Fracture

Fracture (pronounced frak-cher)

(1) The breaking of a bone, cartilage, or the like, or the resulting condition.

(2) The act of breaking; state of being broken.

(3) A division, break, breach, or split.

(4) The characteristic manner or appearance of breaking.

(5) In mineralogy, the characteristic appearance of the surface of a freshly broken mineral or rock; the way in which a mineral or rock naturally breaks

(6) To cause or to suffer a fracture in (a bone, etc).

(7) As Fraktur, a typeface of German origin.

Early 1400s: From the Middle English fracture (a breaking of a bone), from the fourteenth century Old French fracture, from the Latin fractūra (a breach, fracture, cleft), from fractus, past participle of frangere (to break), from the primitive Indo-European bhreg (to break) and a doublet of fraktur.  The sense of "a broken surface" dates from 1794.  As a transitive verb meaning “cause a fracture in”, use appears to have begun in the 1610s (implied in fractured) and the intransitive meaning "become fractured" is from 1830.  Fracture & fracturer are nouns, fractured & fracturing (used with an object) are verbs, fracturable, fractured & fractural are adjectives.

The Dürers Fraktur typeface.

The noun fraktur (German black-lettering) dates from 1886 from the German Fraktur (black-letter, Gothic type), also "a fracture, a break", again from the Latin fractūra and so- called because of the styles angular (ie “broken") letters.  Fraktur became a common style in German printing from circa 1540 and was later exported to the Pennsylvania German arts that incorporate the lettering.  Scholars consider Fraktur a fusion of the Textur and Schwabacher letter-forms, the characteristics of Textur evident in the Fraktyr minuscules.  Schwabacher, another black-letter form, was widely used in early German print typefaces and was still in use until the mid twentieth century by which time use was entirely supplanted by Fraktur, an extensive variety of these fonts carved.  The first Fraktur typeface was designed when Maximilian I (1459–1519; King of the Romans 1486-1519 & Holy Roman Emperor 1508-1519) commissioned a series of books and ordered a new typeface created specifically for this publication; this first iteration of Fraktur was designed by Hieronymus Andreae (circa 1490-1556), a craftsman noted also for his woodcuts.  

Fonts in transition: Nazi Party poster advertising a “Freedoms Rally” (the irony not apparent at the time), Schneidemuhl, Germany, (now Pila, Poland) in 1931 (left), Edict issued by Martin Bormann (1900–1945) banning the future use of Judenlettern (Jewish fonts) like Fraktur (the irony of the letterhead being in the now banned typeface presumably didn’t disturb the author) (centre) and (in modern Roman script), an announcement in occupied that 100 Polish hostages had been executed as a reprisal for death of two Germans in Warsaw, 1944 (right).

Sometimes, the message was the typeface itself; it imparted values that were separate from the specific meaning in the text.  The Nazi regime (1933-1945) in Germany was always conscious of spectacle and although in matters of such as architecture customs there was a surprising tolerance of regional difference, in some things it demanded uniformity and one of those was the appearance of official documents.  Early in his rule their rule, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader), German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) decreed that “German Black Letter” should be used for all official purposes (and it was used in the cover art of most early editions of Mein Kampf); Hitler, who to the end thought himself an “artist”, liked the heavy, angular form for its encapsulation of the Germanic.  Fraktur is probably the best known of these although it’s but one of a number of variations of the typeface and such was the extend of the state support for the font that the party was critical of newspapers, publishers & magazines which used more modern (and easier to read) forms (and they were used by the German military and civil service when legibility was important), a frequent criticism being the “Roman characters” somehow represented a “Jewish influence”.  In one of the ironies of history however, when it became apparent that when used in letters and notices distributed to enforce rule in the occupied territories the use of the font was counter-productive because it was so hard to read, the Nazis suddenly declared that Fraktur had become contaminated wand was thus proscribed as Judenlettern (Jewish letters), official documents thereafter rendered in modern Roman type.  Martin Bormann's edict was issued thus:

I announce the following, by order of the Führer:

It is false to regard the so-called Gothic typeface as a German typeface. In reality, the so-called Gothic typeface consists of Schwabacher-Jewish letters. Just as they later came to own the newspapers, the Jews living in Germany also owned the printing presses… and thus came about the common use in Germany of Schwabacher-Jewish letters.

