Harlot

Harlot (pronounced hahr-luht)

(1) A prostitute or promiscuous woman; one given to the wanton; lewd; low; base.

(2) By extension, in political discourse, an unprincipled person (now rare).

(3) A person given to low conduct; a rogue; a villain; a cheat; a rascal (obsolete).

(4) To play the harlot; to practice lewdness.

Circa 1200: From the Middle English harlot (young idler, rogue), from the Old French harlot, herlot & arlot (rascal; vagabond; tramp”), of obscure origin but thought probably of Germanic origin, either a derivation of harjaz (“army; camp; warrior; military leader”) or a diminutive of karilaz (man; fellow); most speculate the first element is from hari (army).  It was cognates with the Old Provençal arlot, the Old Spanish arlote and the Italian arlotto.  The long obsolete Middle English carlot (a churl; a common man; a person (male or female) of low birth; a boor; a rural dweller, peasant or countryman) is thought probably related.  Harlot was a noun and (less often) a verb, harlotry a noun and harlotize a verb; the present participle was harloting (or harlotting), the simple past and past participle harloted (or harlotted) and there’s no evidence exotic forms like harlotistic or harlotic ever existed, however useful they might have been.  Harlot is a noun & verb, harlotry is a noun, harlotish is an adjective, harlotize and harloted & harloting are verbs; the noun plural is harlots.  The adjective harlotesque is non-standard.

Harlot as a surname dates from at least the mid-late 1100s but by circa 1200 was being used to describe a “vagabond, someone of no fixed occupation, an idle rogue" and was applied almost exclusively to men in the Middle English and Old French.  Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1345-1400) used harlot in a positive as well as pejorative sense and in medieval English texts it was applied to jesters, buffoons, jugglers and later to actors.  What is the now prevalent meaning (prostitute, unchaste woman) was originally the secondary sense but it had probably developed as early as the late fourteenth century, being well-documented by the early fifteenth.  Doubtless, it was the appearance in sixteenth century English translations of the Bible (as a euphemism for "strumpet, whore") which cemented the association.

In harlotesque mode: Lindsay Lohan in fancy dress as Suicide Squad's (2016) Harley Quinn, Halloween party, London, November 2016.  It may be a cliché but for purposes of fancy dress, fishnet stockings (or tights) are the motif of choice for those wanting the "harlot look". 

The biblical imprimatur didn’t so much extend the meaning as make it gender-specific.  The noun harlotry (loose, crude, or obscene behavior; sexual immorality; ribald talk or jesting) had been in use since the late fourteenth century and the choice of harlot in biblical translation is thought an example of linguistic delicacy, a word like “strumpet” though too vulgar for a holy text and “jezebel” too historically specific.  In this, harlot is part of a long though hardly noble tradition of crafting or adapting words as derogatory terms to be applied to women.  It has to be admitted there are nuances between many but one is impressed there was thought to be such a need to be offensive to women that English contains so many: promiscuous, skeezer, slut, whore, concubine, courtesan, floozy, hooker, hussy, nymphomaniac, streetwalker, tom, strumpet, tramp, call girl, lady of the evening, painted woman et al.  So the bible is influential although there’s a perhaps surprising difference in the translations of that prescriptive duo, Leviticus & Ezekiel: In the King James Version (KJV 1611), harlot appears in thirty-eight versus, but once in Leviticus, nine times in Ezekiel, some of the memorable being:.

Genesis 38:24: And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she [is] with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.

Leviticus 21:14: A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, [or] an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.

Joshua 6:25: And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father's household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel [even] unto this day; because she hid the messengers, which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

Isaiah 1:21: How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Ezekiel 16:15: But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.

Ezekiel 16:41: And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.

Ezekiel 23:19: Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.

Ezekiel 23:44: Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women.

Amos 7:17: Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

Nahum 3:4: Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

Stanley Baldwin election campaign poster, 1929.

