TERF & Terf

TERF & Terf (pronounced turf)

(1) The acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist (trans-exclusionary radical feminism), a fork of radical feminism which maintains a trans woman’s gender identity is not legitimate and rejects the inclusion of trans people and the gender-diverse in the feminist movement.

(2) In genetics as (1) TERF 1 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 1), a protein which in  humans is encoded by the TERF1 gene & (2) TERF 2 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 2), a protein present at telomeres throughout the cell cycle. 

2008: Coined by Australian feminist writer Viv Smythe (@vivsmythe (fka @tigtog, @hoydenabouttown & @GFIComedy) although Ms Smythe suggests the acronym may previously have been in use but her blog entry is the oldest instance extant, hence the credit.  By virtue of use, TERF has become a word and thus the noun terf (and its variants is correct.  The use in genetics dates from the 1990s , the definitions written as part of the project which decoded the human genome (the complete results of which weren't released until March 2022).   

TERF was said first to have been coined as a “deliberately neutral” descriptor of a certain intellectual position among certain feminists, CISgender women who self-identify as feminist but who oppose including transgender women in spaces (physical, virtual & philosophical) which their construct of feminism reserves for those assigned female at birth.  Implicit in this is the denial that trans women (or anyone anywhere on the trans gender spectrum) are women; they regard them as men and because, by definition, men cannot coexist with their feminist construct, they must be excluded.  However, though TERF was of the feminists, by a feminist, for the feminists, once in the wild it is public property and TERF didn’t long stay neutral, soon used as a slur, applied as a term of disparagement by those sympathetic to trans rights and just as quickly embraced by some TERFs in an act of reclamation (a la slut, the notorious n-word etc).  In use online since at least 2008, TERF has different connotations (depending on who is using it and for what purpose) but even when applied as something purely descriptive, feminists who have been labeled TERF have called the term a slur because it has come to be associated with violence and hatred.  It is a loaded term.

Sainte Jeanne d'Arc (Saint Joan of Arc) (1903) by Albert Lynch (1860–1950).  Joan of Arc with proto TERF bangs: latter day TERFs arouse such hatred there may have been whisperings what was required was a few burnings at the stake.

The coining of TERF inspired some neologisms.  TERF bangs (existing only in the plural and noted since 2013 although use didn't trend until 2014) is a sardonic reference to a woman's hairstyle with short, straight, blunt-edged bangs (historically called baby bangs and a variation of what's known by some hairdressers as the "Joan of Arc" fringe), especially when paired with a bob and claimed to be associated with TERFs, the link impressionistic and possibly an example of a gaboso (generalized association based on single-observation).  The link is thought to be part of the opposition to transphobia, the TERF bangs noted for their relationship to the Karen (speak to the manager) bob and all Karens are assumed to be transphobic.  TERFdom is either (1) the holding (and expression) of trans-exclusionary feminist views or (2) being in some way present in the on-line TERF ecosystem.  TERFism is the abstract noun denoting variously the action, practice, state, condition, principle, doctrine, usage, characteristic, devotion or adherence to TERFDom.  TERfturf is an expression variously of the physical, virtual or philosophical space occupied by TERFdom.  TERFy, TERFish & TERFic are adjectives (usually applied disparagingly) which suggest someone or something may be tending towards, characteristic of, or related to trans-exclusionary feminism or those who hold such views.  Strangely, TERFesque seems not to have been used and it's tempting to ponder TERFery, TERFed & TERFistic and the use to which they might be put but there's scant evidence of use.  TERF also provided the model for the backronym SWERF (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist), describing the position of those radical feminists opposed to the sex industry (including pornography), regarding all aspects of the business as exploitative and that women who participate are victims of coercion, any assertion of agency or willing participation a form of false consciousness.

TERF, TWERF and others

Whatever the life TERF subsequently took, Ms Smythe’s original piece was a critique of the undercurrent of transphobia in the UK British media, something hardly difficult to detect nor restricted to the most squalid of the tabloids.  However, as she noted, regardless of her purpose or the context of the text, TERF has became a weaponized device of the culture wars which, in the way of the battle, assumed its identities at the extremes of the trans-inclusion & trans-exclusion positions and it could hardly have followed a different course, the notion, however applied, hardly one amenable to subtle nuances (although some have tried).  That it had the effect of being an inherently schismatic force in radical feminism seemed especially to disturb Ms Smythe and later she would suggest a more accurate (or certainly less divisive) acronym would have been “…TES, with the “S” standing for separatists”, adding that many “…of the positions that are presented seem far too essentialist to be adequately described as feminist, let alone radical feminist.”  Of course, that view was in itself exclusivist and a kind of assertion of ownership of both “radical” and “feminist” but that’s entirely in the tradition of political philosophy including the strains which long pre-date modern feminism, gatekeepers rarely hesitant in lowering the intellectual portcullis, intruders rarely welcome.

Still, it wasn’t as if feminism had been immune from the fissiparousness which so often afflicted movements (secular and otherwise), the devolution into into competing doctrinal orthodoxies of course creating heretics and heroes and to think of the accepted structure of the history (first wave, second wave etc) as lineal is misleading.  Nor was the process organic and it has been claimed there are TERFs (notably some of the self-described) for whom the identification with feminism became attractive only when it seemed to offer a intellectual cloak under which push transphobia, an accusation leveled at members of the US organization GIW (Gender Identity Watch).   Described variously as a “hate group” and the “Republican party in sensible shoes”, GIW’s best known activities include lobbying and monitoring legislatures and courts to try to ensure those who are transgender are not granted either the status of women or whatever rights may accrue from that.  Their basis was simply definitional, those DMaB (designated male at birth) can never be anything beyond MiD (men in disguise) and thus have no place in women’s spaces.

T-shirts are available.  In the modern age, if there's not a T-shirt, it's probably not a cause. 

