Jumbo

Jumbo (pronounced juhm-boh)

(1) An informal descriptor for a very large person, animal, or thing, applied especially to an unusually large version of something usually smaller.

(2) In commerce, a term (sometimes interpolated into a brand) used to suggest a large version of something.

(3) A general term for wide-bodied passenger airplanes although historically most associated with the Boeing 747 (1969).

(4) In (mostly in the US) nautical use, a forestaysail having a boom (jumbo boom) along its foot, used especially on schooners; a sail used in place of a course on a square-rigged ship, having the form of an isosceles triangle set apex downward.

(5) In engineering & mining, as drilling jumbo, a platform-mounted machine used to drill rock.

(6) As mumbo-jumbo, a historic term used of paganism, originally referring to deities or other supernatural beings worshipped some West African peoples (usually in the form of an idol representing such a being). It was later adopted to describe any speech which was either technical jargon understood only by specialists or anything genuinely meaningless or incomprehensible.

1800–1810: Of uncertain origin but there is evidence the first use of the word by English-speakers was as an imperfect echoic of what was heard by European explorers or colonists in Africa.  It entered popular use after Jumbo, an East African elephant (1860-1885) was in 1882 exhibited by PT Barnum (1810-1891) of the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus.  The name may be derived from either the Swahili jambo (matter, thing) or jumbe (chief, headman) although some sources cite the Sanskrit जम्बु (jambū or jambul) (rose apple).  Most convincing comes from the anthropological record of west-Africa where jumbo was used to describe a "clumsy, unwieldy fellow" (1823), itself possibly from a word for elephant in a West African language, perhaps the Kongo nzamba.  As a modifier (formally & informally) to impart the sense of largeness, jumbo is appended as required: jumbo jet (and jumbojet), jumbo mortgage, jumbomania, jumbo slice, superjumbo, jumbo sandwich, jumbo cigar, jumbo burger, jumbo cola et al.  Walt Disney’s musical cartoon Dumbo (1941) influenced the adoption of dumbo to mean “someone not intelligent”, the use documented by 1951 but the oral use probably pre-dates that.  Jumbo is a noun & adjective, jumboization (and jumboisation) are nouns, jumboize (and jumboise) are verbs; the noun plural is jumbos.

PT Barnum's publicity materials were created prior to "truth in advertising" laws.

The original Jumbo (the elephant) was an exhibit in London Zoo, the institution having purchased the beast from French explorers who were said to have captured it as a calf in Abyssinia in 1861.  Barnum purchased Jumbo in 1862 (much to the displeasure of the English) and immediately began in the US one of his typically extravagant advertising campaigns which emphasised both what a coup he’d achieved by wresting it from the British Empire and what an extraordinary size the creature was.  His circus toured the country with Jumbo a star attraction until in September 1885 it was killed near Saint Thomas, Ontario when struck by a freight train.

Perhaps curiously, the noun mumbo-jumbo seems not to have fallen from the linguistic treadmill, despite its origin and early colonial associations.  It entered English in 1738, based on an account of an incident in 1732 which occurred near Sami (in modern-day Gambia).  In the publications of the time, the Mumbo Jumbo was described as a costume “idol” used by men to frighten others and as coercive tool to regulate behaviour; it was used especially against women to induce their submission.  In hours of daylight, the costume was mounted on a stick placed at the outskirts of the village while by night a man would dress in it, visiting the homes of women or others deemed a problem, disputes “settled” and punishments bestowed.  Other spellings noted in the eighteenth century include Munbo Jumbo, Numbo Jumbo and Mumbo Chumbo and the original account ascribed the practice to Mandingo but linguistic anthropologists have never been able to trace an obvious Mandingo term which might be the source, the suggestions including mama dyambo (pompom-wearing ancestor) and mamagyombo (magician who exorcises troubled ancestor spirits).  It may have been borrowed from another Niger-Congo language and the European colonial transcriptions were the French moumbo-dioumbo & moumbo-ioumbo and the Portuguese mumban-jumban.  On the basis of the colonial-era accounts, the tradition (of uncertain age) must have been widespread with all settlements in the region was said to have a Mumbo Jumbo and by the mid-nineteenth century it had in English become a byword for a “superstitious object of senseless worship”, evolving by the 1890s to describe any speech which was either technical jargon understood only by specialists or anything genuinely meaningless or incomprehensible, use presumably reinforced and encouraged by some perception of association with “mumble”.  In that sense, it somewhat differed from the pseudo-Latin “hocus-pocus” which described words or incantations wholly fake and intended to deceive.  Despite the history, mumbo jumbo seems still acceptable in English and why it hasn’t yet been condemned as racist or cultural appropriation isn’t clear.

Jambo!  Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls.

