Saucepan

Saucepan (pronounced saws-pan)

(1) A deep cooking vessel fashioned usually from metal, typically with a long protruding handle and often a lid; used for boiling, stewing etc with use not restricted to the preparation of sauces.

(2) In uranography (celestial cartography; the mapping of celestial bodies), a pot-shaped asterism in the constellation Orion, consisting of Orion's Belt, Orion's Sword, and the star Eta Orionis (proper noun, thus initial capital).

(3) As “saucepan fish”, a dated term for the king crab.

(4) In slang, to spread information (rumors or facts).

(5) In military slang, a “name” used as a substitute when the real name is deemed too long or hard to pronounce (“wheelbarrow” a historic alternative).

(6) In on-line gaming slang, to kill an opponent (or random other player) in a manner that reduces them to “a sauce”.

(7) In on-line gaming slang (as “saucepanned”), a player killed in a manner that reduces them to “a sauce”.

(8) To cook ingredients in a saucepan.

(9) To hit (someone) using a saucepan as a weapon.

1680–1690: The construct was sauce + pan.  Dating from 1300–1350, sauce was from the Middle English sauce, from the Middle French sauce, from the Old French sauce, sausse & sause, from the Vulgar Latin salsa (things salted, salt food), noun use (feminine) of the Latin salsus (salted), past participle of sallere (to sprinkle with salt), from sāl (genitive salis), from the primitive Indo-European root sal-(salt).  The spelling sawce is long obsolete.  Pan (in the context of the cooking utensil) was from the pre-900 Middle English pann & panne, from the Old English panne, from the Proto-West Germanic pannā, from the Proto-Germanic pannǭ.  It was cognate with the West Frisian panne, the German Low German Panne, the German Pfanne, the Dutch pan, the Saterland Frisian Ponne, the Danish pande, the Swedish panna, the Icelandic panna and the Old Norse panna but the ultimate origin remains murky.  Etymologists suspect variants such as patna & panna were in use in the Vulgar Latin (from the Late Latin panna) in the sense of “pan”; these from the Classical Latin patena & patina (shallow dish, shallow pan, stewpan), from the Ancient Greek πατάνη (patánē) (dish, flat dish), likely of pre-Greek origin.  Among the profession, the Late Latin panna seems generally accepted as the source but some do note the untypically rare attestation and the limited spread to other Romance languages, suggesting the matter should be thought unresolved.  However, alternative explanations (such as the Proto-Germanic pannǭ and Late Latin panna coming from a non-Indo-European Mediterranean substrate word remain speculative and even a link between the Greek patánē and the primitive Indo-European root pete (to spread) has limited support.  Saucepan is a noun & verb, saucepanful is a nouns, saucepanned & saucepanning are verbs and saucepanlike is an adjective; the noun plural is saucepans.  The adjectives saucepanish & saucepanesque are non-standard.

Cooks Standard Multi-Ply Clad 8-Inch (200 mm) Stainless Steel Frying Pan.

A pan is a broad, shallow container of metal, usually having sides flaring outward to the top; they’re used in various forms for frying, baking, mixing (this & that), gold prospecting, washing etc.  So often is the shape seen in many fields that the word has come to be used of any “hollowed-out” thing shaped (even vaguely) like a pan used in cooking.  In engineering, pan-shaped parts are common ranging from the heads of tiny screws to huge “dishes” used in cosmic observation and components in power-generation.  In idiomatic use there was the “flash in the pan” (a transient occurrence with no long-term impact; an early-career success not followed subsequent accomplishments), based on the flash that happened when a musket or flintlock pistol was fired (the gunpowder held in a “pan”).  To say “out of the frying pan and into the fire” suggests going from a bad situation to something worse).  In figurative use, to “pan out” means “to proceed according to plan; to result or end up with an acceptable outcome or in an acceptable form”; it evolved from the nineteenth century Californian gold rush where “pan out” described the process of separating and recovering the precious metal by swirling dirt or crushed rock in a pan of water.  “Pan handle” (literally “the handle of a pan”) is used in geography & cartography to describe a part of land surface that appears to “stick out or project” when viewed on a map (the US state of Florida a classic panhandle).  In military aviation, the lever used to activate an ejector seat was dubbed “pan handle”.  There are specialized variants including the “milk saucepan” (the internal surface now often coated with Teflon) that features a wide lip with a “built-in” indentation for pouring; as the name suggests, typically it’s used to heat milk for drinks.  The now rare sense of pan in the sense of “face” is an Americanism from the 1920s and the idea endures in the slang “pieface” (a “round-faced” person).

Lindsay Lohan cooking pasta with two saucepans (one for pasta; one for sauce), London. 2014.

