Slope

Slope (pronounced slohp)

(1) To have or take an inclined or oblique direction or angle considered with reference to a vertical or horizontal plane; slant.

(2) To move at an inclination; obliquely to move.

(3) To direct at a slant or inclination; incline from the horizontal or vertical.

(4) To form or describe something with a slope or slant.

(5) A descriptor of ground or some aspect of the natural or built environment which has an incline, such as a hill.

(6) An inclination or slant, especially downward or upward; to lie or cause to lie at a slanting or oblique angle.

(7) Any deviation from the horizontal or vertical; an inclined surface.

(8) In mathematics, (1) the tangent of the angle between a given straight line and the x-axis of a system of Cartesian coordinates; (2) the derivative of the function whose graph is a given curve evaluated at a designated point.

(9) In slang, a disparaging and offensive term used to refer to a person of East Asian appearance.

(10) As slope off, a slang term (mostly UK, Australia & New Zealand) describing someone moving slowly, or furtively away, usually to avoid work or responsibility; a rare variation is “sloped-in”, used to describe to who arrive somewhere surreptitiously (those late for work etc).

(11) To follow an inclined course down a hillside (applied especially to natural features).

(12) In military use, as slope position, a drill command referring to the position in which a long-arm should be held.

1495–1505: From Middle English slope (go in an oblique direction), from the earlier adjectival meaning “slanting”, an aphetic variant of the Middle English aslope, from the Old English aslopen, past participle of āslūpan (to slip away), the construct being a- (away) + slupan (to slip).  From 1709 slope was used to mean "to be in a slanting position", the transitive sense "place in a slanting position" having been part of the language since circa 1600.  The derogatory slang meaning "oriental person" is attested from 1948.  Slopingly is an adverb, slopingness, sloper & slope are nouns, sloped & sloping are adjectives and sloped & sloping are verbs.

The slippery slope and the thin end of the wedge

Borrowed from political science, the terms “slippery slope” and “thin end (sometimes edge) of the wedge” are sometimes used interchangeably but, while both refer to similar processes, there are nuances which distinguish the two.  The idea is that a small, minor and perhaps innocuous change or innovation affecting something can trigger a chain of events which might result in unintended consequences; in that there are similarities with chaos theory but a slippery slope is much more specific and probably lineal.  There’s often overlap between the two and the distinctions are not always absolute but circumstances usually tends more to one than the other.  Both tend to be used in political discourse by extremists and fanatics and are often example of what is called the “slippery slope fallacy” such as the argument that if gay marriage is allowed, eventually the gay people will be allowed to marry their goats.  That argument really was raised by some who claimed it wasn't an extreme position to take, pointing out that two generations earlier, those who had been opposed to the decriminalization of homosexuality because it would put society on a slippery slope towards gay marriage had been accused of raising a “slippery slope fallacy”.  All things considered, goats seem safe.  The slippery slope is also a piece of imagery adopted sometimes by black-letter-law judges who oppose judicial activism.

The difference is essentially in the dynamics driving the process.  On a slippery slope, things happen because of the inherent inertia; the notion that of sitting on a slippery slope, the slide downhill an inevitable consequence of the physics of fluid dynamics and the force of gravity.  The downward path will happen naturally.  By contrast, the model of the thin end of the wedge is that of the wedge driven into the tree.  If left there nothing will happen but if the woodsman continues to hammer the edge into the trunk, at some point, the tree will fall.  An example of the thin end of the wedge was the deployment in the early 1960s by the Kennedy administration (1961-1963) of a small number of military advisors to support the government of South Vietnam.  It had never been intended that large-scale combat operations would be undertaken in Vietnam but, step-by-step, Washington increased the commitment.  An more familiar example of the slippery slope is to adopt a rigorous diet and then allow a weekly “cheat day”.  On the first cheat day, one might have just the one chocolate biscuit but the next week it’s a biscuit and a donut and within weeks it’s packets of both.

Anthony Trollope’s (1815-1882) 1857 novel Barchester Towers is set in a tranquil and leafy town but there are few novels which, without even a threat of bloodshed, so successfully and with such subtlety impart such feelings of incipient evil and a relentless undercurrent of dread.  In Victorian novels there were many characters of dubious virtue but few not actually homicidal managed to induce in readers such feelings of unease and distaste as the slimy Reverend Obadiah Slope.

Although said to be “tall and not ill made”, Slope was “saucer-eyed”, his hair “lank, and of a dull pale reddish hue… formed into three straight lumpy masses, each brushed with admirable precision, and cemented with much grease.”  His face, “perhaps a little redder” than his hair, not unlike beef “of a bad quality”, a “redeeming feature” his nose which was “pronounced, straight, and well-formed” although marred still by “a somewhat spongy, porous appearance, as though it had been cleverly formed out of red colored cork".  The description of the nose is not without significance for it had by some been asserted that he was of lineal descent from Dr Slop, “that eminent physician who assisted at the birth of Mr Tristram Shandy, and that in early years he added an ‘e’ to his name, for the sake of euphony.”  Shandy, the eponymous character from Laurence Sterne's (1713-1768) nine volume work (1759-1757), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, was birthed by the “man-midwife” Dr Slop, who squashes Tristram's nose with forceps as he yanks the baby out.

