Bollard

Bollard (pronounced bol-erd)

(1) In nautical use, a thick, low post, usually of iron or steel, mounted on (1) the deck of a ship and (2) a wharf or the like, to which mooring lines from vessels are attached.

(2) Any small post to which lines, ropes etc are attached.

(3) A short post or block, usually deployed in an array and designed to exclude or divert motor vehicles from a road, lawn, pedestrian space etc, either as part of routine traffic management or as a security or anti-terrorism device (can be permanent or temporary).

(4) In mountaineering, an outcrop of rock or pillar of ice that may be used to belay a rope.

1300s: From the From Middle English bollard, the construct probably the Middle English bole (tree trunk) +‎ -ard.  Bole was a mix of the Old English bula & bulla and the Old Norse boli, both from the Proto-Germanic bulô, from the primitive Indo-European bhel (to blow, swell up).  The –ard suffix was from the Middle English -ard, from the Old French -ard (suffix), from the Frankish -hard (hardy, bold), from the Proto-Germanic harduz (hard); it was used as a pejorative or diminutive suffix).  In 1844 it came to be used (first in the merchant marine, later by the Admiralty) to describe the strong, upright posts built into docks for fixing hawsers for mooring ships and after 1948 it began to be used in reference to the traffic control devices.  By the late 1950s, it was the word of choice to describe any upright device used either as a tethering point for ropes and cords or to restrict or direct vehicular or other traffic.  The security bollard (constructs in concrete or metal sufficiently large to prevent a vehicle from passing) began to appear in numbers as early as the 1940s although the specific phrase wasn’t in wide use until the 1980s in response to the increasing use of cars and trucks as delivery systems for large improvised explosive devices (IED).  Other derived terms include traffic bollard (a conical plastic device in distinctive colors used temporarily to divert motor vehicle traffic or to surround obstacles or dangerous sites) and bollard condition (the state of a ship with a propeller operating only to the extent of permitting near zero-speed maneuvering when moored).  Bollard is a noun; the noun plural is bollards.

Pedestrian crossing in Pompeii, Italy.  Most of the city was buried under volcanic ash and pumice when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.

Structurally, bollards were part of Roman urban roadways although the function was different.  Roman pedestrian crossings used essentially the same design as today's zebra crossings except what we see as the white lines were elevated slabs of granite, allowing people to cross the road without their feet having to touch the mud and muck (Roman sewerage systems, though advanced by the standards of Antiquity, were neither as extensive nor as reliable modern machinery) which would often sit or flow through the streets and horse manure was ever-present.  The gap between the slabs was such that the wheels of horse-drawn or hand carts would fit between.

Arco di Settimio Severo (1742), oil on canvas by Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697–1768), a significant painter of the eighteenth century Venetian school.

Built in the imperial capital in the traditional Roman way with travertine, white marble & brick, held together using concrete mixed with their famously sticky cement, the Arco di Settimio Severo (Arch of Septimius Severus) sits at one end of the Roman Forum and was dedicated in 203 to commemorate capture of Ctesiphon in 198 by Lucius Septimius Severus (145–211; Roman emperor 193-211).  Like many dictators (ancient & modern), Lucius had a fondness of triumphal architecture into which his name could be carved, another Arch of Septimius Severus built in Leptis Magna (his city of birth (now in present-day Libya)).  Discovered as a ruin in 1928, it was re-constructed by Italian colonial archeologists and architects.

It’s not known when the line of bollards (visible through the arch in Canaletto’s painting from 1842) was installed although it’s more likely to be an aspect of Renaissance town planning than anything Medieval.  Although speculative, it’s thought the spacing between the bollards indicates the intention was to deny access to heavy traffic (ie anything horse-drawn) while permitting hand carts (an essential part of the home-delivery economy) to pass.

The catwalk re-imagined: Lindsay Lohan walking between the bollards for one of her well-publicized (and not infrequent) court appearances during her "troubled Hollywood starlet" phase, Los Angeles, February 2011.  The legal matters involved set no precedents and it was in that sense not a notable case but the white piece was a Glavis Albino bandage dress from Kimberly Ovitz's (b 1983) pre-fall collection (which listed at US$575) and almost as soon as the photographs appeared on-line, it sold-out so there’s was that.  Here the bollards are used as stringers for the yellow plastic "Police Line: DO NOT CROSS" do not pass" tape and the same function is served by the stanchions used for the velvet ropes which define the limits for photographers at red-carpet events.