Today the Führer… decided that Antiqua type is to be regarded as the standard typeface. Over time, all printed matter should be converted to this standard typeface. This will occur as soon as possible in regard to school textbooks, only the standard script will be taught in village and primary schools. The use of Schwabacher-Jewish letters by authorities will in future cease. Certificates of appointment for officials, street signs and the like will in future only be produced in standard lettering…

Broken bones, fractured bones

There’s a widespread perception among lay-people that when it comes to broken bones, there’s a difference between a fracture and a break, a fracture being a kind of crack which doesn’t result in a clear separation whereas in a break, there’s a visible gap between the two broken pieces.  However, to physicians, the two mean the same thing, the only difference being that “fracture” is the preferred medical jargon, whereas a “break” is just a term sometimes used casually with customers (whom they prefer to call patients).  Anatomists list fourteen distinguishing characteristics of fractures, adding that injuries may result in some overlap in the categorization and (at least) a duplication of terminology in any description.

(1) Avulsion fracture: A muscle or ligament pulls on the bone, fracturing it.

(2) Comminuted fracture: An impact shatters the bone into many pieces.

(3) Compression, or crush, fracture: This generally occurs in the spongy bone in the spine. For example, the front portion of a vertebra in the spine may collapse due to osteoporosis.

(4) Fracture dislocation: This occurs when a joint dislocates, and one of the bones of the joint fractures.

(5) Greenstick fracture: The bone partly fractures on one side but does not break completely, because the rest of the bone can bend.

(6) Hairline fracture: This is a thin, partial fracture of the bone.

(7) Impacted fracture: When a bone fractures, a piece of the bone may impact another bone.

(8) Intra-articular fracture: This occurs when a fracture extends into the surface of a joint.

(9) Longitudinal fracture: This is when the fracture extends along the length of the bone.

(10) Oblique fracture: An oblique fracture is one that occurs opposite to a bone’s long axis.

(11) Pathological fracture: This occurs when an underlying condition weakens the bone and causes a fracture.

(12) Spiral fracture: Here, at least one part of the bone twists during a break.

(13) Stress fracture: Repeated stress and strain can fracture a bone. This is common among athletes.

(14) Transverse fracture: This is a straight break across the bone.

Bones are (substantially) rigid organs that support and protect many organs as well as producing red and white blood cells and storing minerals.  While there are variations, a typical adult human has 206 separate bones which, although tough and sometimes slightly flexible to absorb stress, if the pressure sustained is beyond a certain point, the bone will fracture.  In casual use, this is called a “broken bone” but to physicians it’s always a fracture which means simply there’s a break in the continuity of the bone. Symptoms vary, including pain, bones protruding through the skin, swelling, distortion in the appearance of body parts (especially limbs & digits) and loss of function.  Generally, bone fractures are either traumatic or pathological.  A traumatic fracture is where blunt force trauma has been applied such as the impact injuries sustained by falling or hitting something hard.  Pathological fractures are those which are the result of diseases such as Osteoporosis, chronic kidney or liver conditions, rickettes and hypovitaminosis D.

Fractures are sub-classified by anatomical location (skull fracture, rib fracture etc (an in casual use broken arm, broken leg etc)).  Physicians further refine their descriptions by mapping on an orthopaedic schematic in which fractures are defined by their state such as open fracture (bone is visible and the skin ripped), closed fracture (skin is intact), compression fractures, incomplete fracture, linear fracture etc.  Bone fractures are now most often diagnosed through imaging, most commonly with X-rays and treatment consists of pain management, keeping bones intact with splints or screws (or surgery depending on severity).  In extreme cases, amputation may be required if an infection can’t be controlled.

