Philadelphus

Philadelphus (pronounced fil-ah-del-fiss)

(1) Any shrub of the temperate genus Philadelphus, cultivated for their strongly scented showy flowers (family Hydrangeaceae).

(2) As Philadelphus coronaries (mock orange), a deciduous, early summer-flowering shrub with arching branches that bear racemes of richly scented, cup-shaped, pure white flowers in profusion with finely toothed, bright green foliage.  The plant is grown for its ornamental value.

(3) A male given name with origins in the Ancient Greek.

1600s (in botanical use): From the Ancient Greek Φιλάδελφος (Philádelphos) (brotherly love) & philadelphon (loving one’s brother).  Philadelphus is a proper noun.

Philadelphus coronaries (mock orange) in flower.

The mock orange plant has long been valued for its decorative and functional properties.  Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; US president 1801-1809) was a keen gardener and horticulturalist of some note and on 19 April 1807 noted in his “garden book”: “Planted 9 Philadelphus coronarium, Mock orange in the 4 circular beds of shrubs at the 4 corners of the house.”  Although the origin is uncertain, biologists suspect the strong growing, medium-sized shrub is native either to northern Italy, Austria & Central Romania or Central & North America and Asia; in Europe & North America it has been cultivated at least the sixteenth century.  Before modern standards of taxonomy were codified in the eighteenth century, the plant was classified under the genus Syringa (covering the species of flowering woody plants in the olive family or Oleaceae (commonly called lilacs) and a typically comprehensive description was recorded by Lady (Jean) Skipwith (circa 1748–1826), a Virginia plantation owner and manager still celebrated among botanists for her extensive garden, botanical manuscript notes, and library, the latter reputedly the largest at the time assembled by a woman.  Lady Skipwith called the plant a “Syringa or mock orange” while the US naturalist, explorer & explorer William Bartram (1739–1823) preferred the former, reflecting a scientist’s reverence for anything Greek or Latin.  Syringa was from the stem of the Latin syrinx, from the Ancient Greek σῦριγξ (sûrinx) (shepherd's pipe, quill), the name reflecting the use of the plant's hollow stem to make pipes, flutes & tube.  In modern use, “Mock Orange” tends to be preferred by most, the name derived from the fragrance of the flowers being so reminiscent of orange blossoms.  The origin of the scientific name “Philadelphus” (first applied in the early seventeenth century) is attributed usually to being a tribute to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Ptolemaîos Philádelphos (Πτολεμαῖος Φιλάδελφος in the Ancient Greek) 309-246 BC, pharaoh (king) of Ptolemaic Egypt (284-246 BC), said to be a keen gardener (which can be translated as “he kept many slaves to tend his gardens”).

The literal translation of the Greek philadelphon was “loving one’s brother”, something used in the sense of “brotherhood of man” as well as when referring to family relationships.  For the pharaoh, the use was a little more nuanced because, after some earlier marital problems, he married his older sister Arsinoe II (316-circa 269 BC).  This appalled the Greeks who condemned the arrangement as incestuous and the couple thus picked up the appellation Philadelphoi (Φιλάδελφοι in the Koinē Greek (sibling-lovers)).  Historians however are inclined to be forgiving and suggest the union was purely for administrative convenience, Egyptian political & dynastic struggles as gut-wrenching as anywhere and there’s no evidence the marriage was ever consummated.  Just to make sure there was the appropriately regal gloss, the spin doctors of the royal court circulated documents citing earlier such marriages between the gods (such as Zeus & Hera).  It certainly set a precedent and the intra-family model was followed by a number of later Ptolemaic monarchs and the practice didn’t end.  The scandalous marriage of Heraclius (circa 575–641; Byzantine emperor 610-641) to his youthful niece Martina resulted in her becoming “the most hated woman in Constantinople” and it was a union certainly consummated for “of the nine children she bore her husband, only three were healthy, the rest either deformed or died in infancy.”

The Philadelphi corridor

The Latin proper noun Philadelphi was the genitive/locative singular of Philadelphus.  In 2024 use spiked because the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) use “Philadelphi Corridor” as military code for the narrow (14 km (9 miles) long & 100 m (110 yards) wide) stretch of land used to separate the Gaza Strip from Egypt; it runs from the Mediterranean coast to the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel and includes the Rafah crossing into Egypt.  The IDF created the corridor (from Gaza territory) as a “buffer zone” (or “cordon sanitaire”), ostensibly to prevent the Hamas, the PIJ (Palestine Islamic Jihad) and others smuggling weapons and other contraband into Gaza through a remarkable network of underground tunnels.  The corridor assumed great significance after Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 and later after its disengagement from Gaza in 2005; it has long been among the more contested spaces in the Middle East.  According to the IDF, the term “Philadelphi Corridor” was allocated during a routine military planning conference and the choice was wholly arbitrarily with no historical or geographical significance related to the region or any individual.

Just because a military say a code-name has no particular meaning doesn’t mean that’s true; the IDF is no different to any military.  The most obvious possible inspiration for the “Philadelphi corridor” was the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus but one influence may have been cartographic, the geographic shapes of the Gaza Strip (left) and the US city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (right) quite similar and were the monstrosities Northwest, West & Southwest Philadelphia to be annexed by adjacent counties, the shapes of the two would be closer still.  

Lindsay Lohan in Philadelphia, 2012.