Paradoxically, most saucepans doubtlessly are used for purposes other than preparing sauces so it should be little surprise there’s no standardization in the terminology and whether a “saucepan” is from time-to-time deemed a “pot”, “saucepan” or some flavour of “pan” is determined wholly by an individual’s culinary lexicon and even within regions that can vary; what’s one thing in one place might be something else in another.  So, there are conventions rather than rules but, as a general principle, pots and pans are distinguished by their depth and use, in which case (1) a saucepan (with its elongated sides) is pot despite its name, (2) pots and pans are distinguished by type and/or number of handles, in which case a saucepan can be a pan and (3) both vessel depth and handles are distinguishing features, in which case saucepans form a separate third class that is sibling to pots and pans.  All that is really not a great deal of help and the best guide is how a manufacturer or retailer describes the thing although a purchaser is free to call their utensil whatever they wish.  What the internet has done is make this use diffuse so whereas it was once possible to guess on which side of the Atlantic the terms were being used, this is no longer the case with the regionalisms now blurred.  Working chefs, better acquainted than most with cooking utensils, seem not too concerned, the language heard in production kitchens tending to be clipped to “pots” and “pans”, visual identification sufficient to determine choice.

Influencer site PureWow Picks noted one of the items Lindsay Lohan thought essential items in the inventory of the modern young woman was a “better non-stick pan”.  In what was described as an “exclusive interview”, Ms Lohan revealed a half-dozen items “she can’t live without” and although it was disclosed “PureWow may earn compensation through affiliate links within the story”, the list was nevertheless an insight into some of the more obscure things that matter to at least a subset of the population:

(1) Nanit Pro Camera & Flex Stand: A handy device with which a mother can monitor her child in another room with two-way audio communication also supported.

(2) Alaïa Criss Cross patent leather ballet flats: Men tend to prefer the female foot in a classic stiletto pump but women seem inclined to allow comfort to matter, ballet flats often the shoe of choice.

(3) Hexclad six-piece Hybrid Fry Pan Set with Lids:  Hexclad’s product is “Teflon free”, “hybrid” a reference to a patented system of “hexagonal steel peaks” (a laser-edged network of ridges said to “boost searing power”), the “non-stick” valleys coated with the company’s proprietary TerraBond™ ceramic non-stick (free from PTFE and forever chemicals).  Concerns about the shedding of PTFE microparticles into food were raised when Teflon was produced using PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid). The story Teflon (PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene, a synthetic fluoropolymer composed of carbon and fluorine) was developed in the 1960s for the US space program is an urban myth; it actually emerged from DuPont's labs, its low friction properties making the stuff and an ideal coating to create “non-stick” cookware; in that application it’s been a minor but significant contribution to civilized life.

(4) Ōura Ring: Ōura say their ring captures the body's “signals”, converting 40 live activities into biometric data, displayed on a phone app as measures of stress, signs of strain, effective cardiovascular age and such.  Ms Lohan says she uses it daily, checking every morning to track her sleep patterns.

(5) Levi’s 90s Jeans and Frankie Scoop neck white cotton Tee-shirt: For decades, the most enduring “go to uniform” of the Western woman, blue denim jeans and a white cotton scoop-neck Tee-shirt can work as a stand-alone ensemble or a base to accessorize (boots, hats, scarves, blazers etc).  When in doubt, stick to the classics.

(6) Insight Timer App (Meditate, Sleep):  Claimed to be the world’s most popular “wellness app”, Ms Lohan says it and WhatsApp are the phone apps she uses most, the Insight Timer useful for “meditation” or “breath work”.

Before being saucepanned: Callum Forbes (left) and David Cao (right) enjoying an “Instagram sunset moment”, cruising on Sydney Harbour.

The verb “saucepanned” (to cook ingredients in a saucepan) is not recent but few outside of cooking schools will have heard it used and it doesn’t appear with any frequency in cookbooks.  There is however also the sense “to hit (someone) using a saucepan as a weapon” and while that does feed into the reality television stereotype of the “psychotic chef”, most probably assumed it was something seen perhaps in on-line gaming rather than IRL (in real life).  However, in August 2026 came news French police had arrested Australian David Cao (b 1989), then an employee of ING Bank alleging he had attacked his (now former) partner (Callum Forbes (b 1990)) using a saucepan.  At the time of “assault by saucepanning”, Mr Cao had been employed by ING Bank (Australia) (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch ING Group) as “head of retail value creation” (it’s not clear what that means), having previously worked at Westpac (a portmanteau word, the construct being Wes(tern) + pac(ific)); originally the Bank of New South Wales (1817), in 1982 it was re-branded as Westpac Banking Corporation, a year after acquiring the CBA (Commercial Bank of Australia)) as head of DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion (everyone knows what that means)).  An ING spokesperson was quoted as saying Mr Cao was no longer employed by the bank but the institution was “aware of allegations involving a former employee”.

Château de Perreux.