There seems little to suggest bangs are a reliable marker of TERFdom and those wishing to assert where they stand on TERFness should probably don an appropriate T-shirt.  Not only do designer colors seem rare in TERF clothing but the combos mostly are black and white which may be subliminal messaging, this being a polarized debate in which there are few gray areas.  Predictably, trans-friendly T-shirts are more colorful.

Other theorists developed their own form of exclusivism.  The idea behind the back-formation TWERF (Trans Women Exclusionary Radical Feminist) was that it was "pure womanism", the needs of trans women being not only different from “real” women but irrelevant too, again by definition because trans women are still men and even if in some way defined as not, were still not “real” women.  The distinctions drawn by the TWERFs was certainly a particular strain of radical feminism because they raised no objection to the presence of trans men, the agender and even some other non-binary people into at least some of their women-only spaces although the rationale offered to support this position did seem sometimes contradictory.  Some however seemed well to understand the meaning and they were the transsexual separatists, apparently a cause without rebels, support for the view apparently close to zero.  The transsexual separatists argue that they need to be treated, for the purposes of defined rights, as a separate category, a concept which received little attention until the Fina(Fédération internationale de notation, the International Swimming Federation) in June 2022 announced a ban on the participation of transgender women from elite female competition if they have experienced “…any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later."  As something a workaround designed somehow to combine inclusion and exclusion in the one policy, Fina undertook to create a working group to design an “open” category for trans women in “some events” as part of its new policy; when in doubt, form a committee.  The transsexual separatists may not have expected Fina to be the first mainstream organization to offer a supporting gesture but what the federation has done may stimulate discussion, even if the work-around proves unworkable.

Discursiveness is however in the nature of feminist thought, the essence of the phases of renewal which characterized progress, formalized (if sometimes misleadingly) as waves and it’s unrealistic to imagine trans-related issues will be resolved until generational change allows a new orthodoxy to coalesce.  It really wasn’t until the high-water mark of second wave of feminism in the early 1980s that some of the early radical feminists began to attempt to distance the movement from the issues pertaining to trans people, reflecting the view the implications of what was characterized as the transgender agenda would only reinforce sexual stereotyping and the gender binary.  Even then, the position taken by radical feminists was not monolithic but it was the exclusionists who attracted most interest, inevitable perhaps given they offered the media a conflictual lens through which to view the then somewhat novel matter of trans rights, until then rarely discussed.  Third wave feminism was a product of the environment in which it emerged and thus reflected the wider acceptance of transgender rights and few would argue this has not continued during the fourth wave, the attention given to TERF (and its forks and variations) an indication of the interest in the culture wars and the lure of conflict in media content (whether tabloid or twitter) rather than any indication a generalized hardening of opposition among feminists.

TERF must not be confused with the homophone “turf”

Lindsay Lohan winning on the JCB's turf: On 1 October, 2023, four-year old mare Lindsay Lohan (by Emcee out of Requebra) won the Grande Prêmio Costa Ferraz over 1,000 metres, her fourth win in ten starts; Jockey Club Brasileiro, Praça Santos Dumont, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The word turf pre-dates 900 and was from the Middle English terf & torf (turves sometimes was used as plural but wholly un-related to the phrase “topsy-turvy”), from the Old English turf & tyrf (turf, sod, slab of soil, roots cut from the earth, piece of grass-covered earth, greensward), from the Proto-West Germanic turb (turf, peat), from the Proto-Germanic turbz (turf, lawn), linked possibly to the primitive Indo-European derbh- (to wind, to compress).  It was cognate with the Dutch turf, the Old Norse torf, the Middle Low German torf (peat, turf), (from which German & German Low German gained Torf) the Danish tørv, the Swedish torv, the Norwegian torv, the Icelandic torf, the Russian трава (trava) (grass), the Old Frisian turf, and the Old High German zurba; it was akin to the Sanskrit दर्भ (darbhá) (a kind of grass) & दूर्वा (dū́rvā) (bent grass).  Turf in its original sense developed as a part of the agrarian economy, describing the top layer of soil in which seeds were planted and roots (hopefully) took hold.  Use (apparently rapidly) expanded to encompass concepts in some way related to the upper layer of the ground or what sprouted from it including sods, slabs of soil with the root systems preserved (ie a piece of grass covered earth) and expanses of grassed surfaces.  To this day, the general literal understanding of “turf” is the grassed, top layer of soil.  The use as a synecdoche for (especially thoroughbred) horse racing (as “the turf”) dates from 1755, that use emerging from the original technical use by those maintaining the grassed surface over which the horses galloped.  From this evolved the modern occupational euphemisms: (1) turf accountant (a bookmaker (bookie) with whom one places bets) and (2) turf advisor (one who for a fee provides “tips” suggesting the horse(s) on which bets should be placed).

Lindsay Lohan enjoying the turf: Lindsay Lohan in The Birdcage (right), Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne, Victoria (Spring Carnival Derby Day), 2 November, 2019. The outfit paired a Leo & Lin Venus Asymmetric Scarf Skirt with a Morgan & Taylor Leya Boater Hat.  This is a figurative use of “turf”, used as a reference to “horse racing”.

The word Astroturf dates from 1966 when it was released as a commercial product, a synthetic grass for use in sports arenas.  The use of “astroturf” as a slang term meaning “to fake the appearance of popular support for something, such as a cause or product” emerged in the last days of the 1990s although the origin of the use of the word in this context has been traced to 1985 when then Senator (Democratic, Texas) Lloyd Bentsen (1921–2006; US Secretary of the Treasury 1993-1994) used the word to distinguish between “real mail from real people” and the “mountain of cards and letters” sent to his office in a campaign organized by the insurance industry: “…a fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass roots and AstroTurf... this is generated mail.”  Lloyd Bentsen is remembered also for the most memorable retort (which probably was rehearsed) from the 1988 presidential election in which he was the Democratic Party’s nominee for VPOTUS.  In a debate with the Republican’s Dan Quayle (b 1947; VPOTUS 1989-1993), he responded to Mr Quayle comparing himself to John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963) by saying: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy.  I knew Jack Kennedy.  Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.  Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.”  The other coincidental link between the two candidates was that in the 1970 mid-term congressional elections, Bentsen defeated George H.W. Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; VPOTUS 1981-1989 & POTUS 1989-1993) for a Texas senate seat and it was Dan Quayle Bush choose as a running mate in his successful 1988 presidential campaign.  Mr Qualye's other contribution to US political history was being filmed visiting a school in New Jersey school where he “corrected” a student’s spelling of “potato” by adding a final “e”.  That a man aspiring to be elected to an office “a heartbeat away from the presidency” and thus the authority to launch nuclear missiles didn’t know how to spell “potato” was disturbing enough but what made it really funny (at least in one sense) was he read the incorrect spelling from flashcards prepared in advance, confirming the public’s perception politicians obediently parrot whatever is fed to them by the party machine.

