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 West(ern) + 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 Mr 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) said 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.

Trope

Trope (pronounced trohp)

(1) In art and literature, any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense and which tends to become a motif.

(2) In rhetoric, a figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a non-literal or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor.

(3) In geometry, a tangent space meeting a quartic surface in a conic or the reciprocal of a node on a surface (archaic).

(4) In music, a short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music; a pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

(5) In the rituals of Judaism, a chanting (cantillation) pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

(6) In medieval Christianity (and preserved in the rituals of certain factions in Roman Catholicism), either a phrase or verse added to the Mass when sung by a choir or a phrase, sentence, or verse formerly interpolated in a liturgical text to amplify or embellish.

(7) In Athenian philosophy, any of the ten arguments used in scepticism to refute dogmatism.

(8) In Santayanian philosophy, the principle of organization according to which matter moves to form an object during the various stages of its existence.

(9) In metaphysics, a particular instance of a property, as contrasted with a universal.

1525–1535: From the Latin tropus (a figure of speech (in rhetoric)) from the Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos) (a turn, direction, course, way; manner, fashion; a mode in music; a mode or mood in logic (in rhetoric, "a turn or figure of speech)) and related to τροπή (tropḗ) (solstice; trope; turn) and τρέπειν (trépein) (to turn).  Root was the primitive Indo-European trep (to turn), related also to the Sanskrit trapate (is ashamed, confused, literally "turns away in shame") which Latin picked up trepit (he turns), the Latin adoption in the figurative.  The meaning is now understood as something more diffuse but technically, in rhetoric, a trope was "a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used in a sense other than the usual definition".  In English, the word is found often in combined form (such as heliotrope) and occurs also in concrete nouns that correspond to abstract nouns ending in -tropy or -tropism.  Trope is a noun & verb, troper, tropist, tropology & tropism are nouns and tropey is an adjective; the noun plural is tropes.

Use of the noun “tropism” is now generalized but in literary history it’s used in the sense of the “technique” (really more a concept) attributed to the Russian-born French-Jewish novelist and lawyer Nathalie Sarraute (1900-1999).  An exercise in abstract thought, madame Sarraute’s approach was to refer to mental and imaginative life as perceived by her and, thus perceived, it comprised (literally) millions of tiny little responses to innumerable stimuli, the classic example being her experimental narrative Tropismes (begun in 1932 but not published until 1939).  In that, with a most unconventional use of language, she “translated” her “vision of reality” into a construct of a “different reality”, the book consisting of 24 short vignettes, capturing brief scenes, described in intricate detail; it was compared by one modern critic to “a MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine able to scan what the brain is doing to construct perceptions and render it all sequentially in text.”  The work came to be regarded as proto nouveau roman (“new novel”, an originally French literary movement that emerged in the mid-1950s); it was described by Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) as un chef-d'œuvre (a masterpiece) and the Paris-based newapaper Le Monde included it in their “100 Books of the Century”.  The title of Tropismes was a botanical reference, tropisms being stimuli to plant growth and this idea madame Sarraute applied to human thought processes, tropisms imagined as “interior movements that precede and prepare our words and actions, at the limits of our consciousness.”

Tropisms (first edition of the English language edition (1963)).

In reading Tropisms, some mental gymnastics are demanded because among the mysteries of the abstract and imaginary are interspersed the real and living; with often no clear break between where one ends and the other starts, it can be helpful to re-read the odd passage.  Even in 1939 when the French language edition first was published, that “modernist” approach hardly was new but it wasn't yet part of mainstream literature.  That “slurring between” what's “real” and what's not adds to the experience and, within the internal logic of the author's premise, probably is essential but the traditionalists of the pre-Nouveau Roman world likely have dismissed the “blurring” as a technical flaw.  After the “very modern” novelist Sir Martin Amis (1949–2023) told one interviewer people “should read my books twice” fully to understand them, his father (Sir Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)), possibly with a glance at the Booker on his shelf, observed: “Well that means the little shit has failed doesn't it?”

One can see why it seduced Sartre but the idea of the Nouveau Roman becoming fashionable didn’t at the time appeal to most of the “reading for pleasure” segment of the market (ie those who paid for and read novels rather than “deconstructing” them in seminar rooms).  For a mainstream readership, the conventions of the nineteenth century novel (beginning, middle, end; plots; characters, right & wrong etc) that seemed dreary to literary theorists were the essence of fiction and to replace these with “cold, meticulous descriptions of external objects” seemed hardly “literature”; for “that sort of thing”, there were repair manuals and political science tracts.  Read however on its own terms and not as an “exemplar of a genre”, Tropismes can be compelling in the way a half-century before, those prepared to spend time looking from different angles at the work of the early cubists must have found fascinating new insights.

