Termagant

Termagant (pronounced tur-muh-guhnt)

(1) A mythical deity popularly believed in Medieval Christendom to be worshiped by Muslims and introduced into the morality play as a violent, overbearing personage in long robes (a proper noun and thus used with initial capital).

(2) A brawling, boisterous, and turbulent person or thing (archaic).

(3) A censorious, nagging, scolding and quarrelsome woman (not exactly synonymous with “harridan”, “virago” or “shrew” but with a similar flavor of disapprobation); for those who find some women worse than others, the comparative is “more termagant”, the superlative “most termagant”.

(4) The act of behaving violently; turbulent conduct.

Circa 1500: From the Middle English Termagaunt (one of the three fictitious deities (others being Apollin & Mahound) represented as being worshipped by Muslims; any pagan god), from the from the Anglo-Norman Tervagant, Tervagaunt & Tervagan and the Old French Tervagant & Tervagan, a name bestowed on a wholly fictitious Muslim deity, created by Christian polemicists to use in medieval morality plays as a symbol of the Islamic faith.  In the Old French, Tervagant was a proper name in the eleventh century chanson de geste (song of heroic deeds (from the Classical Latin gesta (deeds, actions accomplished)) Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland).  The epic poem is the oldest known work of substantial length in French still extant and was drawn from the exploits of the Frankish military commander Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778) during the reign of Charlemagne (748–814; “Charles the Great” and (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814).  That the text (more correctly “texts” as a number of variants have been identified) survived to this day is accounted for by the work’s popularity; it was between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries among the most widely distributed pieces of literature in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.  The alternative spelling was termagant.  Termagant is a noun & adjective, termagancy & termagantism are nouns, termagantish is an adjective, and termagantly is an adverb; the noun plural is Termagants.

The ultimate origin of the word is a mystery but the most supported theory suggests the construct being based on the Latin ter (three times, thrice) (from the primitive Indo- European tréyes (three)) + vagāns (rambling, wandering) (present active participle of vagor (to ramble, roam, wander), from vagus (rambling, roaming, wandering) (the source of which may be the primitive Indo-European hwogos) + -or (an inflected form of -ō (the suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)).  Given that possible etymology, it’s argued the appearance of Termagant in Chanson de Roland as one of the three deities allegedly worshipped by Muslims was an allusion to the wandering of the moon (the crescent moon a well-known symbol of Islam) in the form of the mythological goddesses Selene in heaven, Diana on Earth, and Proserpina in the underworld.  The adjective was derived from the original proper noun, the sense of a “violent, overbearing person” (later applied especially to “difficult” women) evolving because Christian scribes always applied these characteristics to the figure; the meaning shift was thus a “partial transfer” in that the unpleasant personality was carried over to earthly flesh and blood with no suggestion of anything supernatural. 

Al Malik Al Ahmar (The Red Jinn-King) from an eighteenth century edition of the the Arabic manuscript of Kitab al Bulhan (Book of Wonders).

The Termagant was a wholly mythical deity invented by Christian writers in Middle Ages who claimed it was a figure worshiped by Muslims.  Depicted as a violent, overbearing personage in long robes, unlike a number of cross-cultural creations there was no figure which existed specifically in Islamic belief, theology, or folklore that could be said to be a model for the fanciful imaginings of Christian polemicists so it was “fake news” rather than a distorted version of a figure in what was in the West long called Mohammedanism (also a misleading tern because of the implication Muhammad is worshiped by Muslims; In Islam only Allah (God) is worshiped while Muhammad is venerated as His greatest prophet).  This was all part of Christianity’s misrepresentation of Islamic theology as not monotheist and thus in violation of first two of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament’s Book of Exodus: (1) Thou shall worship no other Gods and (2) Thou shall not create false idols.  It was a blatant untruth because strictly Islam was tawḥīd (monotheistic) and explicitly proscribed even the suggestion of a pantheon of gods.  Unlike Christianity’s claims about Jesus Christ, the prophet Muhammad was never said to be divine and was never worshipped.  Thus, the so-called “Saracen trinity” in medieval texts has no basis in Islamic doctrine although that didn’t prevent the notion spreading and being believed and variants of the techniques of dissemination have since been practiced by propagandists such as priests and politicians.

An Islamic miniature (1595) depicting Iblīs (top right) plotting against Muhammad watching over a meeting by the leaders of the Quraysh discussing the second pledge at al-Aqabah, being spied on by the anti-Islamic zealot “the Monk” Abu ʿĀmir al-Rāhib, who is part of Iblīs' plan, New York Public Library collection.

It’s true that there were then (as there are now) in Islam many figures of authority cloaked in long, dark robes but that was true also of Christianity and other faiths.  By the late Middle Ages, even if the fake theology was proving unconvincing, the secular appeal of such a menacing figure was real and especially in English theatre (where there was often more leeway granted by the censors of church & state than elsewhere in Europe), the termagant evolved into a stock character: ranting, tyrannical, bombastic and often dressed in a costume of a type which late in the twentieth century the Palestinian-American academic Edward Said (1935–2003) in Orientalism (1978) identified as a clichéd “exoticized Eastern costume” (another Western construct).  Of Termagant Apollin & Mahound, although there are in the Islamic tradition no true analogues, there are figures (perhaps better thought of as “concepts”) in which there are vague or superficial resemblances to the stereotype although there was never a hint they should be worshiped.  The جنّ (Jinn) were supernatural beings made of “smokeless fire” and although some were rebellious or violent, depending on this and that, they might be benevolent, neutral, or malevolent but were certainly not deities to be worshipped and seem never to have been depicted as despotic tyrants in the theatrical sense of the Termagant of the Christian imagination.  Best known in the West was إبليس (Iblīs/Shayṭān (Satan)) who existed as the primary adversarial figure in Islam and one representing arrogance, rebellion, and temptation.  Iblīs however seems closer to the Christian Satan than a “false god”, not being nor portrayed as a blustering theatrical tyrant in robes.  Most interesting in the tradition were the طاغية (ẓālim; the tyrannical rulers), a crew made especially interesting in the last few months, following the ayatollahs’ recent bloody crackdown on the streets of Iran to ensure regime survival, the death-toll in January 2026 believed to have exceeded 30,000 and the author and public policy analyst Robert Templer (b 1966) has estimated that on at least two days that month, there were more were killed in state-sanctioned violence than on any day since the end of World War II (1939-1945), his calculations including the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and the Balkans.  The Qurʾān condemns unjust rulers (such as the Pharaohs) and to make the point, the ẓālim tended to be overbearing, violent and arrogant.  Those Iranians killed by the thousand while chanting “Death to the dictator!” would have recognized what the Qurʾān condemns but the pattern is known from history.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, right) with former special friend Samantha Ronson (b 1977, left).  The couple were a tabloid staple in 2008-2009 but at the time the question often asked was whether a relationship between one “quite termagant” and another “more termagant” could long be sustained.  As was predicted, things ended badly.  There seems no evidence there ever was a collective noun for Termagants.  If one is needed, it’s be something like a “tempest”, “scold”, “railing” or “fury” of termagants.