The Philadelphi corridor has assumed a new importance because Benjamin Netanyahu (b 1949; Israeli prime minister 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and since 2022) has added Israeli control of it to his list of pre-conditions for any ceasefire in negotiations between his government and the Hamas.  It was designated as a demilitarised border zone after the withdrawal of Israeli settlements and troops from Gaza in 2005, prior to which, under the terms of Israel’s Camp David peace treaty with Egypt (1979), the IDF had been allowed to maintain limited troop formations in corridor but without heavy weapons or heavy armour.  Old Ariel Sharon (1928–2014; prime minister of Israel 2001-2006) arranged the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza subsequently forming the Kadima (Forward) political party because he could persuade the Likud (The Consolidation) party to follow his vision.  Very much a personal vehicle for Mr Sharon, Kadima did not survive his incapacitation from a stroke while the Likud fell into the hands of Mr Netanyahu.  Following the Israeli withdrawal, responsibility for the corridor’s security fell to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, this maintained until the Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007; it was seized by Israel in May 2024 as the IDF’s Gaza ground offensive extended into Rafah.

Over the years, the tunnel complex has proved a remarkably effective means by which to facilitate cross-border smuggling of weapons, other materiel, fuel and a variety of stuff including food, medicine and consumer goods, despite many attempts by the IDF and Egyptian authorities to end the traffic, the latter perhaps a little less fastidious in their endeavours.  The tunnels are impressive pieces of civil engineering, including electricity, ventilation systems, air-conditioning and communications facilities; some are sufficient large to allow heavy trucks to pass and there has long been speculation about the extent to which financial and logistical support for tunnel construction, maintenance & repair is channelled from the Gulf Arab states.  In Cairo, the government viewed the IDF’s seizure of the corridor with some alarm and remain a “status quo” power, insistent that an ongoing Israeli presence will “endanger” the Camp David peace treaty, no small matter because the “ripple effect” of the 1979 agreement had profound consequences in the region.

Pointing the way: Mr Netanyahu (left) explains the Philadelphi corridor (right).      

Still, Mr Netanyahu has made clear he intends to maintain a military presence in the corridor (including the Rafah crossing) and that remains an unnegotiable condition for a ceasefire with the Hamas; opposition to this stance has come from Cario, the Hamas and some of the third parties involved in the negotiation.  In Tel Aviv, that would not have been unexpected but there is now an increasingly persistent protest movement among Israeli citizens, the allegation being the prime-minister is cynically adding conditions he knows the Hamas will be compelled to reject because as long as the war continues, he can remain in office and avoid having to face the courts to answer some troubling accusations pre-dating the conflict.  Mr Netanyahu responded to this criticism by saying as long as the Hamas remained a threat (later refined to “as long as Hamas remained in control of Gaza”), the offensive needed to continue.  One of the great survivors of Middle East politics, Mr Netanyahu recently assured the more extreme of his coalition partners (described as “right-wing” which, historically, is misleading but descriptive in the internal logic of Israeli politics) by engineering a vote in cabinet binding Israel to retaining control of the corridor.  Despite this, opposition within the cabinet to the ongoing “moving of the goalposts” to prevent any possibility of a ceasefire is said to be growing.  The opposition accused the prime-minister of being more concerned with placating the extremists in his government than securing the release of the remaining hostages seized by the Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attack and left unstated but understood by implication was the message Mr Netanyahu regards them as the “collateral damage” in his manoeuvres to avoid the courts.

Gang

Gang (pronounced gang)

(1) A group of (usually male) adolescents who associate closely, often exclusively, for social reasons, especially such a group engaging in delinquent behavior.

(2) A group of people who associate together or act as an organized body for criminal or illegal purposes; A group of people with compatible tastes or mutual interests who gather together for social reasons:

(3) To arrange in groups or sets; form into a gang.

(4) An alternative term for a herd of buffaloes or elks or a pack of wild dogs

(5) A group of shearers who travel to different shearing sheds, shearing, classing, and baling wool (mostly New Zealand rural).

(6) In electronics, to mount two or more components on the same shaft, permitting adjustment by a single control.

(7) In mechanization and robotics, a series of similar tools arranged to work simultaneously in parallel (eg a gang saw is an assembly of blade and conveyor, pulling logs across its blades to cut an entire section into planks with one pass).

(8) As chain gang, a term to describe a work-gang of convicts chained together, usually by the ankles (mostly US, south of the Mason-Dixon Line).

(9) An outbuilding used as a loo (obsolete).

(10) To go, walk, proceed; a going, journey, a course, path, track (chiefly Britain dialectal, northern England & Scotland).

Pre 900: From the Middle English gangen from the Old English gang, gong, gangan and gongan (manner of going, passage, to go, walk, turn out) from the Proto-Germanic ganganą (to go, walk), from the primitive Indo-European ghengh (to step, walk).  It was cognate with the Scots gang (to go on foot, walk), the Swedish gånga (to walk, go), the Old High German gangan, the Old Norse ganga, the Gothic gaggan, the Faroese ganga (to walk), the Icelandic ganga (to walk, go), the Vedic Sanskrit जंहस् (jáṃhas & jangha) (foot, walk) and the Lithuanian žengiu (I stride").  Gang emerged as a variant spelling of gangue; scholars have never found any relation to go.  Gang & ganging are nouns & verbs, ganged is a verb, ganger is a noun and gangster is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is gangs.