Nu descendant un escalier n° 2 (Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2), oil on canvas by Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), Philadelphia Museum of Art,  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The Spanish illustrate the meaning of “enigmatic” with the example “of meeting a man on the stairs and being unable to tell if he's going-up or coming down”.  One could describe Tropisms as: “an enigmatic work”.   

Just as the cubists could depict the human form simultaneously in the way the brain might separately process the sight viewed in different aspects, what Nathalie Sarraute did was explore spaces variously unremarkably mundane or threateningly claustrophobic, populated with dream-like figures, her idea being of the mind working in the almost animalistic, pre-verbal, “instinctual movements” she thought arose from human unconscious.  These she said, “constitute the secret source of our existence” and the old existentialist Sartre concurred, saying: “it is existence itself”.  Even Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), fond of the novels of Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) and unlikely to have found much of worth in nouveau roman, in a way, thought like Sarraute and Sartre.  In 1949, after a minor stroke, his personal physician (Lord Moran (Charles Wilson), 1882-1977; President of the RCP (Royal College of Physicians) 1941-1949), seeking to reassure his patient the consequences were minor, explained: “…there was no paralysis; it had only cut off the nutrition of certain central cells concerned with sensation”, adding, in the clinician’s reductionist way: “Sensation doesn’t matter.”  Churchill at once interrupted: “Life is sensation; sensation is life.”

Visitatio Sepulchri Double Bass Sheet Music by Sir James MacMillan (b 1959).

In modern use, “trope” continues to be used to denote any rhetorical or figurative device but the history was varied, one special use occurring during the Middle Ages when it came to be applied to a verbal amplification of the liturgical text used Church rituals.  Regionally, there were likely a few (now lost) but the best–documented of such interpolations was the Quem quaeritis trope preceding Easter Sunday's Introit.  The Latin phrase Quem quaeritis (Whom do you seek?) was used as the opening line (of four) in the Easter liturgical dialogue introduced during the tenth century and which came to be the basic structural element in what became a vast body of medieval liturgical drama (known also as isitatio sepulchri (Visit to the tomb)).  From this perhaps unpromising ecclesiastical origin came the rebirth of European theatre as it developed into a dramatized form (detached from the sacred Liturgy); what was genuinely a new genre became a trope of great significance in the evolution of European drama.  The Easter Introit (a short musical piece or chant sung at the start of an Easter service) was in a sense “ready-made” for adaptation and proved in the hands of many authors ideal for elaboration into the dialogues that were the basis of an entire school of liturgical drama.  Although never long pieces, so influential was their form the English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar Sir Edmund Kerchever “E.K.” Chambers (1866–1954) devoted many pages to tracing their lineage in his two volume The Mediaeval Stage (1903), a work long overshadowed by his four-volume The Elizabethan Stage (1923) but which benefited from the latter-day revival of interest in and re-assessment of the period dubbed the “Late Middle Ages”.

DVD covers: (The Parent Trap (1998), Freaky Friday (2003) and I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  

When younger, Lindsay Lohan's signature trope was playing dual roles (The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday and I Know Who Killed Me while during her “troubled Hollywood starlet” phase” (2007-2012) she became emblematic of the “downward spiral” trope.  In 2022, she appeared in Falling for Christmas, a Netflix take on the "Christmas movie trope".  Although the scripts for tropes have long followed an algorithm, the studios are said now to be using a predictive form of AI (artificial intelligence) to hone the generation of whatever should have the most audience appeal (an approach with a history in popular music pre-dating AI).  The flesh & blood screen-writers (most of whom have for decades driven cars and made their toast using products manufactured in plants where machines (industrial robots) substantially have displaced the human labor content) are are unlikely ultimately to succeed in keeping AI out of their profession; in the medium term, their future may lie in the creation of the quirky and bizarre (in the pop-culture ecosystem, that's a niche to inhabit until AI also perfects those tropes and at marginal cost).  Indeed, what's predictable is the emergence of the "obviously not AI generated" trope although, presumably, it's a matter of time until machines master also that genre.  For the formulaic stuff (most commercial screen product), the studios are likely to find the AI path "better, cheaper, faster" and the history of US industrial relations suggests these imperatives will prove irresistible.  It's doubtful whether, over the last 40-odd years, many screen-writers gave much thought to the blue-collar workers displaced by robots from assembly lines; it's likely they were just delighted by cheap toasters and better-built cars.  Whether the quality of what ends up on screen will much be improved by AI remains to be seen but the studios will benefit from lower production costs while hoping those rendered redundant will find ways to generate sufficient disposable income to be able to pay to watch what the machines are making.       

