Melon

Melon (pronounced mel-uhn)

(1) Any of various plants of two cucurbitaceous vines (the gourd family) including the watermelon, muskmelon etc.  Variations include Genus Cucumis (various musk melons, including honeydew, cantaloupes, and horned melon); Genus Citrullus (watermelons and others); Genus Benincasa (winter melon); Genus Momordica (a bitter melon).

(2) The fruit of any of these plants.

(3) A color ranging between a medium crimson and a deep pink, noted for the orange tinge.

(4) In zoology, the visible upper portion of the head of a surfacing whale or dolphin, including the beak, eyes, and blowhole (a mass of adipose tissue used to focus and modulate vocalizations).

(5) In the slang of (mostly North American) financial markets, an especially large additional dividend (often in the form of stock) distributed to stockholders (often as “cut a melon”).

(6) By extension, any windfall of money to be divided among specified beneficiaries.

(7) In slang, the breasts of the human female (almost always in the plural).  The alternative slang is "chest melons" and a woman generously endowed can be dubbed melonious.

(8) In slang, the head; the skull.  Those deemed vague or of limited intelligence dubbed "melon heads".

(9) In slang, a derogatory term for members of a green political party, or similar environmental groups (rare and mostly Australia & New Zealand).

1350–1400: From the Middle English meloun & melon (herbaceous, succulent trailing annual plant or its sweet, edible fruit), from the Old Portuguese (via the thirteenth century Old French melon) melon, from the Late Latin melonem & mēlōn- (stem of mēlō and a shortening of mēlopepō (the “gourd apple”, a large apple-shaped melon)), from the Ancient Greek μηλοπέπων (mēlopépōn) (large apple-shaped melon), the construct being μηλο (mêlo(n)) (apple) + πέπων (pépōn) (ripe), from πέπτω (péptō) (to ripen).  Confusingly for historians seeking to reconstruct the recipes of Antiquity the Latin melopeponem was a kind of pumpkin while the Greek mēlopepon (gourd-apple) was applied to several kinds of gourds bearing sweet fruit, the origin of that in the noun use of pépōn (ripe) distinguishing the fruit on the vine ready for harvest from those yet to ripen.  As a modifier, melon is appended as appropriate (based on color, shape, diet, environmental niche, habitat etc) including melon beetle, melon cactus, Melon rugose mosaic virus, melon thistle & melon-headed.  The best known is probably the watermelon, dating from the 1610s and so named for their high content of water-like juice; in French, the more pleasing term is melon d'eau.  Melonade is a (non-alcoholic) drink made from melons while the (definitely alcoholic) melontini is a martini cocktail made with melon.  The adjective melonic is unrelated to melons and is used in chemistry to mean "of or pertaining to a type of complex heterocyclic triazine related to melem".  Melem is the heptazine (a certain chemical compound) with three amino substituents.  Melon is a noun & adjective and melonious, melony, melonous & melonlike are adjectives; the noun plural is melons.

The Cold War won, in 1992, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) returned to Moscow, a place more than once he’d visited as an adversary.  Visiting the markets, he bought a juicy melon.

Being prolific and undemanding to grow, melons were among the earliest plants domesticated and in Greek, “melon” was used in a generic way for many foreign fruits, a fate which would also befall "apple", thus the naming of the pineapple and in some Old English texts, cucumbers are referred to as eorþæppla (literally "earth-apples"), the deductive process that produced the French pomme de terre (potato (literally “earth-apple”)), the French pomme from the Latin pomum (apple; fruit).  Apple was from the Old English æppel (apple; any kind of fruit; fruit in general), from the from Proto-Germanic ap(a)laz (source also of the Old Saxon, Old Frisian & Dutch appel, the Old Norse eple, the Old High German apful & the German Apfel), from the primitive Indo-European ab(e)l- (apple), (source also of the Gaulish avallo (fruit), the Old Irish ubull, the Lithuanian obuolys, & the Old Church Slavonic jabloko (apple)) but etymologists caution the original sense of these and their relationship(s) to what is now understood as “an apple” is uncertain.  In Middle English, as late as the seventeenth century (even the earliest compliers of recipe books aren’t always explicit so some reverse-engineering based on supposition has been undertaken), it was a generic term for all fruit other than berries but including nuts (such as Old English fingeræppla (dates (literally "finger-apples) and the late fourteenth century Middle English appel of paradis (banana (literally apple of paradise)).

The twenty-first century judgment of Paris: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, left), Britney Spears (b 1981, centre) & Paris Hilton (b 1981, right) reprise Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, New York City, 29 November, 2006.  The car was a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Coupé (C199, 2003-2010) leased by Ms Hilton.  It was a paparazzi photo from this moment used in the infamous "Bimbo Summit" headline by Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York Post. 

That generality of meaning saw “apple” named as the fruit with which the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, leading to the downfall of man and creating the original sin with which we’ve all since been damned.  The Biblical apportionment of blame to Eve has been held by feminists to account for at least some of the oppression suffered by women for the last two millennia.  However, the “fruit of the forbidden tree” was unspecified in the original texts of the Book of Genesis and, despite the wishful thinking of a few, in Biblical scholarship there’s no support for the notion the fruit was even hinted at being an appel of paradis, however appropriate, given the context, a nice plump banana might seem.  Nor is the forbidden fruit explicitly mentioned in the Holy Quran but according to traditional Islamic commentaries, it was not an apple but wheat.  The Prophet may not have been concerned but in Greek mythology there was the μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος (Golden Apple of Discord) in the story of the Judgment of Paris which the goddess Ἔρις (Eris) (Strife), tossed in the midst of the feast of the gods at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis as a prize of beauty, thus sparking a vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite; it was that squabble that triggered the Trojan War.  Eris was the goddess of chaos and discord who (perhaps unsurprisingly), having not received a wedding invitation, was miffed and inscribed kallisti (To the prettiest one) on her “wedding gift” handing it to Πάρις (Paris, AKA Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros) (Alexander), the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy) who was told to choose the goddess he found most beautiful.  Judging what turned out to be one of Antiquity's more significant beauty contests, Paris chose Aphrodite, offending Hera and Athena, the most famous consequence of their feud being the Trojan War.  Tragedy did thereafter stalk the marriage of Peleus and Thetis; of their seven sons, the only one to survive beyond infancy was Achilles.

Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit (circa 1620-1625), oil on canvas by Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627).

Beginning probably in Holland in the early seventeenth century and apparently first painted by Pieter Aertsen (circa 1533-circa 1573) "cookmaid and market scenes" was a genre in painting combining representations of produce and kitchens with themes often borrowed from the New Testament.  Two other examples of Sir Nathaniel's works in this vein are known still to exist: (1) Cookmaid with Still Life of Game and (2) Cookmaid with Still Life of Birds, both featuring healthy young ladies and there is obviously some artistic license in Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit given that although every piece of produce depicted was at the time grown somewhere in England, not all simultaneously would have been in season.  Sir Nathaniel's lengthy title was too much for many, clipped often to the punchier "Maid with Melons".  This slang use of "melons" (ie female breasts) is listed by many dictionaries as “vulgar” or “mildly vulgar” but does travel with the vague respectability of a classical origin: In Antiquity the plural of the Greek melon (μῆλα) (mela) was used for “a girl's breasts” and in that tradition, in her youth, Lady Helen Taylor (née Windsor; b 1964 and a great-granddaughter of George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936)) was nicknamed “melons”.  In the line of succession to the British throne, Lady Helen comes in at number 49. 