Phrases like “shameless harlot” and “political prostitution” used to be part of the lively language of politics but social change and an increasing intolerance of gendered terms of derision have rendered them almost extinct (the language of metaphorical violence is next for the chopping-block: guillotined, knifed, axed etc all on death row).  Harlot’s most notable political excursion came in 1931 when Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947; thrice UK prime-minister 1923-1937) was facing an orchestrated campaign against his leadership by the newspaper proprietors, Lords Rothermere (1868–1940) & Beaverbrook (1879-1964), the "press barons" then a potent force (Beaverbrook called them collectively the "press gang").  Before commercial television & radio, let alone the internet and social media, most information was disseminated in newspapers and their influence was considerable.  The press barons though, whatever their desires, couldn't be dictatorial, as Beaverbrook found when his long campaign for empire free-trade achieved little but they sometimes behaved as if they could at a whim move public opinion and often politicians were inclined to believe them.  Within the UK at the time, Rothermere & Beaverbrook weren’t exactly “by Murdoch out of Zuckerberg” but it’s hard to think of a better way of putting it.

Baldwin in 1931 found a good way of putting it.  His leadership of the Tory party challenged because he refused to support them in what was even then the chimera of empire free trade, he responded with a strident speech which appealed to the public’s mistrust of the press barons, using a phrase from his cousin Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), ironically a friend of Beaverbrook.  Rothermere & Beaverbrook he denounced as wanting power without responsibility, “…the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”  It was the most effective political speech in the UK until 1940, Baldwin flourishing and empire free trade doomed, although Beaverbrook would keep flogging the corpse for the rest of the 1930s.  Often underestimated, David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) would later acknowledge Baldwin as the most formidable political operator of the era.

The oratory of Lloyd-George and Churchill may be more regarded by history but Baldwin did have a way with words and less remembered lines from another of his famous speeches may have influenced climate change activist Greta Thunberg (b 2003).  Delivered in the House of Commons on 10 November 1932 in a debate on disarmament, he argued for an international agreement to restrict the development of the aircraft as a military weapon:

“I think it is well also for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed, whatever people may tell him.  The bomber will always get through…”.  “The only defense is in offence, which means that you have got to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves. I mention that so that people may realize what is waiting for them when the next war comes.”

Prescient about the way the unrestricted bombing of civilians would be the Second World War’s novel theatre, the phrase "the bomber will always get through" reverberated around the world, chancelleries and military high commands taking from it not the need for restrictions but the imperative to build bomber fleets, Baldwin not planting the seed of the idea but certainly reinforcing the prejudices and worst instincts of many.  That was the power of the phrase; it subsumed the purpose of the speech, the rest of which was essentially forgotten including the concluding sentences:

"I do not know how the youth of the world may feel, but it is no cheerful thought to the older men that having got that mastery of the air we are going to defile the earth from the air as we have defiled the soil for nearly all the years that mankind has been on it."

“This is a question for young men far more than it is for us…”  “Few of my colleagues around me here will see another great war…”  “At any rate, if it does come we shall be too old to be of use to anyone.  But what about the younger men, they who will have to fight out this bloody issue of warfare; it is really for them to decide. They are the majority on the earth. It touches them more closely. The instrument is in their hands.”

“If the conscience of the young men will ever come to feel that in regard to this one instrument the thing will be done.”  “As I say, the future is in their hands, but when the next war comes and European civilization is wiped out, as it will be and by no force more than by that force, then do not let them lay the blame on the old men, but let them remember that they principally and they alone are responsible for the terrors that have fallen on the earth.”

Hansard recorded Baldwin’s speech being greeted with “loud and prolonged cheers”, his enthusiasm for disarmament making him as popular as Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940) would briefly be in 1938 when he returned from Germany with a piece of paper bearing Hitler’s signature an a guarantee of “peace in our time”.  Soon, the views on both men would shift but historians today treat them more sympathetically.

The old and the young.

Greta Thunberg (b 2003) and Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021), United Nations, New York, September 2019.  Ms Thunberg was attending a UN climate summit Mr Trump snubbed, going instead to a meeting on religious freedom.  Proving that God moves in mysterious ways, Mr Trump took a whole new interest in evangelical Christianity when he entered the contest for the 2016 presidential election.  Ms Thunberg seems to have noted the final paragraphs of Baldwin's speech and while convinced it’s quite right to “lay the blame on the old men” and their blah, blah, blah, which she thinks insufficient to lower carbon emissions, seems confident youth will prove more receptive to doing something about us defiling the earth.