Dealing with terrorism is of necessity a reactive business and in Western cities, bollards sometimes appeared within hours of news of the use of motor vehicles somewhere as an instrument of murder, either as a delivery system for explosives or brute-force device to run down pedestrians.  Because of the haste with which the things were deemed needed, it wasn’t uncommon for bollards initially to be nothing but re-purposed concrete blocks (left), often not even painted, the stark functionality of purpose limited to preventing vehicular access which permitting those on foot to pass with minimal disruption.  They’ve since become a fixture in the built environment, often is stylized shapes (centre & right) and urban designers have been inventive, many objects which function as bollards not recognizably bollardish, being integrated into structures such as city furniture or bus shelters.

LEDA Security's rendering of some of the possibilities of bollards as engineered street furniture. Where the space is available, even small green spaces can be installed and, with integrated drip-feed irrigation systems, maintenance is low.  It was beneath one of these installations Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) was filmed while sprawled on the ground, conducting a late-night, profanity-laced (though quite friendly) telephone conversation with his (second) wife, the mother of two of his six children.  It was later confirmed Mr Joyce had been drinking.

Hard-working bollards doing their job at the liquor store.

Column

Column (pronounced kol-uhm)

(1) In architecture, a rigid, relatively slender, upright support, composed usually of relatively few pieces.

(2) A decorative pillar, most often associated with the classical architecture of antiquity, composed of stone and typically having a cylindrical or polygonal shaft with a capital and usually a base.

(3) Any column-like object, mass, or formation.

(4) A vertical row or list.

(5) A vertical arrangement on a page of horizontal lines of type, usually typographically justified.

(6) A regular feature or series of articles in a newspaper, magazine, or the like, usually having a readily identifiable heading and the byline; often related to a single subject or theme

(7) A long, narrow formation of troops in which there are more members in line in the direction of movement than at right angles to the direction.  A column one wide is said to be in single-file.

(8) A formation of ships in single file (largely archaic).

(9) In botany, a column-like structure in an orchid flower, composed of the united stamens and style.

(10) In anatomy or zoology, any of various tubular or pillar-like supporting structures in the body, such as the spinal column, each generally having a single tissue origin and function.

(11) In the design of accounting ledgers or computer-based spreadsheets, the vertical array of data (contrast with the row; the horizontal array).

(12) In chemistry, an object used to separate the different components of a liquid or to purify chemical compounds.

(13) As the fifth column (quinta columna), a group of people which clandestinely undermines a larger group, such as a nation, to which it is expected to be loyal.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English columne, columpne & columpe, from the Old French columne, from the Latin columna (column, pillar, post), the construct being colum(e)n (peak) + a (creating the feminine form).  Column replaced the Late Middle English colompne, also a Latin derivation and borrowed from the Anglo-French.  The Latin columna was akin to collis (a hill) & celsus (high), both likely derived from the Ancient Greek κολοφών (kolophṓn), (top, summit).  Ultimate root was probably the Primitive European kel (to project).  The sense of "matter written for a newspaper" dates from 1785; that of the “fifth column” is from 1936.  The most common derived forms are the adjectives columnar, columned or columnated.  The first commercially successful spreadsheet was VisiCalc (1979), Lotus 1-2-3 following in 1983 and Microsoft Excel in 1985; built with columns and rows, the spreadsheet was instantly successful in translating the physical ledger into digital form and is considered the "killer app" which legitimized the use of personal computers in business.

The Fifth Column

A fifth column is group of people who undermine the security of the state in which they’re living, in support of an enemy force, historically as a prelude to invasion.  The more modern and still current variation is the sleeper-cell, individuals or even families integrated into foreign populations where they lie dormant, awaiting activation.  There’s no doubt the origins of the phrase “fifth column” can be traced to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) but, like many things from those years, the details are contested.  The first recorded instance was in a telegram, sent on 30 September 1936 by a German diplomat to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin reporting a "supposed statement” by the nationalist leader General Franco (Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892–1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) claiming that not only did he have four columns of Nationalist troops marching on Madrid but that inside the city, a secret ”fifth column” (quinta columna) of fellow-travelers within the city would support the nationalist’s military campaign and undermine the Republican government from within.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and Franco, photographed at their day-long meeting at Hendaye, on the Spanish-French border, 23 October 1940.