Of the Stage 5 Clinger trope, most sources cite the origin as the movie Wedding Crashers (2005) although there are claims it merely popularized the use; without earlier citations however, the source must be assumed to be the film.  As a technical point, a stage one clinger isn’t initially labelled as such, the term applied retrospectively after syndrome is diagnosed.  If men are smart or lucky, they’ll by stage two realize what is happening but some men are so stupid things don't "click" until stage four.  While in movie there was no discussion of stages other than “5”, by implication that was most extreme and memes soon fleshed out 1-4.  Although unverified, the following cautionary tale reputedly was written by Bill Clinton:

SC1, the Stage 1 Clinger: She seems fine

First date went well, she was attentive, interested, and even sometimes got the drinks.  Best of all, she made breakfast!.  Afterwards, the text messages were fun and flirtatious.

SC2, the Stage 2 Clinger: Hunter and game

The text messages become frequent and your first impression was of course positive but, in retrospect, that was the first first hint of the lure / engage / trap strategy of the lone hunter, the point of a lure being to tempt prey and "lure them into a false sense of security".  Lures are of course used because they work and, before long, you'll be exchanging texts with her, most of which will demand little more than agreeing with her about innocuous topics like the weather or the day's traffic.  She has engaged her prey.  When the conversational dynamic has achieved the required level of "naturalness", she’ll suggest a second date and will extract a commitment to a specific time / date / place.  That will be soon.  At this point, an escape still is simple but appears not necessary because a second date seems hardly a threat.

"I've got a stage five clinger", Wedding Crashers (2005).         

SC3, the Stage 3 Clinger: Tactical Manoeuvres

The second day was maybe something you'd not wish to repeat because there was a creepiness in the way she knew so much about your life.  Of course, in the age of social media, such "biodata mining" is hardly a challenge but her knowledge seemed so comprehensive as to suggest the skills of a stalker.  The most dopey men at this point are flattered because they enjoy a date in which about the only topic of conversation was themselves but the more socially sophisticated should at this point sense danger.  The mistake is to continue the engagement by agreeing to a third date, even if thought a clever ploy by not confirming a time; at this point, delusions remain comforting.  Within hours, text messages become frequent to the point of nuisance; you check Facebook and find she's friended everybody one knows while on Instagram she's posted positive comments on your posts.  Needing time to think, you ignore the texting and eventually it goes quiet… for about an hour.  Then she phones.  By being terse to the point of brutish, it can now be ended but many men allow themselves to be trapped into a third date, usually with the illusion they'll use the event to end things.  The S3C stage frequently is the point of no return and exactly when you should have acquainted yourself with the tale of Julius Caesar (100-44 BC; Roman general and dictator of Rome 49-44 BC) crossing the Rubicon and pondered whether to cast the di or cut your losses and run.      

SC4, the Stage 4 Clinger: The circling vulture

By stage four, clinging has slurred effortlessly into stalking and S4C is likely to send your mother flowers on her birthday and attempts at avoidance will prompt texting and calling from other phones.  SC4s who drive are even more of a threat because, wherever you go, she can follow; you'll "run into her" at the most improbable places and usually she’ll suggest taking advantage of the coincidence by going to lunch, dinner or whatever else might be close.  No matter how studiously you might watch the rear-view mirror, she’ll hunt you down and find you.

S5C, the Stage 5 Clinger: Thrill of the kill

A "cheater's" Volvo C30 (2006-2013).  Over dark blue, a stark white "CHEATER" probably is a better contrast the the traditionally preferred red or lurid fuchsia.

The "Cheater Car" phenomenon is due often to wanton philandering but also in some instances because S5C-APCs seek to "dissuade the competition"; Hell hath no fury like a S5C-APC.  In the days of solid machines like the 140/160 (1966-1975) and 240/260 series (1974-1993) series cars, it was once accepted, as a sociological reality, no Volvo ever would suffer the fate but clearly, both Volvos and their ownership profile have changed.  While obviously not desirable, some vehicles have suffered more.

At this point, her life is scheduled around you, even to the point where she may now work in the same building; she expects to have lunch with you every day and a drink after work whenever possible.  Should you try to avoid these meetings, emotional meltdowns (sometimes in public) ensue, the only way to avoid a scene being to agree.  Your friends will start asking you out as a couple and tell one how lucky you are to have her because "she’s wonderful"; the most helpful will hint "she's too good for you" and "you won't do any better".  They know that because they've invited her to their dinner parties where she talks about your plans together.  The S5C can also be APC ("actual psycho-chick", the two not synonymous but there’s frequent overlap).  Pursuing another relationship (even in desperation a fake one) as in an attempt to dissuade her brings its own problems; the S5C-APC will spray-paint CHEATER on their car (usually in some reddish hue but black or white also are used, the required contrast depending on the car's color; these are APC conventions of use).  At this point, faking your own death begins to seem a good tactic.

Cling on and no matter what, never let go: Victorious S5C crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) and Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) under gloomy skies for the formal dedication of the William J Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 2004.  