The attack allegedly transpired in the Château de Perreux (a “boutique” hotel, close to the historic town of Amboise in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France in the heart of the Loire Valley).  The couple had been spending a night at the hotel, en route to Amsterdam where they were to attend the WorldPride event; Mr Cao had since January 2026 been on the board of LGBTQ+ organisation Rainbow Giving Australia Foundation but, after details emerged of the “saucepan incident”, his profile was removed from the organisation’s website.  The details remain sketchy and it’s not clear whether the saucepan was a “weapon of choice” in a premeditated attack or just whatever fell conveniently to hand at the “spur of the moment” and could just as easily have been whatever else lay close (hair dryer, make-up case etc).  It certainly proved effective, wielded by Mr Cao with such force the handle snapped.  Mr Forbes afterwards locked himself in the bathroom, telling the online site Gay Sydney Daily: “I remember thinking very clearly that I might die there that night in the chateau.  I had been bleeding heavily and too terrified to open the door for what felt like 30-plus minutes waiting for hotel staff to come in.”  As well as the attack with the saucepan (depending on mode of use, effectively both “blunt instrument” and “edged weapon”), Mr Cao is alleged to have poured boiling water over his victim’s body; although the sequence of events wasn’t disclosed, presumably the water was boiled in saucepan and subsequently re-purposed.

After being saucepanned: Image distributed by Callum Forbes while undergoing treatment in hospital.

By the time staff arrived in the room, Mr Cao had fled in a rental car, detained by French police some 36 hours later, near the Belgian border, allegedly trying to board a train out of France.  According to a statement issued by French police: “One of the partners had just been struck several times on the head during a domestic dispute in which separation was being discussed.  The victim began shouting ‘help’ while a saucepan with a sharp edge was used as a weapon.   The brutality of the blows was such that the handle of the pan broke under the impact.”  Mr Cao was reported as having been charged with “attempted murder, acts of torture and barbarity, kidnapping, and theft” with a trial date not yet set.  The Australian DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade) confirmed it was providing consular assistance to the victim and was attempting to make contact with Mr Cao (by then in custody) but was unable to make further comment, citing privacy obligations.  Asked his view on Mr Cao, one ING staff member (who requested anonymity), the former DEI operative had “…an inflated opinion of himself”.  Mr Forbes shared post-attack photographs; he suffered second degree burns to his face requiring stitches, along with burns to his torso and arms and a burst eardrum.  He told a Sydney newspaper the attack happened shortly after the pair had discussed separating and clearly it was unexpected, Mr Forbes asleep at the time after the couple “had enjoyed a pleasant dinner and spa”.  The newspaper La Nouvelle Republique, (citing a source “close to the investigation”), reported Mr Cao admitted to the attack but not to intending to kill his partner.

Counting Dead Women Australia.

Domestic violence is a scourge in Australia with working-class women disproportionately the victims.  Quite the extent of the problem isn’t known because published statistics reflect only reported incidents but what is known is, on average, the long-term trend is every 9 to 11 days, a woman is killed by her current or former partner.  So consistent and troubling were the numbers that a Facebook page was created: Counting-Dead-Women-Australia providing annual summaries of the grim toll (41 for calendar year 2026 by the end of October).  Despite the numbers, the fact that most of the victims are working-class women not organized into or represented by pressure groups able to pose a political threat may not be unrelated to politicians handling the matter as just another tiresome question to be fobbed off with sympathetic words and vague assurances.  That stands in stark contrast to the political class’s shocked reaction and practical response when, in October 2026, a female politician was the victim of an attack (rammed by a motor vehicle, the victim losing both legs).  Suddenly, violence became a first-order (ie “money no object”) issue and it was clear resources would be made available to ensure politicians were afforded even more protection; women generally would be left to arrange their own defences.

Women being murdered by men either their current or former partner represent overwhelmingly the bulk of those killed but, as the “saucepan incident” illustrated, the LGBTQQIAAOP community is not immune from domestic violence but the prevalence is uncertain and early in 2026, the LGBTQIA+ DVAF (Domestic Violence Awareness Foundation) highlighted concerns that campaigns addressing domestic and family violence often “overlook” LGBTQIA+ people. According to the Private Lives 3 Report (2020), more than 60% of LGBTQIA+ people reported experiencing domestic or family violence.  That does sound high but (1) the term “violence” is now wider and encompasses concepts such as “psychological violence” and (2) statistics will be slanted by those with an experience of “violence” being more inclined to report so the numbers must be read with caution.  Still, there’s little doubt the LGBTQQIAAOP community does have a problem with domestic violence and while the nature and extent (the “tops slapping their bottoms” trope a homophobic slur) may be different from that in “straight society”, clearly it’s not insignificant.  Since 2020, the foundation has raised awareness of the issue through an annual awareness day held each May, an approach prompted by the historic lack of research into domestic violence within same-sex relationships.  One report in the academic journal Trauma, Violence and Abuse reviewed 108 studies (published between 1990 and September 2021), finding LGBTQIA+ people were found to experience high rates of sexual violence, most commonly perpetrated (predictably) by men; the highest rates were reported among transgenders, the gender-diverse and bisexual women.  Again, the statistics cannot be relied on as indicative of the wider problem, the research conducted mostly among US university students (a cohort for a variety of reasons for decades over-represented in academic research) and the only valid conclusion must be the standard: “more research required”.