By March 1945, it was obvious to most in Berlin that the end was nigh and one individual brought to the attention of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) a salient passage in his political manifesto Mein Kampf (1925-1926): “The task of diplomacy is to ensure that a nation does not heroically go to its destruction but is practically preserved.  Every way that leads to this end is expedient, and a failure to follow it must be called criminal neglect of duty.  State authority as an end in itself cannot exist, since in that case every tyranny on this earth would be sacred and unassailable.  If a racial entity is being led toward its doom by means of governmental power, then the rebellion of every single member of such a Volk is not only a right, but a duty.”  Unmoved, Hitler responded: “If the war is lost, the people will be lost also.  It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for elemental survival.  On the contrary, it is best for us to destroy even these things.  For the nation has proved to be the weaker, and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation.  In any case only those who are inferior will remain after this struggle, for the good have already been killed.”  Presumably, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-2026; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran 1989-2026) would have concurred with the sentiments for, just as the Germans had “failed Hitler”, those Iranians chanting “Death to the dictator!” had failed him, thus the holy duty to kill them, not for a motive as base as “regime survival” but because the protesters were attacking Islam and thus Allah himself.  In the Supreme Leader’s theological construct, killing thousands in defense of God was not merely justified but an obligation.

Over time, in English, “a termagant” came to mean a scolding or overbearing person, a meaning wholly detached from its supposed origin in religion and under a number of influences, it came to be used mostly of women.  The most significant of these influences was literature and the stage, use shifting from elaborate epics about the crusades to popular entertainment.  As a constructed theological fiction Termagant was anyway perfect for the playwright and had it not existed it surely would have been created, violence, bluster, and irrational fury staples of drama.  For students of such things, the shift from the ranting tyrant to the “stock stage villain” was interesting because in the latter role the Termagant needed sometimes to be a comic character, bombastic and shouting with deliberate “overacting” often in the stage directions.

The elongated John Cleese (b 1939) and Andrew Sachs (1930-2016) in Basil the Rat (25 October, 1979) the final episode in the BBC comedy series Fawlty Towers (12 episodes in two series (1975 & 1979)).  It was in the Fawlty Towers episode The Germans (24 October, 1975) that the phrase “Don't mention the war” was introduced by Basil at his most termagant and in that case Shakespeare would have instructed Cleese to “out-herod Herod”.

So in early Modern English, the shift began from character to adjective and with the use in stage drama expanding during the sixteenth century, the transition accelerated.  When William Shakespeare (1564–1616) had Sir John Falstaff faking his own death (Act 5, Scene 4) in Henry IV, Part 1 (circa 1596), he spoke of the fierce Scottish rebel, Archibald, Earl of Douglas as “that hot termagant Scot” and by then there was no hint of any connection to alleged Islamic deities; it was just about the man’s turbulent, violet nature.  Shakespeare’s characters run the gamut of the human condition, something sometimes misunderstood by those who associate him only with what’s understood as “high culture” but he knew that while “overacting” sometimes was essential for comic effect  otherwise it needed sedulously to be avoided. In his stage instructions for Hamlet (circa 1600) he cautioned the cast: “Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.”  That instruction also assumed a new life, appearing in modified form in All's Well That Ends Well (circa 1602) as “out-villain'd villainy” before in the 1800s “out-herods Herod” came widely to be used as a critique of any behaviour thought “excessive” and by then, in stage productions, “termagant” explicitly was invoked as verbal shorthand for the sort of strident ranting sometimes required.

The suggestion that Basil Fawlty may be thought a “Shakespearian” character is not flippant and is in the vein of the observation by the English actor Sir Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) that were the Italian painter of the Early Renaissance Sandro Botticelli (circa 1445-1510) alive today: “he'd be working for Vogue”.  One suspects Shakespeare would have been proud to have created a figure like the evil J.R. Ewing (from the US TV series Dallas (1978-1991)) or penned a line like “Round up the usual suspects!” (from the movie Casablanca (1942)).  The works of Sir Pelham “P.G.” Wodehouse (1881–1975) have a certain charm which exerts a powerful pull on some critics and often he’s cited as a twentieth century popular author reaching a similar audience to that for which Shakespeare wrote centuries earlier.  The politician and diarist Woodrow Wyatt (1918–1997) reckoned: “There are almost as many quotations in Wodehouse as Shakespeare” and the usually acerbic Auberon Waugh (1939–2001) mused: “The failure of academic literary criticism to take any account of Woodhouse’s supreme mastery of the English language or the profound influence he has had on every worthwhile English novelist of the last 50 years demonstrates in better and concise form than anything else how the English literature industry is divorced from the subject it claims to study.”  His point was well-made although it may have been a little back-handed, old Auberon Waugh probably not thinking the last fifty years had produced many “worthwhile” novelists.

Color plate of Sir John Falstaff by Giovan Battista Galizzi (1882-1963) from The Life and Death of Sir John Falstaff (1923, with an introduction by lawyer George Radford (1851-1917)).

Even before the scientific and technical advances of the last two centuries-odd led to a proliferation of creations, the English language's vocabulary was famously large and while some categories have been more more productive than others, few proved quite as imaginatively fecund as (1) coinings and re-purposings to describe female body parts and (2) terms with which to demonize or disparage women (termagant one of the latter).  After the dubious link with Islam had been discarded, termagant was understood as someone blustering, noisy and tyrannical; it was in the late sixteenth century there was a distinct gender shift and the word became specifically female, associated less with domineering violence and more with shrillness, emotional excess, and scolding, performed in a theatrical style that audiences coded as unseemly or grotesque, applying the word to “difficult” women in the world beyond.  It was a time of profound social and political change and as social norms in England hardened around ideals of female deference, obedience and modesty, the label migrated: While for men “termagant” had meant (depending on context) threatening or ridiculous, when applied to women it suggested social transgression.  It wasn’t quite Taliban-level repression but women with minds of their own were apt to be judged quarrelsome, overbearing and scolding, terms like “shrew” & “virago” becoming termagant’s companion terms.  At this point, lexical fossilization set in and by the mid-1700, the original sense (the fictional deity) had faded into obscurity with the meaning stabilized as “a domineering, bad-tempered woman”, thus the adjectival form “termagant behaviour”.  To etymologists, the long process was an interesting case study in that the mechanism of changed happened in phases, the theatrical and religious origins surviving only as residual footnotes while the metonymic shifts were driven by changing cultural norms, not grammatical rules.

The Royal Navy's Talisman-class destroyer, HMS Termagant, 1916.

It was of course a good name for a warship and between 1780 and 1965, the British Admiralty from time to time had seven HMS Termagants attached to the Royal Navy’s fleets, the last launched in 1943.  One with a vague connection to the original meaning was a Talisman-class destroyer, ordered originally by the Ottoman Empire but in 1915 requisitioned by the Admiralty (as HMS Narborough) before being renamed built HMS Termagant.  Despite the expectations of decades, World War I (1914-1918) was not a conflict of great naval clashes and although she took part in the Battle of Jutland (1916, which seemed at the time anti-climatic but was strategically decisive), her record was not illustrious and, sold for scrap in 1921, she was broken up two years later.

Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022, left) and his wife Jodie Haydon (b 1979, centre) with Grace Tame (b 1994; activist and advocate for survivors of sexual assault, right) in photo opportunity before a morning tea at the Lodge (the prime minister’s residence), Canberra, Australia, January, 2025.