Juicy Melons, Euston Station, London.

The world record price for a pair of juicy melons was set in May 2026 when a two “premium crown melons”, grown on Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido, realized ¥5.8 million yen (US$36,500) at the season’s first auction in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan; the result beat the previous mark of ¥5 million, achieved in 2019.  Although doubtlessly succulent, the prized examples were purchased not only for their taste but also as a promotional device, the successful bidder a Kushiro-based fruit and vegetable wholesaler who sold them to a supermarket where they would be “placed on display”.  Large, juicy melons should of course be put "on display"; everybody knows that, 

A cantaloupe as one would appear in most of the world (left) and a rockmelon down under (right).

Globalization has to some extent standardized in the English language spellings and meanings once disparate, sometimes reversing the trend towards diversity noted as one of the linguistic effects of the British Empire, especially in India under the Raj where the British pillaged the local languages with only slightly less enthusiasm than they showed for gold, diamonds and such.  However, the names of food seem often resistant to change, presumably most often where forms are well-established and supplied by local production.  Thus what is in some places eggplant is elsewhere the aubergine.  It’s also a melon matter because in Australia, what most of the world knows as the cantaloupe (from the French cantaloup, from the Italian place name Cantalupo, a former Papal summer estate near Rome, where the melons were first grown after being introduced to Europe from the Middle East), is called the rockmelon (occasionally rock-melon) and the antipodean quirkiness is not unique, the cantaloupe in some places called “sweet melon” or “Crenshaw melon” while in South Africa where it’s not uncommon to see fruit-stalls side-by-side, one selling cantaloupes and the other spanspeks (from the Afrikaans Spaanse spek (literally “Spanish bacon”)).  The Australian use, once deconstructed, does make sense in that a cantaloupe does (vaguely) resemble (some) rocks and has a "hard skin" but the case seems not compelling, cantaloupe a much more attractive word.  Visiting foodies will be gratified Australians follow the rest of the world when it comes to the honeydew (or honey-dew) melon, the name from the late sixteenth century honeydew (sticky sweet substance found in small drops on trees and plants), a replication of the formations in the Dutch honigdaauw and the German Honigthau.  That melon was first named in 1916 when selective breeding produced a cross between the cantaloupe and a melon native to southern African.

Anthony Albanese, shaggate & melongate

Applied kinesics: Linguists and anthropologists call the use of hand gestures as an accompaniment to speech (much associated with Italians): “gesticulations”.  Mr Albanese gesticulates (left) and Nova’s promotional banner for Nikki Osborne’s “Bushie” persona on Bush Deep (right).

Politics is unpredictable but even in the long tradition of "storm in a tea cup" scandals, few would have expected melons to play a role although, delightfully, Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022) managed a "storm in a D-cup".  Melongate was the result of the second of Mr Albanese's gaffes while in July 2026 appearing in the Bush Deep podcast.  Interviewed by comedian Nikki Osborne, he was asked to play the “shag, marry, date” game, three Australian females from pop culture (singer Kylie Minogue (b 1968), actor Nicole Kidman (b 1967) & singer Rhonda Burchmore (b 1960)) offered as his options.  He started well by mentioning he was “newly married” (to his second wife) but Ms Osborne was tenacious and after boxing him into admitting “Kylie, clearly”, managed to press him into saying (with a slight giggle): “all of the above” (that apparently in answer to: “You’d marry Kylie? And shag her? And date her?” rather than thoughts of intimacy with all three nominees but Ms Osborne, seeming pleased, did conclude: "all right, a triple" so who knows?).  The public reaction wasn’t good (although muted compared with what would have been the outrage had the remarks been made by a conservative) and quickly his office issued a one-line statement: “I apologise unequivocally for the comments”.  Educated by the Congregation of Christian Brothers (a branch of the Roman Catholic Church), the Australian arm of which was dissolved after shifting the bulk of its assets to a related but legally separate entity to protect them from civil litigation brought by victims child sexual abuse by Christian Brothers), Mr Albanese (selectively) operates on the church's long-established principle of “confess and be forgiven”.  What he should have done was make the joke one of self-deprecation, telling his host a more interesting question would be to ask the trio if any of them would contemplate shagging him and all three were anyway “too good for him”.  His second wife, by now well-acquainted with politics, would have forgiven him.

Pampered crown melons in a Shizuoka hothouse.

It turned out to be an eventful podcast because he also told the tale of meeting Sanae Takaichi san (b 1961, Prime Minister of Japan since 2025) during her Australian visit in May 2026.  Knowing a comedian would likely be not interested in trade negotiations or maritime boundaries in the South China Sea, he instead described his surprise when presented with the gift of a pair of crown melons, a fruit grown only in the western region of Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture.  The nation’s most exalted and expensive melons, farmers tending the vines in climate-controlled greenhouses each season cut away all but the most obviously fecund bud so each plant’s energy & nutrients feed a single fruit, ensuring “perfect melons”.  Understandably, crown melons are a gift presented to someone as a mark of respect or appreciation, often in the intricately constructed packaging famously used in Japan for goods from sandwiches to stilettos.  Mr Albanese described the gift as “strange” but said he found them “quite good”.  While it's not reasonable to expect him to have been aware of the cultural significance in Japan of a fruit he’d have associated with the Aus$3.99 item familiar in Australian supermarkets, his office presumably was informed so it was bad staff work he wasn’t briefed on what to say.  An additional reason for the choice of gift was to mark the “delectably honey-sweet” melons now being exported (tariff-free) to Australia.

Pamela Anderson (mostly real) on the cover of Playboy magazine, November 1994.

Things got worse.  Ms Osborne likened the melons to Canadian-US actor Pamela Anderson (b 1967) which must have amused Mr Albanese because almost instinctively he raised his hands to his chest and, making a cupping gesture, observed: “She brought two… as you do”.  There was laughter in the recording studio and it would have been a good joke in the locker room of the South Sydney Rabbitohs (the NRL (National Rugby League) club the prime minister takes every opportunity to remind the country he supports) but as the clip went around the world, he’d have understood he’d put his foot in it… again.  Well into the twenty-first century, it might be assumed politicians would by now be adept in handling the “new media” (social media, podcasts and such) but, beyond a certain age, many remain uncertain and often make the worst mistake of all: trying very hard to be “authentic” which is, of course, recognized instantly as “inauthentic”.  Politicians have before had to attempt to master “changes in platforms”.  In the nineteenth century, it was the shift from speeches being made on the floors of parliaments to public meetings; early in the twentieth it was the advent of radio (a medium better mastered by George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) than most of his ministers), then in the post-war world it was television.  Social media & podcasts are just the latest “shock of the new” and hopefully the ALP’s operatives will arrange additional training.  Still, something good did come from the interview: Ms Osborne learning the Japanese prime minister is female.  As the first woman ever to gain the office, there had in 2025 been extensive international coverage of her accession but presumably that was something crowded out of Ms Osborne's news-feeds by the algorithms selecting matters of greater interest such as Ariana Grande's (b 1993) weight or Kylie Jenner's (b 1997) new hairstyle.