Much has changed in the twenty-first century and it’s doubtful all of “You got your freshmen, ROTC Guys, preps, JV jocks, Asian nerds, cool Asians, varsity jocks, unfriendly Black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks, the greatest people you will ever meet, and the worst.  Beware of The Plastics.” would appear were the Mean Girls (2004) script to be written today, mere mention of ethnicity now often deconstructed as some level of racism.  Cady (the white protagonist raised (somewhere) in Africa) uses the Swahili greeting "jambo" (from -amba (to say) which linguistic anthropologists say was probably derived from the Proto-Bantu (there’s a similar term in Zulu)) to introduce herself to a table of “Unfriendly Black Hotties”.  The script never makes explicit just where in Africa Cady may have spent her youth but this, along with another couple of cultural and linguistic clues do hint it may have been among sub-Saharan ethnic groups although whether that was intentional isn’t documented.  However, “jambo” is one of several similar words used on the continent linked both to the later evolution in English of jumbo and mumbo jumbo and it may be jumbo was either a direct phonetic spelling recorded by Europeans or just a mis-heard rendition.

The prototype of first jumbojet (Boeing 747) on show on the forecourt at the Boeing’s factory in Seattle, Washington, 1968 (left), at the Paris Air Show in 1969 with a Concorde in the background (centre) and the last 747 (a freighter), also on the Boeing forecourt, November 2022.

Jumbo was a big elephant and the word was soon used to describe large examples of other things.  In commercial use, the first use seems to have been Jumbo Cigars, sold in 1886.  The best known use in the modern age is probably jumbo-jet (also appears jumbojet), probably first used by Boeing engineers circa 1960 although the first documented reference is from 1964.  It replaced the earlier Boeing engineering-slang jumbo-707, probably because a three syllable phrase is always likely to prevail over one with seven.  In the narrow technical sense, jumbo-jet came to refer to all wide-bodied (ie multi-aisled) passenger airplanes built since the late 1960s, but, being first, it tends most to be associated with Boeing’s 747.  Thus, when in the early 2000s, the even larger Airbus 380 took to the skies, the term superjumbo (and super-jumbo) was used by some, the airframe’s point of visual differentiation from the 747 being the Boeing’s famous hump being extended along the fuselage to the tail section, creating a double-decker.  The term (which had earlier been used of the stretched 747s) however never quite caught on in the same way because the 380 was unique and a class of superjumbos thus never emerged to demand a descriptive generic term.  As it was, economics conspired against the A380 and the circumstances in which it flew were very different to those envisaged in the late 1980s when first the project was conceived for not only had advances in engineering and materials allowed a new generation of twin-jet jumbos to operate at a much lower passenger cost per mile but airports, their systems and physical infrastructure optimized around the 747’s capacity, proved unwilling to make the changes needed to accommodate higher peak demand.  After little more than a dozen years of assembly, Airbus in 2021 ceased production of A380 after some 250 had been built.

One of NASA’s Boeing 747s, adapted as a heavy-lift platform to “piggy-back” the US Space Shuttles (left).  The Soviet Union (and briefly the Russians) used the one-off Antonov An-225 Мрія (Mriya (dream or inspiration)) to piggy-back its  Буран (Buran (Snowstorm or Blizzard)), the USSR's space shuttle (right).  The An-225, with the largest wingspan and heaviest take-off weight of any aircraft ever to enter operational service, was destroyed in the early days of the Russian invasion (the 2022 "Special Military Operation”) of Ukraine.

The 747 proved more enduring a successful and was a machine which was truly revolutionary in its social consequences.  Just as Boeing’s earlier 707 (1958) had been instrumental in making trans-Continental air travel a viable and reliable means of transport for a small number of people, the economics of scale made possible by the 747 meant such trips became accessible for many more.  Between 1968 and 2022, almost 1600 were built in a variety of lengths and configurations and it was for decades the faithful workhorse of many airlines, but it ultimately fell victim to the same financial squeeze that doomed the A380, twin-engined aircraft able to carry almost as many passengers at a significantly lower cost.  By 2016 it was clear demand had dwindled and most of the production thereafter was for freight operators still attracted by the 747’s unique combination of capacity, reliability and range.  As passenger 747s progressively are retired, many will be converted to freighters, an relatively simple operation envisaged even during the design process in the 1960s.  Many flyers however noted the 747’s demise with some regret.  None denied the advantages of airframes built from composite materials nor the enhanced economy of the twin-engine configuration but for those who flew for hours above 30,000 feet (9000+ m), knowing one was in a metal cylinder with the redundancy of four engines imparted great confidence.

Lindsay’s Olives in sizes to suit.  Black olive martinis are a cult.