The significance of dividing the path of the clinger into stages is it’s vital to extricate yourself from their clutches at the earliest stage possible; it needs to be remembered progression can be rapid, some clingers so adept at the art they're able to skip one or even two stages.  The longer delayed the excision, the harder it becomes and if allowed to reach the later stages, one may be stuck with her forever, the hunter has been captured by the game and for that, you can’t blame her: You're trapped and it's all your fault; you have only yourself to blame.

Microaggression

Microaggression (pronounced mahy-kroh-uh-gresh-uhn)

(1) A casual comment or action directed at a marginalized, minority or other non-dominant group that (often) unintentionally but unconsciously reinforces a stereotype and can be construed as offensive.

(2) The act of discriminating against a non-dominant group by means of such comments or actions.

1970: The construct was micro- + aggression.  The word was coined by African-American Chester Middlebrook Pierce (1927-2016), a former Professor of Education and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  Micro (small, microscopic; magnifying; one millionth) was a word-forming element from the New Latin micro- (small), from the Ancient Greek μικρός (mikrós) (small).  The origin is disputed between etymologists, the traditional view being it was from the primitive Indo-European (s)meyg- & (s)mēyg- (small, thin, delicate) and was cognate with the Old English smicor (beauteous, beautiful, elegant, fair, fine, tasteful), source also of the Modern English smicker and related to the German mickrig.   However, there’s a highly technical discussion within the profession, hinged around the unexplained “k” in the Greek and there’s the suggestion of pre-Greek origin on the basis of variation between initial /m/ and /sm/, as well as the variant forms μικός (mikós) and μικκός (mikkós).  Aggression, dating from 1605–1615, was from the French aggression, from the Latin aggressionem (nominative aggressio (a going to, an attack)), a noun of action from past participle stem of aggredi (to approach; attack) the construct being ad (to) + gradi (past participle gressus (to step)) from gradus (a step).  The Classical Latin aggressiōn (stem of aggressiō), was equivalent to aggress(us) + iōn derived from aggrēdi (to attack).  The psychological sense of "hostile or destructive behavior" had its origin in early psychiatry, first noted in English in 1912 in a translation of work by the Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).  While not exactly synonymous, microassault and microinequity are similar concepts, the most closely related verb being microinvalidate (to engage in microinvalidation, to make a relatively small statement or action (microaggression) that negates another person's experience, thoughts or feelings).  Microaggression, microaggressiveness, microaggressor & microaggressee are nouns, microaggress, microaggressed & microaggressing are verbs, microaggressive is an adjective and microaggressively is an adverb; the noun plural is microaggressions. 

Dr Chester Middlebrook Pierce (1927-2016).

Microaggression is an adaptable and possibly infinitely variable concept that probably most belongs in sociology; typically, it's defined as any of the small-scale verbal or physical interactions between those of different races, cultures, beliefs, or genders that are (perhaps sometimes generously) assumed to carry no malicious intent but which can be interpreted as revealing an underlying (and often unconscious) bias.  The criteria can be both objective and subjective and it’s noted compliments or comments intended to be positive can be defined as microaggressions if interpreted as patronizing or perpetuating stereotypes (racial, gender, sexual orientation, class, occupational, geographical etc).  Probably, the only "safe" identity-based categorizations are now those purely statistical: average heights by nationality and such although such is the sensitivity, the recommendation of many is now wholly to avoid anything that possibly could be construed as a microaggression, the only exceptions being those directed at groups defined as "privileged" (white people, Christians, cisgender, heterosexual males etc).  Very much a "spectrum" word, microaggression began life as a defensive shield but has in recent years attracted criticism (from both left and right) because it was able to be weaponized in "cancellation culture".  The standard psychology texts suggest the behavior manifests in three forms:

Microassault: An explicit racial derogation which can be verbal or nonverbal which can include labelling, avoidant behavior and purposeful discriminatory actions.

Microinsult: Communications that convey rudeness or insensitivity and demean a person's racial heritage or identity; subtle snubs which may be unknown to the perpetrator; hidden insulting messages to the recipient of color.

Microinvalidation: Communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person belonging to a particular group.

The concept emerged to address the underlying racism that endured even after overt, deliberate expressions of racism (at least against defined minorities) had become unacceptable in polite society.  It held that microaggressions generally happened below the level of awareness of well-intentioned members of the dominant culture and were different from acts of intentional bigotry (such as the use of racist epithets) because the those committing microaggressions often intend no offense and are unaware they are causing harm.  That wasn't exactly a Golgothaesque "forgive them for they know not what they do" but in the abstract did position the dominant (and not of necessity majority) culture as normal with minorities treated as aberrant or pathological.