Greta Thunberg, How Dare You? (Acid house mix).

Retard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ignition timing: Advancing and retarding the ignition

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

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

Slag

Slag (pronounced slag)

(1) The substantially fused and vitrified matter separated during the reduction of a metal from its ore; also called cinder.

(2) The scoria (the mass of rough fragments of pyroclastic rock and cinders produced during a volcanic eruption) from a volcano.

(3) In the post-production classification of coal for purposes of sale, the left-over waste for the sorting process; used also of the waste material (as opposed to by-product) from any extractive mining.

(4) In industrial processing, to convert into slag; to reduce to slag.

(5) In the production of steel and other metals, the scum that forms on the surface of molten metal.

(6) In commercial metallurgy, to remove slag from a steel bath.

(7) To form slag; become a slaglike mass.

(8) In slang, an abusive woman (historic UK slang, now a rare use).

(9) In slang, a term of contempt used usually by men of women with a varied history but now to some degree synonymous with “unattractive slut” (of UK origin but now in use throughout the English-speaking world and used sometimes also of prostitutes as a direct synonym, the latter now less common).

(10) In the slang of UK & Ireland, a coward (now regionally limited) or a contemptible person (synonymous with the modern “scumbag” (that use still listed by many as “mostly Cockney” but now apparently rare).

(11) In Australian slang, to spit.

(12) Verbally to attack or disparage somebody or something (usually as “slag off”, “slagged them”, “slagged it off” etc); not gender-specific and used usually in some unfriendly or harshly critical manner; to malign or denigrate.  Slang dictionaries note that exclusively in Ireland, “slagging off” someone (or something) can be used in the sense of “to make fun of; to take the piss; the tease, ridicule or mock” and can thius be an affectionate form, rather in the way “bastard” was re-purposed in Australian & New Zealand slang.

1545–1555: From the Middle Low German slagge & slaggen (slag, dross; refuse matter from smelting (which endures in Modern German as Schlacke)), from the Old Saxon slaggo, from the Proto-West Germanic slaggō, from the Proto-Germanic slaggô, the construct being slag(ōną)- (to strike) + -gô (the diminutive suffix).  Although unattested, there may have been some link with the Old High German slahan (to strike, slay) and the Middle Low German slāgen (to strike; to slay), the connection being that the first slag from the working of metal were the splinters struck off from the metal by being hammered.  Slāgen was from Proto-West Germanic slagōn and the Old Saxon slegi was from the Proto-West Germanic slagi.  Slag is a noun & verb, slagability, deslag, unslag & slaglessness are nouns, slagish, slagless, slagable, deslagged unslagged, slaggy & slaglike are adjectives and slagged, deslagged, unslagged, slagging, deslagging & unslagging are verbs; the noun plural is slags.  As an indication of how industry use influences the creation of forms, although something which could be described as “reslagging” is a common, it’s regarded as a mere repetition and a consequence rather than a process.

In the UK & Ireland, the term “slag tag” is an alternative to “tramp stamp”, the tattoo which appears on the lower back.  Both rhyming forms seem similarly evocative.

The derogatory slang use dates from the late eighteenth century and was originally an argot word for “a worthless person or a thug”, something thought derived from the notion of slag being “a worthless, unsightly pile” and from this developed the late twentieth century use to refer to women and this is thought to have begun life as a something close to a euphemism for “slut” although it was more an emphasis on “unattractiveness”.  The most recent adaptation is that of “slagging off” (verbal (ie oral, in print, on film etc) denigration of someone or something, use documented since 1971 although at least one oral history traces it from the previous decade.  In vulgar slang, slag is one of the many words used (mostly) by men to disparage women.  It’s now treated as something akin to “slut” (in the sense of a “women who appears or is known to be of loose virtue) but usually with the added layer of “unattractiveness”.  The lexicon of the disparaging terms men have for women probably doesn’t need to precisely to be deconstructed and as an example, in the commonly heard “old slag”, the “old” likely operates often as an intensifier rather than an indication of age; many of those labeled “old slags” are doubtless quite young on the human scale.  Still, that there are “slags” and “old slags” does suggest men put some effort into product differentiation.