The dictators' discussions revolved around Spain's participation in the War against the British but it proved most unsatisfactory for the Germans, the Führer declaring as he left that he'd rather have "three of four teeth pulled out" than have to spend another day with the Caudillo.  Unlike Hitler, Franco was a professional soldier, thought war a hateful business best avoided and, more significantly, had a shrewd understanding of the military potential of the British Empire and the implications for the conduct of the war of the wealth and industrial might of the United States.  The Allies British were fortunate Franco took the view he did because had he agreed to afford the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces) the requested cooperation to enable them to seize control of Gibraltar, the Royal Navy might have lost control of the Mediterranean, endangering the vital supplies of oil from the Middle East, complicating passage to the Indian Ocean and beyond and transforming the strategic position in the whole hemisphere.   

The first known public use of the term is in the 3 October 1936 issue of the Madrid Communist daily Mundo Obrero.  In a front-page article the party propagandist Dolores Ibárruri (1895–1989; known as la Pasionaria (literally "the passionflower" and used in the sense of "the passionate one" for her strident oratory) referred to the same statement as reported to Berlin but attributed it to General Emilio Mola (1887-1937).  On the same day the another activist made a similar claim during a public rally and the Republican newspapers would in subsequent days repeat the story although with variations, some attributing the phrase to a different general.  Whether all this was some of the fog of war or part of the disinformation campaigns inevitable in any conflict will never be known but by mid-October media, the press were already routinely referring to the "famous fifth column".  Historians have never identified the original statement or its source.  All the verified documentary evidence of people using the words quinta columna is of instances after the publication in the Republican press.

Although renowned for its art deco buildings, there's also much neo-classicism in Miami, Florida.  A staple of gossip columns, Lindsay Lohan is pictured here among the columns, December 2013.

The “fifth column” caught the public imagination and became popular, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) using it as the title of the only play he wrote, published in his 1938 book The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories.  Initially, use tended to be restricted to military operations but it came to be applied more broadly to describe sympathizers of any cause not formerly attached to any structure and was by the early 1940s, used to warn of potential sedition and disloyalty within the borders both of the UK and US, the popular press running stories warning of a “Nazi Fifth Column”.  Always one with a fondness for a pungent phrase, Winston Churchill reassured the House of Commons the "…parliament has given us the powers to put down fifth column activities with a strong hand".  In Australia, a radio drama exploring the theme, The Enemy Within, was banned by the censor, the authorities apparently concerned listeners might confuse fact with fiction and become alarmed or worse.

General Franco’s troops interview a suspected fifth columnist.  This photo was one of many staged for publicity purposes, a propaganda technique first first used at scale during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1940).

Jazz

Jazz (pronounced jaz)

(1) A style of music of African-American origin, said to have emerged in New Orleans early in the twentieth century.

(2) A style of dance music, popular especially in the 1920s, arranged for a large band and marked by some of the features of jazz.

(3) Dancing or a dance performed to such music, as with jerky bodily motions and gestures.

(4) In slang (1) liveliness; spirit; excitement, (2) insincere, exaggerated, or pretentious talk & (3) similar or related but unspecified things or activities (often in the form “…and all that jazz”) which can be used negatively if referring to rigmarole, red-tape etc.

(5) Of or relating to or characteristic of jazz; to play (music) in the manner of jazz.

(6) To excite or enliven; to accelerate (often in the form “jazz up”).

(7) In vulgar slang, copulation.

1912: An invention of US English of uncertain origin.  Until around the end of the World War I, the alternative spellings jaz, jas, jass & jasz were used.  The first documented use of the word jazz was in 1912 in the context of writing about baseball baseball, the use extending to the musical form in 1915 when it was used in reference to Tom Brown's all-white band out of New Orleans (although there are sources which date it either from a 1917 advertisement in a Chicago newspaper for Bert Kelly's Jaz Band).

Lindsay Lohan watching NBA game between Utah Jazz and LA Lakers, Los Angeles November, 2006.