The “Fuck Murdoch” T-Shirt she made famous was worn with a purpose.  Happy to discuss the provocative fashion piece, Ms Tame said the message wasn’t aimed just at media mogul Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) but rather the “obscene greed, inhumanity and disconnection that he symbolises, which are destroying our planet.  For far too long this world and its resources have been undemocratically controlled by a small number of morbidly wealthy oligarchs.  If we want to dismantle this corrupt system, if we want legitimate climate action, equity, truth, justice, democracy, peace, land back, etc, then resisting forces like Murdoch is a good starting point.  Speaking truth to power starts at the grassroots level with simple, effective messages. It’s one of my favourite shirts.”

A difficult woman's sceptical glance: Grace Tame (right) looking at Scott Morrison, Canberra, Australia, January 2022.

Ms Tame had previously provided photographers with some good snaps, most memorably her stony “side-eye” expression to Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime minister 2018-2022), another politician she deemed not to have treated allegations of sexual assault and toxic workplace culture in federal parliament with sufficient seriousness, noting his casual dismissal of her as having “had a terrible life”.  Less than amused at some of the commentary about her sideways glance, she tweeted on X (the called Twitter) that some in the media appeared to have reduced the matter of survival from abuse to a culture “…dependent on submissive smiles, self-defeating surrenders and hypocrisy”, adding “What I did wasn’t an act of martyrdom in the gender culture war.”   Expanding things to a construct, she explained: “It’s true that many women are sick of being told to smile, often by men, for the benefit of men. But it’s not just women who are conditioned to smile and conform to the visibly rotting status-quo. It’s all of us.”

If Anthony Albanese didn't previously think Grace Tame was “a difficult woman”, he probably now does.

In Australian political discourse, “termagant” has not often been heard but ALP (Australian Labor Party) luminary Kim Beazley (b 1948) did in 2008 so label the Liberal Party’s Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015); while a by then untypical use, it did prove the word was still used of men.  Unfortunately, that seems not to have stuck in the mind of mind of the ALP’s Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022) who, during a “rapid-fire word association game” at a function organized by Mr Murdoch’s News Corp, was prompted with “Grace Tame” to which he responded “difficult”.  The remarks were noted by Ms Tame who had in the past been critical of politicians who she claimed treated her as a “problem to be managed” rather than doing anything substantive to prevent sexual abuse or assist survivors.  Whether it would have been any better had he be called her “termagant” rather than “difficult” is debatable but at least the history of Mr Abbott being so labelled would have meant it could be argued it wasn’t a “gendered” word (the history of the last few centuries notwithstanding).  Probably the best choice for Mr Albanese would have been “formidable” in the sense of the French très formidable meaning something like “wonderful” or “terrific”, such a woman being une femme formidable.  Formidable was from the Middle English formidable, from the Old French formidable & formible, from the Latin formīdābilis (formidable, terrible), from formīdō (fear, dread); it was another example of a meaning shift.  In fairness to Mr Albanese, it was a spur-of-the-moment response to an unexpected prompt and, in an attempt to make things better, he explained: “I was asked to describe people in one word and Grace Tame you certainly can’t describe in one word.  She has had a difficult life, and that was what I was referring to.  If there was any misinterpretation, then I certainly apologise. I think that Grace Tame has taken what is personal trauma and that awful experience that she had and channelled that into helping, in particular, other young women, being a strong and powerful advocate, being quite courageous in the way that she has gone out there.”  That probably made things worse.  Unimpressed, Ms Tame (a most adept media player) issued a statement: “Spare me the condescension, old man”, suggesting Mr Albanese was paraphrasing Scott Morrison who’d once explained her attitude as the consequence of a “terrible life”.  Continuing her critique, she added: “We all know what you meant. A badge of honour anyway.  A confession that I’ve ruffled him.”  On social media, she found much support, one posting: “‘Difficult’ is the misogynist’s code for a woman who won’t comply.  History tends to call her ‘courageous’.”

Australian Femicide Watch's Difficult Woman T-shirt in red (also available in seven other colors.  The fingernail shape is a stiletto.

Ms Tame must have resisted the temptation to order a batch of “Fuck Albo” T-shirts which shows some generosity of spirit but the Australian Femicide Watch's Red Heart Movement is offering “Difficult Woman” T-shirts with Aus$5 from each sale donated to the Grace Tame Foundation.  The garments are made with 100% combed organic cotton grown without the use of herbicides or pesticides and certified as compliant to the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard).  Depressingly, Australian Femicide Watch tracks the death toll of women in Australia killed in “intimate partner violence”; in 2025 the rate was 1.44 per week and by the first week in April 2026, 1.23.

Crooked Hillary Clinton, the termagant of the last four decades.

Although it’s Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) “crooked” moniker which will forever be attached to crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013), more than most women who have dared trespass on the historic male preserve of politics, she has attracted gender-based terms of disparagement.  Not content only with words from English, Mr Trump also borrowed from Yiddish, referring to her failure to secure the Democrat nomination for the 2008 presidential election as having been “schlonged by Barack Obama” (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017) in the primaries.  A schlong (from the Yiddish שלאַנג (shlang) (snake)) is “a penis” and usually carries the implication of “a big one” so his idea was one of “man beats woman”; as “woman beats man”, the closest companion term is “pussy whipped” which for men obviously is quite a put-down.  Crooked Hillary has also been called “a tough little termagant in a pantsuit”, “the virago of Pennsylvania Avenue”, “calculating”, “disingenuous”, “a radical feminist”, “a harridan” (a bossy or belligerent old woman), a “femocrat”, a “feminazi”, “a succubus” (a female demon who had sex with sleeping men”, “Lady Macbeth in a headband”, “Ms bad-hair day” and “a shrew”.  All very sexist of course and there also been a debate about whether she should be called a “habitual” or “pathological” liar but she really can’t complain about that; she has “a bit of previous”.

Impressionism

Impressionism (pronounced im-presh-uh-niz-uhm)

(1) In fine art (an appropriated by others), a style of painting developed in the late nineteenth century, characterized by short brush strokes of bright colors in immediate juxtaposition to represent the effect of light on objects and a focus on everyday subject matters (by convention usually with an initial capital).

(2) A manner of painting in which the forms, colors, or tones of an object are lightly and rapidly indicated and there’s sometimes an attempt deliberately to include discordant subjects.

(3) In sculpture, a compositional style in which volumes are partially modeled and surfaces roughened to reflect light unevenly.

(4) In poetry, a style which used imagery and symbolism to convey the poet's impressions

(5) In literature, a theory and practice which emphasizes immediate aspects of objects or actions without attention to details.

(6) In musical composition, a movement of the late nineteen and early twentieth centuries (in parallel with the developments in painting) which eschewed traditional harmonies, substituting lush pieces with subtle rhythms, the unusual tonal colors used as evocative devices.

1880–1885: The construct was impression + -ism.  Impression was from the Old French impression, from the Latin impressio, from imprimo (push, thrust, assault, onslaught; squashing; stamping; impression), the construct being in- (the prefix which usually to some extent nullified but here in its rare form as an intensifier) +‎ premō (to press), from the Proto-Italic premō which may be linked with the primitive Indo-European pr-es- (to press), from per- (to push, beat, press).  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Impressionism and impressionist are nouns; the noun plural is impressionisms.