Although the word’s origin lay in the politics of race and ethnicity, it proved readily adaptable to other areas such as gender, sexual orientation, mental illness, disability and age.  Within academic sociology, there’s a (typically) highly technical debate about the nature of microaggression and intersectionality at the cross-cutting cleavages of non-dominant groups.  As regards the media, the discipline had a well-refined model to describe how microaggressions were either reinforced or encouraged by a news and entertainment industry that both reflected and was controlled by the hegemony of the dominant culture.  The sudden shock of the emergence of social media has changed things (diversity of source and content) but the main effect has been to balkanize: While there are places where microaggressions will not be tolerated, there are others where such things are routine and some where microaggressions are about the mildest forms of racism and such.  To date, much work in exploring this area has been impressionistic and it’s not clear if the analytical metrics, where they exist, are sufficiently robust for theories to be coherent beyond the sense of constant "mission creep".  In a sense, social media and the development of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) are synergistic with the maintenance and critique of microaggressions one of many elements in the culture wars.

As an indication of the how things have changed, in 1939 the terms “paleface” and “redskin” were in 1939 appropriated for use in literary criticism by Russian-born (in modern-day Ukraine) Jewish-American literary critic and essayist Philip Rahv (1908–1973).  What in retrospect makes that most interesting was Rahv was not a kind of “proto-MAGA” (Make America Great Again) figure from the Republican Party’s far-right (a faction that definitely existed in 1939 although different labels were applied) but was of the “left”, emphasizing the virtues of cosmopolitanism and Marxist analysis, one irony in his casual use of “paleface” and “redskin” being his advocacy of “breaking down” ethnic and racial barriers.  He was in the early 1930s a member of the ACP (American Communist Party) but, trans-nationally, long-suppressed fissiparous forces had been unleashed by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) and Rahv in 1937 was expelled from the ACP by the dominant Stalinist Popular Front faction, condemned as a “Trotskyite” (a follower the exiled Russian comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder in 1938 of the Fourth International).  His political activities in the US for a while continued but by the 1950s he’d become one of “The God that Failed” ex-communists and, after a brief flirtation with the “New Left” (or rather what he thought the New Left should have been), he retreated to literature to wage a low-intensity campaign against structuralism.

One of General LeMay’s “civilizing influences”, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay that delivered the first of the two nuclear weapons (thus far) used in conflicts.  It’s now on display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Virginia.

The splicing of the planet's “races” into “civilized”, “barbarian” and “savages” was very much a thing of nineteenth century European thought (although the notion existed also in Imperial China, the definitely very civilized mandarins there appalled by “barbarians” such as the British).  While the terms in this context probably originated in casual use, as the “scientific methods” of the Enlightenment became more generally applied, the notion was taken up, systematized and in some cases codified (with anatomical illustrations) by ethnographers, anthropologists, academic physicians, palaeontologists and others, the most notorious application probably the use in the pseudo-science of eugenics, a “discipline” to some so persuasive its echo continues on both sides of the Atlantic to be heard in the twenty-first century.  The concept of civilization (very much equated with “Western”) has long been a great concern of white supremacists and although the composition of “threats to its survival” does shift, it’s perceived always to be under assault.  Some have offered solutions.  US General Curtis LeMay (1906–1990; Chief of Staff of the USAF (US Air Force) 1961-1965) once remarked to a colleague: “Empirical evidence suggests the most successful way to civilize a nation is to A-bomb it…twice.”  It was said in making the observation he seemed “at least half-serious” and it had been Boeing B-29 Superfortresses under his command that in August 1946 had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki so the general likely felt entitled to be proud of his contribution to that civilizing influence.  A confessed Freemason, (a cult that can hardly be said much to have improved civilization), General LeMay was vice-presidential running mate on the 1968 ticket of notorious racist and segregationist George Wallace (1919-1998; governor (Democratic Party) of Alabama 1963–1967, 1971–1979 & 1983–1987) and, by historic standards, the duo enjoyed success, the AIP (American Independent Party) ticket gaining 13.5% of the popular vote, carrying five states for 46 votes in the Electoral College.

Allen's "Red Skins" and "Chicos": On supermarket shelves in Australia until 2020.

It is of course now unthinkable a figure of the left (liberals, progressives etc), Trotskyites or otherwise, would be so casually microaggressive as to take terms so vested with racism as “paleface” and “redskin” so they could, with no acknowledgment of the history, be re-purposed as devices in literary criticism.  However, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” and in the US in 1939, to do such a thing was unremarkable, an indication of the cultural currents underpinning society with the use of language both a product and part of the construct.  Paleface (the construct being pale +‎ face) came from US English and appeared in the anthropological record as early as 1797 (the origin uncertain) but seems not to have entered general use until the early 1920s.  The origin is uncertain but it was supposedly a calque from a Native American language; the form presumably coined when those of the first nations encountered Europeans.  The earliest verified use of the word redskin (the construct being red + skin) dates from 1769 although despite documents from the 1580s referring to the skin-tone of indigenous Americans as “red”, that use by European explorers and settlers was not consistent and in some instances may have been a reference to the use of red “paint” used to adorn the face and upper-body.  “Paleface” has been used as an intended slur against white people (with little apparent effect) but “redskin” definitely is an ethnic slur offensive to Native Americans although the record suggest than until around the mid-nineteenth century it was neutral and merely descriptive before ascending the “linguistic treadmill”.  Use puts it now well beyond being a microaggression.