Lord Voldemort, played in this scene by Ralph Fiennes (b 1962).

Making the “melons quip” was a bit hypocritical because it hadn’t long before that Mr Albanese had issued a schoolmasteresque rebuke to a member of his shadow cabinet (Tanya Plibersek b 1969), saying she’d made “a mistake” in likening the Liberal Party’s Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 2022-2025) to the villainous Lord Voldemort in the film adaptations of the Harry Potter children’s books.  Had the comparison been one of their political philosophy or methods (something that might still be worth pursuing) it would have been OK but in saying “I think there will be a lot of children who have watched a lot of Harry Potter films who will be very frightened of what they are seeing on TV at night” it did seem she was commenting on some physical similarity.  Asked to clarify, she said: “I am saying he looks a bit like Voldemort.  We will see whether he can do what he promised he would do when he was last running for leader, which is smile more.”  Perhaps sensing danger, she added: “I am just saying he is not the warm and friendly face of the Liberal party and, if this last election taught us anything, it taught us that the Liberal party has moved too far to the extremes of politics.”  Before long, a statement was issued from Ms Plibersek’s office saying she had “reached out” to Mr Dutton “unreservedly” to apologize, adding she acknowledged the remark should not have been made.  Mr Albanese went further, saying: “It was a mistake.  It shouldn’t have been said, we all make mistakes from time to time.  What we need to do is to move on from them and it is how we respond to them.  Tanya Plibersek responded appropriately. Tanya Plibersek did the right thing by apologising.  We should not refer to people’s appearance.”

Mr Dutton at Mr Boswell’s funeral.

Mr Dutton called the comments “unfortunate” but said they were “water off a duck’s back” and there was no need for politicians to be “nasty and mean”, concluding the affair by saying “I’m not the prettiest bloke on the block but I hope that I’m going to be pretty effective.”  Students of political phraseology enjoyed that last remark, the original used by John Howard (b 1939; Prime Minister of Australia 1996-2007) as an election campaign hook for the not at all photogenic Queensland National Party’s Senator Ron Boswell (1940–2026; senator for Queensland 1983-2014): “He may not be pretty but he’s pretty effective”.  That worked well and, in retirement, Mr Boswell wrote his memoirs, published as Ron Boswell: Not Pretty, But Pretty Effective (2023).  As leader of the opposition, Mr Dutton’s effectiveness was limited, suffering the ignominy of losing his own seat in parliament at the 2025 general election in which the Liberal party suffered its worst defeat since formation in 1944.  During the campaign, Mr Dutton limited his media appearances mostly to Mr Murdoch’s Sky News (now re-branded News24) where he could be asked “helpful” questions by other right-wing fanatics, the exchanges enjoyed by the channel’s small audience of the already converted, the only sceptical faction of which complained Mr Dutton was “not conservative enough”.  Had he dabbled in the anarchic world(s) of the Tiktokers and podcasters things might have been worse still so his handlers were right to “draw the line somewhere”.

The photogenic TERF Katherine Deves (left) and that tweet (right).

Mr Albanese’s reaction to the brief “Plibersek-Voldemort-Dutton affair” must have been something of a special case.  Although there are some things he’s done his best to forget (hoping others will do the same), otherwise his memory is typically ALP-sharp and he certainly remembered the occasions when Ms Plibersek told people she rather than him would have won the ballot for the party leadership had she chosen to contest.  Had a close factional ally pointed out Mr Dutton’s resemblance to Lord Voldemort, Mr Albanese’s reaction might have been limited to a quite chat (over a beer and a laugh) rather than a public censuring.  Sadly, the one who seemed to receive no sympathy was Lord Voldemort who was slighted by being called, by implication, “Duttonesque”; surely he had as much right to be offended by the comparison.  Amusingly, even within the Liberal Party, there are those who have seen the resemblance and commented.  Lawyer Katherine Deves (b 1978) is a (self-described) TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) with a cult-following in the party and on Twitter (now X) on 1 December, 2021, while watching the televised proceedings of parliament, she tweeted: “New speaker [presiding officer of the House of Representatives] …struggles to keep order as Albo [Mr Albanese, then leader of the opposition) …calls Voldemort [Mr Dutton, then minister of defence] …‘boof head’”  The tweet has since been deleted.

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963, left) being shown the Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer by Sir Clive Sinclair (1940–2021, right), London, 1984.

Old Harold Macmillan had his problems with women (being bi-sexual, he may not have been wholly blameless for his wife’s infidelity) but was fortunate to be prime minister during the last days when journalists were still deferential towards politicians (at least until they smelled blood in the water).  Clearly, at least in his dealings with the press, he’d led a sheltered life because in his memoirs he compared the still polite English journalists to the breed he encountered in Australia during his Commonwealth tour (Jan-Feb 1958), noting they were as capable as the bowlers in the nation’s cricket team of “sending down a few fast deliveries”.  By the standards of 2026 the questions he received (and played mostly with a straight bat although there was the occasional square cut) would be thought “tame” and while it can’t be certain how the old Etonian would have handled TikTokers, podcasters and YouTubers, he’d doubtlessly have been appalled and thought them all vulgarians to be avoided.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi san: In what was obviously a misspent youth, she was a drummer in a heavy metal band and still sometimes "picks up the sticks".  A Deep Purple (a heavy metal band formed in 1968) fan-girl, she got to meet the band during their 2026 tour of Japan. 

Mr Albanese probably wishes he could avoid appearances on the “new media” but knows a significant chunk of those with a vote long ago tuned-out of the “old media” where he for decades honed to a high-level his skills of spin and obfuscation; his office also would prefer his appearances be restricted to “more easily managed” platforms but know they must play the cards dealt.  Those in his office take pride at being thought “political pros” but curiously, by August 2026 they appeared to have forgotten the wise adage from the Watergate affair (1972-1974) that claimed the scalp of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) that in politics what’s lethal: “is not the crime, it's the cover-up”.  Just returned from holiday, Mr Albanese “furiously denied” making a crude joke about Sanae Takaichi san’s ‘melons’ in the anyway notorious ‘shag Kylie Minogue’ interview.  At this point, rather than digging deeper, it would have been a better tactic to apologize and hope for forgiveness but Mr Albanese learned his stuff in the “non-Trotskyite” wing of the ALP’s Socialist Left faction in which “never apologize” was less a mantra than a way of life.  In what was described as a “terse statement” a spokeswoman for Mr Albanese denied the comments were a joke about prime ministerial mammary glands, stating: “This assertion is wrong.”  Unfortunately, the "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!" approach is a tactic and not a strategy, the efficacy of "plausible deniability" depending not on the term's second element but the first. 

So the seeking of forgiveness option (if “workshopped”) must have been discarded, the office instead opting for attack, an approach perhaps ill-advised because the spokeswoman was responding to a opinion piece (published in Mr Murdoch’s national daily The Australian) by Tokyo’s former ambassador to Canberra, Shingo Yamagami san (Japanese ambassador to Australia 2020-2023) that criticized the comments as “insulting”, speculating even that they may have damaged Sanae Takaichi san’s reputation: “However light-hearted it was intended to be, the recent joke delivered by prime minister Anthony Albanese at the expense of Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi is how he might be remembered by Japanese who most value the friendship with Australia.  It is a time for toiling and not for crude jokes at another’s expense.  So, prime minister, please enjoy Japan’s sweet and juicy melons without thinking about a woman’s anatomy, and instead focus on what our two countries must do together.”  As a former Director-General of the Intelligence and Analysis Service of the MoFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Shingo Yamagami san was well-informed and concluded his opinion piece by reminding Mr Albanese of the special cultural significance of the revered fruit: “A crown melon is the most prized fruit in Japan and treasured as something special. Moreover, this particular fruit was painstakingly nurtured under intensive care in a special greenhouse. A single melon costs more than 30,000 yen (Aus$270).”  Translation: “Albo has gained melons but has lost face.”