How slag heaps are created.

All uses of “slag”, figurative & literal, can be traced back to the vitreous mass left as a residue by the smelting of metallic ore, the fused material formed by combining the flux with gangue, impurities in the metal, etc.  Although there’s much variation at the margins, typically, it consists of a mixture of silicates with calcium, phosphorus, sulfur etc; in the industry it’s known also as cinder and casually as dross or recrement (the once also-used "scoria" seems now exclusively the property of volcanologists).  When deposited in place, the piles of slag are known as “slag heaps” and for more than a century, slag heaps were a common site in industrial regions and while they still exist, usually they’re now better managed (disguised).  A waste-product of steel production, slag can be re-purposed or recycled and, containing a mixture of metal oxides & silicon dioxide among other compounds, there is an inherent value which can be realized if the appropriate application can be found.  There are few technical problems confronting the re-use of slag but economics often prevent this; being bulky and heavy, slag can be expensive to transport so if a site suitable for re-use is distant, it can simply be too expensive to proceed.  Additionally, although slag can in close to its raw form be used for purposes such as road-base, if any reprocessing is required, the costs can be prohibitive.  The most common uses for slag include (1) Landfill reclamation, especially when reclaiming landfills or abandoned industrial sites, the dense material ideal for affording support & stability for new constructions, (2) the building of levees or other protective embankments where a large cubic mass is required, (3) in cement production in which ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) can be used as a supplementary component material of cement, enhancing the workability, durability and strength of concrete, (4) manufacturing including certain ceramics & glass, especially where high degrees of purity are not demanded, (5) as a soil conditioner in agriculture to add essential nutrients to the soil and improve its structure, (6) as a base for road-building and (7) as an aggregate in construction materials such as concrete and asphalt.  The attraction of recycling slag has the obvious value in that it reduces the environmental impact of steel production but it also conserves natural resources and reduces the impact of the mining which would otherwise be required.  However, the feasibility of recycling slag depends on its chemical composition and the availability of an appropriate site.

Harold Macmillan, Epsom Derby, Epsom Downs Racecourse, Surrey, 5 June 1957.

The word “slag” has been heard in the UK’s House of Commons in two of the three senses in which it’s usually deployed.  It may have been used also in the third but the Hansard reporters are unlikely to have committed that to history.  In 1872, Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister Feb-Dec 1868 & 1874-1880) cast his disapproving opposition leader’s gaze on the cabinet of William Gladstone (1809–1898; prime-minister 1868–1874, 1880–1885, Feb-July 1886 & 1892–1894) sitting on the opposite front bench and remarked: “Behold, a range of extinct volcanoes; not a flame flickers upon a single pallid crest.”.  Sixty-odd years later, a truculent young Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) picked up the theme in his critique of a ministry although he was slagging off fellow Tories, describing the entire government bench as “a row of disused slag heaps”, adding that the party of Disraeli was now “dominated by second-class brewers and company promoters.”  Presumably Macmillan thought to be described as a “slag heap” was something worse than “extinct volcano” and one can see his point.  The rebelliousness clearly was a family trait because in 1961, when Macmillan was prime-minister, his own son, by then also a Tory MP, delivered a waspish attack on his father’s ministry.  When asked in the house the next day if there was “a rift in the family or something”, Macmillan said: “No.”, pausing before adding with his Edwardian timing: “As the House observed yesterday, the Honorable Member for Halifax has both intelligence and independence.  How he got them is not for me to say."

Lindsay Lohan and the great "slagging off Kettering scandal".

Although lacking the poise of Macmillan, Philip Hollobone (b 1964; Tory MP for Kettering since 2005), knew honor demanded he respond to Lindsay Lohan “slagging off” his constituency.  What caught the eye of the outraged MP happened during Lindsay Lohan’s helpful commentary on Twitter (now known as X) on the night of the Brexit referendum in 2016, the offending tweet appearing after it was announced Kettering (in the Midlands county of Northamptonshire) had voted 61-39% to leave the EU: “Sorry, but Kettering where are you?”

Philip Hollobone MP, official portrait (2020).