The re-brand, 2020.

Allen's "Red Skins" and "Chicos" were in 2020 re-named "Red Rippers" and "Cheekies" respectively.  In the US, it was in 2020 the NFL (National Football League) team the Washington Redskins retired the name used since 1933, adopting Washington Football Team before in 2022 settling on a re-branding as Commanders.  The team's administration, when announcing the name-change, made no mention of the preceding controversy, nor the pressure from corporations, something most analysts suggested prompted the change more than any of the representations by Native American communities.  According to the Allen's, the recipes for the lollies remained “unchanged” and thus far Streets’ Golden Gaytime (sold in New Zealand as the Cookie Crumble) ice cream snack has survived the linguistic treadmill.

  

Gaytime meme.

The meme features Eric Abetz (b 1958; Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022, Treasurer of Tasmania since 2024).  A student of Leviticus, Mr Abetz does not approve of any form of gaynessness.  First sold in 1970, and in general use clipped usually “Gaytime”, the confectionery is a toffee and vanilla ice cream, dipped in compound chocolate with a heavy sprinkling of large “crumbs” of vanilla biscuit, all on a wooden paddlepop-stick.  Although by 1970 “gay” was in use in the context of “male homosexuals”, it had not in Australian society gained critical mass and there’s nothing to suggest the name was then chosen for reasons other than the historic association of “gay” with “happy” and certainly the connotations later attached to “golden” by the gay community would have been unknown to most.  The company in the 1980s anyway embraced the possibilities with advertising tag lines such as “It's hard to have a Gaytime on your own” and complaints about the name in the new century received scant support from even gay-rights activists.

In 1939, Rahv used “paleface” and “redskin” to distinguish between what he called “two poles”; his sense was of the diametrically opposed “north & south” but his model was stylistic and thematic rather than geographic (and really not quite an antinomy as some have suggested).  The polarization as defined by Rahv had him group writers according to their attitude, style, subject matter and such, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), Herman Melville (1819–1891) and Henry James (1843-1916) classified as “palefaces” while Walt Whitman (1819–1892), and Mark Twain (1835-1910) were “redskins”.  In Rahv’s literary world view, palefaces had cultured and patrician attitudes, wrote in a mannered style using symbolism and explored “lofty” themes with great complexity.  The redskins wrote works of the rugged men of frontier life or the working class, criminals and “low lifes” in the unpleasant parts of towns and cities.  He didn’t seem to suggest writing in a colloquial and naturalistic way couldn’t be interpolated into thematically complex literary texts, just that it was inevitable a “down market” cast of characters and places they frequented would shape the work.  So Rahv saw palefaces as “civilized” and redskins as “barbarians”; presumably he’d have thought “savages” to be “non-literary” and thus “beyond the pale” as it were.  Of those Americans who came later, categorization must be speculative but can be fun.

Use of "Eskimo" definitely can be deemed microaggressive. While ice-cream lovers can still buy "Gaytimes", they had to adjust to the "Eskimo Pie" being renamed (variously "Edy's Pie" or "Polar Pie").  It remains to be seen if the use of polar bears in some of the new packaging triggers controversy.  The creatures do appear in aspects of Inuit culture and religion and it's not clear if permission for use has been sought.

William Faulkner (1897–1962) and Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) both seem redskins and Norman Mailer (1923–2007) clearly was no paleface though he might have thought being filed with the barbarians an effete slight on his savagery.  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was a redskin who really wanted to be a paleface (and never stopped trying) while Philip Roth (1933–2018) was such a paleface he never quite mastered the “redskin mode” despite the occasional heroic attempt.  John Updike (1932–2009) was a paleface but the problem inherent in assigning writers with a hefty oeuvre to polarized categories is that at the margins their writing can “straddle” and sometimes those margins are wide.  That’s why plausible cases can be made arguing both Bernard Malamud (1914–1986) and Saul Bellow (1915–2005) at times at least “tended” to either pole.  What Rahv would have made of Faulkner in 1949 and Bellow in 1976 being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature while Updike and Roth were ignored (despite the latter engaging in self-promotion not far short of Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) auto-advocacy to be the Peace Prize laureate) would be interesting to know but safely can it be imagined he’d have thought the entire Nobel Committee redskins after in 2016 they conferred the honor in literature on musician Bob Dylan (b 1941).  Maybe it was women of the Swedish Academy (the body that chooses the Literature laureates) who vetoed Roth; in all he wrote of women (and it was a lot), Roth revealed much about himself but little about them, despite the usually elegant internal logic.  Rahv was anyway appalled literature appeared to exist in such a dichotomy and, being an old Trotskyite who never quite stopped taking seriously Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) politics, longed for a world where folk wrote like Marcel Proust (1871-1922) or Thomas Mann (1875–1955), the latter at least acknowledged in 1929 by the Nobel Committee.