Exhibit One: Shaggate.

While readers of The Australian mostly years ago made up their minds and concluded Mr Albanese is “a dud”, the reason Mr Murdoch continues to print and distribute the paper (despite large losses) is the content widely is reported on other media platforms (old and new) and while the influence is somewhat diminished, what appears can, on occasions, still “set the day’s agenda”.  However, it’s unlikely Shingo Yamagami san’s piece was written in an attempt to change many minds in Australia and was likely intended for “internal consumption” in Japan.  It’s improbable many Japanese voters would think their prime minister’s reputation much “damaged” by a foreign leader’s social ineptitude but, for a number of reasons (some geo-political but mostly economic), Sanae Takaichi san’s popularity has retreated from the stellar heights she enjoyed after assuming the presidency of the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) and leading it to a stunning landslide in the 2026 general election (House of Representatives (lower house)) so the thought is the MoFA may have co-opted Shingo Yamagami san as a stalking horse to “muddy the waters”, seeking to exploit the “melons incident” for a bit of “blame-shifting”.  Of course, in diplomatic circles, it was hardly a secret Shingo Yamagami san was "not a big fan" of the ALP government and he may have been "freelancing"; certainly there's been from Tokyo no suggestion an apology has been sought or is expected and observers suspect "melongate" will be a "three day wonder" that vanishes once Mr Murdoch's journalists conclude the story is "going nowhere".

Exhibit Two: Melongate.

One who seemed gleefully to relish the opportunity to defend Mr Albanese against accusations of having violated his own instruction to her (“We should not refer to people’s appearance”) was Tanya Plibersek (an unlikely but energetic Sancho Panzo to Mr Albanese’s Don Quixote) who appeared on morning TV with Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022 and now a convert from the National Party to One Nation), the latter not previously noted for his feminist credentials.  Echoing her leader’s thoughts on the matter, Ms Plibersek said she thought the former ambassador was “…100 per cent wrong, and we have an excellent relationship with Japan.  I think the former ambassador is wrong in his interpretation.”  Now cast in the improbable role of the One Nation Party’s sole intellectual (he's a qualified accountant), Mr Joyce disagreed, saying it was “a really dangerous thing to say”, twisting the blade a little deeper by expressing some faux sympathy for his fellow panellist being bowled up to defend the indefensible: “I know you’re doing the best job you can on this, Tanya, but it’s just like the Kylie Minogue comment – completely wrong, completely trying to be clever. It wasn’t clever.  It just demeans the office of prime minister, and it certainly has created a massive problem with one of our major partners. I know in your heart, Tanya, you know it’s wrong.  Okay? And if you came out now and said, “Yeah, that was a stupid thing to say. You should have apologised for it. People say: ‘Tanya, it’s telling the truth.’”

Lay theologian Mr Joyce conjuring (with no apparent hint of irony) an impromptu encyclical on “truthfulness” was one of the more amusing episodes in the “melon incident”.  Undeterred by that surreal moment, Ms Plibersek maintained focus and insisted it was a “complete misinterpretation by the former ambassador”, unwisely adding: “People watching it for themselves can make their own minds up.”  Not one to miss a “full toss”, Mr Joyce responded: “They do, they do watch it, and they have made up their own mind.  And it is inappropriate.”  In cricketing terms, the English would have called that “being bowled a pie” (ie an “easy hit”) but anyway, Harold Macmillan politely would have applauded Mr Joyce's riposte through the slips to the boundary.

Erklärungsnot

Erklärungsnot (pronounced air-klair-oongs-noht)

Difficulty in explaining oneself; being at a loss for an explanation when one is in an awkward position, especially if one of one’s own making.

1980s: The construct was Erklärung (explanation, declaration, account) + not (distress, need, predicament, difficulty), thus literally “explanation distress”, best translated as “difficulty in explaining oneself” or “being at a loss for an explanation” but more graphically so as “explanation poverty”.  The construct of the verb erklären (to explain, to declare) was er- (a productive German verbal prefix (often indicating bringing something to completion or making something explicit)) + klären – (to clarify, to make clear).  Klären was from klar (clear), ultimately from the Latin clārus (clear, bright, famous); it was cognate with the English clear (gained via French influence from the same Latin root) and declare (from the Latin declarare).  Not (need, hardship, distress, emergency) was an old Germanic word that was cognate with the Old English nēad (necessity, compulsion), the English need, the Dutch nood and the Swedish nöd.  It was seen in many German compounds, two of late appearing increasingly in German news reports being Wohnungsnot (housing shortage) and Geldnot (financial distress).  The most common use in German appears to be in the phrase Erklärungsnot geraten (to get into Erklärungsnot), the charm of which is it can be as a lament (if of oneself) or said gleefully (in an act of schadenfreude) if of others.  Erklärungsnot is a noun; the noun plural is Erklärungsnöte.

The standard plural is Erklärungsnöte and not Erklärungsnots but if ever the word is assimilated and if the usual practice followed (English conventions used in plural formations) erklärungsnots will become an “alternative plural”.  As a general principle, German nouns ending in “-not” generally form their plural by taking an umlaut (a diacritical mark (¨) placed over a vowel (specifically in German “ä”, “ö” & “ü”) to indicate a shifted or fronted sound) and an “-e”; while appending an “-s” is one of the regular patterns in German plural formation, it’s used mostly for foreign loanwords, abbreviations or acronyms, most surnames and certain nouns ending in vowels.  When used in English, the formal rules can be “bent” and even if one is referring to several Erklärungsnöte, the singular Erklärungsnot will “do the job”.  For English-speakers, the pronunciation of Erklärungsnot is not intuitive is best written as air-klair-oongs-noht with stresses on the second (klair) and the final syllables (noht).  German language guides break it down as: (1) air (short and sharp), klair with the German “ä” spoken “ai” as in “hair”, (3) oongs assimilating the “r” in “hair” and thus pronounced like “roongs” (lightly rolling the “r” or dropping it slightly into an “ng” and (4) noht rhymes with “boat”.

Much fun is made of long German compound nouns, the classic example the 42-letter Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (Danube steamship company captain) although linguistically adventurous Germans fashioned constructions as long as 80 letters that authorities rejected that as phoney, ruling the 63-letter Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (beef labelling regulation and delegation of supervision law) the languages longest “real” word although use was rare, most preferring the more manageable abbreviation ReÜAÜG but it was rendered obsolete by changes to EU regulations meaning the 36-letter Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung (automobile liability insurance) gained the prized distinction.  More digestible forms have been embraced by English-speakers because they say in a few syllables what otherwise would demand a phrase or even a sentence, common examples including zeitgeist (spirit of the age) and schadenfreude (the feeling of joy or pleasure when something bad happens to another person, ideally an acquaintance).  Others offer little phonetic economy such as scheisskopf (shithead) but it’s used because it (1) is a “fun” word” and (2) is semi-euphemistic in that it avoids explicit use of the vulgar “shit”.  By convention, when German nouns are absorbed into English as “loan words” (subtlety different from being assimilated as with “etcetera”), they’re not spelled with an initial capital as in the German.  Erklärungsnot always is used with an initial capital because it remains a non-assimilated “foreign word”, a quality vesting it with an additional quality.  By convention, (ie this is not an absolute rule), in text, loan and assimilated words are not printed in italics, unlike most foreign forms.