A counter-revolutionary gang of four.

The evolution of gang from a word meaning “to walk” to one with a sense of “a group formed for some common purpose” appears to have happened in the mid-fourteenth century, probably via "a set of articles that usually are taken together in going", especially a set of tools used on the same job.  By the 1620s this had been extended in nautical speech to mean "a company of workmen" and, within a decade, gang was being used as a term of disapprobation for "any band of persons travelling together", then "a criminal gang or company" and there was a general trend between the seventeen and nineteenth centuries for it to be used to describe animal herds or flocks.  In US English, by 1724, it applied to slaves working on plantations and by 1855, it was used to mean a "group of criminal or mischievous boys in a city".  Synonyms include clan, tribe, company, clique, crew, band, squad, troop, set, party, syndicate, organization, ring, team, bunch, horde, coterie, crowd, club, shift and posse.  Despite the meaning-shift, both gangway and gang-plank preserve the original sense of the word.

HPM 4 gang power outlet (240v / 10a) with pin pattern used in  Argentina, Australia, China, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands & Papua New Guinea.  This is a "four gang" outlet and not a "gang of four" which is something else.

The seemingly curious use in electrical hardware of the term “gang” to refer to the number of switches or sockets grouped in a housing unit or faceplate arose because electricity was a late arrival to the building industry.  In such hardware, each switch or socket is considered a “gang” (1 gang, 2 gang etc).  The electrical industry borrowed “gang” from its various uses in carpentry, plumbing and mechanical engineering where it was applied to just about any equipment where there existed different versions with different groupings or assemblies of similar items.  In the building industry, “gang” had become a standardized term long before there were electrical products so it was natural it be adopted rather than invent new jargon.

The Gang of Four

Although the term (and variations) has since often been used in both politics and popular culture, the original Gang of Four was a faction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the four members all figures of significance during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).  The best known of the four was comrade Chairman Mao Zedong's (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) last wife and the extent to which wife and gang, rather than Chairman Mao, were responsible for what happened in the Cultural Revolution remains a dispute among sinologists.  The Gang of Four were arrested within a month of Mao’s death in 1976 and labelled "counter-revolutionaries”.  After a CCP show trial, they were sentenced either to death or long prison-terms although the capital sentences were later commuted.  All have since died, either in prison or after release in the late 1990s.

The Gang of Four on trial, Beijing, 1981.

Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) conducted the most notorious of his "show trials" during the great purges of the 1930s but he didn't have television as a platform to spread the message (even so, the Soviet populations seemed to "get it").  The CCP however did arrange edited "packages" of the trial of the Gang of Four to be shown on domestic television and while few would have been on tenterhooks waiting for the verdicts, it must have been an interesting insight to the way the CCP presented such things and a rare glimpse of the actual workings of the party's legal mechanisms.  Although sometimes characterized as the "last act" of the Cultural Revolution, it might be more correct to think of it as a coda and although any legal precedents set or upheld may not have been of much significance, the affair has left a linguistic legacy, "gang of four" used for many purposes both in China and the West.  Such is the power of the phrase in China that in a place like Hong Kong, anyone a bit suspicious (and they know who they are) are advised to meet to groups of no more than three.

Bandwagon

Bandwagon (pronounced band-wag-uhn)

(1) A wagon, historically large and often ornately decorated, used to transport the members of a band or musical troop while performing for events such as circus parades or political rallies.

(2) Figuratively, a party, cause, movement, fashion, trend etc, that by its mass appeal or strength readily attracts many followers.

1849 (although some sources cite 1855): An Americanism, the construct being band + wagon.  Band (in the context of a musical troop) was from the Middle English band, from the Old French bande, from the Old Occitan banda (regiment of troops), which may have been from the Frankish bend, from the Proto-Germanic bandiz, from the primitive Indo-European bhend (to tie; bond, band).  The Modern German spelling is Bande (band).  Wagon was from the Middle Dutch wagen, from the Old Dutch wagan, from the proto West Germanic wagn, from the Proto-Germanic wagnaz (wagon), from the primitive Indo-European woghnos (wagon, primitive carriage), from wegh (to transport).  The form is also related to the Modern English way & weigh.  Bandwagon in its literal or figurative sense is not directly related to wagon’s sense of “a woman of loose virtue” (the idea being she is being “ridden” in the sense of being “mounted for sexual purposes”, the same idea as the disparaging “town bike”) although, once a reputation as “a bit of a wagon” is known, some presumably would be inspired to “jump on the bandwagon.  The alternative spelling is band-wagon and it would be a useful distinction if the hyphenated form is used of the actual wagon while the unhyphenated is for figurative purposes.  Bandwagon, bandwagonist, bandwagonism, bandwagoning & bandwagoner are nouns; the noun plural is bandwagons.  Bandwagon has been used as a non-standard verb and the adjective bandwagonish is non-standard.

In sociology, the “bandwagon effect” describes the phenomenon of people often doing or believing what they think many other people do or believe.  There can be a sound evolutionary basis for this and it is often observed in the animal behavior described as “safety in numbers” which describes beasts clustering when a predator is hunting; while the predator may be guaranteed a kill, each individual has a higher chance of survival if in a group than if isolated and thus a more attractive target.  The idea is also known as “herd behavior”, “herd instinct” & “herd mentality” and used especially in economics, explaining some trends (buying & selling) in equity markets and notably, crypto-currencies.  Terms like “herd behaviour” are often used disparagingly but there is a certain internal logic, illustrated by Joseph Heller (1923-1999) in Catch-22 (1961):

“We won’t lose. We’ve got more men, more money and more material. There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me. Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and having fun. Let somebody else get killed.”
“But suppose everybody on our side felt that way.”
“Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way.  Wouldn’t I?”