Break was from the Middle English breken, from the Old English brecan (to divide solid matter violently into parts or fragments; to injure, violate (a promise, etc), destroy, curtail; to break into, rush into; to burst forth, spring out; to subdue or tame), from the Proto-West Germanic brekan, from the Proto-Germanic brekaną & brekanan (to break), from the primitive Indo-European bhreg- (to break) and a doublet of bray.  Etymologists list the brecan as a (class IV) strong verb; past tense bræc, past participle brocen), the Proto-Germanic brekanan source also of the Old Frisian breka, the Dutch breken, the Old High German brehhan, the German brechen and the Gothic brikan), all ultimately from the primitive Indo-European root bhreg- (to break).

It was related closely to the nouns breach, brake & brick. The old past tense brake is obsolete or archaic and while still sometimes erroneously used, it’s long been an irregular form.  The past participle is broken but the shortened form broke is attested from the fourteenth century and the Oxford English Dictionary reported it was "exceedingly common" in the seventeenth & eighteenth century.  The meaning in the Old English applied to bones but formerly had been used also of also of cloth, paper and other fabrics, the meaning "escape by breaking an enclosure" dating from the late fourteenth century whereas the intransitive sense "be or become separated into fragments or parts under action of some force" was known by the late twelfth and the sense of "lessen, impair" was noted in the late fifteenth.  

Forks in the meaning emerged continuously: "make a first and partial disclosure" is from early 1200s and "destroy continuity or completeness" in any way is from 1741.  As applied to physical legal tender (coins or bills), break was being used to describe “converting a larger unit into smaller units of currency" by 1882 although the oral tradition may have long predated this.  That favorite of authors and poets, the “break her heart” is an intransitive verb from the fourteenth century.  To break bread (share food with someone) is from the late 1300s while to break ground (to dig or plough) was noted first in 1674 while the now rare figurative sense "begin to execute a plan" is from 1709.  To break the ice in the sense of "overcome the feeling of restraint in a new acquaintanceship" is from circa 1600, the reference an allusion to the "coldness" found sometimes in encounters with strangers.  To break wind was first attested in the 1550s although it may have been long used as one of the many way of describing this ancient practice.  To break (something) out is though probably is an image from dock work, of freeing cargo before unloading it and it is documented from the 1890s.

Lindsay Lohan with broken left wrist (fractured in two places in an unfortunate fall at Milk Studios during New York Fashion Week) and 355 ml (12 fluid oz) can of Rehab energy drink, Los Angeles, September 2006.  The car is a 2006 Mercedes-Benz SL 65 (R230; 2004-2011) which would later feature in the tabloids after a low-speed crash.  The R230 range (2001-2011) was unusual because of the quirk of the SL 550 (2006-2011), a designation used exclusively in the North American market, the RoW (rest of the world) cars retaining the SL 500 badge even though both used the 5.5 litre (333 cubic inch) V8 (M273).

While the ironic theatrical good luck formula “break a leg” appears not to have been documented until 1948, it’s thought to have been in use since at least the 1920s and has a parallels in the German Hals- und Beinbruch (break your neck and leg) and the similar Italian in bocca al lupo. (into the wolf's mouth), the standard response to which is crepi il lupo! (may the wolf die), truncate usually as simply crepi! (may it die) although, in a sign of the times, the animal welfare lobby has suggested viva il lupo! (may the wolf live) but this is said not to have caught on with the thespians.  According to one dictionary of etymology, the expression “break a leg” was in the seventeenth century used euphemistically, of a woman, "to have a bastard" although whether this had any relationship to the traditions of theatre isn’t noted.