1958 Studebaker Scotsman advertisement.

There was in 1957 nothing unusual or offensive in Studebaker naming a car “Scotsman” and it would have been well-understood as a reference to the car’s low purchase price and (alleged) TCO (total cost of ownership).  Scotsman buyers could even save a little more were they prepared to forgo the extravagance of chrome bumpers and choose the "delete option" of painted units; Mercedes-Benz also once offered that on taxi versions of a number of utilitarian sedans, the most produced the W115s (1968-1976). Other manufacturers used the same concept as Studebaker: Citroën ID vs DS, Cadillac Calais vs de Ville etc, some including fewer features and simpler trim, some also changing the mechanical specification but the principle was always: same size, less stuff, lower price.  The name "Scotsman" was picking up on the reputation of the Scots for frugality and it would have been thought something neutral at worst and more likely positive, thriftiness in the early post-war US still generally thought a virtue despite the best attempts of capitalism to encourage consumer gluttony; as fat overtook the land, things would change.  Technically, such use would now fulfil the criteria of a “microaggression” even if deployed in a way making clear it’s being intended as a compliment.  Scots can of course use the trope of themselves and even if used by others, as race-based microaggressions go, it’s probably at the "lower range" of offensiveness, those applied to “white people”, rarely noticed and certainly not grounds for cancellation.  Still, by the 2020s, it’s highly unlikely a car company would now name a car a “Scotsman” and certainly not if it was a “stripper” (ie a low-cost model with minimal standard equipment).

The “Scotsman’s supercar”: 1968 Plymouth Road Runner, Car Life magazine, May 1968.

Quite when the term "stripper" (in that context) vanished from commercial use can’t be certain but it would have occurred later in the twentieth century and certainly after 1968 when Car Life magazine, reviewing the new Plymouth Road Runner, called the stripped-down, low-priced muscle car: “a sort of Scotsman’s supercar”.  As well as a relic of linguistic use, Car Life’s test was interesting because unlike many of its contemporaries that often conducted tests using vehicles tweaked by manufacturers or dealers for optimal performance, they used the genuine, stock-standard articles, bought from the showroom floor, that being a more realistic path to discovering if thing did "what it said on the tin".  What Car Life revealed was the Road Runner (when equipped with the standard 383 cubic inch (6.3 litre) V8)) was quicker than a typical 383 powered car using the same body (as would be expected given the lower weight and modifications to the 383 used in the model) but was unable to match the sub-15 second ¼-mile (402 metre) runs reported by many.  The basic Road Runner was actually representative of the performance of most of the era’s “muscle car ecosystem” while the storied cars that “out of the box” were able consistently to log ¼-mile ETs (elapsed time) in the 13 or 14 second bracket were relatively rare and a tiny sliver of what came to be classified as "muscle cars", some of which just "looked the part" although that did prove a lucrative market.  Of course, to solve any perception of inadequacy, a buyer could tick the box for the optional 426 (7.0) Street Hemi V8 and while that was expensive, as well a fixing any performance deficit, putting one in a Road Runner was the cheapest path to Hemi ownership, a compelling case at a time when a thousand dollars was a lot of money.

Channeling her inner Scotsperson: Lindsay Lohan in Royal Stewart tartan, Freaky Friday (2003), costume test photo (Walt Disney Pictures).

Despite the perception of many (encouraged bydepictions in popular culture), tartan in the sense of specific color & pattern combinations attached to specific clans is something of recent origin.  Tartan (breacan (pɾʲɛxkən) in Scots Gaelic) is a patterned cloth consisting of criss-crossed, horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours.  The word plaid is now often used interchangeably with tartan (particularly in North America and when not associated with anything Scottish (especially kilts)), but technically (and always in Scotland), a plaid is a large piece of tartan cloth, worn as a type of kilt or large shawl although it’s used also to describe a blanket.  During the disputes between England and Scotland, the wearing of tartan became a political expression and the Dress Act (1746) was part of the campaign to suppress the warrior clans north of the border; it banned tartan and other aspects of Gaelic culture. The law was repealed in 1782 and tartan was soon adopted as both the symbolic national dress of Scotland and in imagery more generally.