The usual expression is “climb (or jump, hop, get) on the bandwagon”, describing the tendency for people to follow others in joining, supporting or buying something as its popularity rises.  The companion phrase is “hype train” although some bandwagons become more personalized. The “Trump Train” used to describe the way the early successes enjoyed in 2016 by Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) in the process to seek the Republican Party’s nomination for that year’s presidential election assumed its own momentum, gathering speed and numbers of passengers (train-like) as it went.

Armada Cornet Band of Michigan in Band Wagon with instruments (1878).

The original band wagons (initially never hyphenized) were large, open, horse drawn carriages used essentially as mobile stages, carrying musicians who would play as they moved, typically in a circus procession or as part of the spectacle of entertainment which was a part of nineteenth century elections in the US.  The band wagons themselves became campaign posters, painted in the colors associated with a candidate and thus emblematic of the party, which would explain why Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) in 1899 explained “being on the bandwagon” as meaning “…attaching oneself to anything that looks likely to succeed.”

Wagon porn: Band Wagon, wheels (43 & 55-inch); body dark green with gold scrolling on body & seats; gearing Naples yellow, ornamented with ultramarine blue & gold stripes; trimming dark green goatskin.  The Carriage Monthly, December 1881.

The terms “bandwagoner” & “bandwagon fan” are used to describe those who support or participate in something only because it is popular or successful.  The most frequent use is as a derogatory term to refer to those who discover an allegiance to a sporting team or franchise as they begin to enjoy success, distinguishing them from the “die hard” fan who maintains their supports in bad times as well as good.  The phenomenon is cross-code (football, hockey, basketball et al) and is a specific instance illustrating the adage: “nothing succeeds like success”.

In formal logic, the term “bandwagon fallacy” (argumentum ad populum) is probably better understood by the expressions used in common discourse including “appeal to the masses” or “mob appeal”, all made to sound more palatable in the Latin consensus gentium (agreement of the people).  Essentially, the fallacy is that if a particular view or attitude is held by a majority of the population, it must be “right”, the corollary of course that if something is unpopular, it must be “wrong”; these are the two extremes of the bandwagon fallacy spectrum.  Although used in psychology and political science, the concept is more familiar in commerce and the evidence is on display in all of the advertising material which portrays products as desirable simply on the basis of their alleged popularity.  The blending of all this with the “bandwagon effect” is encapsulated in the more recent portmanteau noun “brandwagon”.

The special use of “bandwagoning” in international relations (IR) was coined by University of Chicago political scientist Quincy Wright (1890–1970) in A Study of War (1942).  Characterized by some also as “accepting the inevitable” or “lying back and trying to enjoy it”, it describes the process in which a state shifts from being an adversary of a stronger state to being in some way aligned, either in a formal alliance or a state of peaceful co-existence.  Implicit in the arrangement is that any benefits which accrue from the relationship, vis-à-vis third parties, will overwhelmingly be gained by the stronger state.  Historically, such relationships often have come into being because domination by the regional or global hegemon is anyway inevitable and it may as well be accepted without the consequences of armed conflict.  In IR, bandwagoning is cumulative in that the more states which decide to align with the strong state, the more which will either follow the lead or seek an alliance with another powerful player.

The idea of juxtaposing someone getting “back on the party bandwagon” with falling “off the wagon” (ie drinking alcohol again) was hard to resist for at least one headline writer who knew click-bait when they saw it.  The phrase “fall off the wagon” originated in the US in the late nineteenth century as “fall off the water wagon (or cart)”, the device referenced the horse-drawn water tanks which were a frequent sight in summer, keeping down the dust on the unpaved roads of the era.  The idea thus was that to be “on the wagon” was to be drinking water rather than strong drink; “fall off the wagon” and you're back on the booze.

Dragoon

Dragoon (pronounced druh-goon)

(1) In historic weaponry, a synonym of dragon (a type of musket with a short, large-calibre barrel and a flared muzzle), the name based on the way the mythical dragons belched fire.

(2) A European cavalryman of a heavily armed troop (mostly obsolete although some historic associations remain in military formations); historically an infantryman armed with a dragoon musket who fought both on horseback and on foot.

(3) A member of a military unit with such traditions (now mostly restricted to the British Army).

(4) A domestic fancy pigeon (originally a cross between a horseman and a tumbler and sometimes with initial capital).

(5) In the history of France, to subject a Huguenot to the dragonnades (a late seventeenth century policy instituted by Louis XIV of France to intimidate Protestant Huguenots to convert to Roman Catholicism by billeting dragoons in their homes to abuse them and destroy or steal their possessions).

(6) By extension, a man with a fierce or unrefined manner (historically thought “dragoon-like”) (now rare).

(7) By extension, (usually as “dragoon into”) to force (someone) into doing something through harassment and intimidation; to coerce; to force by oppressive measures.

(8) Following the use in France, the practice of forcing civilians into military service (applied particularly to Royal Navy press-gangs until 1815 although it was not an unknown form of “recruitment” by the army).