The etymology has attracted much research but the findings have been inconclusive, the most popular theory being jazz was a variant of jism & jasm (from 1842 & 1860 respectively), archaic nineteenth century US slang meaning “zest for accomplishment; drive; dynamism”, the qualities apparently most often ascribed to women), also words of unknown origin.  That evolutionary path is tangled up with the sexual connotations once associated with the word jazz and etymologists stress the sequence is important.  At the turn of the twentieth century, "gism" certainly meant "vitality" but also "virility" and this (by 1899) led to the slang use for "semen" but, the etymologists caution, while a similar evolution happened to the word "jazz" (which became slang for the act of sex), that use was unknown prior to 1918 so any sexual connotation wasn’t attached at the point of origin but acquired later.  The use in reference to baseball is thought to have been among white Americans and this may also have been the case in the earliest uses with the musical form.  Overlaying all this, nor is it known whether the evolution to jazz was organic, an invention or an imperfect echoic.

Duke Ellington, Ellington At Newport (1956).

While ethno-musicologists note the way the form has evolved over a century as diverse influences have variously been absorbed, assimilated or interpolated, the profession regards the core of Jazz to be a form rooted in West African cultural and musical expression which borrowed from the unique African American blues tradition.  Technically, the most distinct characteristics are blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms and, most celebrated of all, improvisation.  As jazz was influenced, so jazz influenced and there was no musical form so associated with the “fusion movement” (better understood as a number movements) which was a feature of the experimental (and increasingly commercial) output of the decades after the World War II, a trend which produced an array of labels including acid jazz, cool jazz, jazzbo, jazz-funk, jazz fusion, trad-jazz, jazz-rock and more.

Count Basie And His Orchestra, April In Paris (1957).

In idiomatic use context matters much because to jazz something can mean “to destroy” whereas to “jazz up” is to enliven, brighten up, make more colorful etc but this can be good or bad, the familiar phrase “don’t jazz it up to much” a caution against excessive bling or needless complication.  The use in vulgar slang is now listed by most dictionaries as either archaic or obsolete but when it use it covered a wide range from (1) the act of copulation, (2) to prostitute oneself for money & (3) semen.  As an intransitive verb it meant to move about in a lively or frivolous manner or “to fool around”, the origin of this assumed to be the uninhibited style of dancing sometimes associated with the genre.  To jazz someone can also be to distract or pester them or provide misleading or incorrect information (which can be referred to using the noun “the jazz”).  As applied simply to music, it can mean either to play jazz music (in some set form or in a jam) or to dance to jazz music

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959).

The meaning "rubbish, unnecessary talk or ornamentation" dates from 1918, a use reflecting the snobby attitude many had towards a form of music which sometimes didn’t observe the usual conventions of structure.  The term “all that jazz” (sometimes cited as a synonym for “et cetera” but actually extending to ”similar or related but unspecified things or activities" was first recorded in 1939 although the extent of its history in oral use is unknown.  The verb jazz in the sense of “to speed or liven up” dates from 1917 and was used often as “jazzed” or “jazzing”.  The “jazz age” was first described in 1921 and soon popularized in the writings of F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) and the era is usually regarded as the years between the end of World War I (1918) and the Wall Street crash of 1929.  The phrase captures both what was seen as the accelerating pace of life in 1920s America and the popularity of the music.

Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um (1959).

The noun razzmatazz was interesting because it was used in the late nineteenth century to mean various things (most often something fanciful and showy) and thus obviously pre-dated jazz but, presumably because of the rhyming quality it picked up early associations with jazz which by the 1930s had become a disparaging critique ("old-fashioned jazz" especially in contrast to the newer “swing”).  Dating from 1917, the noun jazzbo (low, vulgar jazz) was a disparaging term to describe both the music and musicians; later in the twentieth century it was applied as derogatory term for African-Americans (and others with dark skins) but use soon died out.  The adjective jazzy (resembling jazz music) dates from 1918 and was often used in the forms “jazzily” & “jazziness”, use quickly extending from music to a general term suggesting “spirited, lively; exciting”.  The noun jazzetry (poetry reading accompanied by jazz music) came into use in 1959 and was part of the cultural ephemera of the beat generation.  The noun Jazzercise (the construct being jazz + (ex)ercise) was originally a proprietary name from the commercial fitness industry which, despite the implications, was used to describe routines using just about any form of music.

Lotus Jazz, 1985.

