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 etc). 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 etc 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 etc) 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.
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.
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!"