1615-1625 (some sources noting it appeared in military firearms manuals as early as 1804 but general use was at least a decade hence): From the French dragon (dragon (mythological creature); type of cavalry soldier, dragoon), the latter referring to a soldier armed with the firearm of the same name although in the context of ballistics the word dragoon was originally applied to the pistol hammer (the use based on the shape).  The ultimate source was the Latin dracō (dragon; kind of serpent or snake), from the Ancient Greek δρᾰ́κων (drákōn) which may have been from δέρκομαι (dérkomai) (to see, clearly to see (in the sense of something staring)), from the primitive Indo-European derḱ- (to see).  The verb use was derived from the noun, from the French dragooner, originally in the sense of “to force someone into doing something; to coerce; to torment (also “to torment one’s self)), the construct being dragon + -er (the suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).  Dragoon is a noun & verb, dragooner dragoonage, dragoonable & dragonnade are nouns and dragooned & dragooning are verbs; the noun plural is dragoons.  The adjectives dragonish & dragoonesque are non-standard.

Louis XIV, the Huguenots and dragoonnades

The noun use of “dragoon” describing both musket and the soldiers who carried them had been in use for some six decades before becoming a verb.  In 1685, Louis XIV (1638–1715; le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), King of France 1643-1715) issued the Edict of Nantes which revoked his grandfathers decree of toleration which had granted social and economic rights to the minority Huguenot population, something which had far-reaching adverse consequences for France but which was at the time widely popular and still so judging the fawning obituaries which appeared thirty years later at the king’s funeral.  More realistic was Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778), a fair judge of the rule of the Bourbons who called the edict: “…one of the greatest calamities of France…” with consequences “…wholly contrary to the purpose in view.”

British Army Dragoons always had famously good hats, sometimes in designer colors.

The enmity towards the Huguenots (then some 10% of the French population) was based on factors familiar in pogroms over the centuries: a hard-working minority whose success manifested in their wealth and domination of some business sectors.  Religious intolerance was of course also an element and with pro-Catholic winds blowing in England, Louis decided it was time for him to assert himself in his tiresome squabble with Innocent XI (1611-1689; pope 1676-1689) and “...show himself the champion of orthodoxy, reaffirming the ancient French title of ‘Most Christian King’”.  The renewed persecution had actually begun a few years earlier with church services banned, denominational schools closed and the increasing exclusion from economic activity enforced but just as similar moves by the Nazis against the Jews of Germany would assume their own social inertia and lead to Kristallnacht (literally "crystal night" but better remembered as the "Night of Broken Glass" on 9–10 November 1938) the crackdown in seventeenth century France engendered its own increasing violent brutality.

British Army Corporal of the 2nd Dragoons in full-dress uniform with bearskin hat, circa 1900.

With the personal approval of the king himself, the policy of dragoonnades (the force billeting of Dragoons with Huguenot families) was adopted which would have been bad enough but the Dragoons, an anyway rough and undisciplined crew, were encouraged to behave as viciously as they wished.  Needing little encouragement, assault, rape and vandalism was soon widespread, the point of the policy being (1) to force the Huguenots to leave the country or (1) accept the offer of exemption from billeting on condition of a family converting to Catholicism.  Under the circumstances, few Catholics regarded such conversions as sincere and on doctrinal grounds resented the approach because it implicated the Church in what could be called only sacrilege and perjury.  In 1685, in a masterpiece of Bourbon logic, after hearing of the conversion of some 65,000 over three days in one province alone, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes on the grounds it was superfluous because there were “no more Huguenots”.

Keeping alive the traditions of the Dragoons’ hats: Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022).

Quite how many Huguenot souls emigrated to Protestant or other more tolerant lands isn’t known but no estimate places the number at less than 100,000.  Those who departed took with them their skills as engineers, artisans, builders, glass makers, shipwrights and a host of other trades, all of which would be now be classified as “dual use” in the sense that they could be applied to civilian or military purposes.  Additionally, some of those leaving were merchants, bookkeepers, lawyers, doctors and other with internationally sought-after skills, the multiplier effect being that the loss to the French economy was to the gain of her enemies including England, Holland and the German states.  In England particularly, the Royal Navy gained much in metallurgy and ship-building skills and as an aside, the arrival of the Huguenots there lead directly to the country switching from wood to coal as a source of thermal energy because, as the new arrivals set up their forges, furnaces and kilns, the depletion of the forests was soon recognized as a threat.  The coal powered economy would provide a platform on which the industrial revolution was built and was the basis of the energy supply for three centuries.

Historians have differed on the extent of the damage all this caused the French economy and military although there does seem to be a consensus most of the early estimates were exaggerated (especially those published in English) but losses to both there were and, as earlier mentioned, this was suffered in conjunction with those of her enemies being afforced.  Of the political damage however there is no doubt, the persecution of the Huguenots assisting the formation of a Protestant coalition between several German states & principalities, Holland and those Huguenots who remained in France, mostly in isolated or mountainous regions, something which some historians maintain was an important component in the forces which over a century would accumulate until unleashed in the violence of the French Revolution (1789).

Pressing

Pressing (pronounced pres-ing)

(1) Urgent; demanding immediate attention; Insistent, earnest, or persistent.

(2) Any phonograph record produced in a record-molding press from a master.

(3) To act upon with steadily applied weight or force; to move by weight or force in a certain direction or into a certain position; to weigh heavily upon.