Lindsay Lohan rendered in the style of nineteenth century Impressionism by Gemini.ai.  The digital version was based on a photograph of her in a Jil Sander (b 1943) gown while attending the Disney Legends Awards ceremony, Anaheim, California, August, 2024.  On the day, although the environment was not optimized for photography, the light and even the breeze cooperated, the gown’s fabric swishing in a way the Impressionists would have painted, even had the air been still.

The meanings of impressionism are wholly unrelated to impressionistic which is used to describe an opinion reached by means of subjective reactions as opposed to one which was the product of research or deductive reasoning (ie based on impression rather than reason or fact).  The most extreme example of the impressionistic is a gaboso (the acronym of "Generalized Association Based On Single-Observation") such as assuming if one known Terf has a particular haircut, anyone sporting that style must be "a terf".  As a noun an impressionist is (1) one who in art, music or literature produced work in the tradition of impressionism or (2) an entertainer who performs impressions of others (a mimic).  Although by some used in philosophy since 1839, impressionism really isn’t a recognized field in the discipline, instead used metaphorically (and often critically) to describe certain tendencies which share similarities with the artistic movement.  Those who describe themselves as impressionist philosophers reject the idea that objective knowledge or absolute truths exist and instead stress the importance of individual perception and personal experience, arguing that individual (and debatably collective) understanding of the world is determined only by the wholly subjective: senses and emotions.  They’re thus much concerned with perception, consciousness, and the nature of reality.  In all that there’s obviously some overlap with earlier traditions and mainstream philosophers tend to be dismissive, some suggesting impressionism is less a philosophical school than a mode of which has been explored for millennia.

Le pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil (The Railroad Bridge in Argenteuil (1873-1874)), oil on canvas by Claude Monet (1840-1926), Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

Impressionism was an art movement that emerged in France in the late nineteenth century and was a romantic form, the core of which was the capturing of a fleeting moment (ie an impression) in time and place, characterized by the play of light and color, rendered with what gave the impression of loose (even careless) brushwork, the paint often applied in brief, broken strokes.  Breaking from the intricacy and preciseness which had distinguished high art since the Renaissance, the artists sought a feeling of spontaneity rather than the staged effect engendered by meticulously rendered details.  The whole idea was to “capture the moment” of those transitory scenes one might view humdres of times a day, the subject matter often the vistas of everyday, the apparent casualness of the composition an important psychological aspect because recollections of such visions often are hazy because the mind tends to remember only the part which has "caught the eye".  Accordingly, artists handled the peripheral surroundings with a “sense of the blurred”, summoning the notion of things vaguely being “filled in” from an incomplete memory; what they wanted to represent was the immediate sensory impressions of a particular moment rather than a polished and wholly realistic composition.  Given all this, it’s not surprising the Impressionists so frequently painted en plein air (ie outdoors) because there, natural light and breezes made for an ever-changing environment, ideal for a technique dedicated to capturing the ephemeral.

The Church at Auvers (1890), oil on canvas by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

In the way of such things, from Impressionism, very late in the nineteenth century came post-impressionism.  Deliberately positioned as a reaction against what had come to be regarded as the strictures and limitations of Impressionism, it was noted especially for an expressive and symbolic use of color which neglected and sometimes even abandoned the link with naturalistic representation, the intensity of shade itself a vehicle of an artist’s personal interpretations.  It also distorted form and perspective, the exaggerations wildly beyond anything in the mannerist tradition and the influence upon the cubists who would follow is undeniable.  Something of a preview of post-modernism, the concerns were more with laying bare the underlying structure rather than showing anything directly representational.  However, despite the perceptions of some, technical innovation was rare and even the techniques most associated with the movement had been seen before although famously, the post-impressionists delighted in non-naturalistic color schemes.  While this was something which caught the eye, it wasn’t exactly new and claims it somehow created a heightened emotional impact have always seem hard to sustain although they certainly displeased Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) who decried most forms of "modern art".  Whether he ever said the quote attributed to him: “...anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized” has never been verified but it certainly encapsulates his world view.  Still, the work post-impressionists influenced Fauvism and Cubism and there are critics who maintain post-impressionism was the first discernible epoch in modern art and a kind of proto-surrealism.

The Seine at Courbevoie (1885), oil on canvas by Georges Seurat (1859-1891).

Although post-impressionism can to some extent be seen as something new, the companion neo-impressionism really was a fork.  The alternative name of the movement was Divisionism which hints at the scientific basis which underlay many of the works, most notably Pointillism (the use of tiny dots which blended optically when viewed from a distance) which explored the principles of the physics of color and light by rendering paintings almost as a mathematical exercise and one far removed from the spontaneous brushwork of Impressionism.  Color under this regime came to be understood in itself as a theory, the concept of “simultaneous contrast” expressed in the placement of contrasting or complementary colors explored to exploit the way the brain processed the relationship by either “toning down” or making more luminous the visual experience.  The work was thus in the impressionist tradition of using light and color but it was different in that instead of representing an impression of how nature was seen, it deployed a scientific understanding of how the mind perceived and interpreted light and color to produce something which enhanced the effect.  In that sense it can be understood as a structuralist movement.

Separation (1896), oil on canvas by Edvard Munch (1963-1944), Munch Museum, Oslo.

Neo-impressionism should not be confused with Expressionism, a contemporary movement from Germany which some have characterized (not wholly unfairly) as “painting Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844–1900) nightmares”.  The expressionists sought to convey the subjective emotions, inner experiences and psychological states of the artist; the viewer was there simply to view and understand the feelings of the artist who seem frequently drawn to the darker aspects of human existence.  They used distorted and exaggerated forms, heavy brushwork, and non-naturalistic colors designed expressly to be discordant.  The classic example of Expressionism is Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893).

Lindsay Lohan (2012), oil on canvas by Lucas Bufi.

Florida-based Lucas Bufi describes himself as “modern Impressionist artist, guided by light and shadows”.  Definitely, this was an application of "light and shadow" to canvas in a way very different to the technique perfected by the chiaroscurists.  For those with a responsibility for categorizing works of art, it can be difficult to determine where impressionism ends and expressionism begins and what credit should being given to the influences of mannerism.  For that reason, some use the term “pop art” as a kind of dumping ground, displeasing those who are quite protective about the genre's boundaries.  Mr Bufi's take on Lindsay Lohan was based on one of the images from a 2011 photo-shoot for the January/February 2012 issue of Playboy magazine which featured her as the cover model.  By 2011, Playboy's sales were in sharp decline because of the availability of on-line content but the photo-shoot induced a short-lived “Lindsay Lohan led recovery”, the magazine's founder Hugh Hefner (1926-2017) tweeting on X (then known as Twitter): “The January-February Double Issue is breaking sales records.”  Unfortunately for Mr Hefner, the blip was a one-off and didn't attract “conquest customers”, the sales numbers not matched with the decline continuing until publication ceased during the COVID-19 pandemic (it was in 2025 resurrected as “an annual” but its future remains uncertain). 