In commercial use, obvious comparative terms like “small”. “medium” & “large” are commonly used and “extra” is often appended to “small” & “large”.  In the sizing of clothing, “extra” is used in multiples, labelled usually as XL XXL XXXL etc to indicate ascending graduations of large (L).  With the “Extra Large”, this is on the model of the DD, DDD, FF etc bra cup descriptors used by some manufacturers although the use varies, a DD sometimes the same as an E and sometimes something between a D & E.  However, at the other end of the size range, the multiple letters work the other way, an AAA cup smaller than an AA which is smaller than an A.  Linguistically, that does make sense because with bras the multiple letters are synonymous with “extra”, the AA being extra small and the DD extra large.  The alpha-numeric nomenclature used (30A, 32D etc) is maintained presumably because something like a "Jumbo" bra might lack sales appeal.  Where manufactures want to use descriptors which indicate a larger size beyond something like extra large, they’ll trawl the alphabet, thus product packaging described as “jumbo”, “super” “mega”, colossal” “super”, “maxi” etc.  Unlike S-M-L, there’s no defined ascendant order so it might be that where one manufacturer’s jumbo is larger than their mega while with some it may be the other way round.

Jumbo spark plugs.  This was actually advertising the strength of the spark rather than the plug, some of the Jumbo line of plugs physically smaller than than some offered by the competition.  The need for higher-performance spark plugs arose as higher octane gas (petrol) permitted compression ratios to rise.

Flute

Flute (pronounced floot)

(1) A woodwind instrument consisting of a tube with a row of finger-holes (or keys) which produce sound through vibrations caused by air blown across the edge of the holes, often tuned by plugging one or more holes with a finger; the Western concert flute, a transverse side-blown flute of European origin (in colloquial use, a recorder, also a woodwind instrument).

(2) An organ stop with wide flue pipes, having a flutelike tone.

(3) In architecture or engineering (particularly the manufacture of firearms), a semi-cylindrical vertical channel, groove or furrow, as on the shaft of a column, in a pillar, in plaited cloth, or in a rifle barrel to cut down the weight.

(4) Any groove or furrow, as in a ruffle of cloth or on a piecrust.

(5) One of the helical grooves of a twist drill.

(6) A slender, footed wineglass with a tall, conical bowl.

(7) A similar stemmed glass, used especially for champagne and often styled as "champagne flute".

(8) In steel fabrication, to kink or break in bending.

(9) In various fields of design, to form longitudinal flutes or furrows.

(10) A long bread roll of French origin; a baguette.

(11) A shuttle in weaving, tapestry etc.

(12) To play on a flute; to make or utter a flutelike sound. 

(13) To form flutes or channels in (as in a column, a ruffle etc); to cut a semi-cylindrical vertical groove in (as in a pillar etc).

1350-1400; From the Middle English floute, floute & flote, from the Middle French flaüte, flahute & fleüte, from the twelfth century Old French flaute (musical), from the Old Provençal flaüt (thought an alteration of flaujol or flauja) of uncertain origin but may be either (1) a blend of the Provencal flaut or  flaujol (flageolet) + laut (lute) or (2) from the Classical Latin flātus (blowing), from flāre (to blow) although there is support among etymologists for the notion of it being a doublet of flauta & fluyt.  In other languages, the variations include the Irish fliúit and the Welsh ffliwt.  The form in Vulgar Latin has been cited as flabeolum but evidence is scant and all forms are thought imitative of the Classical Latin flāre and other Germanic words (eg flöte) are borrowings from French.

Portrait of Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (later Queen Marie Antoinette of France (1774-1792)), circa 1768, oil on canvas by Martin van Meytens  (1695–1770).

Fluted & fluting both date from the 1610 while the verb (in the sense of "to play upon a flute" emerged in the late fourteenth century and the use to describe grooves in engineering dates from 1570s and the tall, slender wine glass, almost a century later although the term "champagne flute" didn't enter popular use until the 1950s.  The champagne flute is preferred by many to the coupé (or saucer) even though it lacks the (since unfortunately debunked) legend that the shape of the latter was modelled on Marie Antoinette’s (1754-1793) left breast.  Elegant though it is, the advantages of the flute are entirely functional, the design providing for less spillage than a coupé, something which comes to be more valued as lunch progresses and the slender, tapered shape is claimed better to preserved the integrity of the bubbles, the smaller surface area and thus reduced oxygen-to-wine ratio maintaining the aroma and taste.

Grand Cru's guide to the shape of champagne glasses.