Mr Hollobone, a long-time "leaver" (a supporter of Brexit), wasn’t about to let a mean girl "remainer's" (one who opposed Brexit) slag of Kettering escape consequences and he took his opportunity in the House of Commons, saying: “On referendum night a week ago, the pro-Remain American actress, Lindsay Lohan, in a series of bizarre tweets, slagged off areas of this country that voted to leave the European Union.  At one point she directed a fierce and offensive tweet at Kettering, claiming that she had never heard of it and implying that no one knew where it was.  Apart from the fact that it might be the most average town in the country, everyone knows where Kettering is.”  Whether a phrase like “London, Paris, New York, Kettering” was at the time quite as familiar to most as it must have been to Mr Hollobone isn’t clear but he did try to help by offering advice, inviting Miss Lohan to switch on Kettering's Christmas lights that year, saying it would “redeem her political reputation”.  Unfortunately, that proved not possible because of a clash of appointments but thanks to the Tory Party, at least all know the bar has been lowered: Asking where a town sits on the map is now “slagging it off”.  Learning that is an example of why we should all "read our daily Hansards", an observation Mr Whitlam apparently once made, suggesting his estimation of the reading habits of the general population might have differed from reality.

Screen grab from the "apology video" Lindsay Lohan sent the residents of Kettering advising she'd not be able to switch on their Christmas lights because of her "busy schedule".

Slut

Slut (pronounced sluht)

(1) A woman of loose virtue; one who seeks sexual partners to an extent thought wantonly excessive (vulgar and usually derogatory).

(2) By extension, a prostitute (now rare, presumably because as it came to be applied more widely, such use began to lack precision.

(3) By extension, someone who seeks attention through inappropriate means or to an excessive degree (vulgar, figuratively and usually derogatory) . 

(4) By analogy, a person with seemingly undiscriminating desires for or interests in something (coffee-slut, chocolate-slut etc).

(5) A kitchen maid or servant (obsolete).

(6) An slovenly, untidy person (historically usually applied to women and now rare).

(7) A bold, outspoken woman (always derogatory and now obsolete). 

(8) A female dog (obsolete, bitch the replacement although that's now sometimes avoided because of the way it's used offensively against women). 

(9) A rag soaked in a flammable substance and lit for illumination, tied or mounted usually to a long handle (obsolete).

Circa 1400: From the late Middle English slutte (a dirty, slovenly, careless, or untidy woman) which may be either derived from or related to "sloth" and the first known use in print was in the medieval "Coventry Mystery Plays"; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists it as "of doubtful origin" and though paired alliteratively with sloven (which also first appears there) both suggestive of "lewd, lascivious woman", this remains uncertain.  It’s thought likely cognate with the dialectal German Schlutt (slovenly woman), dialectal Swedish slata (idle woman) and Dutch slodde or slodder (a careless man) but the exact relationship of all these is obscure.  In dialectical Norwegian, there was slut (mud) and slutr sleet (dirty liquid) in which meaning, like future adoptions, tended to the impure.  It’s thought related also the Middle Dutch slore, the Modern Dutch slomp and the German schlampe, the latter enjoying some popularity in the English-speaking world.  Etymologists have also suggested the possibility of a link with the Old English (West Saxon) sliet & slyt, (sleet, slush) which may be compared to the Norwegian dialectal slutr (snow mixed with rain), the connection being the sense of "the impure or dirty".  Slut is a noun & verb; sluttish, slutty, sluttier & sluttiest are adjectives, sluttishness & sluttiness are nouns, the noun plural is sluts.