The noun break (act of breaking, forcible disruption or separation) was derived from the verb circa 1300 and the break of day "first appearance of light in the morning" dates from the 1580s, that senses extended by 1725 to mean any "sudden, marked transition from one course, place, or state to another".  The sense of a "short interval between spells of work" applied originally between lessons at school and was from 1861, enduring to this day in concepts such as the notorious “spring breaks”.  The “lucky break” meaning "stroke of good luck" is attested by 1911, thought to be drawn from the game of billiards (where the break that scatters the ordered balls and starts the game is attested from 1865). The now archaic meaning "stroke of mercy" is from 1914 and the use in Jazz music to describe an "improvised passage, solo" is from 1920s.  Broadcasting adopted the term in 1941 and applied it variously to handle the intervals between programmes although it was later augmented by the “sting”, a short piece of music to cover any break.  The "mini-break" is a (UK) colloquial term for a short "holiday" of 2-3 days; it was popularized in Helen Fielding's (b 1958) 1996 novel Bridget Jones's Diary and is used sometimes as a euphemism for a dirty weekend.

Burger

Burger (pronounced bur-ger or bur-gha)

(1) A clipping of hamburger.

(2) A disc-shaped food patty (or patty on a bun), sometimes containing ingredients other than beef including vegetarian concoctions.

(3) In Pakistani slang (usually derogatory), as burger or hamburger, a stereotypically well-off Pakistani aspiring to a westernized lifestyle.

(4) In Internet slang (apparently beginning on 4chan), an American (as in a white, US citizen); of or relating to Americans.

(5) In computer graphical user interfaces (GUIs), as hamburger button, an icon with three horizontal lines (the resemblance being to the stacked ingredients of a burger).  The hamburger label was applied retrospectively, the original idea being to represent a list, the icon’s purpose being to open up a list of options; it’s thus also known as the “collapsed menu icon”.

1939: An invention of US English, extracted from hamburger by misunderstanding (ham + burger).  Use of the noun hamburger is not exclusive to fast food.  As early as 1616 it was noted as being the standard description both of someone “a native of the city of Hamburg" and also of ships “registered with Hamburg as their home port").  From 1838 it was the name of a black grape indigenous to Tyrolia and after 1857, a variety of hen.  Technically the meat product is a specific variation of shaped, ground beef (minced meat); as a meatball is a sphere and meatloaf is a rectangular cuboid, hamburgers (and burgers) are discs.

Co-incidence of names: Earl Warren (1891–1974; Chief Justice of the US 1953-1969 (right)), Richard Nixon (1913-1994; President of the US 1969-1974 (centre)) & Warren Earl Burger (1907–1995; Chief Justice of the US 1969-1986 (right), Washington DC, June 1969: Official photo released after the formal ceremony making Burger the fifteenth chief justice.  Neither judge, both appointed by Republican presidents, much pleased the conservatives and the state of the court today is the consequence of decades of pressure and some fortuitous timing in judicial expiry. 

Not that the burger is even exclusively fast food.  Some very expensive burgers have been created although, compared to their availability, there’s considerably less publicity about their sales.  As pieces of conspicuous consumption they must have a niche but Netherlands diner De Daltons‘ (Hoofdstraat 151, 3781AD, Voorthuizen) opted to couple indulgence with a good cause, the proceeds of their Golden Boy burger donated to the local food bank.  Emphasizing quality rather than sheer bulk, the Golden Boy was actually a good deal less hefty than some of the huge constructions burger chains in the US have offered to satisfy the gulosity of some (burgers with names like Heart Attack, XXXL, 55 oz Challenge, One Pound of Elk, Sky-high Scrum, Monster Thickburger & Killer hardly subtle hints at the target market).

Golden Boy.

By comparison, the price tag of €5,000 (US$5,100) aside, the Golden Boy seems almost restrained, though hardly modest, presented on a platter of whiskey-infused smoke, its ingredients including Wagyu beef, king crab, beluga caviar, vintage Iberico Jamon, smoked duck egg mayo, white truffle, Kopi Luwak coffee BBQ sauce, pickled tiger tomato in Japanese matcha tea, all assembled on two Dom Perignon infused gold-coated buns.  The chef insists it still just a burger and should be eaten using the hands, a nice touch being that because the buns are covered in gold leaf, fingers will be golden-tinted when the meal is finished.  A Golden Boy must be ordered two weeks in advance and a deposit of €750 (US$765) is required.