Among musical instruments, there are a dozen or more distinct types of flute.  Early French flutes differed greatly from modern instruments in having a separate mouthpiece and were called flûte-a-bec (literally "flute with a beak").  The ancient devices were played directly, blown straight through a mouthpiece but held away from the player's mouth, the modern transverse (or "German") flute not appearing until the eighteenth century and the familiar modern design and key system of the concert flute were perfected 1834 by Bavarian court musician & virtuoso flautist Theobald Boehm (1794–1881), the fingering system known to this day as "Boehm system").  The architectural sense of "furrow in a pillar" dates from the mid-seventeenth century and was derived from the vague resemblance to the inside of a flute split down the middle.  One imaginative linguistic adoption was the use (apparently only in US) of "playing the skin flute" in the 1940s to describe gay men (the metaphor of flute based on male anatomy) on the basis of those who play the skin flute.  Use shifted to fruit, either by virtue of use at the time being almost exclusively oral rather than written (linguistically, that’s classified as an example of an imperfect echoic) or because "fruit" was then in use as a gay slur.  Flute is a noun, fluting is a noun, verb & adjective and fluted is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is flutes.

Fluted grill on 1972 Series 1, 4.2 Litre Daimler Sovereign.

In British use, one who plays the flute is a flautist (pronounced flaw-tist (U) or flou-tist (non-U)), from the Italian flautista, the construct being flauto (flute) +‎ -ista.  The -ist suffix was from the Middle English -ist & -iste, from the Old French -iste and the Latin -ista, from the Ancient Greek -ιστής (-istḗs), from -ίζω (-ízō) (the -ize & -ise verbal suffix) and -τής (-tḗs) (the agent-noun suffix).  It was added to nouns to denote various senses of association such as (1) a person who studies or practices a particular discipline, (2), one who uses a device of some kind, (3) one who engages in a particular type of activity, (4) one who suffers from a specific condition or syndrome, (5) one who subscribes to a particular theological doctrine or religious denomination, (6) one who has a certain ideology or set of beliefs, (7) one who owns or manages something and (8), a person who holds very particular views (often applied to those thought most offensive).  The alternative forms are the unimaginative (though descriptive) flute-player and the clumsy pair fluter although the odd historian or music critic will use aulete, from the Ancient Greek αὐλητής (aulētḗs), from αὐλέω (auléō) (I play the flute), from αὐλός (aulós) (flute).  The spelling flutist is preferred in the US and it's actually an old form, dating from circa 1600 and probably from the French flûtiste and it replaced the early thirteenth century Middle English flouter (from the Old French flauteor).

Daimler, the fluted grill and US trademark law

1972 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas.

Vanden Plas completed only 342 of the Series 1 (1972-1973) Daimler Double Sixes, the later Series 2 (1973-1979) & 3 (1979-1992) being more numerous.  The flutes atop the grill date from the early twentieth-century and were originally a functional addition to the radiator to assist heat-dissipation but later became a mere styling embellishment.  Although some sources claim there were 351 of the Series 1 Double-Six Vanden Plas, the factory insists the total was 342.  British Leyland and its successor companies would continue to use the Vanden Plas name for some of the more highly-specified Daimlers but applied it also to Jaguars because in some markets the trademark to the Daimler name came to be held by Daimler-Benz AG (since 2022 Mercedes-Benz Group AG), a legacy from the earliest days of motor-car manufacturing and despite the English middle class always pronouncing the name van-dem-plarr, it's correctly pronounced van-dem-plass.

1976 Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas two door.

The rarest Double-Six Vanden Plas was a genuine one-off, a two door built reputedly using one of the early prototypes, a regular production version contemplated but cancelled after the first was built.  Jaguar would once have called such things fixed head coupés (FHC) but labelled the XJ derivatives as "two door saloons" and always referred to them thus, presumably as a point of differentiation with the XJ-S produced at the same time.  Despite the corporate linguistic nudge, everybody seems always to have called them coupés.  Why the project was cancelled isn't known but it was a time of industrial and financial turmoil for the company and distractions, however minor, may have been thought unwelcome.  Although fully-finished, apart from the VDP-specific trim, it includes also some detail mechanical differences from the regular production two-door Double-Six although both use the distinctive fluted finish on both the grill and trunk (boot) lid trim.  The car still exists.  The two-door XJs (1975-1978) rank with the earliest versions (1961-1967) of the E-Type (XKE; 1961-1974) as the finest styling Jaguar ever achieved and were it not for the unfortunate vinyl roof (a necessity imposed by the inability of the paint of the era to cope with the slight flexing of the roof), it would visually be as close to perfect as any machine ever made.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959.

Although Daimlers had, in small numbers, been imported into US for decades, after Jaguar purchased the company in 1960, there was renewed interest and the first model used to test the market was the small, fibreglass-bodied roadster, probably the most improbable Daimler ever and one destined to fail, doomed by (1) the quirky styling and (2) the lack of product development.  It was a shame because what made it truly unique was the hemi-headed 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) V8 which was one of the best engines of the era and remembered still for the intoxicating exhaust note.  The SP250 was first shown to the public at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the small sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid line-up Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred and Darts remained in Dodge’s lineup until 1976, for most of that time one of the corporation's best-selling and most profitable lines.  The name was revived between 2012-2016 for an unsuccessful and unlamented compact sedan.