Slope was the domestic chaplain to Bishop Proudie at Barchester and began as a protégé of the Bishop’s wife (a truly ghastly woman) but later became her enemy as he attempted when he endeavored to wrest the control of the diocese from her hands by becoming an eminence (pâle) rouge, a kind of vicarage Richelieu controlling the Bishop.  The plots and schemes of the calculating chaplain, conducted with much obsequiousness, play out in the novel as a part of a struggle between those of the high church and the evangelicals, a struggle not resolved to this day.  The Trollope aficionados don’t regard Barchester Towers as his best work but few deny it’s one of the most enjoyable and anyone who wishes to sample Trollope should start here.

On the slopes: Lindsay Lohan in Gstaad, Switzerland, 2016.  The experience on skis may have come in handy in 2022 during filming for Netflix's Falling for Christmas.

Redux

Redux (pronounced ri-duhks)

Brought back; resurgent.

1650-1660: From the Classical Latin redux (that leads or brings back; led or brought back (as from war or exile)) a noun derivative (with passive sense) of redūcere (to bring back) from redūcō (to bring back).  Modern use tends to be post-positive, especially of an artistic work, presented in either a novel or different way.  It has been used in the titles of books and other literary works since at least 1662 since John Dryden’s (1631-1700) Astraea Redux (A Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return of His Second Majesty Charles II (1660)).

The literary use of redux as a post-positive adjective meaning "brought back, restored" began with John Dryden’s (1631-1700) Astraea Redux (A Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return of His Second Majesty Charles II (1660)) and other notable examples include Anthony Trollope's (1815-1882) Phineas Redux (1873), the sequel to Phineas Finn (1867); and John Updike's (1932-2009) Rabbit Redux (1970), the second in his sequence of novels about the character Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom.  Perhaps rather cynically, it was adopted too by film producers who noted the unused footage of many commercially many successful products (the industry phrase being “left on the cutting room floor”) and worked out it’d be a cheap exercise to create “director’s cuts”, marketed as a “new interpretation” of an existing work.

Dexfenfluramine, a serotonergic anorectic drug, was an appetite suppressant marketed as dexfenfluramine hydrochloride under the name Redux.  It worked by increasing extracellular serotonin in the brain and was structurally similar to an amphetamine but without the psychologically stimulating effects.  In September 1997, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked the manufacturer voluntarily to withdraw dexfenfluramine (Redux) and fenfluramine (Pondimin) from the market.  It was an unusual request and one necessitated because of a high incidence of cardiac valvular abnormalities found in patients who were taking the drugs.  Dexfenfluramine had been approved by the FDA in 1996 and had been widely used for the treatment of obesity while Fenfluramine had been available for 20 years but gained wide notoriety only when it was coupled with phentermine in the "fen-phen" combination.  Phentermine was not implicated in the heart valve abnormalities and is still available.  Dexfenfluramine and fenfluramine produced a distal axotomy of brain serotonin neurons in experimental animals, a toxicity which resulted in reduced brain serotonin axonal markers that persisted for months and, in one primate study, as long as one year after discontinuing the drug.  The doses of drug that produce this effect are similar to those used in humans although this effect has never been demonstrated in humans.  The demise of Redux thus ended the "fen-phen" era in diet pills but was soon replaced with a new fad combining fluoxetine (Prozac) with phentermine.

Snack

Snack (pronounced snak)

(1) A small portion of food or drink or a light meal, especially one eaten between regular meals.

(2) In the phrase “go snack”, to share profits or returns (archaic).

(3) In slang, someone physically attractive and sexually desirable (regionally limited).

(4) To have a snack or light meal, especially between regular meals:

1300–1350: From the Middle English verb snacchen, snacche, snache & snak & noun snacche, snak & snakee (to snap at, bite, seize (as of dogs) and cognate with the Middle Dutch snacken (to snap (as of dogs), from snakken and a variant of snappen (to snap)) and the Norwegian dialect snaka (to snatch (as of animals)).  In many European languages, snack is used in the same sense though in Swedish technically it’s deverbal of snacka (to chat, to talk).  The pleasing recent noun snackette is either (1) A small shop or kiosk selling snacks or (2) smaller than usual snacks (the word often used by dieters to distinguish their snacks from the more indulgent choices of others).  The synonyms include morsel, refreshment, bite, eats, goodies, nibble, pickings & tidbit.  Snack is a noun, adjective & verb, snacking and snacked are verbs; the noun plural is snacks.

Cadbury Snack.