So unsuccessful was the marketing strategy used for Lotus Jazz that it’s said to rate with Ford’s Edsel and Coca-Cola's New Coke among the most popular case studies chosen by students of the discipline to illustrate corporate ineptitude.  Jazz was designed to run only on Apple’s Macintosh 512K and was an integrated suite which included a word processor, spreadsheet, database, graphics, and communication software.  It was a corporate companion of Lotus Symphony which was a suite which ran on IBM compatible PCs under PC/MS-DOS but not too much should be read into the musical nomenclature; both were integrated suites which ran under different operating systems on different hardware.  Lotus 1-2-3 wasn’t the first spreadsheet but it was the one which became the so-called “killer app” which legitimized the IBM PC for business use and, noting the small-scale successes being enjoyed by some of the early suites, Symphony was concocted as something which would rely on the reputation of 1-2-3 for its success.  Although never a big seller on the scale of 1-2-3, Symphony in the 1980s found a niche.

Jazz was supplied on four 400K floppy diskettes and Lotus thoughtfully supplied a sticky label users could use for their data diskette (which wasn’t included).

Jazz, introduced in 1985 was an attempt to replicate on the Mac the company’s success on the IBM-PC though why the decision was taken to introduce a suite instead of a version of 1-2-3 puzzled observers at the time given the Symphony name had nothing like the name-recognition of the Lotus spreadsheet.  Added to that, Jazz was expensive, limited in functionality by the memory constraint of the Mac 512 and clumsy in operation, users forced frequently to swap floppy diskettes (start-up, program & data) with the additional drawback that only a single floppy drive could be used with Jazz, neither dual floppy or hard-drives supported.  A critical and commercial failure, so toxic did the Jazz brand quickly become that plans to release an improved version in 1988 (called Modern Jazz) were abandoned and development resources were shifted to a version of 1-2-3 for the Mac.  That was of course what should have been done from the start and 1-2-3 for the Mac, released in 1991, was well received but months later Microsoft released Windows 3.1 and the universe shifted, Excel and the companion MS-Office becoming a juggernaut; Symphony and 1-2-3 were just two of the many victims.

Gild

Gild (pronounced gild)

(1) To coat with gold, gold leaf, or a gold-colored substance.

(2) To render something with a bright, pleasing, or specious aspect; having the color or appearance of gold.

(3) Smear with blood; to make red, as with blood (archaic except in historic reference).

(4) To adorn in some way.

(5) In cooking, to render some surface with a golden appearance.

(6) To make appear drunk (now rare).

1300–1350: From the Middle English gilden & gulden (to gild, to cover with a thin layer of gold), from the Old English gyldan (akin to gold) and related to the Old Norse gylla (to gild), the Old High German ubergulden (to cover with gold) (the verb from gultham (gold)) and the Middle High German vergülden, from the Proto-West Germanic gulþijan, from the Proto-Germanic gulþijaną, from gulþą (gold).  In historic UK use, the noun gildsman was an alternative spelling of guildsman (a man who is a member of a guild).   Gild is a noun & verb, gilding is a verb & adjective, gilded is a verb, begild is a verb & adjective and begilded & gildable is an adjective.

1967 Cadillac Eldorado.

The figurative use of gild apparently began in the late sixteenth century.  The noun gilding (golden surface produced by gilding (the verb)" was from the mid fifteenth century, the verb pre-dating the form by some two decades.  The adjective gilded emerged 1400 as the past participle of the Middle English gilden and by the early fifteenth century was used also as a noun with the sense of "gilding".  The noun eldorado entered English in the 1590s from the Spanish El Dorado (the golden one ( the name given in the sixteenth century to the country or city laden with gold believed to lie in the heart of the Amazon jungle)); it was derived from the past participle of dorar (to gild), from Latin deaurare (to gild, to gild over), the construct being de- (probably used here as an intensifier) + aurare (to gild), from aurum (gold).  The legend began with the tales of early Spanish explorers and, regarding gold, there would once have been some truth in the story but, in the way of such things, there was embellishment (gilding the story as it were) until Eldorado was thought a city where the “streets were paved with gold” and for two centuries this drew explorers and adventurers.

Cartoon with a modern feeling: Chicago Labor Newspaper's (1894) critique of the policies of the Pullman railroad company.