US market 2001 Jaguar Vanden Plas (X308).  These were the only Jaguars factory-fitted with the fluted trim.

Decades later, US trademark law would again intrude on Jaguar’s Daimler business in the US.  The company had stopped selling Daimlers in the US with the coming of January 1968 when the first trickle (soon to be a flood) of safety & emission regulations came into force, the explanation being the need to devote and increasing amount of by then scarce capital to compliance, meaning the marketing budget could no longer sustain small-volume brands & models.  In Stuttgart, the Daimler-Benz lawyers took note and decided to reclaim the name, eventually managing to secure registration of the trademark and Daimlers have not since been available in the US.  However, there was still clearly demand for an up-market Jaguar and so the Sovereign name (used on Daimlers between 1966-1983) was applied to Jaguar XJ sedans which although mechanically unchanged were equipped with more elaborate appointments.  Sales were good so the US market also received some even more luxurious Vanden Plas models and during the XJ’s X308 model run (1997-2003), the VDP cars were fitted with the fluted grill and trunk-lid trim as an additional means of product differentiation.  It would be the last appearance of the flutes in North America.

Pim Fortuyn in Daimler V8, February 2002 (left), paramedics attending to him at the scene of his assassination a few paces from the Daimler, 6 May 2002 (he died at the scene) (centre) and the car when on sale, Amsterdam, June 2018 (right). 

Jaguar became aware the allure of the flutes was real when it emerged a small but profitable industry had emerged in the wake of the company also ceasing to use the Daimler name in European markets; by the 1990s, it was only in the UK, Australia & New Zealand that they were available.  However, enterprising types armed with nothing more than a list of Jaguar part-numbers had created kits containing the fluted trim parts and the Daimler-specific badges, these shipped to dealers or private buyers on the continent so Jaguar XJs could become “Daimlers”.  The company took note and re-introduced the range to Europe, Germany a particularly receptive market.  One notable owner of a real long wheelbase (LWB) Daimler V8 (X308) was the Dutch academic and politician Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002), assassinated during the 2002 national election campaign, by a left-wing environmentalist and animal rights activist.

Lindsay Lohan with stainless steel Rolex Datejust (Roman numeral dial) with fluted white gold bezel.

Declarative

Declarative (pronounced dih-klar-uh-tiv)

(1) Serving to declare; having the quality of a declaration; make known, or explain.

(2) Making or having the nature of a declaration.

(3) In the study of learning, acquiring information one can speak about.

(4) In psychology and structural mnemonics, as declarative memory, a type of long-term memory where facts and events are stored (one of two types of long term human memory).

(5) In computing, as declarative statement (or declarative line or declarative code) that which declares a construct.

(6) In computing, as declarative programming, a paradigm in programming where an objective is stated, rather than a mechanism or design.

(7) In formal grammar, a grammatical verb form used in declarative sentences.

1530-1540: From the Middle English declarative (making clear or manifest, explanatory), from the French déclaratif, from the Late Latin dēclārātīvus (explanatory), past participle stem of the Classical Latin declarare (make clear, reveal, disclose, announce), the construct being de- (presumed here to be used as an intensifier) + clarare (clarify) from clarus (clear).  The meaning “making declaration, exhibiting” dates from the 1620s and in the mid-fifteenth century it was in common use as a noun meaning “an explanation”.  In some contexts, declarative is often a synonym of declaration.  The companion adjective enunciative (declarative, declaring something as true) also dates from the early sixteenth century and was from the Latin enunciates (technically enuntiativus), from the past participle stem of enuntiare (to speak out, say, express).  In English, it’s rare compared to declarative (1) because of that form's wide use in documents explaining the rules and conventions of English and (2) because enunciate was captured by the speech therapists and elocution teachers who refused to give it back.  Declarative is a noun & adjective and declaratively an adverb; the noun plural is declaratives.

In psychology, psychiatry and structural mnemonics, there are three defined types of memory: declarative, semantic & episodic.  Declarative memory (known also as explicit memory) is a type of long-term memory where knowledge & events are stored.  Semantic memory is a sub-category of declarative memory which (1) stores general information such as names and facts and is (2) a system of the brain where logical concepts relating to the outside world are stored.  Episodic memory is a sub-category of declarative memory (1) in which is stored memories of personal experiences tied to particular times and places and (2) is a system of the brain which stores personal memories and the concept of self.

A gang of four Sceggs, all of whom would speak in the accent known as the “declarative middle-class voice”.