(4) To compress or squeeze, as to alter in shape or size.

(5) To flatten or make smooth, especially by ironing.

(6) To extract juice, sugar, oil etc by applying pressure.

(7) To produce shapes from materials by applying pressure in a mold; a component formed in a press.

(8) To bear heavily, as upon the mind.

(9) A ancient form of torture and execution.

(10) The process of improving the appearance of clothing by improving creases and removing wrinkles with a press or an iron.

(11) A memento preserved by pressing, folding, or drying between the leaves of a flat container, book or folio (usually with a flower, ribbon, letter, or other soft, small keepsake).

1300-1350: From the Middle English presing, from the Classical Latin pressāre, (frequentative of premere (past participle pressus)).  In Medieval Latin pressa was the noun use of feminine pressus, similar to Old French presser (from Late Latin pressāre).  In English, the meaning “exerting pressure" dates from the mid-fourteenth century and sense of "urgent, compelling, forceful" is from 1705.  In the sense of a machine for printing, this spread from the machine itself (1530s) to publishing houses by the 1570s and to publishing generally by 1680.  In French, pressing is a pseudo-Anglicism.

The construct was press + ing.  Press dates from the late twelfth century and was from the Middle English press & presse (throng, trouble, machine for pressing) from the Old French, from presser (to press) from the Latin pressāre, frequentative of premere (past participle pressus) and in Medieval Latin it became pressa (noun use of the feminine of pressus).  The noun press (a crowd, throng, company; crowding and jostling of a throng; a massing together) emerged in the late twelfth century and was from the eleventh century Old French presse (a throng, a crush, a crowd; wine or cheese press), from the Latin pressare.  Although in the Late Old English press existed in the sense of "clothes press", etymologists believe the Middle English word is probably from French.  The general sense of an "instrument or machine by which anything is subjected to pressure" dates from the late fourteenth century and was first used to describe a "device for pressing cloth" before being extended to "devices which squeeze juice from grapes, oil from olives, cider from apples etc".  The sense of "urgency, urgent demands of affairs" emerged in the 1640s.  It subsequently proved adaptable as a technical term in sports, adopted by weightlifting in 1908 while the so-called (full-court press) defense in basketball was first recorded in 1959.  The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).  Pressing is a noun & verb, pressingness is a noun and pressingly is an adverb; the noun plural is pressings.

Tarpeia Crushed by the Sabines (circa 1520) by Agostino Veneziano (Agostino de' Musi; circa 1490–circa 1540).

In Roman mythology it was said that while Rome was besieged by the Sabine king Titus Tatius, the commander of the Sabine army was approached by Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, commander of the Roman citadel.  Tarpeia offered the attacking forces a path of entry to the city in exchange for "what they bore on their left arms." Although it was sometimes spun that she actually meant they should cast of their shields and enter in peace, the conventional tale is she wanted their gold bracelets.  The Sabines (sort of) complied, throwing their shields (which they carried upon their left arms) upon her, pressing her until she died.  Her body was then cast from (although some accounts say buried beneath) a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill which has since been known as the Rupes Tarpeia or Saxum Tarpeium (Tarpeian Rock (Rupe Tarpea in Italian)). 

Cassius Convicted of Political Wrong-Doing is Killed by Being Thrown from the Tarpeian Rock Rome (circa 1750), woodcut by Augustyn Mirys (1700–1790).

The Sabines were however unable to conquer the Rome, its gates miraculously protected by boiling jets of water created by Janus, the legend depicted in 89 BC by the poet Sabinus following the Civil Wars as well as on a silver denarius of the Emperor Augustus circa 20 BC.  Tarpeia would later become a symbol of betrayal and greed in Rome and the cliff from which she was thrown was, during the Roman Republic, the place of execution or the worst criminals: murderers, traitors, perjurors and troublesome slaves, all, upon conviction by the quaestores parricidii (a kind of inquisitorial magistrate) flung to their deaths.  The Rupes Tarpeia stands about 25 m (80 feet) high and was used for executions until the first century AD.

Pressing by elephant.

Under a wide variety of names, pressing was a popular method of torture or execution for over four-thousand years; mostly using rocks and stones but elephants tended to be preferred in south and south-east Asia.  The elephant had great appeal because, large and expensive to run, they could be maintained as a symbol of power and authority and there were few better expressions of a ruler’s authority that the killing of opponents, trouble-makers or the merely tiresome.  Properly handled, an elephant could be trained to torture or kill although, being beasts from the wild, things could go wrong and almost certainly some unfortunate souls ear-marked for nothing but the brief torture of a pressing under the elephant’s foot (for technical reasons, they don’t have hooves) ended up being crushed to death.  Even that presumably added to the intimidation and in some places in India, this means of dispatch was said to be known as Gajamoksha (based on the Gajendra Moksha (The Liberation of Gajendra (the elephant)), an ancient Hindu text in which elephants were prominent) although these stories are now thought to have been a creation of the imaginations of British writers who, in the years before, found a ready audience for fantastical tales from the Orient.  As told, a Gajamoksha seems to have been more a trampling than a pressing and the political significance of the business was it was done in public; the manufacturing of entertainment and spectacle apparently common to just about every regime in human history.  That there were public displays of torture and execution using elephants is part of the historical record but the surviving depictions seem to suggest pressing rather than trampling was the preferred method.  A trampling elephant does sound like something which may have had unintended consequences.