People around the world had no doubt for centuries been creating meatloaves, meatballs and meat patties before they gained the names associated with them in Western cuisine.  The idea is simply to grind-up leftover or otherwise unusable cuts, add diced vegetables & spices to taste and then blend with a thickening agent (flour, breadcrumbs, eggs et al) to permit the mix to be rendered into whatever shape is desired.  The hamburger is no more an invention of American commerce that the sandwich was of the English aristocracy.

Lindsay Lohan masticating burger, Blank Magazine, May 2011.

The words however certainly belong to late-stage capitalism.  Hamburger is noted in the US as describing meat patties in the late nineteenth century (initially as hamburg steak), the connection apparently associative with German immigrants for whom the port of embarkation was often Hamburg although there is also a documented reference from 1809 in Iceland which referred to “meat smoked in the chimney” as Hamburg beef.  There are a dozen or more stories which speculate on the origin of the modern hamburger but, in the nature of such an ephemeral craft, there is little extant evidence of the early product and there’s no reason not to assume something so obvious wasn’t “invented” in many places at much the same time.  The earliest known references which track the progression seem to be hamburger sandwich (1902), hamburger (1909) & burger (1939) although burger was by then an element in its own right, acting as a suffix for the cheeseburger (1938).  The culinary variations are legion: baconburger; cheeseburger; fishburger; beefburger; bacon & egg burger; whale burger, dog burger & dolphin burger (those three still a thing in parts of the Far East although not now widely publicized); vege burger; vegan burger; kangaroo burger, camel burger & crocodile burger (the Australians have a surplus of all these fine forms of animal protein), lamb burger, steakburger, soyburger, porkburger etc.  Opportunistic constructions like burgerlicious are created as required.  The homophones are Berger & burgher (in English use a middle-class or bourgeois person).  The noun plural is burgers.

Blogger Dario D had noticed that visually, the Big Macs he bought from random McDonalds outlets didn’t quite live up to the advertising.  That’s probably true of much industrially produced food but what was intriguing was what was revealed when he applied a tape measure to his research.  It seems Big Macs can’t be made exactly like they look in the advertising because then they would be too big to fit in the packaging.

The Big Mac Index (BMI) was created by The Economist newspaper in 1986.  The BMI is a price index which provides an indicative measure of purchasing power parity (PPP) between currencies and uses movements in the burger's price to suggest whether an official exchange rate is over or under-valued.  The newspaper has never claimed the BMI is an authoritative economic tool and has always documented its limitations but many economists have found it interesting, not so much the result on any given day but as a trend which can be charted against other metrics.  It was an imaginative approach, taking a single, almost standardized commodity available in dozens of countries and indexing the price, something which should in each place be most influenced by local factors including input costs (ingredients & labour), regulatory compliance, corruption and marketing.  Even those who don’t agree it has much utility as an economic tool agree it’s fun and other have published variations on the theme, using either a product made in one place and shipped afar or one made with locally assembled, imported components.

The BMI also brought to wider attention the odd quirk.  Although its place in the lineup has been replaced by a chicken-based dish, the Big Mac used to be on the McDonald's menu in India although, in deference to Hindu sensitivities (and in some states actual proscription), it was made not with beef but with lamb; it's said to taste exactly the same which seems a reasonable achievement.  Burgers can be thematic and these are based on the seven wonders of the ancient world:

The Colossus of Rhodes (that’s a big burger with Greek lamb)

The Great Pyramid of Giza (has an Egyptian sauce)

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (vegetarian (lettuce hanging out of it))

The Lighthouse of Alexandria (a lighter (low calorie) burger)

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (a traditional, very high calorie burger)

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia (has a very hot sauce)

The Temple of Artemis  (Diana) at Ephesus (made with square or rectangular bun and finished with burnt edges)

Lindsay Lohan with burger.

Réchauffé

Réchauffé (pronounced rey-shoh-fey )

(1) A warmed-up dish of food; the use of leftovers.

(2) By extension, anything old or stale brought back into service; old material reworked or rehashed.