Case study in Erklärungsnot: Chelsea Clinton (b 1980; FDOTUS 1993-2001)) & Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) watching crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) on stage with Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) second presidential debate, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 9 October, 2016.  Mr Clinton was a serial offender or, as he may have put it, a “serial victim”. 

For students of political mendacity & obfuscation (a well-documented field), examples of course abound and, to succeed in the business, the art of “handling Erklärungsnöte” must be mastered to the point it’s a politician’s stock-in-trade.  Of course, a politician might (at least briefly) succeed by being truthful but it seems doubtful that’s ever been tried so empirical data is lacking.  While the behavioural phenomenon of Erklärungsnot would have pre-dated the Stone Age, the word, although constructed with old elements, is not ancient, the first use thought to be by journalists during the early 1990s (ie shortly after German re-unification although perhaps no significance should be attached to that, German politicians having long before often been “at a loss to explain something”).  Quickly it became a staple of German political commentary and from there spread to wider use, it’s popularity artificially exaggerated in the statistics because the internet encouraged a proliferation of lists of rare words or those thought fun, interesting, weird and such.  In English, it has never caught on to the same extent as the loan words zeitgeist, schadenfreude or scheisskopf, probably because the pronunciation is “challenging”.  So, with no one-word equivalent in English, speakers of that language stuck with phrases like “I’m not absolutely certain (ie “don’t know”) or “it's hard to explain” (ie “if I tell the truth it will be bad for me”), neither of which so elegantly capture the moment.

It can’t with statistical certainty be said politicians more than most suffer Erklärungsnot but generally that perception exists because so many instances of them falling victim are recorded and in some form broadcast (most of us enduring the pain before a smaller audience, often WAGs (wives & girlfriends)).  Some politicians have of course so honed their techniques of avoidance or obfuscation that viewers, long since mentally bludgeoned into an acquiescent insensibility, have “tuned-out” to the extent even lies slur effortlessly into the waffle.  Markers of a politician being in a state of Erklärungsnot include (1) being asked a question and responding with something like “I think it's incredibly important...” before going on to talk about something else, (2) frequent use of the word “obviously” (whether or not things seem “obvious”), (3) rambling off-topic for a while and then saying “what was the question?” and (4) blaming the media.

Barnaby Joyce interviewed by Sarah Ferguson (b 1965) on the ABC’s (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 7:30 Report, July 2026.

One who tried a tactic more novel than the usual clichéd subtleties of evasion was Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022), a man who more than most has come to be confronted with questions he’d rather not answer.  In many cases, he’d be better off displaying his Erklärungsnot (usually otherwise a kiss of political death) than trying to answer because in his latter-day position, being “lost for words” would be better than “trying to come up with something” or (the Lord forbid), “tell the truth” but his commendable tactic was to turn away from his interviewer and “shout at the dog”.  While performative, theatrically, it was great television and while the interviewer doggedly pursued her line, the clever diversion did give Mr Joyce a few moments to “come up with something” and ensured national coverage would be all about “Barnaby’s dog”.  Nobody will remember the questions or the issues raised and, as was the case when he was filmed one midnight, lying drunk beside a planter box in a Canberra street while having an expletive-laden conversation with his (second) wife, the public’s reaction generally was positive.  That's because shouting at their dog or being seen sprawled drunk in the street makes a politician (in the parlance) “authentic”, a valued commodity in an age when so much is (or is assumed to be) “fake”.  It is of course not impossible there really was a misbehaving dog requiring Mr Joyce shout at it (animal behavior experts were quick to comment on whether that's a good idea) and it may be the convenient interruptions to the interview were not just a politician's trick to gain time.  Those of a generous spirit can extend him the benefit of the doubt.    

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.  Ms Lohan named her first dog “Gucci” after he chewed-up her new pair of Gucci boots but never commented on whether that was crisis enough for her to shout at the playful puppy.  Barnaby would have shouted.

Erklärungsnot has for generations been well-known to school students asked by the teacher why their homework wasn’t handed in for marking.  The classic “the dog ate my homework” might at the time, briefly, seem a good “work-around” for one’s instant, sinking feeling of Erklärungsnot but telling the truth probably is preferable.  Adults of course (usually) get better at the techniques, the most prevalent one in politics being “plausible deniability” but that can work (at least in the short term) only if the “plausibility” really is to one’s interlocutor(s) truly “plausible”.  Case studies include the lives and times of Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) and Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001), two gifted but flawed characters who, when in the depths of an Erklärungsnot, were inclined to “keep digging”.  This illustrious brace illustrate the word Erklärungsnot is at its most potent when applied to someone embarrassed by circumstances of their own making.  It has been used more generally (such as in cases where someone is the victim of unfortunate events) but that's a different flavor of pathos.

Microaggression

Microaggression (pronounced mahy-kroh-uh-gresh-uhn)

(1) A casual comment or action directed at a marginalized, minority or other non-dominant group that (often) unintentionally but unconsciously reinforces a stereotype and can be construed as offensive.

(2) The act of discriminating against a non-dominant group by means of such comments or actions.

1970: The construct was micro- + aggression.  The word was coined by African-American Chester Middlebrook Pierce (1927-2016), a former Professor of Education and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  Micro (small, microscopic; magnifying; one millionth) was a word-forming element from the New Latin micro- (small), from the Ancient Greek μικρός (mikrós) (small).  The origin is disputed between etymologists, the traditional view being it was from the primitive Indo-European (s)meyg- & (s)mēyg- (small, thin, delicate) and was cognate with the Old English smicor (beauteous, beautiful, elegant, fair, fine, tasteful), source also of the Modern English smicker and related to the German mickrig.   However, there’s a highly technical discussion within the profession, hinged around the unexplained “k” in the Greek and there’s the suggestion of pre-Greek origin on the basis of variation between initial /m/ and /sm/, as well as the variant forms μικός (mikós) and μικκός (mikkós).  Aggression, dating from 1605–1615, was from the French aggression, from the Latin aggressionem (nominative aggressio (a going to, an attack)), a noun of action from past participle stem of aggredi (to approach; attack) the construct being ad (to) + gradi (past participle gressus (to step)) from gradus (a step).  The Classical Latin aggressiōn (stem of aggressiō), was equivalent to aggress(us) + iōn derived from aggrēdi (to attack).  The psychological sense of "hostile or destructive behavior" had its origin in early psychiatry, first noted in English in 1912 in a translation of work by the Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).  While not exactly synonymous, microassault and microinequity are similar concepts, the most closely related verb being microinvalidate (to engage in microinvalidation, to make a relatively small statement or action (microaggression) that negates another person's experience, thoughts or feelings).  Microaggression, microaggressiveness, microaggressor & microaggressee are nouns, microaggress, microaggressed & microaggressing are verbs, microaggressive is an adjective and microaggressively is an adverb; the noun plural is microaggressions. 