Lindsay Lohan on some turf: Lindsay Lohan standing on one of the Flemington Racecourse lawns.  This is a literal use of “turf”, used as a reference to “grass” but, had she been standing on the race track proper, the word would have been used in both senses.

As a general term for the “street or sidewalk (footpath)” in cityscapes, turf had entered slang use by at least the 1880s.  The phrase “comes with the turf” means one must “take the rough with the smooth” and accept less pleasant aspects of a chosen profession, location etc.  In figurative use the “turf war” was a demarcation dispute between parties over territory which can be literal physical space or something more abstract.  The idea of “our turf” in the sense of “streets or parts of a suburb in which a gang had an exclusive right to conduct criminal activities” must be old but the use of “turf” to describe the concept seems not to have been recorded prior to 1953.  On a gang’s turf, “civilians” might well stroll un-molested but it’d be dangerous for members of other gangs to trespass.  The term “turf war” is said to have come into use only in 1962 but the notion of “one’s turf” to which one had an exclusivity of possession or right was documented from at least the mid nineteenth century when it was almost formalized as a set of boundaries in the streets on which prostitutes plied their trade, the unmarked borders administered both by the sex workers and police officers who (usually with the extraction of some sort of fee in cash or kind) “enforced the rules”.

Pitcher

Pitcher (pronounced pich-er)

(1) A jug-like container, usually with a handle and narrow-necked spout or lip, for holding and pouring liquids; historically of earthenware, they now can be made of many materials (glass, plastic, metal etc).

(2) In botany, a pitcher-like or flask-shaped organ or appendage of a plant or its leaves; any of the urn-shaped leaves of the pitcher plant.

(3) In zoology, one of the former genus Ascidium of simple ascidians (sea squirts).

(4) In the sport of golf, a club with an iron head the face of which has more slope than a mashie but less slope than a pitching niblick (known also as a seven iron). 

(5) In stone-masonry, a granite stone or sett used in paving (known also as a sett).

(6) An adaptation of a crowbar, used for digging (obsolete).

(7) In slang, a drug dealer (usually one at the lowest (street level) level of the supply chain).

(8) In slang (UK criminal class), one who is the final link in the chain (ie the one handing the notes) to the retailer etc) putting counterfeit currency into circulation (obsolete).

(9) In slang, a street vendor, a “fly-pitcher” being an illicit street trader (one operating without permission or a license).

(10) In publishing, film or music production etc, an individual who delivers the pitch (the proposal) to secure funding, publishing contract etc; by extension a person who advocates an idea, concept or plan).

(11) A person who throws, tosses, casts etc something.

(12) In the sports of baseball, softball & pesäpallo, the player who throws (ie pitches) the ball to the opposition’s batters.

(13) In the slang (originally US) of the (male) gay community, the “top” (the “dominant” (in the penetrator)) partner in a homosexual encounter between two men, the other being the “catcher” (ie the “bottom”) (the “pitcher-catcher” comparison from the sport of baseball).

1250–1300: From the Middle English picher, from the Old French bichier, pichier & pechier (small jug) (which endures in modern French as pichet), from the Late Latin &  Medieval Latin picārium, a variant of bicārium (beaker), possibly from bacarium & bacar or from the Ancient Greek βῖκος (bîkos).  The use in the sense of “throwing something emerged between 1700-1710, the construct being pitch + -er.  The noun pitch (in the sense of throw, toss, cast etc) was from the Middle English picchen & pycchen (to thrust in, fasten, settle), from the Old English piċċan, from the Proto-West Germanic pikkijan, a variant of the Proto-West Germanic pikkōn (to pick, peck), from which Middle English gained pikken & picken (to pick, pierce) and modern English, pick.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  In botany, user have the pleasure of the adjective urceolate (comparative more urceolate, superlative most urceolate) meaning “having an urceolus (shaped like an urn), the word from the Latin urceolus (a little pitcher, more familiar as urceolatus), diminutive of urceus (any urn-shaped organ of a plant.).  Pitcher & pitcherful are nouns and pitcherlike & picchered are adjectives; the noun plural is pitchers.

Nepenthes holdenii, a tropical, meat-eating pitcher plant endemic in western Cambodia.  For carnivorous plants, the "pitcher" structure confers advantages in harvesting so the process of natural selection is ideal, the advantages conferred by the shape thus favored by natural selection.  

In idiomatic use a “little pitcher” was “a small child” and the phrase “little pitchers have big (sometimes “long”) ears” meant adults should exercise caution when talking in the presence of children because what is said may over overheard and understood or misunderstood (both, for different reasons, potentially leading to bad outcomes).  The “ears” in the phrase was an allusion to the ear-shaped handles common on pitchers used for serving liquids.  “Pitcher-bawd” was old sailor’s slang for an old or at least semi-retired prostitute (ie “past her best”) who worked in a tavern fetching pitchers of beer for patrons.  A “rinse-pitcher” was a notorious drunkard while the proverb “the pitcher goes so often to the well that it is broken at last” (expressed also as “the jug goes to the well until it breaks” meant “if even the best article is used often enough, eventually it will wear out or break down.