The terms “gilded age” and “golden age” are sometimes confused, the former coined by Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) as the title of their 1873 novel.  The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today was a novel which satirized greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America and it lent the name to the period of US history (circa 1870-circa 1900) immediately prior to the era of progressivism and reform when something was done about political corruption and economic exploitation by the trusts (rail, steel etc).  A gilded age is thus suggestive of a time in which things seem superficially attractive and there is prosperity but the activity conceals the squalor and ugliness beneath.  Whenever there are periods of great social and economic inequality such as that which has evolved in the West over the last four-odd decades (trickle-down economics and its better disguised successors) with aggregated wealth high but disproportionately held by a tiny minority, the term gilded age is often suggested as a descriptor: Gilded age 2.0 in the fashionably modern parlance).  A golden age differs in that it’s associated with a period of peace, prosperity and progress, often expressed by historians in phrases such as the “golden age of the Gupta dynasty” which referred to the Gupta Empire in India which existed between the fourth and sixth centuries.

Gilding the lily: 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible with after-market accessories (1) rear fender skirts (spats) and (2) “Continental” spare tyre kit.  The “Continental” alluded to was the Ford Motor Company’s original Lincoln Continental (1940–1942 & 1946–1948), first seen in 1939 in the one-off vehicle commissioned for his personal use by Edsel Ford (1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) 1919–1943).  The Continentals included both features but use of skirts was common whereas the externally mounted spare type housing had become unusual and it became for decades a signature motif of Lincolns and much beloved for just as long by the after-market industry, “Continental kits” appearing on some most improbable cars. 

To refer to the 1959 Chevrolet as a “lily” is a bit of a stretch although the “batwing” rear fins (General Motors (GM) at the time preferred “seagull wings”) and the “cat’s eyes” tail-lamps remain memorable.  The 1959 GM bodies were actually a rush job because the 1958 range was thought staid, bloated and old fashioned compared with the sleek lines of the lines Chrysler had for 1957 ushered in with the slogan “Suddenly it’s 1960s”.  Accordingly (and uniquely), GM’s 1958 bodies were a one-off.  However, whatever one’s opinion of the 1959 Chevrolet, most seem to agree that adding the “Continental” spare-wheel kit and the fender skirts over the rear wheels is gilding the lily but a remarkable number appear in the auction houses so outfitted and almost all the additions are modern re-productions rather than those purchased when the cars were new, or at least young and the photographic record of the era does appear to confirm these accessories were, in period, rare indeed.  It’s thus gilding the lily and an example of the way perceptions of the past can be shaped.

The phrase “gilding the lily” is used to describe the act of adding unnecessary adornment to something already beautiful, the implication being the embellishments are beyond superfluous to the point of detracting from the perfection.  So it's used to mean "unnecessarily to adorn something already beautiful, either in poor taste (a modern expression of which is “bling”) or in an attempt to make something appear more valuable (it has also been used (though less satisfactorily) to mean “inordinately to praise someone”).  It’s of Shakespearian origin although the exact text-string “gilding the lily” appears nowhere in his works, the modern idiom a mis-quote and Lord Salisbury's words were:

Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

King John (circa 1594), Act IV, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1564–1616).

The phrase “gilded cell” seems first to have been used in the early 1980s in the US to describe the unusually pleasant conditions (compared with mainstream jails) often afforded to celebrities or the rich who have been sentenced to a form of confinement for some offence.  In use, “gilded cell” is applied to those serving sentences “in the community” rather than a jail, often when fitted with that latter-day status symbol, the “ankle bracelet” monitor.  In the US, the companion phrase used of those put in federal government jails less unpleasant than most is the usually derisive “Cub Fed” a play on the brand “Club Med”, a well-known chain of all-inclusive beach resorts.  Although the conditions in “Club Fed” institutions are more lenient, that really is a relative measure and these remain minimum-security prisons (technically usually styled Federal Prison Camps (FPC) and nothing like a luxury resort; while these prisons do have dormitory housing, minimal perimeter security, and a lower staff-to-inmate ratio, they still enforce strict routines and restrictions, along with recreational and educational programs.  Despite the public perception, the the inmate population at Club Fed is said to be quite diverse.