Dr Chester Middlebrook Pierce (1927-2016).

Microaggression is an adaptable and possibly infinitely variable concept that probably most belongs in sociology; typically, it's defined as any of the small-scale verbal or physical interactions between those of different races, cultures, beliefs, or genders that are (perhaps sometimes generously) assumed to carry no malicious intent but which can be interpreted as revealing an underlying (and often unconscious) bias.  The criteria can be both objective and subjective and it’s noted compliments or comments intended to be positive can be defined as microaggressions if interpreted as patronizing or perpetuating stereotypes (racial, gender, sexual orientation, class, occupational, geographical etc).  Probably, the only "safe" identity-based categorizations are now those purely statistical: average heights by nationality and such although such is the sensitivity, the recommendation of many is now wholly to avoid anything that possibly could be construed as a microaggression, the only exceptions being those directed at groups defined as "privileged" (white people, Christians, cisgender, heterosexual males etc).  Very much a "spectrum" word, microaggression began life as a defensive shield but has in recent years attracted criticism (from both left and right) because it was able to be weaponized in "cancellation culture".  The standard psychology texts suggest the behavior manifests in three forms:

Microassault: An explicit racial derogation which can be verbal or nonverbal which can include labelling, avoidant behavior and purposeful discriminatory actions.

Microinsult: Communications that convey rudeness or insensitivity and demean a person's racial heritage or identity; subtle snubs which may be unknown to the perpetrator; hidden insulting messages to the recipient of color.

Microinvalidation: Communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person belonging to a particular group.

The concept emerged to address the underlying racism that endured even after overt, deliberate expressions of racism (at least against defined minorities) had become unacceptable in polite society.  It held that microaggressions generally happened below the level of awareness of well-intentioned members of the dominant culture and were different from acts of intentional bigotry (such as the use of racist epithets) because the those committing microaggressions often intend no offense and are unaware they are causing harm.  That wasn't exactly a Golgothaesque "forgive them for they know not what they do" but in the abstract did position the dominant (and not of necessity majority) culture as normal with minorities treated as aberrant or pathological.

Although the word’s origin lay in the politics of race and ethnicity, it proved readily adaptable to other areas such as gender, sexual orientation, mental illness, disability and age.  Within academic sociology, there’s a (typically) highly technical debate about the nature of microaggression and intersectionality at the cross-cutting cleavages of non-dominant groups.  As regards the media, the discipline had a well-refined model to describe how microaggressions were either reinforced or encouraged by a news and entertainment industry that both reflected and was controlled by the hegemony of the dominant culture.  The sudden shock of the emergence of social media has changed things (diversity of source and content) but the main effect has been to balkanize: While there are places where microaggressions will not be tolerated, there are others where such things are routine and some where microaggressions are about the mildest forms of racism and such.  To date, much work in exploring this area has been impressionistic and it’s not clear if the analytical metrics, where they exist, are sufficiently robust for theories to be coherent beyond the sense of constant "mission creep".  In a sense, social media and the development of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) are synergistic with the maintenance and critique of microaggressions one of many elements in the culture wars.

As an indication of the how things have changed, in 1939 the terms “paleface” and “redskin” were in 1939 appropriated for use in literary criticism by Russian-born (in modern-day Ukraine) Jewish-American literary critic and essayist Philip Rahv (1908–1973).  What in retrospect makes that most interesting was Rahv was not a kind of “proto-MAGA” (Make America Great Again) figure from the Republican Party’s far-right (a faction that definitely existed in 1939 although different labels were applied) but was of the “left”, emphasizing the virtues of cosmopolitanism and Marxist analysis, one irony in his casual use of “paleface” and “redskin” being his advocacy of “breaking down” ethnic and racial barriers.  He was in the early 1930s a member of the ACP (American Communist Party) but, trans-nationally, long-suppressed fissiparous forces had been unleashed by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) and Rahv in 1937 was expelled from the ACP by the dominant Stalinist Popular Front faction, condemned as a “Trotskyite” (a follower the exiled Russian comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder in 1938 of the Fourth International).  His political activities in the US for a while continued but by the 1950s he’d become one of “The God that Failed” ex-communists and, after a brief flirtation with the “New Left” (or rather what he thought the New Left should have been), he retreated to literature to wage a low-intensity campaign against structuralism.

One of General LeMay’s “civilizing influences”, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay that delivered the first of the two nuclear weapons (thus far) used in conflicts.  It’s now on display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Virginia.

The splicing of the planet's “races” into “civilized”, “barbarian” and “savages” was very much a thing of nineteenth century European thought (although the notion existed also in Imperial China, the definitely very civilized mandarins there appalled by “barbarians” such as the British).  While the terms in this context probably originated in casual use, as the “scientific methods” of the Enlightenment became more generally applied, the notion was taken up, systematized and in some cases codified (with anatomical illustrations) by ethnographers, anthropologists, academic physicians, palaeontologists and others, the most notorious application probably the use in the pseudo-science of eugenics, a “discipline” to some so persuasive its echo continues on both sides of the Atlantic to be heard in the twenty-first century.  The concept of civilization (very much equated with “Western”) has long been a great concern of white supremacists and although the composition of “threats to its survival” does shift, it’s perceived always to be under assault.  Some have offered solutions.  US General Curtis LeMay (1906–1990; Chief of Staff of the USAF (US Air Force) 1961-1965) once remarked to a colleague: “Empirical evidence suggests the most successful way to civilize a nation is to A-bomb it…twice.”  It was said in making the observation he seemed “at least half-serious” and it had been Boeing B-29 Superfortresses under his command that in August 1946 had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki so the general likely felt entitled to be proud of his contribution to that civilizing influence.  A confessed Freemason, (a cult that can hardly be said much to have improved civilization), General LeMay was vice-presidential running mate on the 1968 ticket of notorious racist and segregationist George Wallace (1919-1998; governor (Democratic Party) of Alabama 1963–1967, 1971–1979 & 1983–1987) and, by historic standards, the duo enjoyed success, the AIP (American Independent Party) ticket gaining 13.5% of the popular vote, carrying five states for 46 votes in the Electoral College.

Allen's "Red Skins" and "Chicos": On supermarket shelves in Australia until 2020.

It is of course now unthinkable a figure of the left (liberals, progressives etc), Trotskyites or otherwise, would be so casually microaggressive as to take terms so vested with racism as “paleface” and “redskin” so they could, with no acknowledgment of the history, be re-purposed as devices in literary criticism.  However, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” and in the US in 1939, to do such a thing was unremarkable, an indication of the cultural currents underpinning society with the use of language both a product and part of the construct.  Paleface (the construct being pale +‎ face) came from US English and appeared in the anthropological record as early as 1797 (the origin uncertain) but seems not to have entered general use until the early 1920s.  The origin is uncertain but it was supposedly a calque from a Native American language; the form presumably coined when those of the first nations encountered Europeans.  The earliest verified use of the word redskin (the construct being red + skin) dates from 1769 although despite documents from the 1580s referring to the skin-tone of indigenous Americans as “red”, that use by European explorers and settlers was not consistent and in some instances may have been a reference to the use of red “paint” used to adorn the face and upper-body.  “Paleface” has been used as an intended slur against white people (with little apparent effect) but “redskin” definitely is an ethnic slur offensive to Native Americans although the record suggest than until around the mid-nineteenth century it was neutral and merely descriptive before ascending the “linguistic treadmill”.  Use puts it now well beyond being a microaggression.