Another of those English words with meanings changing over centuries, in 1402 slut meant roughly what one sense of slattern means today: a slovenly, untidy woman or girl.  It also meant kitchen maid although Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) used sluttish to describe both them and the appearance of an untidy man but as early as the end of the fifteenth century the sense had emerged as a woman of loose virtue, though not (yet) a prostitute although in the 1660s there are examples of the use of the word to refer to "playful young women" without any suggestion of a sexual overtone.  By the mid-fifteenth century, slut had come to be used of "kitchen & scullery maids" and from this the meaning was transferred to the labors: as late as the eighteenth century the hard pieces of imperfectly kneaded dough were called slut's pennies and dust left to gather on a floor was slut's wool.  The meanings ran in parallel until the nineteenth century; Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) thought the main use of the word was to suggest untidiness and a Samuel Pepys' (1633–1703) diary note in 1664 uses it as a term of endearment to commend the cheerful efficiency of one of his kitchen maids.  By the late twentieth century, the modern meaning had subsumed all others and was applied almost always pejoratively.  However, there were some in the late 1990s who adopted slut in the names of websites with content broader than the more specialised in the genre, an example of which was the now sadly defunct literary discussion and book-review site, bookslut.com, edited by feminist critic and author Jessa Crispin (b 1978).  A newer site, https://www.thebookslut.com now exists, seeming to function as an all-purpose clearing house for all things literary.

Before the advent of modern science gave rise to the extraordinary proliferation of technical terms, probably no purpose in English was so productive in the manufacture of words than the need to insult or disparage women and as an element, "slut" did its bit to contribute.  Although there are no rules which dictate exact use, there are dirty sluts, total sluts, pub sluts, slum sluts, ugly sluts, supersluts and slutbags.  Those thought sluts form part of the sluthood and exist in a state of slutdom; if one sleeps with one on a casual basis, one has had a slut stand and when observing her among the others in a slutfest, one might have noticed her was styled in slutstrands (two strands of hair (left & right) pulled down around the face with the rest pulled back.  Surprisingly, although sluts wear certain sorts of shoes, they're described not a slut-shoes but as "fuck-me shoes" (which isn't too literal because "fuck-me shoes" can be boots).  Among adjectives, the common form is slutty, the comparative sluttier & the superlative sluttiest but the simpler form is simply that one slut "out-sluts" another; a judgment inherently subjective.  The male slut was often a term of (sometimes grudging) admiration and referred to a promiscuous man who could sometimes be said to be a slut-maker.  A job slut was someone who often switched occupations and that could be used either neutrally or in a derogatory sense although in politics, the term "political prostitute" became popular and "political slut" did not, presumably because the intended implication was that the switching of allegiances was venal.  As a self descriptor without a sexual connotation it was once widely used but has become less popular because of feminist criticism (which must be why there were Facebook sluts but not TikTok sluts although the latter may be applied in a different context).  Once, there were press sluts (also known as media tarts in the digital age), coffee-sluts, beer sluts, chocolate-sluts, party sluts and book sluts, the terms all indicating an indiscriminate consumption of or addition to whatever was referenced.  To confuse English speakers, in Swedish, a slutstation is not what people variously may imagine but a part of public transport infrastructure meaning a terminus (the end-station at which a service terminates); figuratively it's used to mean "a final destination".  English visitors, returning home from Sweden have been known to nickname nightclubs with a certain reputation "slutstations".

Slutwalk, Toronto, Canada, April 2011. 

In the twenty-first century, feminists sought to claim the word and began a campaign socially to construct slut-shaming as an unacceptable form of bullying or discrimination.  Just as overtly political have been the slut-walks, the first of which was held in Toronto, Canada in April 2011 in reaction to comments by a police officer suggesting women were at least partially complicit in sexual assault by dressing in certain ways and that in their own interest, they should “…avoid dressing like sluts".

The police hastened to issue a flurry of apologies but that was perceived as crisis management rather than any indication of cultural change and the slut-walk soon followed, since repeated in many cities world-wide, sometimes as regular events.  Despite that, expressions of “victim blaming” continue to be issued by figures of authority.  A stated aim at the time was to redefine "slut" to describe someone in control of their own sexuality, to rid the word of any negative connotations.  That seemed linguistically ambitious but, although there are in English words which over time have come to mean the exact opposite of what they once did, it’s wrong to describe this as part of the “reclaim the word” movement.  It’s more of an attempt at re-appropriation like the successful campaign which gained “gay” its new exclusivity.  From within feminism came a critique which thought the word slut a distraction, something which attracted too much of the news media’s focus at the expense of the substantive issues: (1) a right to choose one’s clothing without fear of harassment, (2) the right to inhabit public space on the same basis as men and (3) that consent to sexual activity must always be explicit and can never be deemed to be implied on the basis of clothing or other signal.  This view suggested the issue was not the right to self-label as a slut but the right for women actually safely to exist in a time and place on the basis of their choice.