The original Middle English verb (to bite or snap (as of dogs), probably came either from the Middle Dutch or Flemish snacken (to snatch, snap; chatter), the source of which is uncertain although one etymologist traces it to a hypothetical Germanic imitative root snu- used to form words relating to the snout or nose.  The sense of "having a bite to eat; a morsel or light meal” dates from 1807.  The noun snack (a snatch or snap (especially that of a dog) developed from the verb and emerged circa 1400.  The meaning extended to "a snappish remark" by the 1550s and "a share, portion, part" by the 1680s (hence the now archaic expression “go snacks” which meant "share, divide; have a share in").  The familiar modern meaning "a small dish morsel to eat hastily" was first noted in 1757.  The first snack bar (a place selling snacks) seems to have opened in 1923 and the similar (often smaller, kiosk-type operations) snackettes were a creation of US commerce in the 1940s.  Snack bars could be either stand-alone businesses or something operating within a stadium, theatre, cinema etc.  The commercial plural form snax was coined in 1942 for the vending machine trade and the term “snack table” has been in use since circa 1950.

Nestlé Salted Caramel Munchies.

Functionally (though not etymologically) related was munchies (food or snack) from 1959, the plural of the 1917 munchie (snack eaten to satisfy hunger) from the 1816 verb munch (to eat; to chew).  The familiar (to some) phrase “got the munchies” in the sense of "craving for food after smoking weed (marijuana)" was US stoner slang which was first documented in 1971 but Nestlé corporation’s Munchies weren’t an opportunistic attempt to grab the attention of weed smokers.  Munchies pre-date the slang use of the word by over a decade, introduced in 1957 by the Mackintosh company, Nestlé acquiring the brand in 1988 when it acquired Rowntree Mackintosh and it’s not known if the slang use can be attributed to some stoner coming back from the shop with a bag-full of the snacks and telling his grateful companions “I’ve got the Munchies”.  Munchies were originally milk chocolates with a caramel and biscuit centre but the range has in recent years proliferated to include centres of mint fondant, chocolate fudge, cookie dough and salted caramel.  The latest variation has been to use a white chocolate shell, this described as a “limited-edition” but it’s presumed if demand exists, it will become a standard line.

Stocking up: Lindsay Lohan buying snacks, London, 2008.

Cracker

Cracker (pronounced krak-er)

(1) A thin, crisp biscuit, sometimes flavored and salted (less widely used in North America).

(2) A firework (a clipping of firecracker).

(3) A small paper roll used as a party favor, that usually contains candy, trinkets etc which separates with a n induced pop when pulled sharply at one or both ends; also called a Christmas cracker or bon bon.

(4) A nickname for a native or inhabitant of the US states of Georgia or Florida (initial capital letter) which is neutral when used in a self-referential manner by inhabitants (also as Cracker State) but can be disparaging and offensive if applied by outsiders (and among certain communities in Florida, a derogatory term for a police officer).

(5) As disparaging and offensive slang, a contemptuous term used to refer to a white person in the South, especially a poor white living in some rural parts of the south-eastern US.

(6) Slang for a black hat or a boastful man (both archaic).

(7) As an onomatopoeic form, a person or thing that cracks.

(8) In chemistry, a chemical reactor used for cracking, often as the refinery equipment used to pyrolyse organic feed-stocks (if catalyst is used to accelerate the process, it’s informally called a cat-cracker).

(9) In the plural (often with a modifier), an informal term to describe someone mad, wild, crazy etc.

(10) In (chiefly UK) slang a thing or person of notable qualities or abilities (often in the form crackerjack).

(11) In Australian & New Zealand slang, something or someone thought worthless or useless (often in the form “not worth a cracker).

(12) In computing senses (as cracker, crack, and cracking), terms suggested in the 1980s as an alternative to “white-hat hacker” in an attempt to create a more positive public image of certain activities.

(13) In cryptology, as code-cracker (synonymous with code-breaker), one who decodes, analogous with the previous safe-cracker but often without the pejorative associations.

(14) A short piece of twisted material (often string) tied to the end of a whip that creates the distinctive sound when the whip is thrown (or cracked); the crack is the sonic boom as the material passes through the sound barrier.

(15) In zoology, a northern pintail, species of dabbling duck.

(16) In materials processing, a pair of fluted rolls used for grinding (obsolete).

(17) In Czech slang, a drug user.

(17) In botany, as crackerberry, The Canadian bunchberry (Cornus canadensis).

1400-1450: Crack was from the Middle English crakken, craken & craker, from the Old English cracian (to resound, crack), from the Proto-West Germanic krakōn, from the Proto-Germanic krakōną (to crack, crackle, shriek), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European gerhz (to resound, cry hoarsely).  It was cognate with the Scots crak (to crack), the West Frisian kreakje (to crack), the Dutch kraken (to crunch, creak, squeak), the Low German kraken (to crack), the German krachen (to crash, crack, creak), the Lithuanian gìrgžděti (to creak, squeak), the Old Armenian կարկաչ (karkačʿ) and the Sanskrit गर्जति (gárjati) (to roar, hum).  The meaning “to break” is thought related to the Latin crepare (to rattle, crack, creak), and the secondary, figurative meaning of that “boast of, prattle, make ado about” gave rise to the Elizabethan era meaning of “a braggard”, which, after reaching southern North America in the 1760s, gained new interpretations.