In idiomatic use, the use as “gilded cage” refers to a place (and, by extension, a situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless restrictive (a luxurious trap) and appears to have been coined by the writers of the popular song A Bird in a Gilded Cage (1900).  In the slang of apothecaries, there was also “gild the pill”, the history of which is murky but it’s said to refer to the ancient practice of coating bitter tasting pills with a thin layer of metal, the modern version of the phrase being “sugarcoat the pill”.  The phrase “gilded cage” refers to a situation where someone is in a luxurious or privileged environment but feels trapped or restricted, the image being an elaborate golden cage which is exquisitely made but a cage none the less.  Those said to live in gilded cages include (1) celebrities who may enjoy lavish surroundings and many luxuries but exist under the “media spotlight” and lack privacy, (2) those in unhappy marriages with someone rich; while they may have all the material comforts this brings, the relationship may be loveless, sexless and constrained by expectations and limitations imposed by a spouse, (3) those in high paid jobs which they don’t enjoy (or may hate); it may be the long hours, stress or travel but it’s also often the case that expectation of lifestyle (and thus expenses) rise to meet income, thus trapping them in the job, (4) members of royal families who are restricted in what they can say, do or wear and (5) politicians, who may disagree with party platform or a decision of cabinet but are compelled to “toe the line”.  The point about the idiomatic “gilded cage” is that at any time, one can escape the confines but to do so means to sacrifice much; it’s all a question of what one wants from life.

Treadmill

Treadmill (pronounced tred-mil)

(1) A device for producing rotary motion by the weight of people or animals, treading on a succession of moving steps or a belt that forms a kind of continuous path, as around the periphery of a pair of horizontal cylinders (also called a treadwheel (archaic)).

(2) An exercise machine that allows the user to walk or run in place, usually on a continuous moving belt.

(3) Figuratively, a process or situation in which continued effort leads to or is required for remaining at a particular state or level without moving ahead; any monotonous, wearisome routine in which there is little or no satisfactory progress.

(4) By extension, anything repetitive and unending.

(5) In molecular biology, as treadmilling, the apparent locomotion of certain cellular filaments by adding protein subunits at one end, and removing them at the other, a phenomenon observed in many cellular cytoskeletal filaments.

1822: The construct was tread + mill.  Tread was from the Middle English tred, from treden (to tread), from the Old English tredan, from the Proto-West Germanic tredan, from the Proto-Germanic trudaną.  Mill was from the Middle English mylne & mille, from the Old English mylen, from the Proto-West Germanic mulīnu (mill), from the Late Latin molīna, molīnum & molīnus (mill), from the Latin verb molō (grind, mill), related to the Proto-Germanic muljaną (to crush, grind (related to the later English millstone).  Although speculative, some etymologists have suggested a relationship with the surname Milne, based on an associative link with the profession of some sort of milling.  The synonyms for the physical devices have variously included mill, stepper & everlasting staircase, and in the figurative sense, chore, drudgery, groove, labor, pace, rote, routine, rut, sweat, task, toil, travail & moil.  Treadmill is a noun, treadmilling is a noun & verb, treadmilled is a verb (the forms treadmillish & treadmillesque are both non-standard); the noun plural is plural treadmills.

Depiction of penal treadmill (the wheel).

Treadmills originated as a means of translating human energy into mechanical action to be applied to tasks such as moving water or air, grinding grain or making more efficient processes like the kneading of dough.  All such devices had since the mid sixteenth century tended to be known as treadwheels and the name treadmill wasn’t widely adopted until 1822 when a machine, invented by the son of a miller and used in English jails since 1818, was introduced into the US prison system, the intention in both places being to occupy the prisoners (on the basis of the theory that “the Devil makes work for idle hands”) and harness the energy produced for some useful purpose (although it’s unclear to what extent the devices were ever used a power source).  Designed ultimately to accommodate a dozen-odd men at a time, penal treadmills were rotating cylinders with steps built into the external surface, the prisoners essentially “walking uphill” for up to 4000 metres (14,000 feet) per day.  In prison slang the treadmills became known as “the wheel” and they were widely used in England until a decline in the late nineteenth century before use was discontinued in 1902; In the US, they were rare and extinct by mid-century, prison administrations preferring to apply the labor of inmates directly to some productive purpose.  The penal treadmill (the wheel) is best remembered as being one of the punishments to which Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was subjected during some of the two-year sentence he received after being convicted of gross indecency.

Lindsay Lohan on treadmill, Planet Fitness Super Bowl commercial, 2022.

The figurative senses allude to the way running on a treadmill requires continued effort and motion in order to remain in the same place and it’s used to refer either to one’s continued application to a specific task without making discernible progress towards the goal or the general idea of being “stuck in a rut”, leading a repetitive existence.  The idea for the familiar modern device dates from the early twentieth century and in medicine, sports and the military, variations emerged as required but by the 1970s, they became a standard piece of gym equipment and have become increasingly elaborate, linked to diagnostic and monitoring sensors and even the generation of electricity, some commercial operations granting users credits against the charges for use.