Although technically only marginally related to declarative as otherwise used in English, as a specific category in studies of social class the “declarative middle-class voice” is an accent taught or honed by private girls’ schools.  Optimized for husband-hunting expeditions, training involves reciting school mottos such as Luceat Lux Vestra (Let your light shine), borrowed by Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar (SCEGG) from Matthew 5:16.  Over the Sydney Harbor Bridge, at Abbotsleigh the motto is tempus celerius radio fugit (Time flies faster than a weaver's shuttle), the idea behind that said to be: “As the shuttle flies a pattern is woven, with the threads being the people, buildings and events. The pattern is Abbotsleigh as it continues to grow in complexity and richness each year”.  Quite whether a weaver’s shuttle (said by some detractors to have been chosen as symbolic of the "proper" place of women being in a state of domestic servitude for the convenience of men) is appropriate for a girls’ school in the twenty-first century has been debated.  The motto came from the family crest of Marian Clarke (1853-1933), Abbotsleigh’s first headmistress (principle) and was maintained using the family’s grammatically dubious form tempus fugit radio celerity until 1924 when the correct syntax was substituted.  It’s an urban myth the mistake was permitted to stand until 1924 as a mark of respect while Ms Clarke was alive; she lived a decade odd after the change although the family’s heraldry was apparently never corrected.

One of history's more fateful declarative statements: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) delivers a speech to members of the Reichstag, declaring war on the United States.  Kroll Opera House, Berlin, 11 December 1941, the US responding the same day with declarations of war against Germany and Italy.  Appearing in this image are a number of the Nazi hierarchy who would (1) later sit together as defendants  in the Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) & (2) be hanged from the same gallows (1946).  Interestingly, although militarily hardly inactive over the last few decades, the declarations of war in June 1942 (essentially a "tidying up exercise" to satisfy legal niceties) against Romania, Bulgaria & Hungary were the last by the US.  From the moment the declaration was made, historians and others have puzzled over Hitler's state of mind, given Germany was under no legal obligation to declare war and his decision meant the wealth and industrial might of the US was suddenly added to the forces opposing the Reich.  Much has been written on the subject exploring the understanding of Hitler, his general & admirals had of the potential of the US rapidly to project military power simultaneously across both the Atlantic and Pacific and there are a variety of thoughts but all can be boiled down to what defence counsel in the 1970s offered as the streaker's defence: "It seemed a good idea at the time".

Hitler addressing the members of the Reichstag, 1939 (left) & 1941 (right), the most obvious difference (at least politically) between the two the presence on the front row (lower left) of Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi deputy führer 1933-1941), who in June 1941, on the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, flew to Scotland on a personal mission to negotiate the end of hostilities between Germany & the UK, something that remains one of the more bizarre episodes of the war.  By the time war was declared on the US, Hess was some six months into a period of captivity which would last until his death more than forty-five years later although when Hitler made the declaration, he had been moved from the Tower of London, his imprisonment there a distinction much envied by Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974), one of Hess's fellow inmates in Spandau Prison for close to twenty years.  Reserved usually for royalty and those accused of high treason, Hess would be the last prisoner to be held in the Tower of London.  The photograph from 1941 is sometimes confused with one taken from the same angle on 30 January 1939 when Hitler delivered the speech most remembered for his infamous prediction that another world war would ensure "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe", the relevant passage being:

"I have very often in my lifetime been a prophet and have been mostly derided. At the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish people who only greeted with laughter my prophecies that I would someday take over the leadership of the state and of the entire people of Germany and then, among other things, also bring the Jewish problem to its solution. I believe that this hollow laughter of Jewry in Germany has already stuck in its throat. I want today to be a prophet again: if international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe". 

The declarative sentence in English

In English grammar, there are four types of sentences:  Declarative, exclamatory, imperative, and interrogatory and the declarative, whether in fiction or non-fiction the declarative is by far the most frequently used.  The declarative sentence is one which makes a statement, provides a fact, offers an explanation, or conveys information.  To be a declarative sentence (also known as a declarative statement), it needs to be in the present tense, usually ends with a period (full-stop) and typically, the subject appears before the verb.  A declarative sentence can also be called an assertive sentence it if asserts something is factual.

There are two types of declarative sentences: the simple and the compound (or elaborated declarative sentence.  A simple declarative sentence consists of only a subject and predicate (“Lindsay Lohan is an actor”).  A compound declarative sentence usually joins two related phrases with a comma and a conjunction (such as and, yet, or but) but the link can also be provided by a semicolon (a form which litters literary novels) and can be accompanied by a transition word (such as besides, however or therefore).  (“Lindsay bought a Mercedes-Benz, crashing it several days later”).  The song 88 lines about 44 women (The Nails, 1981) was interesting because although composed essentially as 88 simple declarative sentences, it was performed as 44 compound declarative sentences.