The sense of a cracker as a hard bread dates from the fifteenth century but the use to describe a thin, crisp biscuit was first attested in 1739.  The most common modern understanding of a cracker is a dry, thin, crispy baked biscuit (usually salty or savory, but sometimes sweet, as in the case of graham crackers and animal crackers.  Being thin and crisp they crack easily (hence cracker (literally "that which cracks or breaks", agent noun from the verb crack)) and are often sold with a modifier added to the name (cream cracker, saltine cracker, soda cracker, water cracker et al).  The meaning in agricultural milling (instrument for crushing or cracking) is from 1630s and in various forms of engineering, chemistry & physics, the descriptor was adopted over the centuries, the best known the steam-powered coal cracker (machinery that breaks up mined coal (1857)) although the term (apparently since 1853) the tem had been applied to people manually doing the same job.  The original Cracker-barrel dates from 1861 and was literally a "barrel full of soda-crackers for sale" and came to be associated with general stores in rural areas which influenced the development by 1905 of the adjectival sense “cracker barrel” to suggest something or someone "emblematic of unsophisticated ways and views".  The noun wisecracker dates from 1906 an was an invention of American English meaning someone boastful (from wise + crack (in the sense of "boast") and though wisecrack survived, the use wisecracker, wisecracking and cracker in this general sense declined as “wise guy” came to be preferred.  The idea of crackers referring to someone mad or exhibiting unstable behavior emerged in the late nineteenth century and was based on the imagery of something “cracked up”; crackpot was of similar origin, the idea of boiling water in a pot with a crack being unwise.

The noun nut-cracker (also nutcracker) (hand operated instrument for cracking hard-shelled nuts) dates from the 1540s although there is evidence similar devices had been fabricated centuries earlier.  The term was applied to the "toy having a grotesque human head, in the mouth of which a nut is placed to be cracked by a screw or lever".  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's (1840-1893) two-act "fairy ballet" The Nutcracker was first performed in 1892; it was based on Alexandre Dumas' (1802–1870) rendition of ETA Hoffmann's (1776-1822) story Nussknacker und Mausekönig (The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1816)).

The noun cracker-jack (also crackerjack) (something excellent) was a US colloquialism from 1893, said to be a fanciful construction, the earliest use in reference to racing horses and the first evidence of the caramel-coated popcorn-and-peanuts confection is from the World's Columbian Exposition of that year, the (unverified) connection being someone using the then popular expression "that's a cracker-jack" when tasting some; the name was trademarked 1896, the "Prize in Every Box" introduced 1912.  The noun firecracker (also fire-cracker) (exploding paper cylinder) dates from 1830, a coinage of American English for what is elsewhere in the English-speaking world called a cracker, but the US use distinguishes it from the word related to thin biscuits.  The noun safecracker (also safe-cracker) was first used in 1897, a reference to thieves who used dynamite.

Cracker (and Cracker State) is used as a neutral or affectionate nickname by inhabitants of the US states if Georgia and Florida.  However, when applied by outsiders, it’s often used with disparaging intent and perceived as an insult.  Cracker is always disparaging and offensive when used to refer to a poor white person in the South; the word in this sense often implies that the person is regarded as ignorant or uneducated (and thus vaguely similar to redneck, hillbilly, chav bogan et al used in various places).  However, when used by people of color, cracker can refer to a white racist or white supremacist and be unrelated to whether the target is poor or rural; in that it’s in the long and unsuccessful tradition of trying to coin descriptors (honky, peckerwood, redneck, trailer n-word, trailer trash, white trash, whitey, wonderbread et al) which white people find offensive.

The origin of cracker as a racial slur against poor white Southerners is uncertain.  One theory suggests it began (as corn-crackers) with impoverished white corn and wheat farmers who cracked their crops rather than taking them to the mill for processing.  An alternative explanation is that it was applied because Georgia and Florida settlers (the original Florida crackers) cracked whips to drive herds of cattle; the related speculative etymology references the whip cracking of plantation slave drivers.  Both may be correct yet may have run in parallel with the inherited use of cracker in use since the Elizabethan era to describe braggarts, the link being the sense (attested from the early sixteenth century) of "a boaster, a braggart", thought related to the Latin crepare (to rattle, crack, creak), the secondary figurative sense of which was "boast of, prattle, make ado about".  It’s argued the US form emerged to suggest a boastful person was “not all he was cracked up to be”.