As a asset in the inventory, elephants were versatile and in addition to helping to pull or carry heavy loads to battlefields, they could be also a potent assault weapon and, sometimes outfitted with armor (historically of thick leather), were used in a manner remarkably close in concept to the original deployment of tanks by the British Army in 1916, charging the line, breaking up fortifications and troop formations, allowing the infantry to advance through the gaps.  While opponents being trampled underfoot by a charging elephant may not have been the prime military directive, it was a useful adjunct.  For those who survived, it may only have been a stay of execution and while there’s little to suggest elephants were widely used in the bloodbaths which sometimes followed battlefield defeat, there are records of them ritualistically pressing to death a vanquished foe.

A pressing in progress; presumably this profession attracted those who really enjoyed their work and found it a calling.

It’s a myth Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) invented pressing but he certainly adopted it as a method of torture with his usual enthusiasm.  Across the channel, under the French civil code, Peine forte et dure (forceful and hard punishment) defined pressing: When a defendant refused to plead, the victim would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or as the weight of the stones on the chest became too great for the subject to breathe, fatal suffocation would occur.

Enthusiastic about if not innovative in torture, Henry VIII continues to influence modern fashion.  His combination of a loose jacket, short skirt and tights is here reprised by Lindsay Lohan.

Not all Kings of England have been trend-setters but Henry VIII’s style choices exerted an influence not only on his court and high society but also elsewhere in Europe.  What came to be known as the “Tudor style” was really defined by him and the markers are elaborate embellishments, rich fabrics (velvet, silk, and brocade much favoured), intricate embroidery and many decorative details.  The Tudor style also took existing motifs such as the codpiece (the pouch or flap covering the front opening of men's trousers or hose) and in the early sixteenth century these became larger and more exaggerated, the function in formal wear more decorative than practical.  He also made popular (again) the padded shoulders and sleeves which had been seen for centuries but Henry’s innovation was deliberately to reference the lines used on suits of armor, something which added to what in later years was his broad & imposing figure and modern critics have noted this was something which would visually have re-balanced his increasingly portly figure.  London wasn’t than the centre of fashion it later became and some historians have noted the distinctly French influence which entered the court after the arrival of Henry’s first wife, the Spanish-born Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536; Queen of England 1509-1533) and at least some of what was imported with the unfortunate bride became part of the Tudor style.

Sanction

Sanction (pronounced sangk-shuhn)

(1) Authoritative permission or approval, as for an action.

(2) Something that serves to support an action, condition, etc.

(3) Something that gives binding force, as to an oath, rule of conduct, etc.

(4) In (usually contract) law, a provision of a law enacting a penalty for disobedience or a reward for obedience.

(5)  A penalty or reward.

(6) In international law, action by one or more states (or a multi-national institution) toward another state, institution or individual(s), calculated to force it compliance with certain obligations.

(7) To authorize, approve, or allow; to ratify or confirm.

1555–1565: From the Latin sānctiōn- (stem of sānctiō (the establishment of an inviolable decree)), genitive sānctiōnis, the construct being sānct(us) (past participle of sancīre (to prescribe by law; to make law by decree) + -iōn (from the Latin suffix -iō (genitive -iōnis), appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action).  The Middle English borrowing came directly from the French sanction and the usual early form in English meant "confirmation or enactment of a law" and was sometimes used interchangeably with the Latin sanctionem (nominative sanctio) (“act of decreeing or ordaining” or “decree, ordinance" the noun of action from the past-participle stem of sancire (to decree, confirm, ratify, make sacred)) which was used especially of ecclesiastical decrees.  The verb form in the sense “confirm by sanction, make valid or binding” dates from 1778 and by 1797 it meant also “authoritatively to permit”, both derived from the noun.  The seemingly contradictory meaning "impose a penalty on" was first used in 1956 but is rooted in an old legalistic sense of the noun and, when deconstructed, the ambiguity dissolves, this use in international diplomacy first documented in 1900 as a plural of the noun sanction in the sense of "part or clause of a law which spells out the penalty for breaking it", a meaning which can be traced back to the 1650s.  From the Latin, influenced by the spread of Roman civil law, derivatives appear in many languages including Catalan (sanció), French (sanction), Galician (sanction), Italian (sanzione), Piedmontese (sansion), Portuguese (sanção), Russian (санкция (sankcija)) and Spanish (sanction).  Sanction & sanctioner are nouns, sanctioned & sanctioning are verbs and sanctionable, sanctionless & sanctionative are adjectives; the noun plural is sanctions.

Sanction busting

Although in some ways a simple language to learn, English has some quirks, notably a massive vocabulary in which one word can have many meanings and multiple words can mean the same thing.  There are also cases where a word can seem simultaneously to sustain two diametrically opposite meanings and these are called auto-antonyms (or contronym or Janus words), the technical term for the phenomenon being enantiosemy ((from the Ancient Greek ἐναντίος (enantíos) (opposite)).  Sanction can convey opposite meanings, depending on context, the Janus-faced nature more evident when used as a noun.  The noun historically referred to the "action of ordaining as inviolable under a penalty" but, in a manner not unfamiliar in English, it evolved in opposite directions, one relating to legal or ethical rules, the other to the penalties imposed for violating these rules.  From the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the verb tended to the positive, the negative meaning "penalize" in general use until the 1950s.  Sanction in this sense is most commonly used in official (though not exclusively governmental) contexts, most often when one government imposes economic measures on another to try to force it to comply with laws or expectations.  The linguistic evolution wasn’t deliberate because that’s not how English usually works; instead it was an adoption of the verbal shorthand of the world of diplomacy.