Circa 1800: From the French réchauffé, past participle of réchauffer (to re-heat), the construct being r(e)- (again) + échauffer (to warm) (from the Vulgar Latin excalefāre, the construct being ex- (the intensive prefix + calefacere ( to warm).  In English, the spelling is usually rechauffe and the word was a direct borrowing from the French rechauffe, the feminine réchauffée, the masculine plural rechauffes & the feminine plural réchauffées.  Échauffer was related to Middle & Old French chaufer (which persists in modern French as chauffer) (to warm), ultimately from Latin cal(e)facere (to make hot), the construct being cale– (stem of calēre (to be hot) + facere (to make).  The Middle French chaufer was the source of English chafe (to wear or abrade by rubbing) although the original meaning was ”to warm, heat”, and that sense survives in culinary use, the chafing dish a receptacle which consists of a metal dish with a lamp or heating appliance beneath, used for keeping food hot at the table.

In English, few prefixes have been more productively applied than re- but, being a direct import from the French, re-chauffe never emerged.  The re- prefix is from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.

Rechauffe entered English early in the nineteenth century in the figurative sense which had for some time been current in France, suggesting something (ideas, literature etc) or someone (actors, artists and (especially) politicians) old being rehashed or recycled (hence the common phrase c’est du réchauffé (meaning “it’s old hat)).  That remains the most common use in English but by the late 1800s, the original sense in French (reheated food) had been picked up across the channel, presumably because “Réchauffé Bœuf bourguignon” is a more appealing dish than “yesterday’s stew”.

Lasagna (lasagne).

Before the figurative use prevailed, rechauffe referred to reheating food left over from an earlier meal, a practice doubtless common since cooking became a thing and one commendable for reducing waste and encouraging thrift.  It needs however to be undertaken with care because cooked food cannot be stored for too long without the quality deteriorating or the risk of unpleasant bacterial infection increasing.  As a general principle, never re-cook; only reheat left-overs which retain their wholesomeness.  Where possible, cut the cooked food finely (increasing the surface area will quicken the reheating and enhance the penetration of flavor, where necessary adding additional moisture (sauces or a gravy) during the reheating.  There are some foods which probably should never been reheated (most famously chicken) and some which are said to benefit from being left overnight, notably lasagna (lasagne) which many insist seems to gain some richness once rechauffed.

The politically rechauffed

Politicians in the modern age are rechauffed with less frequency than was once tolerated.  It’s hard now to imagine major political parties allowing someone who let them to defeat at an election being further indulged but in earlier times, Australia and the United States provided a few examples:

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) gained the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States in 1896, 1900 & 1908, losing each time.  For a generation he dominated his party but is probably now better remembered as the anti-evolutionist lawyer in the 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial“ (State of Tennessee v John Thomas Scopes).  His daughter once had to sprint to catch a bus and remarked "I'm the first member of my family successfully to run for something". 

Dr HV Evatt (1894-1965) was a judge of the High Court who entered politics, becoming leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), leading them to defeat in three successive elections, 1954, 1955 & 1958.  They were difficult days for the ALP and Evatt’s declining mental acuity, subsequently attributed to arteriosclerosis, was noted even at the time.  Later, those who knew him would differ greatly on just when the instability began though all would agree there was at some point madness which was sad because his mind undeniably had been brilliant.

Evatt’s successor as ALP leader was Arthur Calwell (1896-1973), a devoted Roman Catholic who in dress and manner seemed a figure from an earlier age.  He contested three elections (1961, 1963 & 1966) without success although he came close in the first, actually gaining more votes than his opponent though without securing the requisite number of seats (shades of crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016).  However, in 1966 he lost in a landslide, a result which would have implications, the extent of his loss meaning not even the landslide the ALP achieved in 1969 was enough to secure victory (had the ALP been able to gain government in 1969 rather than 1972 history would have been very different).  His slim volume Be Just and Fear Not (1972) remains one of the better Australian political memoirs and while he never became prime-minister, he was in 1963 created a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great with Silver Star (the honor conferred by Pope Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978)) so there was that.  Some time earlier, Calwell had announced there was little chance of an ALP victory short of "the visitation of the the Angel of Death to Raheen" (Raheen the residence of Archbishop Dr Daniel Mannix (1864–1963; Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne 1917-1963)) but whether the Holy See knighting him shortly after the death of the meddling priest was related isn't known.  In the Vatican however, there may have been a few among the curia who also prayed for the visit; when once it was suggested Dr Mannix might be found "a job in Rome" one papal envoy went pale and muttered "the Lord forbid". 