Published in Darwin since 1949, the NT News serves readers in Australia’s Northern Territory and, purchased in 1960, was one of Rupert Murdoch’s early acquisitions, published to this day by News Corp.  Rather than the journalism within, it’s noted for its award winning front pages, many of which feature large crocodiles, double entendres, or a combination of the two and the most famous remains WHY I STUCK A CRACKER UP MY CLACKER.  The onomatopoeic clacker in most places means (1) in music a percussion instrument that makes a clacking noise and (2) by extension, any device which makes a clacking noise but in the slang of Australia & New Zealand it also means (3) “the anus” (the etymological connection hopefully obvious).  Helpfully, the NT News did explain why the firework was so placed (and detonated) and, unsurprisingly for anyone acquainted with Northern Territory culture, it involved alcohol.  Firecrackers remain available for sale in the Northern Territory on specific occasions, long after most jurisdictions in the country banned “cracker nights”, the origins of which lay in the “Gunpowder Plot”, the attempt on 5 November 1605 by Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) to blow up the English houses of parliament.  Guy Fawkes' plot was thwarted and although the Luftwaffe did some damage, the UK's parliament has, with the odd interruption, kept going as a place of "low skulduggery" and the occasional "pursuit of noble causes", one often disguised as the other.

Boris Johnson & Liz Truss discussing policy.

That the members of the British Conservative & Unionist Party (the Tories) voted to replace Boris Johnson (b 1964; prime-minister 2018-2022) as leader with Liz Truss (b 1975; prime-minister since 2022) was predicted by the polls, her margin of 57.4% was less decisive than recent contests (Boris Johnson (2019, 66.4%), Davis Cameron (2005 67.6 %) & Ian Duncan Smith (2001 60.7%)) and some had suggested a better number was expected.  One interesting aspect of the succession is the Tories have chosen to replace one madman with another.  Under the compelling system of characterization suggested by former Labour Party notable Tony Benn (1925-2015; aka Anthony Wedgwood Benn & the second Viscount Stansgate), those who ascend the greasy pole to the premiership are either: (1) madmen (2) fixers or (3) straight men.  Madmen change people, institutions and history, if necessary blowing up whatever stands in their way (figuratively, unlike Guy Fawkes and the Luftwaffe although prime-ministers, madmen, fixers and straight men alike, have shown little reluctance literally to blow up small parts of other people's countries if there's political advantage to be had); fixers are those who do deals and strike bargains to gain the consensus needed to make the system work better; straight men are incrementalists who seek to maintain the existing system and their place within  Politics does tend to be cyclical and though the three types don’t always operate in sequential rotation, it is unusual for one madman to replace another as Tory Party leader whereas there have in the past been successions of straight men or fixers.  US political scientists have also explored the idea of political cycles, described usually with labels something like conflict, consensus & idealism, the concept similar to Benn's idea.

Liz Truss in pantsuit.

Most observes seem to agree Liz Truss is a madman in the sense Benn used but while few suggest she’s actually barking mad (or even unstable to whatever degree a clinician might delicately describe her state of mind), most enjoyed the thoughts of Dominic Cummings (b 1971; political strategist and adviser to Boris Johnson 2019-2020).  Cummings is hardly an impartial observer but in branding Ms Truss “about as close to properly crackers as anybody I’ve met in parliament”, he did strike a chord in finding a way succinctly to express what many thought but couldn’t quite put into words.  Crackers is such a good word and in the world of the early 2020s, for a head of government, it might be more a qualification than a diagnosis; desirable but not essential.

Number 10: Coming and going.

Of course what's more interesting than Ms Truss being elected to an office once held by Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), Lord Salisbury (1830–1903), Winston Churchill (1874–1965) & Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) was that although she may be crackers, all alternatives were clearly thought worse still.  It may seem not a desirable time to take Number 10 but the chance doesn’t occur that often (although there’s of late been a bit of churn) and, regardless of the circumstances, Ms Truss must think it still "something to be prime-minister of England" so should be wished the best of British luck.  If it works out then all’s well that ends well but one who will be watching with particular interest is Mr Johnson because, recalling Disraeli’s words that “finality is not the language of politics” he’ll not have abandoned hope but whether he comes back will be dependent wholly on events.  If the circumstances align so the Tories think only he can win them an election (or at least limit the loss of seats) then they'll take him back and so marvelously unprincipled is Mr Johnson that if need be, he'd campaign on the basis of re-joining the EU.  People still don't seem to realize how much he enjoyed being PM and principles will be blown up if they stand in the way.  His affectionate biography of Churchill added little to the historical record but he'll no doubt be re-reading the bits which covered "the wilderness years" between 1929-1939 although the millions he'll make from the public-speaking circuit and other lucrative dabbles should soften the blow; it's doubtful he'll be reduced to a diet of locusts and wild honey.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus Called from the Plow to the Dictatorship (circa 1707), oil on canvas by Sebastiano Ricci (1659–1734)

Barely out the door, already he’s missed.  Comparing himself to a spaceship's booster rockets falling back to Earth after their usefulness ended was a nice touch but not un-noticed in Mr Johnson's valedictory address was his allusion to the Roman dictator Cincinnatus (circa 519–circa 430 BC) who, after a brief rule, retired to his farm only later to return to solve a crisis no one else could master.  It's worth noting too that booster rockets, fished from the water after "splashing down invisibly in some remote and obscure corner of the Pacific" are now designed to be returned to the shop to be refurbished, refueled and re-fitted for re-launch.