Although a simple coincidence, courtroom sketch artist Rocco Fazzari's (b 1959) drawing of Beau Lamarre-Condon (b 1996, left) looks damnably like Spanish Franciscan friar Francisco Garcés (1738–1781, right) who served as a missionary in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521-1821, an often shifting claim of territories centred around Mexico and extending to southern & western North America, the Caribbean, northern parts of South America and a number of Pacific archipelagos (including briefly even the island of Formosa (now the renegade province of Taiwan))) before being “martyred” when killed in what is now Yuma, Arizona, by members of a indigenous nation displeased by the conduct of Spanish colonizers.

In Australia, a dramatic instance of domestic violence in the LGBTQQIAAOP community captured attention when, in February 2024, NSW Police Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon (b 1996) was accused of having murdered TV presenter Jesse Baird (1997–2024) and flight attendant Luke Davies, (1994-2024), shooting both with his police-issue Glock semi-automatic pistol in Mr Baird’s home in the inner-Sydney suburb of Paddington.  According to press reports, Mr Lamarre-Condon had become “obsessed” with Mr Baird which whom he'd previously ("off and on") enjoyed some sort of relationship and was not best pleased at him having “moved on” to another boyfriend (Mr Davies).  The allegation is Mr Lamarre-Condon donned the disguise of an Uber Eats delivery driver and went to Mr Baird’s house where he shot dead both victims, later disposing of their bodies in bushland; facing two charges of murder and one of aggravated break and enter, Mr Lamarre-Condon pleaded not guilty, citing self defence as a justification for his actions causing two deaths.  In such matters, a claim of "self defence" can wholly be exculpatory but success depends on the facts presented in court and, on the basis of what’s been published (suspect alleged while armed with handgun to have gone uninvited to the home of unarmed victims), the circumstances during the critical moments would have to be most untypical for the legal tactic to work.

Beau Lamarre-Condon with “default” influencer collateral (private jet (Hawker 1000), champagne flute and Hermès Birkin Bag in black leather with silver-tone Palladium hardware) prominently displayed.

An alternative defence of some flavor of insanity has apparently not been filed but when giving evidence, Mr Lamarre-Condon did discuss certain aspects of events he considered contributed to his mental state including (1) a former colleague who took his own life, (2) the “confronting” situations he faced during his service as a police officer (including “dealing with” multiple corpses) and (3) a complaint he’d made in 2018 about a fellow officer’s alleged homophobic remarks.  That was in accord with an earlier interview with detectives during which he'd mentioned certain work-related matters had “messed me up” and made repeated references to “not remembering” and having an “outer [sic] body experience” (the report of interview noted him stating: “I’m not that person”).  “I don’t want you judge me, I’m not a bad person”, he told one investigator, adding he’d been “upset” about NSW police being excluded from that year’s Sydney Mardi Gras gay-pride parade and hoped “one day be able to talk to Jesse and Luke’s families”.  The office conducting the interview acknowledged that while Mr Lamarre-Condon was at times “emotional”, he seemed cognisant of what was happening and did not display “any obvious signs of psychosis”.

Jessie Baird (left) and Luke Davies (right).

In court, the prosecution introduced evidence suggesting some degree of premeditation, including the history on Mr Lamarre-Condon’s phone revealing searches for “a silencer” (a device attached to the muzzle of a firearm to muffle the sound of a shot) and a video tutorial titled “how to mix concrete”, the latter said to suggest the accused intended to dispose of the bodies by encasing them in “quick-set concrete” and “sinking them” (presumably at sea, according to urban legend the New York mafia’s term for the method was “cement overshoes”).  The essence of the Crown’s case is Mr Baird was shot twice while standing in the kitchen (the second shot described as “execution style”) and subsequently Mr Davies was shot through a bedroom door as he tried to call police for assistance.  Mr Lamarre-Condon claims his gun “went off” during two separate struggles, both victims fatally wounded.  His subsequent actions (“cleaning up” the scene and disposing of the bodies) were described by prosecutors as “calculated” to “cover up his involvement” in the double-murders, but counsel for Mr Lamarre-Condon’s told the jury they were the actions of a man who “panicked considerably”.

Unlike the “code states” (Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory) in which the criminal law is codified, NSW technically is a “common law state” although a large number of crimes and procedures have been collected into statutory acts (notably the Crimes Act (1900)) meaning the underlying system administering criminal law remains rooted in precedent (historical, judge-made decisions).  However, between the two approaches, the concept of “self defence” varies little and Mr Lamarre-Condon’s evidence was a case study in how an accused should structure their answers and assertions.  The single most vital aspect in mounting the defence in the case of murder is the defendant must genuinely and reasonably believe their own life was at immediate risk at the hands of the victim, the latter needing to display both an intent to kill and the means to achieve that.  Mr Lamarre-Condon claimed Mr Baird had a knife and he had aimed his shot “at the shoulder” in an attempt to effect a disarming, tell the jury he made the “right call” and had gone into “police mode”, explaining he had said: “Drop the knife or I’ll shoot you”, adding “I knew if I didn’t do that I was 110% going … to be dead … and Jesse Baird would be sitting in my position today.”  He further claimed that in the struggle that ensued after the first shot, he had “accidentally discharged” the firearm.  “I stand by the first shot. I've had lots and lots of time to think about this.  The first shot was intentional the second wasn't.”