Courtesy

Courtesy (pronounced kur-tuh-see or kurt-see (now rare))

(1) Excellence of manners or social conduct; polite behaviour.

(2) A respectful or considerate act or expression.

(3) Indulgence, consent, or acquiescence; something granted or extended in the absence of any specific right.

(4) Favor, consent, help, or generosity.

(5) An alternative spelling of curtsy (archaic and probably obsolete).

(6) Something done or performed as a matter of politeness or protocol.

(7) Something offered or provided free by the management.

(8) In law, the life interest that the surviving husband has in the real or heritable estate of his wife.

1175–1225: From the Middle English curteisie (courtly ideals; chivalry, chivalrous conduct; elegance of manners, politeness (also “a courteous act, act of civility or respect”)), from the Old French curteisie & cortoisie (courtliness, noble sentiments; courteousness; generosity) (which in modern French endures as courtoisie), from curteis (courteous).  The construct was courteo(u)s +‎ -y (the abstract noun suffix).  From the late thirteenth century the word was used and understood as “good will, kindness” but it gained the sense of “a reward, a gift” an echo of that enduring in the modern term “by courtesy of” (something received without payment or other consideration).  By the mid-fourteenth century courtesy was part of etiquette in the sense of “refinement, gentlemanly conduct” and related to that is the development of curteisie (source of the English “curtsy”.  The noun discourtesy (incivility, bad manners, rudeness) was in use by at least the 1550s and may have been influenced by the fifteenth century Old French discourtoisie, from discourtois although other forces in English construction were anyway by then prevalent.  The idea of a discourtesy being an “an act of disrespect” emerged late in the sixteenth century.  There is in polite society the notion of “common courtesy” which means the obligation to afford a certain respect to all, regardless of their status and courtesy is thought a good quality and a marker of civilization.  Clearly however, one can have “too much of a good thing” because some style and etiquette guides note the rare noun “overcourtesy” (excessive courtesy) which can suggest obsequiousness, sycophancy, or needless, time-consuming formalism.  Courtesy is a noun, verb & adjective, courtesying is a noun & verb, courtesied is a verb; the noun plural is courtesies.

The noun curtsy seems to have appeared in the 1540s with the sense of “an expression of respect (ie a variant of courtesy) while the specific meaning “a bending the knee and lowering the body as a gesture of respect” dates from the 1570s and the gesture was not then exclusive to women, the convention “men bow; women curtsy” not (more or less) standardized in England until the 1620s.  Predictably, it was the Victorians who coined “courtesy call” to refer to “a visit made for the sake of politeness”, in use by at least 1898.  The term was adopted as part of the language of diplomacy, describing the (usually symbolic) formal visits an ambassador or other emissary of a state makes to a head of state or other local official “out of courtesy” (ie with no substantive purpose).  That notion vaguely was related to the admiralty practice of the “courtesy flag”; a visiting vessel by convention and as a mark of respect flying the flag of the host nation (as well as that of her own) when entering port.  Perhaps opportunistically, in commerce, “courtesy card” is used as the alternative name for the “customer loyalty card” while the “courtesy clerk” was the employee who “bagged customers' purchases”; they were also called the “bagger” and the species is believed now functionally extinct, even in Japan where, until the “lost decade” (the 1990s although many economists claim that epoch has yet to end), they were once an established part of “shop culture”.  Probably the most memorable use of the word is in the term “courtesy flush” which is the “mid-sitting flush” (of a toilet) performed by men thoughtful enough to wish to avoid inflicting on others: “unpleasant odours”.

1973 Imperial LeBaron Four-Door Hardtop (left) and 1978 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham Coupe (right).  In cars, courtesy lamps (or lights, seen illuminated in the left-rear door kick panel (left)) are located where light may be needed (start buttons, where a passenger is about to put their feet etc) and they differ from “specific purpose” lights such as “map reading” lights (seen illuminated, right).  The significance of the name was in the “courtesy” the fittings exercised by automatically switching on when a door was opened.  By contrast, a map-reading light manually was activated as required.  Map-reading lights were fitted on more expensive vehicles because before maps migrated to glowing screens, they were on paper and to be read in a low-light environment, an external light source was needed.  

Both “uncourtesy” and “discourtesy” have at times been in use and the difference primarily is one of usage frequency, historical development, and semantic nuance.  Discourtesy is the established, idiomatic noun in modern English and is used variously to denote rudeness, a lack of courtesy, an impolite act and such.  The form emulated a use in the Old French and it has been in continuous, standard usage since the Middle English period; in contemporary English, it remains the correct and expected form.  Uncourtesy literally means “absence of courtesy” but has for centuries been rare and now is close to obsolete, appearing only in historic references or as a literary device.  That reflects the way English evolves because although the word adhered to the use of the un- prefix pattern (as in unkindness), people for whatever reason settled on the dis- form for this lexeme.  In structural linguistics, it’s true that because of the Latin origin of the “dis-” prefix, that would imply “reversal-negation-deprivation” whereas the Germanic “un-” would suggest “simple negation, but English lexical convention matters more than morphology and the pattern of use has made “discourtesy” the standard noun.  Probably that was a consequence of the Latin-influenced forms gaining sociolinguistic prestige over those words with a Germanic core from the native, Old English vocabulary.  After the Norman Conquest (1066 and all that), what came later to be known as the “Romance superstratum” (the massive influx of words and elements from Norman French and Latin) rapidly undertook a form of linguistic colonialism and words which entered English through French or Latin often arrived morphologically pre-packaged with Romance affixes; English did not build discourtesy from scratch; either it was inherited or imposed, depending on one’s views of such processes and that history is the reason disloyal & dishonest emerged and endured while unloyal & unhonest did not.  Pragmatically though, speakers settled, on a case-by-case-basis on whichever worked best: thus untruth, unlikely and such prevailing because they were the most pleasing pure negations, something more significant than the tendency for native Germanic bases to take “un-”, however a robust morphological bias this may describe.

Prelude to a handover: Donald Trump (left) and Barak Obama (right) shaking hands, the White House, November, 2016.  The handshake is one one of humanity's oldest courtesies. 

Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS 2009-2017) was known carefully to choose his words (indeed, he’d complain he thought himself a better speech-writer than those hired to do the job) and he used “courtesy” when issuing something of a lament at the depiction of him and his wife (Michelle Obama (b 1964; FLOTUS 2009-2017) as “digitally altered” apes in a video shared by Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) on his Truth Social platform.  Although President Obama’s artful text only “indirectly addressed the racist video”, few would have failed to draw the connection between the two and for students of the technique, his response was a fine example of Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” school of thought.  While not mentioning the president, Obama observed there seemed no longer “…any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office” but “that’s been lost”, adding “there's this sort of clown show that's happening in social media and on television.”  While he understood the political value in such a post because “it gets attention” and is “a distraction”, his feeling was “it's important to recognise that the majority of the American people find this behaviour deeply troubling” and that when travelling around the nation, he would meet people who “still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness.”

Behind the famous lectern: Karoline Leavitt (b 1997; White House press secretary since 2025) who also has retreated a little from previously well-established standards of courtesy.