Although he has a lifetime's history of carelessness in such matters, on this occasion, one suspects Mr Johnson chose his words with rare care and nobody would deny he has a way with words.  Mixing his classical allusions with quotes from pop culture lent his speeches a vividness often lacking in politics and his farewell phrase uttered in PMQs (prime-minister's questions) in the House of Commons was borrowed from the second Terminator movie: "Hasta la vista baby! (see you later!)"  It was going down with guns blazing but what was probably on his mind was the punchier phrase made famous in the first film: "I'll be back!"

Glove & Mitten

Glove (pronounced gluhv)

(1) A shaped covering for the hand with individual sheaths for the fingers and thumb, made of leather, fabric etc.

(2) To cover with or as if with a glove; provide with gloves.

(3) In specialized use (as golf glove, boxing glove, driving glove etc), any of various protective or grip-enhancing hand covers worn in sports and related pursuits.

(4) In the rules of cricket, to touch a delivery with one's glove while the gloved hand is on the bat.  Under the rules of cricket, the batsman is deemed to have hit the ball with the bat.

Pre 900: From the Middle English glove & glofe, from the Old English glōf, glōfe & glōfa (glove (weak forms attested only in plural form glōfan (gloves))), from the Proto-Germanic galōfô (glove), a construct of ga- (the collective and associative prefix) + lōfô (flat of the hand, palm), from the primitive Indo-European lāp-, lēp-, & lep- (flat).  It was cognate with the Old Norse glōfi, the Scots gluve & gluive (glove) and the Icelandic glófi (glove).  It was related to the Middle English lofe &, lufe (palm of the hand).  The verb form “to cover or fit with a glove” emerged circa 1400, gloved & gloving followed later; Old English had adjective glofed.  The surname Glover is recorded in parish records from the mid-thirteenth century.  In German, Handschuh is the usual word for glove and translates literally as "hand-shoe"; the Old High German was hantscuoh and it exist in both Danish and Swedish as hantsche, all related to the Old English Handscio (the name of one of Beowulf's companions, eaten by Grendel) which was attested only as a proper name.  Glove is both noun and verb, gloved a verb and adjective, the other adjectival forms being gloveless, glovelike, un·gloved.

Glove appear often in English sayings.  To throw down the glove (often also as gauntlet) is to offer a challenge; to take up the glove is to accept it.  Fits like a glove (attested from 1771) indicates something perfect; to be hand in glove is to be in association with (often pejorative); to treat with kid gloves means gently to handle; to hang up the gloves (in the sense of a pugilist) is to retire.  Again, drawn from boxing, to take off the gloves (when in a dispute or argument) is to continue ruthlessly without regard for the normal rules of conduct; boxing gloves apparently date from 1847.

Mitten (pronounced mit-n)

(1) A hand covering enclosing the four fingers together and the thumb separately; sometimes shortened to mitt.

(2) A slang term for any form of glove (rare).

1350–1400: From the Middle English miteyn & mitain, from the Old & Middle French mitan, miton & mitaine (mitten; half-glove), from Old French mitaine (Mitain noted as a surname from the mid-thirteenth century).  The Modern French spelling is mitaine, from the Frankish mitamo & mittamo (half), superlative of mitti (midpoint), from the Proto-Germanic midjô & midją (middle, center), from the primitive Indo-European médhyos (between, in the middle, center).  It was cognate with the Old High German mittamo & metemo (half, in the middle), the Old Dutch medemest (midmost) and the Old English medume (average, moderate, medium).  Related to all was the Medieval Latin mitta of uncertain origin but perhaps from the Middle High German mittemo & the Old High German mittamo (middle, midmost (reflecting the notion of "half-glove")), or from the Vulgar Latin medietana (divided in the middle) from the Classical Latin medius.  From circa 1755, a mitten was a "lace or knitted silk glove for women covering the forearm, the wrist, and part of the hand", a item of fashion for women in the early 1800s and revived at the turn of the twentieth century.  The now obsolete colloquial phrase from the 1820s get the mitten meaning “a man refused or dismissed as a lover", the notion receiving the mitten instead of the hand.  The only derived for is the adjective mittenlike; mittened apparently doesn’t exist.

Lindsay Lohan in gloves.

In general use, many things technically mittens are referred to as gloves.  Boxing gloves for example don't have separate fingers but there is actually a boxing mitt.  It features thicker knuckle padding compared to standard boxing gloves, designed to protect the hands from heavy boxing bag impacts.  Manufacturers caution that while they can be used for pad work, their dense foam protection is not ideal for sparring sessions.

World War II (1939-1945) veteran George HW Bush (1924–2018; US President (George XLI 1989-1993)) would have remembered Winston Churchill's (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) wartime "V for victory" sign and that’s the meaning the gesture gained in the US.  Unfortunately he wasn’t aware of its significance in the antipodes: when given with the palm facing inwards, it’s the equivalent to the upraised middle finger in the US.  On a state visit to Australia in 1992, while his motorcade was percolating through Canberra, he made the sign to some locals lining the road.  What might have been thought a slight worked out well, the crowd lining the road cheering the gesture which must have been encouraging.  That same day, the president gave a speech advocating stronger efforts “to foster greater understanding” between the American and Australian cultures. The Lakeland Ledger, reporting his latest gaffe, wrote, “...wearing mittens when abroad would be a beginning”.

