originally "to strike the face) in pugilism since 1818 and this seems to have led to the modern meaning of “mugging” as an attack upon the person of another with intent to rob; that’s noted from 1964.  Some on-line dictionaries list mug in the African-American vernacular as a euphemism for motherfucker (usually in similes, eg "like a mug" or "as a mug").  In Australia, those for whom their only connection with horse racing is to once a year place a bet on the Melbourne Cup are known as "mug punters" but there has been research which suggests choosing a horse on the basis of the horse's name, the color of the jockey's silks (or some other apparently unrelated criterion) can be successful in up to 20% of cases.

Lindsay Lohan mug-shot merchandise is available in a variety of forms.  There are mouse mats, socks, coasters, throw pillows, T-shirts, coffee mugs, face-masks, A-line dresses, hoodies and throw blankets.

Socks are US$19 a pair or US$17 for two / US$15 for three.  The throw blanket is available in three sizes: Small, 40x56 inches (1010x760mm) @ US$28; Medium, 112x94 inches (152x127 cm) @ US$43; Large, 80x60 inches (203x152cm) @ US$56.  Lightweight hoodies are available in sizes from XS-3XL, all at US$39.  T-Shirts are available in sizes XS-XXL for US$7-17.  Coasters are available in a packs of four for US$15. Mug-shot Mugs are available with either individual (with date of photo on reverse side) or multiple mug-shots from US$10-$22 with a discount for volume purchase.  Facemasks are from US$12 with discounts if purchased in packs of four.  A-Line dresses are available in sizes XXS-4XL for US$56.

Three approaches to the mug-shot aesthetic: Jenna Ellis (left), Rudy Giuliani (centre) & Donald Trump (right).

The recent release of the mug shots of Donald Trump and a number of his co-accused attracted comments about the range of expressions the subjects choose for the occasion.  Legal commentators made the point it's actually not a trivial matter because prosecutors, judges and juries all often are exposed to a defendant's mug-shot and the photograph may have some influence on their thoughts and while judges are trained to avoid this, the effect may still be subliminal.  Also, apart from the charges being faced, in the internet age, mug-shots sometimes go viral and modelling careers have been launched from their publication so for the genetically fortunate, there's some incentive to make the effort to look one's smoldering best.

The consensus appeared to be the best approach is to adopt a neutral expression which expresses no levity and indicates one is taking the matter seriously.  On that basis, Lindsay Lohan was either well-advised or was a natural as one might expect from one accustomed to the camera's lens.  Among Donald Trump's alleged co-conspirators there was a range of approaches and the consensus of the experts approached for comment seemed to be that Rudy Giuliani's (b 1944) was close to perfect as one might expect from a seasoned prosecutor well-acquainted with the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) legislation he'd so often used against organized crime in New York City.  Many of the others pursued his approach to some degree although there was the odd wry smile.  Some though were outliers such as Jenna Ellis (b 1984) who smiled as if she was auditioning for a spot on Fox News and, of course, some of the accused may be doing exactly that.  However, the stand-out was Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) who didn't so much stare as scowl and it doubtful if his mind was on the judge or jury, his focus wholly on his own image of strength and defiance and the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.  Regaining the White House wouldn't automatically provide Mr Trump with the mechanisms to solve all his legal difficulties but it'd be at least helpful.  In the short term Trump mug-shot merchandize is available, the Trump Save America JFC (joint fundraising committee) disclosing the proceeds from the sales of Trump mug-shot merchandize will be allocated among the committees thus: 90% to Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc (2024 primary election) & 10% to Save America while any contribution exceeding the legal amount that may be contributed to either of the committees will be allocated to Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc (2024 general election).