Beau Lamarre-Condon in “police mode”.

If the jury accepts that explanation, Mr Lamarre-Condon was correct in saying “It was my fault … I’ve said from the start I am guilty of manslaughter and I am responsible for his death but it wasn’t intentional.”  All that is boilerplate stuff from legal practice textbooks but his explanation of why he was disguised as an Uber Eats delivery driver (with full-face helmet and hi-viz vest) was more imaginative.  He claims it was at a nearby café he “found a parked motorbike with an Uber Eats helmet and jacket” and it was these items he donned for the fateful visit, taking with him “an Uber Eats paper bag” further to enhance the apparent authenticity.  At that point, he became emotional and his voice faltered, saying it was “…this moment here that caused…”  He added: “I wish that I didn’t do this, but I had the thought process of I guess … I could knock on Jesse’s door and if he answered the door he wouldn’t be able to see my face.   I couldn’t be falsely accused of harassment.”  Now in its seventh week, the trial in the NSW Supreme Court before Justice Natalie Adams (b 1965) continues.

Tergiversate

Tergiversate (Pronounced tur-ji-ver-seyt)

(1) To change repeatedly one's attitude or opinions with respect to a cause or subject.

(2) To turn renegade; to change sides, affiliations or loyalties; to apostatize; to desert.

(3) To evade, to equivocate using subterfuge; to obfuscate in a deliberate manner.  To be evasive or ambiguous.

(4) To flee by turning one's back (obsolete).

1645-1655; From the Classical Latin tergiversātus, perfect active participle of tergiversor (to evade, to avoid, to turn one's back on) and past participle of tergiversārī (to turn one's back), the construct being tergi- (a combining form of tergum (back)) + versātus, past participle of versāre, frequentative of +‎ versor or vertere (to turn (from the primitive Indo-European root wer- (to turn; to bend))).  The Vulgar Latin was tergiversationem (nominative tergiversatio).  The original mid-seventeenth century sense of the verb tergiversate was “to shift; practice evasion” and it was used especially in a political or religious context to mean “apostatize, desert one's party”.  It’s not clear whether the verb was a directly from the Latin tergiversates or a back-formation from tergiversation.  The noun tergiversation (turning dishonestly from a straightforward action or statement; shifting, shuffling, equivocation) was in use by the 1560s, from the Latin tergiversationem (a shifting, evasion, declining, refusing), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of tergiversari.  Deconstructed, that meant literally “to turn one's back on”, thus the sense of “to evade” from tergum (the back (of unknown origin) + versare.  In the seventeenth century, there were nuances to tergiversation, on version noting the meaning: “A seeming to runne away, yet (like some cocks) still to fight, wrangling” (ie a tactic of delayed attack rather than a retreat).  Some sources list the verb tergiversate being obsolete by the twentieth century but it survived as a “decorative word” and “deliberate anachronism” before being revived because it was so useful in political commentary.  Tergiversate, tergiversated & tergiversating are verbs and tergiversation & tergiversator are nouns; the noun plural forms (tergiversations & tergiversators) are rare.

While “tergiversate” can be applied to changes of opinion or alignment in many fields, in contemporary practice it’s rare for it to be seen except when speaking of writing about politics & politicians, a rich source of mendacity and inconsistency.  So common is political tergiversation that the frequency with which it’s reported has compelled the coining or adaptation of other terms including “flip-flopping”, “turncoating”, “U-turning”, and “ratting”, some politicians known even to have embraced them.   Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in 1901 entered the UK’s House of Commons as a Tory (Conservative), having on the hustings lambasted his opponents in the Liberal Party as “prigs, prudes and faddists” and once in parliament he warmed to the topic, accusing the Liberals of “…hiding from the public view like a toad in a hole”, adding “…when it stands forth in all its hideousness we Tories will have to hew the filthy object limb from limb.”  That told the country what he must at the time have thought yet in less than three years he’d stand on the same platform and ejaculate: “I hate the Tories.  I am an English Liberal.”  Obviously, that was a nailing of the colors to the mast yet by 1924, after a turbulent couple of decades, he returned to the Tory benches, all apparently forgiven (though certainly not forgotten).  Whether those tergiversations were acts of principle or a sniffing of the electoral breeze can be debated but Churchill himself took the view he’d done it all with some panache, joking in his club: “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.”

Lord Chancellor Jowitt (left) and Winston Churchill Right), Cenotaph Ceremony, Remembrance Day, London, 11 November, 1945: Jowitt ratted just once, Churchill twice.