Even for those not convinced by the “language of Shakespeare and Milton” shtick, there are persuasive reasons to learn English.  That may not extend to the playwrights or lyric poets and in truth, most native English-speakers are probably acquainted with the works of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and John Milton (1608–1674) only through filmed adaptations or the odd (sometimes misquoted or wrongly attributed) phrase but both remain a still influential part of the language’s lineage.  Students new to the tongue probably appreciate some of English’s structural simplicity and come to value the flexibility and wide vocabulary but what must mystify them is the way certain words (with the same pronunciation or spelling (or both)) can enjoy a multiplicity of meanings; indeed some words can appear in the same sentence with one instance meaning one thing and one another.  Apparently this does happen in other languages but in English the phenomenon is thought to be more frequent and the paradox is that despite the huge word count, there are many of these dualities (and beyond) of meaning.

Lindsay Lohan has of late proved a prolific pitcher of products including Pure Leaf Tea.

When being taught the word “pitch”, students surely must think the scope of meanings bizarre.  As a noun “pitch” can be (1) a surface (such as that upon which cricket or other games are played), (2) a relative point, position, or degree (such a “high pitch of excitement”), (3) the highest point or greatest height, (4) in music, speech, etc, “the degree of height or depth of a tone or of sound, depending upon the relative rapidity of the vibrations by which it is produced, (5) in acoustics, the apparent predominant frequency sounded by an acoustical source, (6) the act of throwing, tossing etc or the manner of so doing, (7) in nautical use the movement or forward plunge of a vessel, (8) the extent of the upward or downward inclination of a slope or the slope itself, (9) the advocacy of something for some purpose (often as “sales pitch”), (10) the specific location allotted to or assigned for some person, object or purpose, (11) in aeronautics, the nosing of an airplane or spacecraft up or down about a transverse axis or the distance a given propeller would advance in one revolution (hence there being “variable pitch” and “fixed pitch” propellers, (12) in the flight of rockets or missiles, either the motion due to pitching or the extent of the rotation of the longitudinal axis involved in pitching, (13) in geology, the inclination (from the horizontal) of a linear feature (as the axis of a fold or an ore-shoot) (also called “the plunge”, (14), in mechanical engineering, (14a) the distance between the corresponding surfaces of two adjacent gear teeth measured either along the pitch circle circular pitch or between perpendiculars to the root surfaces normal pitch; (14b) the ratio of the number of teeth in a gear or splined shaft to the pitch circle diameter (expressed in inches or fractions of an inch) or (14c) the distance between any two adjacent things in a series (as screw threads, rivets, holes drilled etc), (15) in carpet weaving) the weft-wise number of warp ends, usually determined in relation to 27 inches (686 mm), (16) in stone masonry, a true or even surface on a stone, (17) in typography, a unit of measurement indicating the number of characters to a horizontal inch, (18) in cards, an alternative name for “all fours” (known also as “high-low-jack”, “old sledge” & “seven-up”), (19) in golf (as a clipping of “pitch shot”), an approach (to the green) shot in which the ball is struck in a high arc, (20) any of various heavy dark viscious substances obtained as a residue from the distillation of tars (often as coal-tar pitch); any of various similar substances, such as asphalt, occurring as natural deposits; any of various similar substances obtained by distilling certain organic substances so that they are incompletely carbonized and (21) crude turpentine obtained as sap from pine trees.

A picture of Lindsay Lohan with pitcher of milk making a “dirty soda” during her pitch for PepsiCo's Pilk promotion.  It was recommended a pilk be enjoyed with a cookie (“biscuit” to those in certain places) but opinion remains divided on the combo.

Once students have begun to master how many forks and layers of meaning can co-exist in “pitch” & “pitcher”, they can then ponder the latter’s homophone: “picture”.  Although it also enjoys other meaning, the core understanding of “picture” is as a representation of anything or anyone and one can exist as a painting, a print, a photograph, a drawing etc with the only definitional constraint probably that it should be on a flat surface; anything beyond that a it becomes an “installation” or something else.  A “three-dimensional picture” remains a picture if the effect is achieved with multi-layer technology but if it becomes topographic beyond the thickness of the paint, it’s probably an installation, model or something else.  Picture was from the Middle English pycture, from the Old French picture, from the Latin pictūra (the art of painting, a painting), from pingō (I paint).  The pitcher vs picture thing is an example (like sealing vs ceiling”) of how words with different spellings and meanings yet the same pronunciation independently can evolve and there are also words with the same spelling and pronunciation meaning different (sometimes even opposite) things (consider “sanction”).

American Gothic (1930), oil on beaverboard by Grant Wood (1891-1942), Art Institute of Chicago.

One of the most discussed, analysed and parodied paintings in twentieth century US art, every aspect of element in American Gothic has likely appeared in at least one earnest thesis and the pitchfork has been held to be as highly symbolic as well an interesting compositional feature.  Structurally, the pitchfork’s vertical shaft functions as a formal echo of other vertical and pointed elements (the architecture and the upright rigidity of the subjects) with the tool’s three tines parallel with both the elongated Gothic window behind and the seams and patterns of the clothing.  The technique lends the work a geometric coherence.  Symbolically, the visual austerity hints at the qualities stereotypically associated with rural Protestant rectitude and obviously, a pitchfork is emblematic of the manual agricultural labor which fulfilled such a vital role in the pre-industrial US.  Tellingly, Wood painted the work just as the effects of the Great Depression were beginning to be felt, threatening rural self-sufficiency and traditional American farming life.  That’s why critics think it significant the farmer’s grip on the handle seems so assertively tight, holding, as it were, onto a way of life which suddenly felt vulnerable, the message one of defiance, the pitchfork a barrier between subjects and viewers.