The RHS

The cocktails called the Red-Headed Slut (RHS) or the Ginger Bitch are identical.  Although variations exist, the original is served on the rocks, poured over ice, either in a old fashioned (rocks) glass or a highball.  Quantities of ingredients can vary but the alcohol components should always be equal.

Ingredients

(1) One part Jägermeister
(2) One part peach schnapps
(3) Cranberry juice

Instructions

Combine Jägermeister and schnapps in glass full of cubed or crushed ice. Add cranberry juice to fill glass. Stir as preferred.

It may be served as a shooter, chilled and shaken but without ice.   One popular derivative includes equal parts Jägermeister, Schnapps, Crown Royal, and cranberry-flavored vodka.  Some substitute Chambord for the cranberry juice, and sometimes Southern Comfort for the schnapps.  For a sweeter taste, apricot brandy can be used instead of schnapps and best of all, there’s the Angry Red-Headed Slut which adds rum (over-proof or two shots to increase the degree of anger).

Lindsay Lohan enjoying an eponymous: Surely an affectionate homage, the Lindsay Lohan is a variation, the Lohanic version taking a classic RHS and adding a dash of Coca-Cola (usually expressed as "coke").  It should be served in a highball or other tall glass.

Cocktail

Cocktail (pronounced kok-teyl)

(1) Any of various short mixed drinks, consisting typically of gin, whiskey, rum, vodka, or brandy, with different admixtures, as vermouth, fruit juices, or flavorings, usually chilled and frequently sweetened.

(2) A portion of food, as seafood served with a sauce, a mixture of fruits, or juice, served as the appetizer course of a meal.

(3) In pharmacology, a mixture or solution concocted of various drugs.

(4) In casual use, a thing mixed of several ingredients.

(5) Any eclectic mixture or miscellaneous collection.

(6) An evening dress in semi-formal style; probably now a LBD (little black dress) alternative.

(7) A horse with a docked tail (archaic).

(8) A horse of mixed pedigree (ie standardbred and not a thoroughbred (archaic)).

(9) A man of poor breeding pretending to be a gentleman (archaic).

(10) A species of rove beetle, so called from its habit of elevating the tail.

(11) As the Molotov Cocktail, an improvised incendiary weapon; a petrol bomb.

1806:  If one accepts what seems the orthodox view, the construct was cock + tail.  Cock (in this context) was from the Middle English cok, from the Old English coc & cocc (cock, male bird), from the Proto-West Germanic kokk, from the Proto-Germanic kukkaz (cock), probably of onomatopoeic origin.  It was cognate with the Middle Dutch cocke (cock, male bird) and the Old Norse kokkr (cock (and source of the Danish kok (cock) and the dialectal Swedish kokk (cock)). The development was influenced by the Old French coc, also of imitative origin.  Tail (in this context) was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil, from the Old English tæġl (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fiber; hair of a tail), from the primitive Indo-European doḱ- (hair of the tail), from deḱ- (to tear, fray, shred).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail) and the Gothic tagl (hair).  From this, came the general idea of the tail (rear) being the opposite of the head (front) which was generalized to many front-rear comparisons.

That etymology of course relies on the simple conjecture that "cocktail" was an allusion to the decorative embellishments often appended to the glasses in which mixed drinks were served; often made of bar wastage such as fruit rind or the leaves of pineapples, the constructions were said vaguely to resemble a rooster’s tail feathers.  Zoological still but equestrian rather than avian, it’s been linked also to the earlier use of cocktail to describe a "horse with a docked tail" (one cut short, which makes it stand up somewhat like the cock's comb).  The linkage is that because that method of dressing the tail was most associated with ordinary working horses rather than the pure-blooded thoroughbreds, cocktail came to be extended to drinks that were a mixture rather than anything pure.