For a president to have reposted such an obviously racist trope would even a year ago have been unthinkable and a major political scandal but so rapidly has the culture shifted that within barely 48 hours, it had fallen from the news cycle, relegated to just another footnote in the history of Trump 2.0 (which definitely is not Trump 1.1).  Although there was widespread, if remarkably muted criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, the White House initially defended the video, calling the backlash “fake outrage” before noting the volume and deleting the video, blaming the sharing on an (unnamed) member of staff.  Citing the actions by the staffer, Mr Trump said “I didn't make a mistake” and thus would not be issuing an apology, adding he’d not watched the whole clip so didn’t see the offensive image.  Analysts of such things were divided on whether the fact the posting happened “in the middle of the night” made the “staffer cover story” less or more plausible but all that information attracted renewed interest when, a couple of days, from the famous lectern, Karoline Leavitt asserted everything posted on President Trump’s social media account comes “directly” from him: “It’s coming straight from the horse’s mouth” as she put it.  “When you see it on Truth Social, you know it’s directly from President Trump. That’s the beauty of this president, his transparency in relaying the administration’s policies to the rest of you and the world.”  Trumpologists were left to make of that what they could.

In literature, the “courtesy book” was a “book of etiquette” but many of the early editions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went beyond the merely prescriptive in that they embodied a philosophy of the art of living (elegantly and with virtù (Italian for “virtue)) and provided a guide to help.  The ones which survive are noted for their high literary standard and are of great interest to historians because they’re an invaluable source for the history of education, ideas, customs and social behaviour of certain classes.  While the readership of some originally would have been the “upper middle class” or those who aspired to attain that status or at least emulate their manners, there were also courtesy books written for servants going to work in the houses or on the estates of the gentry; these existed so they’d know “how to behave”.  From the fifteenth century, changes in society were profound as the mass production of gunpowder and books exerted their respective influences and it was in this era the concept of “the gentleman” can be said to have emerged in a recognizably modern form, best understood in the most refined version in the term “Renaissance man”; from this point, culture and education really became courtesy's companion terms.  In earlier times, there had been what were known as “conduct books” but the emphasis in these was on morality deportment, manners and religion; they were very much in the “thou shall not” tradition of repressive Christianity.  Reflecting the way the Renaissance spread north and west, among the most influential of the courtesy books were those publish in Venice in the 1520s & 1530s, some of which began to appear in English translation by the mid-1570s.

Woodcut illustration for Book II (Cantos VII-XII) of The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-1599).

Although The Faerie Queene was an epic-length poem recounting tales of knightly exploits and written in a deliberately archaic style, it merged history and myth, drawing especially on the Arthurian legends with each of the books an allegorical following of a knight who represents a particular virtue (holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy) which will be tested by the plot.  It’s long been of interest to scholars of the work of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) because Book Two appears to be a source for much of King Lear (circa 1605) (and has drawn the ire of some feminists) but some critics have suggest it can (almost) be described as the “Bible of Renaissance anthropocentric humanism, which, in its most idealistic form, was a sort of apotheosis of man.”  That may seem a little “purple” but in The Faerie Queene, with its depictions of the Renaissance conceptions of knightly and chivalrous conduct, the author’s purpose was clear.  Indeed, in the dedication he wrote: “The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline.”  In scope and literary form, it’s regarded still the “most ambitious courtesy book of all.”

Mandy all dressed up but now with no place to go: The Right Honourable Peter “Mandy” Mandelson PC, Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool (b 1953) in the scarlet robes (the white trim now miniver or even faux fur rather than the traditional ermine) worn on certain ceremonial occasions in the House of Lords.

In 2008, Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010), for reasons understandable if not admirable, granted Mandy a barony (the lowest step on the UK's five-rung peerage system), thereby "ennobling" him with a seat in the House of Lords.  The peerage entitled him (for life) to use the title "Lord" and, as one of His Majesty's privy counsellors (appointed in 1998), he may (again for life) add a post-nominal "PC" and be styled "the Right Honourable".  The membership of the Privy Council (essentially, members of the UK cabinet and a select few others) is unusual in that even if members cease to hold the role which justified their appointment, they don't cease to be a member; they just are "not summoned".

However, unlike the removal of a peerage (which requires an act of parliament), any member may at any time resign from the council as would be expected in the case of a scandal which can't be "swept under the mat" as in the preferred practice in Westminster, one famous example being John Profumo (1915–2006) who in 1963 (while aged 56, "happily married" and serving as Secretary of State for War (ie minister of defence)) was found to be having an affair with a young lady of 19 who simultaneously also was enjoying the affections of a KGB spy attached to the Soviet embassy in London.  That scandal played a part in dooming a Tory (Conservative Party) government which had been in office 13 years but never has Mandy been accused of sleeping with women who are in some state of concubinage with the Kremlin's spies so that's one transgression of which he'll never be accused.  Mandy since 2008 has for most purposes been styled as “Lord Mandelson” and that is not a courtesy title because as a “life peer” Mandy enjoys the same privileges (other than not being able to pass the barony to an eldest son) as one who inherited his barony and were he to have children, they would be entitled to style themselves “the honourable”.  It’s believed he does not plan to have children.

As a footnote, for everyone except royalty, some of the the five notches in the UK's peerage system now exist only for historic reference or to keep track of the still extant holders of the titles no longer or rarely created.  All the life peers are barons while since the mid-1960s the creation of viscounts (rung 2) & earls (rung 3) as hereditary titles has been rare and restricted to a handful of (mostly Tory) political party grandees.  No marquess (rung 4) has been created since 1936 and that may be symbolic because while it had become something of a convention to grant retiring prime ministers an earldom, a returning Viceroy of India had come to expect a marquessate.  Dukedoms (rung 5) have not been awarded to non-royal personages since the nineteenth century and the last recipient with no connection to a royal household by marriage enjoyed their elevation in 1874.  Within the family, the palace continues to dole-out dukedoms, earldoms & viscountcies to themselves, none of which appear to be merit-based awards but merit is hardly a concept the royal family would much like to intrude into any conversation involving them.  In truth, for those few who ponder such things, the practice probably is thought a harmless quaintness with even the most ardent monarchist likely to struggle to suggest exactly what Prince Edward (b 1964) has achieved to deserve being also Earl of Wessex (created 1999), Earl of Forfar (created 2019) and Duke of Edinburgh (granted 2023) although he might point out he’s not as bad as his brother Andrew so there’s that. 

Mandy in underpants (presumably his but who knows?).  There is no suggestion Mandy engaged in inappropriate or improper conduct with this unidentified young lady.

The photograph was released by the US DoJ (Department of Justice) in one of the tranches of files related to convicted paedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019).  It was shot in Epstein's New York City apartment when asked about the circumstances, his lordship responded by saying he “did not recall”.  About that (lack of) recollection, some were uncharitably cynical but it does seem plausible given (1) Mandy doubtless spent much time meeting folk while wandering Epstein’s apartment in his underpants and (2) because Epstein had so many “acquaintances”, Mandy could hardly be expected to remember them all.