The picture has always been regarded as a snapshot (however inaccurately) of world-view of those of the Midwestern agrarian population, conveying sternness, frugality, guardedness, moral vigilance, thrift and an abiding suspicion of outsiders, thus the imagining of the pitchfork as a symbolic weapon rather than an emblem of pastoral warmth.  This is not a sentimental piece as so many depictions of rural scenes have been and whether the artist intended American Gothic to be ironic, satirical or a homage has never been certain because Wood at times gave interviewers different hints so it’s there for viewers to make of it what they will but it’s not hard to interpret the pitchfork as the visual spine, both compositionally and symbolically.

Portrait of the Irish playwright and Nobel laureate in literature, George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950), oil on canvas by the Welsh artist Augustus John (1878–1961), Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire.  In a long life, GBS pitched many things including Esperanto and, as one of the “useful idiots” (the crew contemptuously acknowledged by comrade Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924; head of government of Russia or Soviet Union 1917-1924)), the Soviet Union of comrade Joseph Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953).

In Modern English, as many as 175,000 words are thought to be “the core” (those in general, common use) while the count may be over 600,00 if historic, archaic forms are included and it’d go over a million if scientific and technical coinings were added.  There are of course reasons for this, the obvious one being English was a product of a long evolution with roots in Ancient Greek, Latin, French, various Germanic dialects and more and even when it (sort of) forked into something recognizably “English”, evolution was still often regional with spelling and meanings existing in parallel, centuries before mass-produced dictionaries emerged to begin the path towards standardization.  That messiness was avoided by the Esperantoists of the late nineteenth century who were able to craft their “international auxiliary language” freed from the constraints of existing use and thus achieve a lexicon characterized by words with exclusivity of meaning.  That sounds like it’d make it an attractive alternative to untidy English but English has the unique advantage of a global critical mass, something achieved by (1) the cultural imperialism first of the British Empire and later the United States and (2) being the “native” language of computing, the internet and all that.  Apart from the Greek, Latin and other sources, English proved linguistically a slut, because as explorers, soldiers, traders and colonialists spread globally (variously to explore, battle, trade, exploit, occupy etc), not only did they steal people, resources and land, shamelessly they also absorbed words from Africa, the Middle East and, most numerously, the Indian sub-continent during the British Raj.

This is a representation of “pitch black”.  Although used loosely to mean something like “very dark”, strictly speaking, “pitch black” should be used only to covey the idea of an “absence of light”, the allusion to tar, a black, oily, sticky, viscous substance, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons derived from organic materials such as wood, peat, or coal.

The terms “pitch black”, “pitch darkness” etc are a reference to the blackness of pitch in the sense of “tar” and in mineralogy, pitchblende is a naturally-occurring uranium oxide, a variety of the mineral uraninite.  As a verb, pitch can be used variously as “to pitch a tent” (ie erect one’s tent, that use based on an obsolete use of pitch to mean “firmly to fix (embed) in the ground”), “make a pitch for something” (suggest some course of action or try to sell something”), pitch (throw) a ball (most associated with baseball), cut a stone with a chisel.  In (now obsolete) historic military jargon, “to pitch” was “to arrange the field of battle” and although the term has fallen from use, the practice persists although few field commanders would now suggest the object is (as once did Field Marshal Lord Bernard Montgomery, 1887–1976) to make things “clean and tidy”.  Also now obsolete is the use of “to pitch” meaning “to settle down (in one place); to become established”; that had been based on the old use meaning “firmly to fix (embed) in the ground”.

Comrade Fidel Castro (1926–2016; prime-minister or president of Cuba 1959-2008, left) and Jimmy Carter (b 1924; POTUS 1977-1981), Estadio Latinoamericano (Latin American Stadium), Havana, Cuba, May 2002.  In Mr Carter's right hand is the baseball he's about to pitch.

In baseball, the “ceremonial first pitch” is a “symbolic pitch” (ie one with no consequence in the game) staged as a prelude to the game proper.  POTUESes and others have been among the celebrities engaged as “ceremonial pitchers” and some have proved more adept than others.  Jimmy Carter in 2002 made a private visit to Havana with the hope of improving relations between Cuba and the US, strained since the Cuban revolution in 1959.  In the short term, little that could be called substantive would be achieved but what would now be called “the optics” were good, comrade Castro inviting the former president to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Cuban League All-Star Game in Havana's Estadio Latinoamericano.  Apparently, baseball fan comrade Castro personally provided training in “making the perfect pitch” but, just to be sure, Mr Carter also had a few sessions with his Secret Service detail, reportedly on the roof of his hotel.  On the night, he threw what was described as “a good pitch” and it was well received by the capacity crowd, the event in the history books as a rare example of diplomacia del beisbol (baseball diplomacy) and the sport does appear in the odd footnote in presidential histories.  On the opening day (13 April) of the 1964 MLB (Major League Baseball) season at Washington DC’s District of Columbia Stadium (now the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium), Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1969-1969) set the record for the most hot dogs eaten by a president on Opening Day, all four scoffed down in the approved manner (ie without resort to knife & fork).  The record still stands, something which must not have been brought to the attention of Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) because, if he knew, there would have been a post on Truth Social correcting the record by revealing he'd once eaten five.

Baseball has variants of the position of pitcher (the player who throws the ball to the opposition batter) including “non-pitcher” (team member who does not pitch and is thus obliged to bat, “relief pitcher” (a pitcher who takes the place of the “starting pitcher” (or another relief pitcher) in cases of injury, ineffectiveness, ejection from the game or fatigue, “switch pitcher” (a pitcher who play ambidextrously (pitches both right & left-handed), “setup pitcher” (a relief pitcher who pitches usually in the 8^th inning to maintain a lead, serving as the bridge to the closer in the 9^th, “middle relief pitcher” (MRP) (a relief pitcher who pitches usually the 5^th, 6^th or 7^th innings to bridge the gap between the starting pitcher and late-inning relievers (setup or closer pitchers) and “closer pitcher” (A specialist relief pitcher skilled in securing the final outs, typically in the 9^th inning, to protect a narrow lead or ear a “save”.