Generous in spirit, Churchill was prepared to offer procedural advice even to his nominal opponents.  After entering the House of Commons as a Liberal after the 1929 general election, William Jowitt (1885-1957) had been offered the post of attorney-general by the incoming Labour Party administration (unlike the modern era, Labour was at that point “short of good lawyers”) so ratted on the Liberals and changed affiliation.  Although, in the circumstances, he thought it right to resign his seat and seek re-endorsement under his new tag (he secured an increased majority at the by-election), his former colleagues in the Liberal Party remained unimpressed by the ratting and that his appointment was bundled with a knighthood (then customary for both an attorney-general and solicitor-general) added to their sense of betrayal.  Discussing the matter with cronies in the House of Commons Smoking Room, Churchill wickedly was sympathetic: “Poor fellow.  He didn’t know how to do it.  Now if he had come to me, I could have instructed him in the technique of tergiversation.”  Sir William’s problems got worse before they got better.  Expelled from the Labour Party in 1931 after being one of a number of members to join the National Government formed to deal with the crisis of the Great Depression, he lost his seat and didn’t return to parliament until 1939, the Labour party having welcomed him back in 1936.  He served in the coalition government (1940-1945) and was then appointed Lord Chancellor after Labour’s landslide victory in the 1945 general election, sitting on the Woolsack until 1951; granted an earldom in 1952, he led the opposition in the Lords until 1955.  His textbook, Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law, was published posthumously in 1959 and, now in its sixth (2023) edition, remains a standard work of reference throughout the common-law world.

Australia has a long tradition of rattery including W.M. "Billy" Hughes (1862–1952; prime minister of Australia 1915-1923), Jack Lang (1876–1975; premier of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) 1925-1927 & 1930-1932) and Dr Mal Colston (1938–2003; senator for Queensland 1975-1999) but in politics, what constitutes “ratting” is decided on a “rat by rat” basis.  When in 2025 Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; twice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) announced he was leaving the National Party (of which he’d three times been leader) to join the One Nation Party, opinion was divided on whether truly he’d “ratted” on his former colleagues.  While at first glance it would seem a simple case of ratting, his decision came after the National Party officials informed him his “use by” date had been reached and he’d not be endorsed to stand at the next general election.  The party’s reasons had more to do with probity than policy, Mr Joyce’s recent history including adultery, deserting his family and being filmed one midnight sprawled in the street while drunk so, whether or not one agrees that behaviour was justification for pre-selection being withdrawn, all probably would concede: “they dumped him before he dumped them”.

Barnaby Joyce enjoying a steak for lunch with One Nation Party founder & leader Pauline Hanson (b 1954).  Apparently, she cooked their steaks in a sandwich press which seems a clever improvisation.

Still, he’d had a long innings of Teflon-like resistance to mud sticking and managed long to endure despite not enjoying much public support from “elites” he claims to despise.  When the rugby union (and other codes) player Israel Folau (b 1989) in 2019 posted on social media a list of those “God condemns to Hell” that included “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters”, while there was strident support for the gay community, despite the mention of “adulterers” and “drunks” being obviously a blatant attack on Mr Joyce's character, not a whisper was heard in his defence.  Mr Joyce thus concluded he’d be “on his own” in saving his two-decade long political career so the sudden spike in support for One Nation proved most serendipitous. His motivations may not all be explained by a fear of what fellow adulterer Gareth Evans (b 1944; Australian Labor Party (ALP) senator or MP 1978-1999, sometime attorney-general & foreign minister) dubbed RDS (relevance deprivation syndrome).  Mr Joyce may greatly value his parliamentary salary because, as well as being newly married with two small children to support, it may be he still has some financial arrangements in place to support the youngest (now 22) of the four daughters from his previous marriage.  As well as the nominal “headline” figure of what politicians are paid, Mr Joyce will be aware the parliamentary gravy train offers much scope for (often tax-free) “topping up”, his brief appointment as a “drought envoy” an example of the system’s flexibility.

#freckles: Lindsay Lohan out shopping. Tergiversate’s origin lies in the Latin tergiversari (to turn one's back) but that sense of the word has for more than a century been extinct and it’s now a “loaded” word; a pejorative characterization rather than a neutral description.

The Athenian statesman and general Alcibiades (circa 450-404 BC) ratted more often than Churchill and did in circumstances wholly more distasteful, his allegiance shifting on several occasions during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC, fought between the Athenians and Spartans).  Historians have attributed his repeated acts of treachery not to ideological commitment or even avarice but to what a modern HR (Human Relations) department might describe as “difficulties in personal relationships” that led not infrequently to erstwhile colleagues becoming enemies.  Prominent in his native Athens where he advocated a hard line against the Spartans in both foreign policy and military matters, Alcibiades proved skilful in Masonic-like plotting and scheming but his ruthlessness made many enemies and they too proved adept at character assassination; reading the writing on the wall (about to be written in his blood) he decamped to Sparta, taking with him valuable secrets about the military plans of Athens, making him a most useful “consultant”.  However, the problem inherent in being a turncoat (however useful) is that one never is wholly trusted by ones new “friends” and this tension, coupled with Alcibiades’ clearly abrasive personality made him realise he’d do well to depart and so he did, defecting the court of the Persian Empire where he served as a strategic advisor.  However, so much had the power centres in Athens shifted that remarkably (given his history), he was recalled to military command there, serving for several years before the faction that had never forgiven him engineered his second exile to Persia.  There he was murdered, reputedly on the orders of his enemies in Sparta but there’s a long list of likely suspects.