The term "euphemism treadmill" was coined by Harvard professor and psycholinguist Steven Pinker (b 1954) to describe the process by which euphemisms become as emotionally or politically loaded as the words supplanted.  It was the same idea as “euphemism cycle” which University of Oregon linguist Sharon Henderson Taylor had mentioned as long ago as 1974 but more exact in that the process is lineal rather the cyclical; once cancelled, euphemisms seem forever doomed.  Linguists call this the move from euphemism to dysphemism and while it’s impossible to know how long this has existed as a social phenomenon, the implications differ greatly between (1) purely oral cultures, (2) one where written or other records exist and (3) the digital era.  It’s now not uncommon for words individuals used decades earlier (at a time when use was either common or at least tolerated) to be produced so an understanding of historical context matters.  The word retard for example was once thought neutral and inoffensive compared with the earlier terms (idiot, imbecile & moron) which had migrated from clinical use to become slurs used as general-purpose insults against anyone.  Retard suffered the same fate and it may be the currently acceptable terminology (intellectual disability, individual with an intellectual disability & intellectually and developmentally disabled) will undergo the same process although none roll of the tongue as easily as retard and IDD is not effortless so they may endure as neutral.  The solution, Pinker pointed out, was that people should be educated to "think differently" about the subject, substituting euphemisms when progress inevitably from sanitized to slurs just kicks the can down the road. 

Structurally though, the process can be seen as inevitable because it’s associative, a product of the interplay between a descriptor and that it denotes.  Gay (a word with a centuries-long history in sexual politics) emerged in the late twentieth century as the preferred term to replace all the slurs referring to homosexuals, recommended by many even as preferable to homosexual which, despite being a neutral descriptive formation, had come to be regarded by many as a slur or term of derision.  Of course, being associative, gay soon came also to be used as a slur (and as a synonym for strange, weird, un-cool or queer (in its more traditional sense)) though the negative application is now socially proscribed so gay in its modern sense may survive.  So, the change of a descriptor doesn’t necessarily change attitudes.  Just because gay became preferred to homosexual didn’t mean homophobia vanished although, interestingly, although there’s a record of the word gayphobia from as early as the 1990s, it never caught on.

Lindsay Lohan on treadmill, Planet Fitness Super Bowl Commercial, 2022.

Of interest too is the succession of terms which replaced the infamous N-word.  Negro (which probably already is N-word 2.0 except in historic references) was in the 1960s used in the sense of something purely descriptive by mainstream figures such as John Kennedy (1917-1963; US president 1961-1963) and civil rights activist Martin Luther King (1929-1968) but it too came to be regarded as slur and was replaced by black.  Negro did though have an interesting history.  When first used in print in English in the mid-sixteenth century it was nearly always capitalized, the uncapitalized use beginning to appear in the late eighteenth century and becoming the standard form in twentieth although there were activists who insisted an initial capital was justified as a mark of respect, despite this being etymologically dubious.  It’s now rare because it carries connotations of earlier discrimination although remains acceptable in context, such as when used by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The matter of capitalization had also affected the use of black, some activists claiming its should be capitalized whereas white should not and that too is a purely political argument given the word initially gained currency because it was thought white’s linguistic equivalent.  In many ways that was true but it was controversial because, as used, it wasn’t exactly synonymous with Negro which is why the more precise African American became popular in the 1980s, again for reasons of seeking social equivalence (Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans etc).  Black, in practice, is often used to refer to dark-skinned people whether or not of African descent and for this reason it became unfashionable.  Other sub-sets have also moved in their own direction, the Fox News audience now preferring “the 13%”.

The distinction between colored people and people of color puzzles some but is entirely due to the historical association of colored and colored people with racism both subtle and overt.  People of color is a construction without the baggage and to date has generally be used to assert identity or in a celebratory sense and technically it’s a synonym for non-white because all those not white can so self-classify.  However, language evolves and there’s no guarantee "people of color" & "POC" won’t evolve to become slurs.  So, it can be a linguistic minefield and while the general principle is that people should be described as they wish to be described (or referenced not at all), at least for now, "people of color" seems safe despite a critique which suggests it entrenches the notion of "whiteness" as the apex of desirability and consigns all other skin tones to a kind of miscellany of "the other".