Bernie Sanders, (b 1941; US senator (independent) for Vermont since 2007 and "Crazy Bernie" in Donald Trump's naming system) wearing mittens at President Biden’s inauguration, Washington DC, 20 January 2021.  Vermont folk are used to cold winters and the mittens attracted memes.  Here, comrade Bernie bookends the 1945 Yalta Conference with comrade Stalin.

Knickers

Knickers (pronounced nik-erz)

(1) Loose-fitting short trousers gathered in at the knees.

(2) A bloomers-like undergarment worn by women.

(3) A general term for the panties worn by women.

(4) In product ranges, a descriptor of certain styles of panties, usually the short-legged underpants worn by women or girls.

(5) As the slang “to get one's knickers in a twist”, to become flustered or agitated (mostly UK, Australia & New Zealand).

(6) In slang, a mild expression of annoyance (archaic).

1866: A clipping of knickerbockers (the plural and a special use of knickerbocker).  The use is derived from the short breeches worn by Diedrich Knickerbocker in George Cruikshank's illustrations of Washington Irving's (1783-1859) A History of New York (1809), published under the pen-name Dietrich Knickbocker.  The surname Knickerbocker (also spelled Knikkerbakker, Knikkerbacker, and Knickerbacker) is a American creation, based on the names of early Dutch early settlers of New Netherland, thought probably derived from the Dutch immigrant Harmen Jansen van Bommel(l), who went variously by the names van Wy(y)e, van Wyekycback(e), Kinnekerbacker, Knickelbacker, Knickerbacker, Kinckerbacker, Nyckbacker, and Kynckbacker.  The precise etymology is a mystery, speculations including a corruption of the Dutch Wyekycback, the Dutch knacker (cracker) + the German Bäcker (or the Dutch bakker (baker)), or the Dutch knicker (marble (toy)) + the German Bäcker (or the Dutch bakker).  Aside from the obvious application (of or relating to knickerbockers), it was in the US used attributively as a modifier, referencing the social class with which the garment was traditionally associated; this use is now listed as archaic.

Men in knickerbockers.

Washington Irving was an American short-story writer and diplomat, most remembered today as the author of Rip Van Winkle (1819).  Although the bulk of his work was that of a conventional historian, his early writing was satirical, many of his barbs aimed at New York’s high society and it was Irving who in 1807 first gave NYC the nickname "Gotham" (from the Anglo-Saxon, literally “homestead where goats are kept”, the construct being the Old English gāt (goat) +‎ hām (home)).  The name Diedrich Knickerbocker he introduced in 1809 in A History of New York (the original title A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty).  A satire of local politics and personalities, it was also an elaborate literary hoax, Irving through rumor and missing person advertisements creating the impression Mr Knickerbocker had vanished from his hotel, leaving behind nothing but a completed manuscript.  The story captured the public imagination and, under the Knickerbocker pseudonym, Irving published A History of New York to critical and commercial success.  The name Diedrich Knickerbocker became a nickname for the Manhattan upper-class (later extended to New Yorkers in general) and was adopted by the New York Knickerbockers basketball team (1845-1873), the name revived in 1946 for the team now part of the US National Basketball League although their name usually appears as the New York Knicks.  The figurative use to describe New Yorkers of whatever status faded from use early in the twentieth century.  Knickerbocker was of course a real name, one of note the US foreign correspondent HR Knickerbocker (1898–1949) who in 1936 was a journalist for the Hearst Press, accredited to cover the Spanish Civil War.  Like many foreign reporters, his work made difficult by the military censors who, after many disputes, early in 1937 deported him after he’d tried to report the retreat of one of the brigades supplied by the Duce with the words “The Italians fled, lock, stock and barrel-organ”.

For designers, conventional knickers can be an impediment so are sometimes discarded: Anja Rubik, Met Gala 2012.  Note JBF hair-style and fine hip-bone definition.

Knickers dates from 1866, in reference to loose-fitting pants for men worn buckled or buttoned at the waist and knees, a clipping of knickerbockers, used since 1859 and so called for their because of their resemblance to the trousers of old-time Dutchmen in George Cruikshank's (1792-1878) illustrations in the History of New York.  A now extinct derivation was the Scottish nicky-tam (garter worn over trousers), dating from 1911, a shortened, colloquial form, the construct being knickers + the Scottish & northern English dialect taum, from Old Norse taumr (cord, rein, line), cognate with the Old English team, the root sense of which appears to be "that which draws".  It was originally a string tied by Scottish farmers around rolled-up trousers to keep the legs of them out of the dirt (in the style of the plus-fours once associated with golf, so-named because they were breeches with four inches of excess material which could hang in a fold below the fastening beneath the knee, the plus-four a very similar style to the classic knickerbocker).  The word “draws” survives in Scots-English to refer to trousers in general.  It also had a technical use in haberdashery, describing a linsey-woolsey fabric with a rough knotted surface on the right side which was once a popular fabric for women's dresses.