The Royal Stewart was the personal tartan of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) and although historically associated with the royal house of Stewart (or Stuart), it has become one of the most widely used in commercial fashion and in that sense appears in parallel with the clan affiliation.  Commonly worn to formal events such as weddings, ceilidhs (social gatherings, the nature of which casts a wide net) or Burns Night (celebrating the life of Robert "Rabbie" Burns (1759–1796 and still in popular imagination Scotland's "national poet")), the modern trend is to pair a kilt with a Prince Charlie or Argyll jacket, traditionalists adding a Sporran (pouch), Hose (kilt socks) & flashes, Ghillie brogues (traditional shoes) and even a Sgian dubh (a small dagger tucked in the sock) although carrying the last item may be unlawful in some jurisdictions.  Lindsay Lohan in her screen test wore the dress in something of the way in the 1970s it became part of the punk sub-culture but for more conventional types there are also scarves, ties, sashes and such.  Remarkably, in the age of identity politics and sensitivity to cultural appropriation, the etiquette guides note there is no objection to non-Scots folk wearing their tartan of choice except when an event is clan-specific in which case only those in the lineage should don the fabric.  That said, even then, the consequence of a tartan faux pas will likely be less severe than wearing a Rangers shirt in a Glasgow pub filled with Celtic’s hoops.  Still, deployed with sufficient cultural insensitivity, improper use of tartan could be a microaggression.

Microaggression in Progress: A Mean Girls (2004) "mall scene".

Mean Girls was replete with instances of microaggressiveness.  We’re still (mostly) allowed (quietly) to be amused by some of these, but, a quarter-century on, there’s now a more hostile critique of subtle verbal or behavioural slights that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to marginalized groups, even if genuinely often unintentional; what seems subtle to some may to others be blatant insensitivity.  In satire, there's still some tolerance for such depictions although audiences are now expected to be as appalled as they are amused and, of course, as a satire of the gut-wrenching ecosystem that is high school social dynamics, subtle forms of relational aggression and passive-aggressive exclusion were not hard to find and can be categorized:

(1) Racial and Geographic Microaggressions: The line: “If you're from Africa, why are you white?” was an invalidation of an individual’s cultural identity on the basis of not according with another’s geographic & racial assumptions & expectations.  The school map of “the cafeteria cliques” includes “Cool Asians”, the labelling reducing individuals to their ethnicity and when paired with what is nominally a most positive teen modifier (cool), that operates as a racial micro-insult implying (1) most individuals of that ethnicity are “not cool” and (2) non-white students are in a sense monolithic and acknowledged as “acceptable sub-groups” only if they in some way adhere to “white people constructs” of “white normative standards”.  “Black hotties” operates at the same level, although “hot” (a type of “coolness”!) usually is positive, the implication here is that “hotness” inherently is a quality of certain white girls and a black girl can be deemed “hot” only compared to other black girls; she cannot, in the absolute sense, merely be a “hottie”, that descriptor operating only on white girls.  The surprised response “Oh you speak English?” when someone is introduced to a black student thought to be from Africa reveals the cultural assumption such an individual would likely lack proficiency in the language; it’s a classic micro-invalidation.

Microaggression weaponized ironically.

(2) Gender and Academic Microaggressions: When Cady expresses interest in joining the school math team, she’s told it’s “social suicide”, a pushback reinforcing gendered and social stereotypes that young women cannot be simultaneously be popular, attractive and intellectually gifted, thus the trope of intentionally failing math to gain a boy's attention.  The “I’m too pretty to do math” T-shirt plays with this and works well if worn by a pretty math nerd although, it'd be really subversive on a "not-pretty" girl.

(3) Backhanded compliments disguised as “niceness”: Such things can be the least objectionable of all microaggressions especially if there’s some equivalency in the power-relationship and the quip is witty, subtle and (ideally retrospectively) understood.  It can also be done “by proxy” such as when saying to one student “I love your skirt, where did you get it?”, only to wait until she’s out of earshot before turning to another and saying “That is the ugliest effing skirt I've ever seen.”  What this does is make an individual realize they may not be able to find sincere or truthful anything they’re told.

Aggression rather than microaggression: “Fetch” anyway likely never would have “happened”.  Although a convenient clipping of “fetching” (often in the form “quite fetching” or “most fetching” and meaning “charming; captivating; compelling” etc), by the early twenty-first century “fetching” in those senses had long since descended into the category of “dated”; it was an “old people” word, use thus “social suicide”.

(4) Image and fat-shaming: Because the social identity of the “Plastics” was so tied to rigid “beauty standards” (some group-imposed, some the prevailing norms), by use of the “Kalteen Bars manipulation” it was possible to induce weight-gain in Regina, an act of sabotage opening the possibility of subjecting her to micro-insults and non-verbal cues (staring at her body or pointing out strict dress-code rules that really can’t be adhered to by someone gaining weight) to signal there’s been a violation of group standards, requiring exclusion.  In that, the techniques are different from something like: “Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen.”; that is pure aggression: A group’s hegemon maintaining control by suppressing another member’s attempt to assert their personal identity through something as seemingly innocuous as the introduction of a new slang term.  It was a type of linguistic imperialism, similar to the attitude of Spanish nationalist troops who occupied Catalonia and the Basque country after their victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).  Harshly they would tell those they heard talking in regional dialects: “Speak the language of the Empire, don’t bark like dogs!”