Dope

Dope (pronounced dohp)

(1) Any thick liquid or pasty preparation, as a lubricant, used in preparing a surface.

(2) A combustible absorbent material (historically sawdust or wood-pulp), used to absorb and hold the nitroglycerine in the manufacture of dynamite (used also of the processes in the manufacture of other products).

(3) An absorbent material, such as sawdust or wood pulp, used to hold the nitroglycerine in dynamite

(4) In aeronautics (and other fields), any of various varnish-like preparations (made by dissolving cellulose derivatives in a volatile solvent) used for coating a fabric (wings, fuselage etc), in order to render it stronger and more taut, aerodynamic and waterproof.

(5) Any of a number of preparations, applied to fabric in order to improve strength, tautness, etc

(6) A chemically similar product used to coat the fabric of a balloon to reduce gas leakage.

(7) An additive used to improve the properties of something (such as the “anti-knock” compounds added to gasoline (petrol).

(8) A thick liquid (typically a lubricant), applied to a surface.

(9) In slang, any narcotic or narcotic-like drug taken to induce euphoria or some other desired effect (and eventually to satisfy addiction); now used most of cannabis although other terms are now more common.

(10) Any illicit drug.

(11) In sport, a “performance enhancing drug” (PED; steroids, peptides etc), taken by athletes.

(12) In horse racing, a narcotic or other drug given surreptitiously to a horse to improve or retard its performance in a race.

(13) In firearms, ballistic data on previously fired rounds, used to calculate the required hold over a target.

(14) In slang, information, data, knowledge or news (sometimes used especially of confidential information).

(15) In slang, someone thought unintelligent, stupid or unresponsive etc.

(16) In US slang (mostly south of the Mason-Dixon Line, especially Appalachia), a carbonated, flavored and sweetened drink (used especially of cola-flavored sodas (soft drinks)).

(17) In US slang (East North Central Division of the Mid-West, especially Ohio), a sweet syrup used as a topping for ice cream.

(18) To affect with dope or drugs.

(19) To add a narcotic or other drug to something.

(20) To give a drug to (an athlete or horse), so as to affect performance in a race (for better or worse) or other competition.

(21) To take illicit drugs (in any context)

(22) In engineering to apply or treat a surface with dope.

(23) In electronics, to add or treat a pure semiconductor with a dopant.

(24) In slang, photographic developing solution

(25) In slang, great; excellent (always regionally variable and now les common).

1807: Apparently a creation of US English meaning “sauce, gravy; any thick liquid”, from the Dutch (dialectical) doop (thick dipping sauce), a derivative of dopen or doopen (to dip, baptize; deep), from the Middle Dutch dopen, from the Old Dutch dōpen, from the Frankish daupijan, from the Proto-Germanic daupijaną.  By extension, by the late nineteenth century it came generally to be used of any mixture or preparation of unknown ingredients producing a thick liquid.  The use of doop in the sense “narcotic drug” was derived ultimately from the viscous opium juice (the drug of choice of the well-connected in Ancient Greece) but in English was in use by at least 1899 and came from the smoking of semi-liquid opium preparations.  The verb use in the sense of “administer a drug to” appeared in print in 1889.  The idea of “insider information” was in use by at least 1901 and is thought to come from the knowledge of knowing which horse in a race had been doped (thus predicting it would run faster or slower than its form would suggest), this sense dating from 1900.  From this idea (inside information) developed the US slang “to dope out” (figure out, clarify).    The sense of “an unintelligent person” may have been used as early as the 1840s and came from the stupefying effects of opium, those intoxicated displaying obvious impaired cognitive facilities.  The word was related to the English dip and the German taufen (to baptize) but not to dopamine which came from chemistry, the construct being (DOPA (dihydroxyphenylalanine) +‎ -amine.

Unlike some constructions in English (eg domelessness (absence of a dome) or the informal gaynessness (“excessive” gayness)), there seems no recorded use of dopnessness.  For the commoly used “dopey”, the comparative is dopier and the superlative dopiest.  The use of “doper” to describe both: (1) someone who administers dope and (2) someone to whom dope is administered differs from the convention used in many words in English (eg payer vs payee) so the non-standard noun dopee can also be a synonym of doper.  Presumably, a useful distinction would be a dopee being one whose dope has been administered by another while a doper is one who self-administers.  Dope is a noun, verb & adjective, dopiness & dopeness are nouns, doper is a noun & adjective, doping is a noun & verb, doped is a verb & adjective and dopey (sometimes spelled dopy (the derived forms following this)) dopier & dopiest are adjectives, the noun plural is dopes.  Acronymfinder list eleven DOPEs, only two of which are narcotic related.

DOPE: Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (various organizations).
DOPE: Department of Public Enterprise.
DOPE: Data on Personal Equipment (sniper rifle data logging).
DOPE: Death or Prison Eventually (movie).
DOPE: Data on Previous Engagement (military sniper term).
DOPE: Drugs Oppress People Everyday.
DOPE: Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment.
DOPE: Director of Product Enhancements (Dilbert).
DOPE: Displacement of breathing tube, Obstruction, Pneumothorax, Equipment failure.
DOPE: Data Observed from Previous Engagements (ballistics).
DOPE: Director of Performance Enhancement (New York Yankees).

The use by the New York Yankees MLB (Major League Baseball) franchise seems daring given the existence of the Independent Program Administrator (IPA) of the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program (JBTPT) which monitors the use of PEDs in the sport.  The JBTPT jointly is run by the MLB and the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association) and the IPA oversees all drug testing, collection and enforcement.  Pleasingly, the JBTPB often is referred to as the “Major League Joint Drug Program”.

Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams, published in 1995 on Bastille Day (14 July). 

First published in 1989, the once widely-syndicated "corporate life" Dilbert cartoon strip dealt with engineers, programmers and such working in a corporation run by those without a technical background, the exemplar of the latter being the “pointy haired boss”.  The cartoon was the work of Scott Adams (b 1957) who in 2023 was “cancelled” after posting a video in which he called “Black Americans”, critical of the slogan “It's okay to be white” because of its association with white supremacist ideology, a “hate group”, suggesting “White Americans” should “get the hell away from” them.  Mr Adams later disavowed racism and moved his output on-line.