The Kim Dynasty's new (used) cars

Like his grandfather Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994), and father Kim Jong-il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1994-2011), Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011), is a great admirer of big Mercedes and the regime is believed still to be the only outfit on earth owning a brace of long-roofed (presidential in collector slang) Mercedes-Benz 600s (W100, 1963-1981) Pullman Landaulets (only twelve of which were built).  The Supreme Leader however must have decided to update and it appears that in 2018, several "special" Mercedes-Benz were shipped from the Dutch Port of Rotterdam, via China and five other countries, to the DPRK.  The cars appear to be from the factory's "Guard" programme and there’s an unconfirmed rumor a toilet is installed in at least one for the Great Leader’s convenience.

The Great Leader's motorcade on the way to meet with Vladimir Putin (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999), Mercedes Maybach S600 Pullman Guard in front, Mercedes Maybach S62 following, Vladivostok, Russia, April 2019. 

The “Guard” range of vehicles are produced on a special post-production assembly line to meet the demand from heads of state, royalty, oligarchs and leading figures in organized crime for a vehicle which retains the traditional aura of a limousine while affording the levels of protection associated with the smaller armored personnel carriers (APC) & troop carriers used by the military.  The most expensive in the range is based on the opulent Mercedes-Maybachs and meet VR10 protection standards (defined under Directive BRV 2009 v2.0, only some of the specifications of which publicly are disclosed) but it’s known additional steel-alloy & composite panels are installed between the unibody and outer body panels, overlapped at key points to provide what’s described as “comprehensive ballistic protection”, a similar approach applied to the floor to deflect the blast from explosives (conforming to the ERV 2010 protocol).  The windows are thicker and coated with polycarbonate to prevent splintering with the panes permanently fixed (that approach may have been thought not suitable if the rumors of the toilet are true and the Great Leader's car is the previous version with an opening window).  Although the Guard has a wheelbase eight inches (200 mm) longer than the Standard Mercedes-Maybach platform and weights (presumably much) more, the factory lists the power-train as identical to the base vehicle, the 5.5 litre (365 cubic inch) twin-turbocharged V-12 rated at 523 horsepower and 612 lb-ft of torque.

Because sanctions imposed by the United Nations as punishment for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development are supposed to bar companies and individuals from selling luxury goods to North Korea, technically, The Supreme Leader shouldn’t have be able to buy them.  It’s however estimated that since 2015, some US$440 million in luxury goods have been imported by the DPRK, sourced from some ninety countries, almost all in violation of UN sanctions.  In response to questions, Daimler, which manufactures Mercedes-Benz, a spokesperson said they had "...no indication on how the mentioned vehicles were delivered and where they come from", later issuing a statement:

"For Daimler, the correct export of products in conformance with the law is a fundamental principle of responsible entrepreneurial activity.  Our company has had no business connections with North Korea for far more than 15 years now and strictly complies with EU and US embargoes.  To prevent deliveries to North Korea and to any of its embassies worldwide, Daimler has implemented a comprehensive export control process. Sales of vehicles by third parties, especially of used vehicles, are beyond our control and responsibility."

Although Daimler seemed to imply The Supreme Leader was now reduced to buying used cars (something never suggested of The Great Leader or The Dear Leader), neither Berlin nor Pyongyang commented on the diplomatic slight.

In the matter of Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018), New York’s highest appellate court dismissed Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V and rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.  Take-Two Interactive Software had requested sanctions be imposed, claiming “Lindsay Lohan complains that her image and persona have been wrongfully used by Take-Two in the video game Grand Theft Auto V, but her claim is so legally meritless that it lacks any good-faith basis and can only have been filed for publicity purposes” and was thus an abuse of process.  Both the trial and appellate judges declined to impose sanctions.

In civil legal proceedings, it's possible in some jurisdictions for a party to request a judge to “sanction” the opposing side by imposing a penalty or punishment for some form of misconduct or violation of the rules of the court.  Typically, sanctions are sought when one party believes the other has engaged in improper behavior, such as failing to comply with discovery obligations, disobeying court orders, or engaging in frivolous or abusive litigation tactics including using the administrative processes of the court to "string out" the length of the hearing, usually in the hope of exhausting an opponent's financial resources, compelling them to discontinue the action.  In most jurisdictions this technically doesn’t extend to “vexatious litigation” (the determination of which remains the preserve of the court) but counsel may raise essentially the same issue as “an abuse of process”.  The mechanism of the sanction is to promote equity of access, fairness of procedure, ensure compliance with court rules, and deter inappropriate conduct during proceedings. The specific sanctions available depend on the jurisdiction and the rules of the court.  Some common types of sanctions include:

(1) Fines may be imposed (payable to the court) or compensation to the other party might be ordered.

(2) Orders may be issued restricting or limiting a party's ability to present certain evidence or arguments related to the issues in the case.  This sanction is invoked where attempts are made to introduce material which is irrelevant, repetitive or in excessive volume.  Pleadings or statements of claim may also be excluded.

(3) In extreme cases of willful or deliberate misconduct, a judge may find the party in contempt of court and this may result in the imposition of fines or even terms of imprisonment.