The re-brand, 2020.

Allen's "Red Skins" and "Chicos" were in 2020 re-named "Red Rippers" and "Cheekies" respectively.  In the US, it was in 2020 the NFL (National Football League) team the Washington Redskins retired the name used since 1933, adopting Washington Football Team before in 2022 settling on a re-branding as Commanders.  The team's administration, when announcing the name-change, made no mention of the preceding controversy, nor the pressure from corporations, something most analysts suggested prompted the change more than any of the representations by Native American communities.  According to the Allen's, the recipes for the lollies remained “unchanged” and thus far Streets’ Golden Gaytime (sold in New Zealand as the Cookie Crumble) ice cream snack has survived the linguistic treadmill.

  

Gaytime meme.

The meme features Eric Abetz (b 1958; Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022, Treasurer of Tasmania since 2024).  A student of Leviticus, Mr Abetz does not approve of any form of gaynessness.  First sold in 1970, and in general use clipped usually “Gaytime”, the confectionery is a toffee and vanilla ice cream, dipped in compound chocolate with a heavy sprinkling of large “crumbs” of vanilla biscuit, all on a wooden paddlepop-stick.  Although by 1970 “gay” was in use in the context of “male homosexuals”, it had not in Australian society gained critical mass and there’s nothing to suggest the name was then chosen for reasons other than the historic association of “gay” with “happy” and certainly the connotations later attached to “golden” by the gay community would have been unknown to most.  The company in the 1980s anyway embraced the possibilities with advertising tag lines such as “It's hard to have a Gaytime on your own” and complaints about the name in the new century received scant support from even gay-rights activists.

In 1939, Rahv used “paleface” and “redskin” to distinguish between what he called “two poles”; his sense was of the diametrically opposed “north & south” but his model was stylistic and thematic rather than geographic (and really not quite an antinomy as some have suggested).  The polarization as defined by Rahv had him group writers according to their attitude, style, subject matter and such, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), Herman Melville (1819–1891) and Henry James (1843-1916) classified as “palefaces” while Walt Whitman (1819–1892), and Mark Twain (1835-1910) were “redskins”.  In Rahv’s literary world view, palefaces had cultured and patrician attitudes, wrote in a mannered style using symbolism and explored “lofty” themes with great complexity.  The redskins wrote works of the rugged men of frontier life or the working class, criminals and “low lifes” in the unpleasant parts of towns and cities.  He didn’t seem to suggest writing in a colloquial and naturalistic way couldn’t be interpolated into thematically complex literary texts, just that it was inevitable a “down market” cast of characters and places they frequented would shape the work.  So Rahv saw palefaces as “civilized” and redskins as “barbarians”; presumably he’d have thought “savages” to be “non-literary” and thus “beyond the pale” as it were.  Of those Americans who came later, categorization must be speculative but can be fun.

Use of "Eskimo" definitely can be deemed microaggressive. While ice-cream lovers can still buy "Gaytimes", they had to adjust to the "Eskimo Pie" being renamed (variously "Edy's Pie" or "Polar Pie").  It remains to be seen if the use of polar bears in some of the new packaging triggers controversy.  The creatures do appear in aspects of Inuit culture and religion and it's not clear if permission for use has been sought.

William Faulkner (1897–1962) and Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) both seem redskins and Norman Mailer (1923–2007) clearly was no paleface though he might have thought being filed with the barbarians an effete slight on his savagery.  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was a redskin who really wanted to be a paleface (and never stopped trying) while Philip Roth (1933–2018) was such a paleface he never quite mastered the “redskin mode” despite the occasional heroic attempt.  John Updike (1932–2009) was a paleface but the problem inherent in assigning writers with a hefty oeuvre to polarized categories is that at the margins their writing can “straddle” and sometimes those margins are wide.  That’s why plausible cases can be made arguing both Bernard Malamud (1914–1986) and Saul Bellow (1915–2005) at times at least “tended” to either pole.  What Rahv would have made of Faulkner in 1949 and Bellow in 1976 being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature while Updike and Roth were ignored (despite the latter engaging in self-promotion not far short of Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) auto-advocacy to be the Peace Prize laureate) would be interesting to know but safely can it be imagined he’d have thought the entire Nobel Committee redskins after in 2016 they conferred the honor in literature on musician Bob Dylan (b 1941).  Maybe it was women of the Swedish Academy (the body that chooses the Literature laureates) who vetoed Roth; in all he wrote of women (and it was a lot), Roth revealed much about himself but little about them, despite the usually elegant internal logic.  Rahv was anyway appalled literature appeared to exist in such a dichotomy and, being an old Trotskyite who never quite stopped taking seriously Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) politics, longed for a world where folk wrote like Marcel Proust (1871-1922) or Thomas Mann (1875–1955), the latter at least acknowledged in 1929 by the Nobel Committee.

1958 Studebaker Scotsman advertisement.

There was in 1957 nothing unusual or offensive in Studebaker naming a car “Scotsman” and it would have been well-understood as a reference to the car’s low purchase price and (alleged) TCO (total cost of ownership).  Scotsman buyers could even save a little more were they prepared to forgo the extravagance of chrome bumpers and choose the "delete option" of painted units; Mercedes-Benz also once offered that on taxi versions of a number of utilitarian sedans, the most produced the W115s (1968-1976). Other manufacturers used the same concept as Studebaker: Citroën ID vs DS, Cadillac Calais vs de Ville etc, some including fewer features and simpler trim, some also changing the mechanical specification but the principle was always: same size, less stuff, lower price.  The name "Scotsman" was picking up on the reputation of the Scots for frugality and it would have been thought something neutral at worst and more likely positive, thriftiness in the early post-war US still generally thought a virtue despite the best attempts of capitalism to encourage consumer gluttony; as fat overtook the land, things would change.  Technically, such use would now fulfil the criteria of a “microaggression” even if deployed in a way making clear it’s being intended as a compliment.  Scots can of course use the trope of themselves and even if used by others, as race-based microaggressions go, it’s probably at the "lower range" of offensiveness, those applied to “white people”, rarely noticed and certainly not grounds for cancellation.  Still, by the 2020s, it’s highly unlikely a car company would now name a car a “Scotsman” and certainly not if it was a “stripper” (ie a low-cost model with minimal standard equipment).

The “Scotsman’s supercar”: 1968 Plymouth Road Runner, Car Life magazine, May 1968.