On the Dilbert website, Mr Adams stated: “No news about public figures is ever true and in context” and explained his cancellation thus: “If you believe the news, it was because I am a big ol' racist.”  Fleshing that out, he added: “If you look into the context, the point that got me cancelled is that CRT [Critical Race Theory], DEI [Diversity, Equity & Inclusion] and ESG [Environmental, Social and Governance] all have in common the framing that White Americans are historically the oppressors and Black Americans have been oppressed, and it continues to this day.  I recommended staying away from any group of Americans that identifies your group as the bad guys, because that puts a target on your back.  I was speaking hyperbolically, of course, because we Americans don't have an option of staying away from each other. But it did get a lot of attention, as I hoped.  (More than I planned, actually).”  Dlibert devotees prepared to separate art from artist were advised: “Disgraced and canceled cartoonist Scott Adams has moved his work and upgraded it to a spicier version entitled Dilbert Reborn.”

A "Dope Mobile Bookstore" is scheduled to go on-line in December 2025 and there really was briefly a "Dope Mobile" (left) which was an on-line store for mobile phone accessories and should not be confused with a "dopemobile" which is a "dope dealer's" car.  Especially in black, a Chrysler 300 (2005-2023) is almost a cliché as a dopemobile and this 2009 model (on flatbed truck, right) was seized by New Zealand police from the estate of a deceased "dope dealer" (a profession with an unusually high death rate).  The informal term "dopemoble" can mean either (1) a vehicle in which a "dope dealer" transacts "dope deals" or (2) a vehicle believed or proved to have been purchased using the proceeds of "dope dealing".  

Purple Haze, Blue Cheese and more.  The proprietors of Amsterdam’s coffee shops have always come up evocative and fanciful names for dope.  One has to have the coffee one drinks and one has to have the weed one smokes.

In derived terms and idiomatic use, “dope” appears often but because of the dual meaning (narcotics and a varnish-like substance), the same term can mean very different things so context must be noted when assessing a meaning.  A “dope stick” (also as dopestick) can describe (1) a stick or applicator for spreading dope (a viscous liquid or paste used in preparing a surface) on a surface or, in slang (2) a cigar or cigarette, (3) a pipe, (4) a marijuana joint or something similar laced with cocaine or other drug or (5) a penis suffering from priapism (a condition in which the erect penis does not return to its flaccid state despite the absence of both physical and psychological stimulation) as a result of the use of cocaine or heroin.  The condition may sound desirable but is both potentially painful and risks long-term tissue damage.

Color chart, circa 1940. Some of the pigments available for Berry Brothers "Berryloid Pigmented Dopes".

“Dope dick” (impotence induced by heavy drinking or other substance abuse) is a synonym of other slang forms including “coke dick”, “crystal dick”, “whisky dick” & “brewer's droop”.  A “dope whore” is someone addicted to narcotics who finances the habit through prostitution, the synonyms being “coke whore”, “smack slut”, “crack whore” etc.  To “smoke one's own dope” means “to believe one’s own publicity, propaganda, lies or posturing; the synonym is “to drink one's own Kool-Aid”.  For those who like to make such connections, Kool-Aid is the official soft-drink of the US state of Nebraska, otherwise famous only for being the home of billionaire investor Warren Buffett (b 1930).  To “dope out” means “to figure out, to find out, find, decipher”, something Mr Buffet certainly did of investing for profit although wryly, he notes that often when folk ask him the “secret of his success” and he tells them how his strategy worked over decades, there’s an obvious sense of disappointment because what people really want to know is “how can I get rich overnight?”  He assures all he doesn’t “have the dope” on that.

Punters dope sheet (form guide), 2024 Melbourne Cup.

A “dope sheet” is a summary (ordinarily in the form of a codified, printed or digital document), containing salient facts and background information concerning a person, activity, or other subject matter.  The origin is thought to be the publications associated with horse racing (the name derived from the suspicion the most accurate indicator of a horse’s performance was whether or not it had been doped with some substance to make it run faster or slower) in which was summarized information about the horses running in certain races.  Such publications are now known variously as scratch sheets, tip sheets, firm guides, best bets etc.  Beyond gambling, “dope sheets” (a term which became misleading because some publications could be quite thick volumes) came to be used in fields as varied as automotive repair and especially in photography, film & animation; in the latter were listed the designer’s detailed instructions for artists & editors (known also as an “exposure sheet”).

Lindsay Lohan gives CNN the dope on dope use during her "troubled starlet" phase.

In the world of narcotics users (there really are many quite separate populations in “doperdom”) dope is sold by a “dope dealer”, “dope-runner”, “dope-pedlar”, “dope-pusher”, “dope-seller” or “dope-man”, sometimes from a “dope-house” whereas a “dopester” is a “street-level” trader who may be operating independently but is typically an agent on commission (paid sometimes “in kind”) and often operating from a "dopemobile").  Both retailers sell to “dope fiends”, “dope chicks”, “dope heads” etc (those who variously use or abuse) while a “dope dog” is a canine used by law enforcement officers to “sniff-out” dope.  The “dope house” must however not be confused with the “dope-shop” which was the part of the factory (typically one manufacturing aircraft) where dope was applied to the fabric laid over the spars of an airframe.  In the “dope house” was employed the “doper” who applied the dope to the fabric (dated) and again the meaning is shared with those involved with narcotics or PEDs.  If the “dope deal” couldn't for whatever reason be executed, the customer was left “dopeless” and those who over-consume could become “dope sick” (in withdrawal from “dope use”) which is different from the potentially fatal “dope overdose”.  “Dope time” & “doper time” both reference the way one’s perception of the passing of time changes when one is under the influence of narcotics.  It’s along the lines of “country mile” (typically somewhat longer than 1760 yards) or “Microsoft minutes” (referencing the dialog boxes which appeared in MS-Windows during certain operations saying something like “17 minutes remaining” which could mean anything from a few seconds to many hours).