What’s now the most frequent use of tergiversation is to refer to promises made and broken by those most notorious of tergiversators: politicians.  Although the term “law-maker” is less commonly used beyond the US, it’s a revealing way to describe those elected or appointed to legislatures and the key to why they are able to break what should be regarded as contractual promises while others doing the same thing can severely be punished.  When seeking election to what most people casting a vote would regard as a highly paid job, politicians make what are known as “campaign promises”.  The promises are an inducement to make people vote for them so they get the well paid job so what should be created is a “social contract”; upon being elected, the politician should fulfil their promises.  In that it should be no different from the furniture store advertising their “special deal” of “one coffee table, two chairs and one sofa for $1,999”; that’s what should be delivered.  Were the store to take the $1,999 and deliver only one chair and one sofa, the customer would have legal recourse.  What that might be (an order for specific performance of the contract (ie delivering the missing table and chair)); a refund; compensation for the missing items etc) might vary according to this and that but there would be come redress available and that’s because the law-makers have passed laws protecting consumers from those breaking promises.

Day of the Tergiversate (2017), directed by Alex Michael Smith (known also for Bed of Fear (2014) and Monsters of Suburbia (2019).

However, lawmakers everywhere (as far as is known) have not passed laws making political promises enforceable despite the principle being the same as the furniture store (promises made to deliver something exchange for something (money or votes).  Political scientists have noted the social contract between politician & voter conforms with the four essential element of a contract listed in every text book in the common law world: (1) Offer (a politician makes a promise in exchange for a vote), (2) Acceptance (by voting a voter in engaging in an act of “acceptance by acquiescence”), (3) Consideration (in voting the voter is “paying” the politician for their promise(s)) and (4) Certainty of terms (helpfully, political parties list their promises in the “party platform”, usually in simple, unambiguous language of the advertising slogan).  So that would appear to suggest that according to the legal principles the lawmakers impose on everybody else, the promises they made to get their well-paid jobs should at law be enforceable.  Of course they are not and the lawmakers remain free to break their promises at will.  While the politicians can argue that any voter sufficiently upset about one or more broken promises can in the next election vote for somebody else, that really doesn’t much help because (1) the politician will enjoy some years (typically between 2-8) in the high paid job they obtained by making promises that were broken and (2) the alternatives are just a likely to break promises.

The roll-call of tergiversating politicians is of course long and rarely noble; sometimes the consequences have for decades rippled.  Overturning long-standing party policy, Tory Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850; Prime Minister of the UK 1834–1835 & 1841–1846) had to rely on the support of the Whig opposition to in 1846 repeal the UK’s protectionist “Corn Laws”, triggering the “free trade” squabbles which would for decades rage.  A most unusual reform by a Tory administration (it benefited the poor and cost the rich!); shortly after that his ministry fell and Peel would never again hold office.  Still, he’s remembered because of another of his innovations lent his names to two of the original slang terms for police constables: “Peelers” and “Bobbies”.

Front page of Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York Post, 27 June 1990.  The editors of Mr Murdoch's tabloids prefer punchy words like “lied” to decorative forms like “tergiversated”.

George H.W. Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; VPOTUS 1981-1989 and POTUS 1989-1993) might have got away with breaking his “…no new taxes” promise had it been an anodyne line of electoral orthodoxy buried somewhere in the Republican’s 1988 manifesto but he made the mistake of standing at rallies and loudly declaring: “Read my lips: no new taxes”, probably the most widely televised fragment of the campaign and greeted always with resounding applause.  It must at the time have seemed a good idea and probably it was; certainly nobody doubts Mr Bush really believed what he was promising and few politicians could convey sincerity like him.  Unfortunately, economic conditions worsened and by 1990 he took the decision to raise taxes in an attempt to “reign in” the growing deficit.  This was the era before Dick Cheney (1941-2025; VPOTUS 2001-2009) helpfully explained: “Deficits don’t matter”, a new (at least temporary) orthodoxy explaining why the US deficit is now nudging US$40 trillion which, although only a few dozen Elon Musks (b 1971), is a big number.  In 1990, Mr Bush preferred to avoid what he might once have called “voodoo economics”, stuck to the text books and raised taxes, something which contributed to Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) winning the “It’s the economy stupid” 1992 presidential election, voters, however unhappily, receiving a free copy of crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).