Cami-knickers, 1926, Marshalls & Snelgrove, Oxford Street, London.

The New York garment industry in 1882 adopted knickers to describe a "short, loose-fitting undergarment for women" apparently because of the appeal of the name.  By 1884, the word had crossed the Atlantic and in both France and the UK was used to advertise the flimsier of women’s “unmentionables” and there have long many variations (although there’s not always a consistency of style between manufacturers) including camiknickers, French knickers, the intriguingly-named witches' knickers & (the somewhat misleading) no knickers.  From the very start, women’s knickers were, as individual items, sold as “a pair” and there’s no “knicker” whereas the singular form knickerbocker, unlike the plural, may only refer to a single garment.  In the matter of English constructed plurals, the history matters rather than any rule.  Shoes and socks are obviously both a pair because that’s how they come but a pair of trousers seems strange because it’s a single item.  That’s because modern "trousers" evolved from the Old Scots Trews, Truis & Triubhas and the Middle English trouzes & trouse which were separate items (per leg) and thus supplied in pairs, the two coverings joined by a breechcloth or a codpiece.  A pair of spectacles (glasses) is similar in that lens were originally separate (al la the monocle), things which could be purchased individually or as a pair.  The idea of a pair of knickers was natural because it was an adaptation of earlier use for the men’s garments, sold as “pairs of knickerbockers” or “pairs of knickers”.

Lindsay Lohan in cage bra and knickers, Complex Magazine photoshoot, 2011.

The bra, like a pair of knckers, is designed obviously to accommodate a pair yet is described in the singular for reasons different again.  Its predecessor, the bodice, was often supplied in two pieces (and was thus historically referred to as “a pair of bodies” (and later “a pair of bodicies”)) and laced together but that’s unrelated to the way a bra is described: It’s a clipping of the French brassière and that is singular.  Brasserie entered English in the late nineteenth century although the French original often more closely resembled a chemise or camisole, the adoption in English perhaps influenced by the French term for something like the modern bra being soutien-gorge (literally, "throat-supporter") which perhaps had less appeal although it may be no worse than the more robust rehausseur de poitrine (chest uplifter) which offers more functionally still.  Being English, brassiere was soon shortened to bra and a vast supporting industry evolved.

Kiki de Montparnasse lace knickers, US$190 at FarFetch.

Metabolism

Metabolism (pronounced muh-tab-uh-liz-uhm)

(1) In biology and physiology, the sum of the physical and chemical processes in an organism by which its material substance is produced, maintained, and destroyed, and by which energy is made available; the chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.

(2) Any basic process of organic functioning or operating; inorganic metaphors, applied to the processes that maintain any dynamic system) are sometimes technically dubious but widely used even in fields like theology, poetics, and entomology.

(3) A post-war movement in Japanese architecture and structural engineering which fused the concepts and design metaphors in architectural mega-structures with those of organic biological growth (always with initial capital).

1878: From the French métabolisme, the construct being the Ancient Greek μεταβολή (metabolḗ) (a change) from metaballein (to change) or from μεταβάλλω (metabállō) (I change, I alter) + -ism.  The construct of metaballein was meta- (change) + ballein (to throw), from the primitive Indo-European root gwele- (to throw, reach).  The –ism suffix is from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & ισμα (isma) (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).

The verb metabolize dates from 1887 (transitive) (to subject to metabolism, transform by assimilation or decomposition) and 1934 (intransitive) (to perform metabolism) was from the Ancient Greek μεταβολή (metabolḗ) (a change).  The adjective metabolic was first noted in 1845 in the biological sense (exhibiting or affected by metabolism), from the German metabolisch (1839), from the Ancient Greek metabolikos (changeable) again from μεταβολή (metabolḗ).

The mammal with the slowest metabolism: The three toed sloth

Famously slow-moving, travelling typically at an average speed of 0.15 mph (0.24 km/h), three-toed sloths are tree-living mammals which inhabit South and Central America.  After seven years of studying three-toed sloths (and one can understand why it might take a while), scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison confirmed they are the mammals with the slowest metabolism on earth.  Essentially, a metabolism is sum of the physical & chemical processes by which cells produce the substances and energy needed to sustain life. As part of metabolism, organic compounds are broken down to provide heat and energy in the process called catabolism.  The overall speed at which an organism carries out its metabolic processes is termed its metabolic rate.

They also looked into what had long been repeated, even before the internet, but which turned out to be an urban myth: that the three-toed sloth defecates but once a month and the process takes three days.  It seems that was based on and observational study of one animal in captivity and that behavior was not typical of those in the wild.  In their natural habitat, the languid creatures defecate about once a week and take around an hour, a frequency explained by their peculiar diet; each meal taking about eight days fully to digest.  By comparison, sloth copulation lasts an average of twenty-five minutes which is not unimpressive but the authors of the study did note the act was done “not especially energetically”.