There are many “courtesy titles”, a class of address loosely defined as those governed by social convention, long-established practice or even administrative convenience.  In the UK’s intricate peerage system, courtesy titles are those used by certain relatives of peers, even though they do not themselves hold a substantive peerage and are not in law members of the peerage so thus never conferred with any right to sit in the House of Lords.  Although almost universally acknowledged, the courtesy titles are sustained only by convention rather than letters patent.  The interaction of the multi-tiered structure of the UK’s peerage system and the distinctions between (1) elder & younger sons and (2) daughters means there are a number of “rules” for courtesy titles but collectively they mean, for most purposes, depending on which rung on the peerage their father stands, sons commonly are styled either “Lord” or “The Honourable” and daughters “Lady” or “The Honourable”.  Wives also gain a honorific with them being granted a style based on the peerage held by their husband although other than the wives of dukes (who are “duchesses”), for most purposes, the convention follows calling non-ducal male peers “Lord” in that the wives are styled “Lady”.  Complicating all this is there are now also female peers so while, for example, the wife of a baron usually would be styled “Lady”, if a woman in her own right holds a barony, the most pedantic would use “baroness”.  All this may sound arcane but when moving in certain circles the official Order of Precedence can be socially consequential because, when attending events, it can dictate things like where one gets to sit and (more significantly), with whom.  So, the significance of the element “courtesy” in “courtesy title” is that use is “a courtesy extended” and not “a right acknowledged”.  That’s why Mr Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (b 1960, formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Admiral etc) was not deprived of being styled “Lord” (something usually attached to the younger son of a duke) because, in the legal sense, the title never existed, such use a mere (though widely observed) convention.  Of course, anyone can if they wish call him “Lord Andrew” though it seems unlikely many will bother.  Maybe his ex-wife will grant him that one final courtesy.

Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) coveted medals and decorations but had little interest in titles; although the grandson of a Duke of Marlborough, his self-image was that of “a great House of Commons man” and one peer once lamented: “The House of Lords means nothing to him”, another noble noting: “he thinks us a collection of disreputable old gentlemen”.  In opposition in 1946 he’d been offered a KG (Knight The Most Noble Order of the Garter (1348), the oldest and most senor knighthood in the UK’s orders of chivalry) but declined because he didn’t like the idea of receiving something recommended by a socialist prime minister.  In 1953, back in office, he accepted because “now only the queen decides” but did regret having to become “Sir Winston” rather than the plain “Mr Churchill” he claimed to prefer, observing to the cabinet secretary: “I don’t see why I should not have the Garter but continue to be known as Mr Churchill.  After all, my father was known as Lord Randolph Churchill, but he was not a lord.  That was only a courtesy title.  Why should I not continue to be called Mr Churchill as a discourtesy title?”  Sir Winston he became although his wife (1885-1977) would have preferred he not accept.  Other wives have been keener, the New Zealand trade union leader Sir Tom Skinner (1909–1991; President of the NZ FoL (Federation of Labour) 1959-1979) explaining to colleagues that while he had no wish to be Sir Tom, he didn’t fancy going home to tell his wife she wouldn’t soon be “Lady Skinner” although, given the darkly comic possibilities in that moniker, some women might have had second thoughts.

Woodrow Wilson (left) and Colonel House (right), New York City, 1916.

In the US, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, there have been many “captains” and “colonels” who had little or no military experience and some became well known including the Dutch-born impresario Colonel Tom Parker (1909–1997) who managed the singer Elvis Presley (1935-1977) and Colonel Edward House (1858–1938) who was for years the most influential of the camarilla in the White House of Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; POTUS 1913-1921).  Colonel House had been a king-maker in Texas politics but during World War I (1914-1918) it was his advice in international relations Wilson often preferred and, despite lacking any background in matters of European politics, was appointed the US’s senior diplomat at the Paris Peace Conference (1919).  Disappointed by the outcome of the conference and feeling deceived by House who had, during the president’s absence in Washington DC, made certain decisions on his behalf, Wilson sundered their relationship; after House returned to the US, they would never meet again.  To the president it had been simply a matter of the colonel “getting ideas above his station” but, to his dying day, House believed the estrangement was engineered at least in part by the second Mrs Wilson (1872-1961), the “blame the wife” theory a recurrent theme in dynastic and political history.  There was of course also Colonel Harland Sanders (1890–1980) who was 1935 was created a member of the HOKC (Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels) by Ruby Laffoon (1869–1941; governor of Kentucky 1931-1935) and his memory lives on in the fast food KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), a culinary institution now with more international recognition than the HOKC despite “Kentucky Colonel” being the highest honor bestowed by the state and the nation’s best-known colonelcy.

Colonel Sanders outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken store.  The latte-day name change to "KFC" was effected because the word "fried" had gained negative connotations.

The title became much associated with Texas and many of the Southern States. It was Texas Governor Jim Hogg (1851–1906; governor of Texas 1891-1895) who in 1893 appointed Edward House as a member of his gubernatorial staff, granting him the honorary rank which recipients were entitled to keep for life.  It was something that carried no military command or responsibilities and no federal commission, operating at the “social and political” level something like a Rotary Club membership in that while it conferred a certain perception of status, there was also an expectation (sometimes honoured, sometimes not) the member would fulfil some philanthropic or other worthy public services.  Legally, the basis for the practice dated from the historic rights of governors to appoint officers in their state’s militias and after federation, as the US evolved, the use was extended to non-military use, titles there quite sought after because with no honors systems granting them (knighthoods, peerages and such), those who attain some elected or appointed office (governor, admiral, judge, mayor, senator, ambassador etc), tend for life so to be styled; those who have several get to choose which they prefer.  South of the Mason-Dixon Line, there was an attachment to the tradition because of the cultural significance of the Antebellum Militias which, before the US Civil War (1861-1865) had enjoyed great social prestige, officers drawn often from the (obviously white) elites, plantation owners, lawyers, merchants and such; the granting of a colonelcy didn’t confer community authority: it acknowledged it.  Although much of what was “Southern culture” passed into history, the system remained and proved handy in the way knighthoods and peerages fulfil the function in the UK: (1) rewarding political supporters, (2) providing a quid pro quo to party donors, (3) cementing patronage networks and (4) “paying off” debts or “hushing up” those with troublesome knowledge.  By the early twentieth century, so numerous and associated with unsavoury politics had the colonelcies become that the title became a popular device for satirists.

Jaguar Nashville’s page listing its retired courtesy vehicles available for purchase, the concept much the same as the way “dealer demo cars” are sold.

While in the last decade-odd the engineering has mostly been good, Jaguar has yet to find a way to create a design language to match the distinctive “look” which for more than half-a-century underpinned its success after World War II (1939-1945).  The most recent attempt met with derision although that was a reaction more to the unsubtle DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) “messaging” in the images used, the approach about as heavy-handed as the lines of the “concept EV” (electric vehicle) later shown.  Because what came to be understood as “a Jaguar” was so defined by what was done in the post-war years, there seems no obvious path for the designers so the company is left in a crowded field, competing on the basis of dynamic qualities and price-breakdown, able no longer to summon the intangible (but real) emotional appeal of old. 