The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade by Professor Benjamin T. Smith.

The title's play on words is this being “the dope” on “the dope trade” out of Mexico.  In the well-populated sub-culture of narcotics use (illicit and not), there exists a bewildering array of names, vernacular and slang, some now registered trade-marks as many jurisdictions have relaxed the prohibition on “soft drugs’ but “dope” remains the most useful generic “cover-all” term.  Nor is the use of “dope” as a generic new, Lord Moran (Charles Wilson, 1882-1977; president of the Royal College of Physicians 1941-1949, personal physician (1940-1965) to Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in his diary (Churchill taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran: The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (1966)) noting on 2 December 1952, during a trans-Atlantic flight:

“This may be my last journey with Winston.  We began life humbly enough, in an unheated Lancaster bomber, and end it, twelve years later, in high state in the strato-cruiser Canopus. Messages no longer pass to the captain asking at what height we are flying; 18,000 feet or 11,000 feet (both were recorded last night), it is all one to us, pressurized at 5,000 feet.  Most of the seniors and quite a number of the juniors came to me last night for sleeping pills - this weak kneed generation that needs dope for a few hours in the air.”

Boeing 377 Stratocruiser in United Airlines livery in 63-passenger configuration including sleeping berths, a state room and lounge bar.

Lord Moran was of course well-acquainted with dope, having for years suppled Churchill with “downers” (barbiturates) to help him sleep and “uppers” (amphetamines, then commonly called “pep pills”) to perk him up, Churchill ignoring the apothecary’s descriptions and dubbing the various tablets with terms from his own ad-hoc pharmacological vocabulary including “Lord Morans”, “majors”, “minors”, “reds”, “greens”, “babies” and “midgets”, all based either on the pill’s appearance or its potency, the latter established empirically.   In fairness to the Lord Moran's doped airline passengers, with a cruising speed (depending on conditions) between 300–340 mph (480–550 km/h), trans-Atlantic flight time for the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was typically 10 hours (eastbound) to 11-12 hours (westbound), a duration compelling until the new generation of jetliners cut the trip to 6–7 hours.  A civilian version of the C-97 Stratofreighter military heavy-transporter (developed from the B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber), the Stratocruiser was, when its first test-flight was undertaken in 1947, the world biggest airliner and could carry up to 100 passengers in a multi-deck configuration although most were configured for fewer and outfitted with the luxuries which appealed to the demographic then able to afford to travel by air.  Very modern when first it flew, there were no "doped fabric" surfaces on the Stratocruiser, the fuselage, wings and tail made almost wholly from an aluminum alloy (mostly duralumin); it was thus, in the parlance of the day, an "all metal" craft.  However, despite extensive development, the problems with the 28-cylinder Pratt & Whitney radial engines were never wholly resolved and while they came to be practical for military use, they remained maintenance-intensive so operating costs were high and between 1949-1963 only 55 Stratocruisers were ever in service.

Berry Brothers advertising (1929) of their Berryloid Pigmented Dope, illustrated by applying avian coloring to aircraft.  This was Number 10 of the series and depicts the Mono Aircraft Corporation's Monocoupe, doped in the color scheme of the sexually dimorphic red winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).  Only the males feature the distinctive red shoulder and yellow wing bar over black, the female's feathers a nondescript dark brown.

“Pipe dope”, despite the name, is not used of the drug-smoking devices and refers to any of the many lubricants and sealants used to make a pipe thread joint leak-proof and pressure-tight.  In US military slang, a “scope dope” was the officer responsible for radar or a radar operator.  The technical terms “photodope”, “photodoping” & “photodoped” come from materials science and described the process of removing a dopant (a substance added in small amounts to a pure material, such as semiconductor, to alter its original electrical or optical properties).  In electronics, impurities are added to semiconductors as a way of (1) producing a desired result or (2) modifying its properties.  In the tuning of stringed musical instruments, “peg dope” is a substance used to lubricate the pegs of an instrument and to provide the desired friction between pegs and strings.  Use seems not to have extended to other fields but conceivably it could be a helpful (and even lucrative) product for those who enjoy the sexual practice of “pegging” (women using “strap-ons”) an activity Urban Dictionary’s contributors gleefully detail, there being many nuances in use.

Automotive Digest's Dope-Master (1948, left and 1951, right).

Annually updated, Automotive Digest for years published their "Dope Masters", containing the specifications and information (ie "all the dope") required to service or "tune up" most of the automobiles sold in the US.  They were valued by mechanics but also used by many owners, cars then being mostly mechanical devices with some wiring so servicing at home with basis tools was possible in a way unthinkable with modern machines with their high electronic and software content.  In boxing, the phrase “rope-a-dope” described a technique in which the boxer assumes a defensive stance against the ropes, absorbing an opponent's blows, hoping to exploit eventual tiredness or a mistake.  Figuratively, use can be extended to any strategy in which a seemingly losing position is maintained to “lull an opponent into a false sense of security” in the hope of securing eventual victory; in the vernacular, it’s to exhaust them by “stringing them along”.  “Dope slap” is a jocular term which describes “a light slap to the back of the head”, used as a disciplinary measure for some minor infraction (ie imposed for someone being "a bit dopey") while a more severe corporal punishment would be imposed for a more a serious offence.  “Dope glass” (a synonym of “carnival glass”) was a type of glassware dating from the early twentieth century, notable for possessing lustrous colors.  Known variously as “aurora glass”, “iridescent ware”, “Iridill” “poor man's Tiffany”, “rainbow glass” & “taffeta glass”, it was initially declared by the style police to be attractive but, cheap and mass-produced, it soon came to be used to make objects judged “not in the best taste” and, being much associated with the Great Depression years of the 1930s (it was dubbed also “depression glass”), it became unfashionable.