Quite when the term "stripper" (in that context) vanished from commercial use can’t be certain but it would have occurred later in the twentieth century and certainly after 1968 when Car Life magazine, reviewing the new Plymouth Road Runner, called the stripped-down, low-priced muscle car: “a sort of Scotsman’s supercar”.  As well as a relic of linguistic use, Car Life’s test was interesting because unlike many of its contemporaries that often conducted tests using vehicles tweaked by manufacturers or dealers for optimal performance, they used the genuine, stock-standard articles, bought from the showroom floor, that being a more realistic path to discovering if thing did "what it said on the tin".  What Car Life revealed was the Road Runner (when equipped with the standard 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8)) was quicker than a typical 383 powered car using the same body (as would be expected given the lower weight and modifications to the 383 used in the model) but was unable to match the sub-15 second ¼-mile (402 metre) runs reported by many.  The basic Road Runner was actually representative of the performance of most of the era’s “muscle car ecosystem” while the storied cars that “out of the box” were able consistently to log ¼-mile ETs (elapsed time) in the 13 or 14 second bracket were relatively rare and a tiny sliver of what came to be classified as "muscle cars", some of which just "looked the part" although that did prove a lucrative market.  Of course, to solve any perception of inadequacy, a buyer could tick the box for the optional 426 (7.0) Street Hemi V8 and while that was expensive, as well a fixing any performance deficit, putting one in a Road Runner was the cheapest path to Hemi ownership, a compelling case at a time when a thousand dollars was a lot of money.

Channeling her inner Scotsperson: Lindsay Lohan in Royal Stewart tartan, Freaky Friday (2003), costume test photo (Walt Disney Pictures).

Despite the perception of many (encouraged bydepictions in popular culture), tartan in the sense of specific color & pattern combinations attached to specific clans is something of recent origin.  Tartan (breacan (pɾʲɛxkən) in Scots Gaelic) is a patterned cloth consisting of criss-crossed, horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours.  The word plaid is now often used interchangeably with tartan (particularly in North America and when not associated with anything Scottish (especially kilts)), but technically (and always in Scotland), a plaid is a large piece of tartan cloth, worn as a type of kilt or large shawl although it’s used also to describe a blanket.  During the disputes between England and Scotland, the wearing of tartan became a political expression and the Dress Act (1746) was part of the campaign to suppress the warrior clans north of the border; it banned tartan and other aspects of Gaelic culture. The law was repealed in 1782 and tartan was soon adopted as both the symbolic national dress of Scotland and in imagery more generally.

The Royal Stewart was the personal tartan of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) and although historically associated with the royal house of Stewart (or Stuart), it has become one of the most widely used in commercial fashion and in that sense appears in parallel with the clan affiliation.  Commonly worn to formal events such as weddings, ceilidhs (social gatherings, the nature of which casts a wide net) or Burns Night (celebrating the life of Robert "Rabbie" Burns (1759–1796 and still in popular imagination Scotland's "national poet")), the modern trend is to pair a kilt with a Prince Charlie or Argyll jacket, traditionalists adding a Sporran (pouch), Hose (kilt socks) & flashes, Ghillie brogues (traditional shoes) and even a Sgian dubh (a small dagger tucked in the sock) although carrying the last item may be unlawful in some jurisdictions.  Lindsay Lohan in her screen test wore the dress in something of the way in the 1970s it became part of the punk sub-culture but for more conventional types there are also scarves, ties, sashes and such.  Remarkably, in the age of identity politics and sensitivity to cultural appropriation, the etiquette guides note there is no objection to non-Scots folk wearing their tartan of choice except when an event is clan-specific in which case only those in the lineage should don the fabric.  That said, even then, the consequence of a tartan faux pas will likely be less severe than wearing a Rangers shirt in a Glasgow pub filled with Celtic’s hoops.  Still, deployed with sufficient cultural insensitivity, improper use of tartan could be a microaggression.

Microaggression in Progress: A Mean Girls (2004) "mall scene".

Mean Girls was replete with instances of microaggressiveness.  We’re still (mostly) allowed (quietly) to be amused by some of these, but, a quarter-century on, there’s now a more hostile critique of subtle verbal or behavioural slights that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to marginalized groups, even if genuinely often unintentional; what seems subtle to some may to others be blatant insensitivity.  In satire, there's still some tolerance for such depictions although audiences are now expected to be as appalled as they are amused and, of course, as a satire of the gut-wrenching ecosystem that is high school social dynamics, subtle forms of relational aggression and passive-aggressive exclusion were not hard to find and can be categorized:

(1) Racial and Geographic Microaggressions: The line: “If you're from Africa, why are you white?” was an invalidation of an individual’s cultural identity on the basis of not according with another’s geographic & racial assumptions & expectations.  The school map of “the cafeteria cliques” includes “Cool Asians”, the labelling reducing individuals to their ethnicity and when paired with what is nominally a most positive teen modifier (cool), that operates as a racial micro-insult implying (1) most individuals of that ethnicity are “not cool” and (2) non-white students are in a sense monolithic and acknowledged as “acceptable sub-groups” only if they in some way adhere to “white people constructs” of “white normative standards”.  “Black hotties” operates at the same level, although “hot” (a type of “coolness”!) usually is positive, the implication here is that “hotness” inherently is a quality of certain white girls and a black girl can be deemed “hot” only compared to other black girls; she cannot, in the absolute sense, merely be a “hottie”, that descriptor operating only on white girls.  The surprised response “Oh you speak English?” when someone is introduced to a black student thought to be from Africa reveals the cultural assumption such an individual would likely lack proficiency in the language; it’s a classic micro-invalidation.

Microaggression weaponized ironically.

(2) Gender and Academic Microaggressions: When Cady expresses interest in joining the school math team, she’s told it’s “social suicide”, a pushback reinforcing gendered and social stereotypes that young women cannot be simultaneously be popular, attractive and intellectually gifted, thus the trope of intentionally failing math to gain a boy's attention.  The “I’m too pretty to do math” T-shirt plays with this and works well if worn by a pretty math nerd although, it'd be really subversive on a "not-pretty" girl.

(3) Backhanded compliments disguised as “niceness”: Such things can be the least objectionable of all microaggressions especially if there’s some equivalency in the power-relationship and the quip is witty, subtle and (ideally retrospectively) understood.  It can also be done “by proxy” such as when saying to one student “I love your skirt, where did you get it?”, only to wait until she’s out of earshot before turning to another and saying “That is the ugliest effing skirt I've ever seen.”  What this does is make an individual realize they may not be able to find sincere or truthful anything they’re told.

Aggression rather then microaggression: “Fetch” anyway likely never would have “happened”.  Although a convenient clipping of “fetching” (often in the form “quite fetching” or “most fetching” and meaning “charming; captivating; compelling” etc), by the early twenty-first century “fetching” in those senses had long since descended into the category of “dated”; it was an “old people” word, use thus “social suicide”.

(4) Image and fat-shaming: Because the social identity of the “Plastics” was so tied to rigid “beauty standards” (some group-imposed, some the prevailing norms), by use of the “Kalteen Bars manipulation” it was possible to induce weight-gain in Regina, an act of sabotage opening the possibility of subjecting her to micro-insults and non-verbal cues (staring at her body or pointing out strict dress-code rules that really can’t be adhered to by someone gaining weight) to signal there’s been a violation of group standards, requiring exclusion.  In that, the techniques are different from something like: “Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen.”; that is pure aggression: A group’s hegemon maintaining control by suppressing another member’s attempt to assert their personal identity through something as seemingly innocuous as the introduction of a new slang term.  It was a type of linguistic imperialism, similar to the attitude of Spanish nationalist troops who occupied Catalonia and the Basque country after their victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).  Harshly they would tell those they heard talking in regional dialects: “Speak the language of the Empire, don’t bark like dogs!”