88 lines about 44 women by David Kaufman, Douglas Guthrie, George Kaufman & Marc Campbell (1981).

Deborah was a Catholic girl

She held out till the bitter end

Carla was a different type

She's the one who put it in

Mary was a black girl

I was afraid of a girl like that

Suzen painted pictures

Sitting down like a Buddha sat

Reno was a nameless girl

A geographic memory

Cathy was a Jesus freak

She liked that kind of misery

Vicki had a special way

Of turning sex into a song

Kamala, who couldn't sing,

Kept the beat and kept it strong

Zilla was an archetype

The voodoo queen, the queen of wrath

Joan thought men were second best

To masturbating in a bath

Sherry was a feminist

She really had that gift of gab

Kathleen's point of view was this

Take whatever you can grab

Seattle was another girl

Who left her mark upon the map

Karen liked to tie me up

And left me hanging by a strap

Jeannie had a nightclub walk

That made grown men feel underage

Mariella, who had a son

Said I must go, but finally stayed

Gloria, the last taboo

Was shattered by her tongue one night

Mimi brought the taboo back

And held it up before the light

Marilyn, who knew no shame

Was never ever satisfied

Julie came and went so fast

She didn't even say goodbye

Rhonda had a house in Venice

Lived on brown rice and cocaine

Patty had a house in Houston

Shot cough syrup in her veins

Linda thought her life was empty

Filled it up with alcohol

Katherine was much too pretty

She didn't do that shit at all

Uh-uh, not Kathrine

Pauline thought that love was simple

Turn it on and turn it off

Jean-marie was complicated

Like some French filmmaker's plot

Gina was the perfect lady

Always had her stockings straight

Jackie was a rich punk rocker

Silver spoon and a paper plate

Sarah was a modern dancer

Lean pristine transparency

Janet wrote bad poetry

In a crazy kind of urgency

Tanya Turkish liked to fuck

While wearing leather biker boots

Brenda's strange obsession

Was for certain vegetables and fruit

Rowena was an artist's daughter

The deeper image shook her up

Dee Dee's mother left her father

Took his money and his truck

Debbie Rae had no such problems

Perfect Norman Rockwell home

Nina, 16, had a baby

Left her parents, lived alone

Bobbi joined a New Wave band

Changed her name to Bobbi Sox

Eloise, who played guitar

Sang songs about whales and cops

Terri didn't give a shit

Was just a nihilist

Ronnie was much more my style

Cause she wrote songs just like this

Jezebel went forty days

Drinking nothing but Perrier

Dinah drove her Chevrolet

Into the San Francisco Bay

Judy came from Ohio

She's a Scientologist

Amaranta, here's a kiss

I chose you to end this list

There are also special classes of declarative sentences such as the interrogative sentence which poses a direct question so necessitating a question mark at the end.  (What is your name?).  The imperative sentence delivers an instruction, command, or request and, depending on this and that, will end either in a period or an exclamation mark (thus “Pass me the remote.” or “Shut the fuck up!”).  An exclamatory sentence will almost invariably end with an exclamation mark and if would be only as a deliberate literary device that an author would use an exclamatory sentence without one (and there are critics who insist that without one, it can’t be an exclamatory sentence although one can discern the difference between “I love you!” and “I do love you.”).

Parachute

Parachute (pronounced par-uh-shoot)

(1) A folding, umbrella-like, fabric device with cords supporting a harness or straps for allowing a person, object, package, etc, safely to float down to safely through the air from a great height, especially from an aircraft, the design rendered effective by the resistance of the air that expands it during the descent and reduces the velocity of the fall.

(2) In certain type of competition cars (drag racing, land-speed vehicles et al) and military (mostly carrier-based) aircraft, a type of air brake deployed horizontally from the rear of the vehicle.  Known as the drogue chute.

(3) In horology, a shock-proofing device for the balance staff of a watch, consisting of a yielding, spring-like support for the bearing at either end.

(4) In industrial relations, a casual term for the aggregate of benefits, given a terminated employee.  Usually called the golden parachute if an especially large sum granted, essentially ex-gratia, to senior but now unwanted staff.

(5) To drop or land or on water (troops, equipment, supplies etc) by parachute.

(6) In democratic politics, a slang term for the practice of bringing in a candidate from outside the electorate, often one imposed by central executives against local wishes.

(7) In franchised sport, a payment made when a team is relegated to a lower division; called the parachute payment.