What is certain however is the word is an Americanism and none of the attempts to explain the origin have found general acceptance.  HL Menken (1880-1956) listed several possibilities and the one which seemed most to appeal to him was a connection with the French coquetier (egg-cup) which, in English, was "cocktay".  That’s because a late eighteenth-century New Orleans apothecary, Antoine Amédée Peychaud (circa 1803-1883 and a confessed Freemason), conducted Masonic rituals in his pharmacy, mixing brandy toddies with bitters and serving them in an egg-cup.  Even those who find the etymology dubious admit it's an attractive tale.  The first known reference to a cocktail party is 1907 and since the 1920s cocktail has been used, formally and informally, to describe any concoction of substances (fruit, seafood, chemicals et al).  In motorsport, for almost a century, various high-octane fuel concoctions have sometime been allowed and colloquially they're known as the “exotic cocktails”.  What goes into the mixes has included gasoline (petrol, including high octane aviation fuel), methanol (known also as methyl alcohol), nitromethane (an often secret blend with several additives which creates famously explosive combustion characteristics and is banned in most categories), propane and nitrous oxide.  

The Cocktail Dress

Varations on the theme of the cocktail dress: Lindsay Lohan in vintage Herve Leger at Arrivals For Cartier Declare Your Love Day VIP cocktail reception, Cartier Store, New York, June 2006 (left) and in black Dion Lee cocktail dress with illusion panels and an off-the-shoulder silhouette, January 2013 (right).

Cocktail dresses straddle the gap between daywear and ball gowns.  Intended to be worn at formal or semi-formal occasions (classically of course, the “cocktail party”) including wedding receptions or dinner parties, they’re typically shorter in length than a gown, the hemline falling somewhere between just above the knee to mid-calf.  There’s no exact template for a cocktail dress but they should be identifiable by their simplicity and elegance, thus the utility of their versatility.  While not exactly post-modern, they appear in many fabrics and just about any style including empire, bandage, A-line or sack, featuring a range of necklines, sleeve lengths, and embellishments.  Historically, befitting the sophistication once associated with the cocktail party, the dresses were characterized by modesty and severity of line, the classic motif the tailored silhouette, relatively uncluttered by details.  Vogue magazine labeled the accessories (shoes, jewelry, a clutch and sometimes a wrap) the “cocktail dress ensemble”.  Things have has changed a bit and in recent decades, some discordant elements have intruded.

The Molotov Cocktail  

Molotov Coca-Cola Triptych (1997) by Alexander Kkosolapov (b 1943),

Describing a hand-held petrol-bomb, the term Molotov Cocktail was coined by the Finnish military during the Finnish-Soviet war (Winter War) of 1939-1940.  In Finnish it’s polttopullo or Molotovin koktaili, a reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986; USSR Foreign Minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956).  In 1939, Comrade Molotov claimed the Soviet Union was not dropping bombs on Finland, but merely airlifting bread to starving Finns.  The ordinance being dropped was an early type of cluster bomb which the Finns sarcastically dubbed Molotov's bread basket and soon after, they developed the petrol bomb as an improvised incendiary device suited especially to anti-tank operations in Finnish winter conditions.  That, they named the Molotov Cocktail, "a drink to take with the bread”.

The RHS

The cocktails called the Red-Headed Slut (RHS) or the Ginger Bitch are identical.  Although variations exist, the original is served on the rocks, poured over ice, either in a old fashioned (rocks) glass or a highball.  Quantities of ingredients can vary but the alcohol components should always be equal.

Ingredients

(1) One part Jägermeister
(2) One part peach schnapps
(3) Cranberry juice

Instructions

Combine Jägermeister and schnapps in glass full of cubed or crushed ice. Add cranberry juice to fill glass. Stir as preferred.

It may be served as a shooter, chilled and shaken but without ice.   One popular derivative includes equal parts Jägermeister, Schnapps, Crown Royal, and cranberry-flavored vodka.  Some substitute Chambord for the cranberry juice, and sometimes Southern Comfort for the schnapps.  For a sweeter taste, apricot brandy can be used instead of schnapps and best of all, there’s the Angry Red-Headed Slut which adds rum (over-proof or two shots to increase the degree of anger).

The Lindsay Lohan

Lindsay Lohan enjoying an eponymous.  Surely an affectionate homage, the Lindsay Lohan is a variation, the Lohanic version taking a classic RHS and adding a dash of Coca-Cola (usually expressed as "coke").  It should be always served in a highball.