Many economists at the time commended Mr Bush for breaking his promise but there weren’t many of them and there were many more angry voters.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) found the electorate more forgiving of him breaking the promise made in the 1932 campaign to “cut federal spending by 25%”.  Instead, he embarked upon the “New Deal” and while some economists have argued all that “tax & spend” churn delayed economic recovery, the many who at the time benefited from the stimulus weren’t inclined to decline support because of FDR’s broken promise.  As ever, “it’s the economy stupid”.  Now of course, in the time of the US$40 trillion deficit, it’s different and the shadow since 1987 cast by the “Greenspan put” (recessions ultimately reducible to “rich people losing money” the solution of celebrity economist (a rare breed) Dr Alan Greenspan (1926-2026; chairman of the Fed (US Federal Reserve) 1987-2006) being to “give them money”) grows ever longer.  In a sense, that has removed from the US political debate much of the need for politicians to make promises about taxes or spending because they know that while the Fed’s mechanism to “create money” may be different from the Nazi-era “wizardry” of Dr Hjalmar Schacht’s (1877–1970; president of the Reichsbank 1923-1930 & 1933-1939), “Mefo bills” (promissory notes, drawn upon the artificial company Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft (Metallurgical Research Corporation), the “bottom line” outcomes are strikingly similar.  How long this system can be sustained has attracted comment, the Dick Cheney faction in one corner and in the other, those saying “It’s the stupid economy”.

“Core” and “non core” promises explained.  Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011. 

A breathtakingly audacious “justification” of breaking election promises was in 1996 coined (apparently on-the-spot so he gets points for that) by John Howard (b 1939; prime minister of Australia 1996-2007).  When challenged by a journalist over having blatantly just broken several promises made during the election campaign only a few months earlier, Mr Howard constructed a new theory, one previously unknown to political science and never codified even by such cleverly wicked chaps as the Florentine diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469–1527), the “Welsh wizard” David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) or the truly evil Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), none of whom were ever much bothered by the notion of “keeping promises”).  What Mr Howard extemporized was that election promises can be categorized into “core” pledges that must be kept, and “non-core” pledges able to be broken or amended (also an interesting distinction).  That really would have been a most useful contribution to democratic theory had Mr Howard explained things prior to the election and listed his party’s “core” and “non-core” promises in the manifesto thus.  Unfortunately, his concept appeared only after the promised had “done the job” and elected him.  So, given the cynicism in the “core” vs “non-core” dichotomy he retrospectively applied, one might have thought the electorate might have punished Mr Howard but he went on to win another three elections (holing office for more than a decade and becoming the country's second-longest serving leader), the voters apparently concluding that even though he’d broken his promises, at least he’d had the chutzpah to come up with an even bigger lie in justification.  Never forgetting their convict origins, Australians can’t help but admire successful skulduggery and Mr Howard was a “conviction politician”; never was it said of him he was one of those “who lacked the courage of his lack of convictions”.

In modern use the understanding of “tergiversation” has shifted from its origin in the Latin tergiversari (to turn one's back) and while more than “flip-flop”, “U-turn” or “lie”, generally it’s now used to convey the idea of evasion, duplicity, abandonment of a previously held position, shifting a previously expressed stance for mere expediency or base self-interest; most associated with politicians it thus carries connotations of bad faith or basic dishonesty.  “Tergiversation” is thus a “loaded” word; a pejorative characterization rather than a neutral description.  Even for politicians however there can be good reasons to break promises.  Although phrases in the vein of “When someone persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?” usually are attributed to the English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), there’s no evidence he ever used those words but the sentiment certainly exists in his writings including: “The company must maintain constant vigilance and revise preconceived ideas in response to changes in external situations” and “The inactive investor who takes up an obstinate attitude about his holdings and refuses to change his opinion merely because facts and circumstances have changed is the one who in the long run comes to grievous loss.”

Chopstick diplomacy.

Comrade Zhou Enlai (1898–1976; premier of the People's Republic of China (PRC) 1949-1976, left), Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974) (centre) and comrade Zhang Chunqiao (1917–2005, right) at the welcome banquet for President Nixon's visit to the PRC, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 26 February 1972.

It was in that spirit Richard Nixon, who had built a political career on his virulent anti-communism and support for the renegade province of Taiwan, switched to achieve a détante with the PRC (People’s Republic of China, the old “Red China”) and ultimately grant diplomatic recognition.  That was quite a switch and one at the time only someone with his solid anti-communist credentials could have achieved; while his motivations weren’t wholly pure, he did understand the geopolitical environment he and Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1973-1977) were confronting was very different to that which a generation earlier had existed for Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; POTUS 1953-1961) and John Foster Dulles (1888–1959; US secretary of state 1953-1959).  Most historians have since seen the shift as an inevitable strategic adaptation to Cold War realities rather than mere tergiversation but they’re not as forgiving of all adaptations to changed circumstances.  In his pre-political life, Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) would probably not ever have been labelled a “liberal” but his public positions on at least some issues would suggest he was sympathetic to some liberal positions including gun control and the right to abortion (“pro-choice” in the US discourse).  What can’t be denied is that since the 1980s the spate of mass shootings (many of them in schools) means “circumstances have changed” yet Mr Trump is now a most doughty opponent of any attempt to strengthen gun control in the US (although in NYC’s Trump Tower a “No Carry” policy strictly is enforced).  This isn’t exactly the sort of “change of opinion”  Keynes had in mind but rather what David Stockman (b 1946; Director of the US OMB (Office of Management and Budget) 1981–1985) called “The Triumph of Politics”, the sub-title of his 1986 book the explanatory: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.  A quick learner, Mr Trump found at least some of the techniques in property development were transferable to electoral politics: Results matter and don’t be too bothered by principles.