1785: From the French parachute (that which protects against a fall), the construct being para + chute.  The French imported para (protection against), via the Italian para & parare, from the Latin parō, derived from the primitive Indo-European per (produce, procure, bring onward, bring forth).  It was cognate with pariō (to produce) and properus (ready; to shield), a form which endures in the modern parasol.  Chute (fall) was a refashioning of the Old French cheüe & chue (from the Vulgar Latin caduta) based on cheoite, corresponding to the analogous Vulgar Latin form cadecta, feminine past participle of cheoir, the older form of choir.  The military verbal shorthand, generally adopted, is chute, first used in 1919.  The verb parachute (to descend or convey by or as if by the aid of a parachute) dates from 1807 and was directly from the noun.  In an example of technological determinism affecting language, dictionaries as late as 1906 tagged parachute as "rare".  The related forms are parachuted & parachuting; the noun plural is parachutes.  

Perhaps invented in China

Sketches discovered in western China, circa 2200 BC, indicate even then people were aware air resistance could be used to slow a man’s fall from a height although there’s nothing to prove the idea was ever put to the test.  The oldest known design for a recognizably modern parachute appears in a manuscript from Renaissance Italy, dated from the 1470s although it was Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) a couple of decades later who produced a technically better design, one which suggests he well understood the relationship between a parachute’s surface area and the weight of whatever was attached.  Leonardo's drawings proved influential among European inventors, the earlier fixed, flat surfaces being replaced by sail-like pieces of cloth which, bulging as they filled with air, increased surface area still further, thereby generating greater friction and resistance.  Although several plans survive from the seventeenth century showing men parachuting from towers, there’s no evidence this was a depiction of an actual experiment and is thought most likely to be an inventor’s speculative illustration.

Lindsay Lohan skydiving (tandem jump) in Dubai, 2018.  She landed safely. 

The first documented test happened in 1783 when French physicist Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (1757-1837) jumped from the top of the Montpellier observatory.  Surviving this, two years later, Lenormand coined the word parachute, an Italian-French hybrid which translates as "to protect from falling”.  That same year, to demonstrate its utility as a safety device for the new sport of hot-air ballooning, French engineer Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) floated safely to the ground and by the 1790s he was manufacturing parachutes from silk (and some sources claim it was Blanchard who coined the word parachute).  Although not a few pioneering parachutists died as the hobby spread, progress continued and by 1911, the first jump was made from an aircraft; from that time, it was the military which devoted most attention to development, using them, successfully and not, with balloons, airships and aircraft.  By the start World War Two, parachutes were standard issue to aircrew and a novel way of quickly deploying infantry behind enemy lines.  The German army famously used paratroopers in several daring and successful operations although later heavy losses forced the Wehrmacht to abandon the tactic.  Others persevered and paratrooper battalions, brigades and divisions exist today in many military establishments.

A NASA Boeing B-52 Stratofortress research aircraft deploys an experimental drag chute upon landing at Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California.  The test flights, conducted during 1990, were part of the development project for the Space Shuttle’s drag chute.  The B-52 often uses a drag chute when landing, especially in wet weather or if cross-winds are severe.

Parachutes are used to slow the delay of some spacecraft in their final re-entry phase and horizontal (drogue) chutes are deployed to assist the deceleration of some competition cars and aircraft landing on carriers.  The absolute record height for a parachute descent is held by Alan Eustace (b 1957) who on 24 October 2014 jumped from the stratosphere at an altitude of 135,889.108 feet (41,419 m).

The mean girls, left to right: Penny Wong (b 1968; cabinet minister in the Rudd / Gillard / Rudd governments 2007-2013, ALP senator for South Australia since 2002), Katy Gallagher (b 1970; Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) 2011-2014, senator for the ACT 2015-2018 & since 2019) & Kristina Keneally (b 1968; Premier of New South Wales 2009-2011, senator for New South Wales since February 2018).

Kristina Keneally's campaign material in Fowler, 2022; it seemed like a good idea at the time.

In the 2022 Australian general election, two high-profile candidates, were parachuted into two Sydney electorates by the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) head office over the objections of local members.  One succeeded and one failed, Kristina Keneally losing the previously safe seat of Fowler while Andrew Charlton (b 1978) actually improved the ALP’s margin in Parramatta.  Both were seen as improbable ALP candidates with lives far removed from the constituents to who they’d be appealing for voted but Charlton benefited from the head office analysis which concluded the result in Parramatta would be tight and thus resources were allocated and promises made.  The same analysis was applied to Fowler which revealed the ALP would retain the seat regardless of the background so little effort was expended and less money spent.  Applying historic data, the ALP’s analysis was correct but the 2022 election revealed an increasing willingness nationally to move away from the two main parties, illustrated the fact that the ALP could 2022 form a majority government with a primary vote of 32.58% (the ALP’s lowest since 1934); in 1980 they lost an election with a primary of 45.15%.  Keneally is something of a loss to the parliament because she was one of the three “mean girls” in the Senate, associated with the bullying of women who got ideas above their station.