In the US, the medical degree qualifying a graduate to seek to practice the profession is the MD (Doctor of Medicine) but elsewhere in the English speaking world the standard award is MB BS (Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor or Surgery).  Despite that, most of the latter routinely are styled “doctor” despite not holding a doctorate (MD in the UK and Commonwealth (like a PhD (doctor of philosophy)) awarded as a higher degree after submission of a thesis rather than a course of instruction).  Historically, for medical practitioners, the use of the title “doctor” comes from many layers, dating from antiquity, medieval university practice, professional licensing traditions and later social conventions.  “Doctor” did originally denote “a doctorate” though not in the modern academic sense.  So, for those appropriately qualified in medicine (whether MD or MB BS) “doctor” really isn’t a “courtesy title” but a job title although, of late it’s been adopted also by dentists and vets and some insist that in such cases it should be thought of exactly that.  Doctor was from the Middle English doctor & doctour (an expert, authority on a subject), from the Anglo-Norman doctour, from the Latin doctor (teacher), from doceō (to teach).  It displaced the native Middle English lerare (teacher), from the Middle English leren (to teach, instruct) from the Old English lǣran & lēran (to teach, instruct, guide) which may be compared with the Old English lārēow (teacher, master) and lǣċe (doctor, physician).  In the US the MD evolved into a professional doctorate and the title “Dr” thus followed yet among US lawyers, although many qualify with the analogous JD (Doctor of Jurisprudence), not only is it though bad form for such graduates to use the title “doctor”, professional associations actively discourage use although the legal basis of any attempt at enforcement may be dubious.  As a general principle, the only lawyers in the US styled as “Dr” are those with a doctorate in law (which may be a PhD, DPhil etc).

The Barber Surgeon (1524), engraving by Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533), The Met, New York.

In the great Medieval universities (Bologna, Paris etc), the three higher faculties were Theology, Law and Medicine, graduates of each receiving the degree of Doctor which meant one was a licensed teacher of their discipline.  Thus, a “Doctor of Medicine” was someone qualified to teach medicine at a university, not merely practice it.  In pre-modern medicine (often a gruesome business) there was also distinct social and educational difference between physician and surgeons, especially in England where things became institutionalized.  The physicians were university-trained, held an MD and thus correctly were styled “Dr” whereas the origins of the surgeons lay in the old trade of barber-surgeons; trained by apprenticeship, they did not hold degrees and were styled “Mr”.  In the pre-anaesthetic age, surgical techniques tended to be primitive, often involving cutting or sawing off body parts so for the barbers, skilled in the use of razors and scissors, it was a natural evolution.  This division was in England institutionalized by the formation of the RCP (Royal College of Physicians (1518)) and RCS (Royal College of Surgeons (1843)).

The surgeons had anyway been schematic, guilds existing in London as early as the 1360s and a demarcation dispute between the “surgeons” and “barber surgeons” dragged on until 1540 when a “coming-together” between the “Worshipful Company of Barbers” and the “Guild of Surgeons” was engineered, creating the “Company of Barbers and Surgeons of London”.  However, while papering over the cracks (perhaps “bandaging the wound” might work better), the tensions remained and in 1745 the surgeons departed to form “Company of Surgeons” a royal charter (as Royal College of Surgeons in London) granted in 1800, extended in 1843 to become the “Royal College of Surgeons of England”.  Through all that, even after the early nineteenth century when a university education was made a condition of a licence to practice as a surgeon, the tradition endured and doctors, upon qualifying as members or fellows of the RCS revert from Dr to Mr.  In that context, “Mr” really is not a courtesy title but a professional equivalent and the because of the long history, the field is littered with linguistic quirks, “physician” both a generic term for all qualified to practice medicine and a specialist in internal medicine.  One perhaps once unexpected twist in the history of the history of the barber surgeon is that to this day there appear to be people who get medical advice (or at least a “second opinion”) from their hairdresser, presumably on the basis they’re a proven good source for fashion tips, relationship counselling and such.

Three galleries at the Lindsay Lohan Retrospective by Richard Phillips (b 1962), Gagosian Gallery, 555 West 24th Street, New York, 11 September-20 October 2012.

Described by the artist as an installation, the exhibition was said to be "an example of the way Phillips uses collaborative forms of image production to reorder the relationship of Pop Art to its subjects, the staging and format of these lush, large-scale works said to render them realist portraits of the place-holders of their own mediated existence."  The curator explained the retrospective was conducted as an example of the way collaborative forms of image production can reorder the relationship of Pop Art to its subjects, the staging and format used to render them realist portraits of "...the place-holders of their own mediated existence."  That seemed to explain things.

Vimeo's hosting of Lindsay Lohan, courtesy of Richard Phillips and Gagosian Gallery.

Historically, the term “courtesy of” implied “something provided by its owner to another party without payment or other consideration” and that’s presumably the way Vimeo is using the phrase although it’s likely the file was provided with certain limitations of use (such as “may not be edited”).  However, although for generations used in that way by the print media, on the internet “courtesy of” appears often to be used as a synonym of “attributed to” in cases where explicit permission for use has being neither sought or granted.  Owners of the rights (which may include copyright) can of course seek to have such content “taken down” regardless of any baseless assertion the use is by their “courtesy” but because of the volumes, such actions are by necessity limited and were, for example, some nihilistic psychopath to use on their blog an image of a 1961 Jaguar from the company’s website to illustrate some arcane aspect of a word’s etymology, JLR (Jaguar Land Rover, the corporate identity since 2013 when JLR was created by Tata Motors) likely would neither notice nor care.

Lindsay Lohan (2011) by Richard Phillips, hosted by Vimeo by courtesy of Richard Phillips and Gagosian Gallery.

Screened in conjunction with the 54^th international exhibition of the Venice Biennale (June 2011), Lindsay Lohan was a short film the director said represented a “new kind of portraiture.”  Filmed in Malibu, California, the piece was included in the Commercial Break series, presented by Venice’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture and although the promotional notes indicated it would include footage of the ankle monitor she helped make famous, the device doesn't appear in the final cut.

Directed by: Richard Phillips & Taylor Steele
Director of Photography: Todd Heater
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Creative Director: Dominic Sidhu
Art Director: Kyra Griffin
Editor: Haines Hall
Color mastering: Pascal Dangin for Boxmotion
Music: Tamaryn & Rex John Shelverton

A variant on the idea is when an owner provides something “as a courtesy” and there are neither rules nor conventions governing this aspect of use.  First appearing in version 1.1 (1982) of PC-DOS (1980-1995), the obscure file EXE2BIN.exe was a command-line utility (it appeared also in other DOS (disk operating system) forks) that could be used to convert .EXE (executable) files into .COM or BIN (binary executables) files.  In the manuals, Microsoft noted “EXE2BIN is included with MS-DOS as a courtesy to software developers. It is not useful for general users.”  So it was a thoughtful gesture but MS-DOS grew at a faster rate than the capacity of the floppy diskettes which were then the only generally available medium for software distribution.  So, needing space for the essential stuff, when in 1987 MS-DOS 3.3 was released, EXE2BIN was no longer included, relegated to the Technical Reference Pack (available at extra cost).  That didn’t mean the decision was a discourtesy, just that space was needed and it was almost certain anyone likely to use EXE2BIN for its intended purpose anyway purchased the pack.  By the time MS-DOS v6.00 was released in 1991, EXE2BIN was thus no longer described as “a courtesy” and was included on one of the “Supplemental Disks” (US$5.00), which were also part of the “Resource Kit” (US$19.95).