It was Sir Robert Menzies 1894–1978 (prime-minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) who thrice defeated both Evatt and Calwell.  Written-off after losing office in 1941 (the famous phrase of the era that “Menzies couldn’t lead a flock of homing pigeons” summed up the feeling) his rechauffe was all the more remarkable because he followed a path which rarely succeeds, forming a new political party as his platform, one that survives to this day as the country’s most successful electoral machine.  Menzies said of Dr Evatt: “I disliked him, I distrusted him” but served as one of the pallbearers at his funeral, some wondering what “the Doc”, whose feelings were reciprocal, would have made of that.

Adlai Stevenson, 1952.

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) had no easy task running for US President in 1952 against Dwight Eisenhower (1885-1969; US president 1953-1961).  That he lost to the popular soldier who had been supreme commander not only of the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe but also of NATO (1921-1952) was less a surprise than the fact the general’s margin of victory wasn’t greater.  In the prosperous 1950s, the Democratic nomination to run against Eisenhower wasn’t really a good career move but Stevenson sought the party’s endorsement and it unexpectedly turned into a fairly nasty contest after the general suffered a heart attack, encouraging some previously reticent Democrats to enter the fray.  The president however recovered well and won in a landslide.  When Stevenson died in London, many obituaries ran the famous photograph of him on the hustings in 1952 with a hole in his shoe.

Two crooks converse: Richard Nixon (left) & Lyndon Baines Johnson, the White House, 1968.

Eisenhower’s vice-president was Richard Nixon (1913-1994, US president 1969-1974) perhaps the most remarkable rechauffe of the modern age.  His famous defeat in the 1960 presidential election seemed bad enough but what appeared the final nail in his political coffin was losing the gubernatorial contest in California two years later and most suspect that for any other politician, that really would have been the end.  His tenacity however was legendary and assisted by the lucky circumstances of the 1960s: (1) the huge loss by Republican Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) in 1964, (2) the various traumas of the Vietnam War, (3) social unrest and (4) the implosion of LBJ’s (Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1908-1973; US president 1963-1969) presidency, Nixon returned to win convincingly in 1968 and massively in 1972.  From there it ended badly but the Nixon of 1960 does deserve some credit.  After being told he’d lost by “an electoral eyelash” and there was evidence of much fraud (and that evidence was compelling, unlike the allegations in 2020), his advisors told him he had sound grounds on which challenge the result.  Nixon declined to pursue the matter, arguing the institution of the presidency was too important to suggest it was tainted.  “Nobody steals the presidency of the United States” he told his aides.  Not all of his successors have shared his view.

The rechauffe of John Howard (b 1939; Australian prime-minister 1996-2007) proved a remarkable success and one he’d come not to expect.  Having lost the 1987 election after a bizarre schism in conservatives politics, he’d been written off, a judgement with which he agreed, telling one interviewer that a comeback “…really would be Lazarus with a triple bypass” yet the universe shifted and he regained the leadership, winning four successive elections (even a now rare upper house majority which proved a poisoned chalice).  The circumstances of his remarkable success would have surprised him because his assumption had long been it would come when "the times will suit me" by which he meant he would be the one turned to to deal with dire economic circumstances and general distress.  Instead, during his long tenure, the economy grew as never before and his government's coffers were awash with cash.  Sometimes one gets lucky.  Howard's internecine opponent of the 1980s, Andrew Peacock (1939-2021) was also recycled but without success, his tilt at the 1990 election no more productive than his loss in 1984.  One of his opponents, noting the rechauffe, explored the culinary metaphor further, observing that “a soufflé never rises twice”.  That was an allusion to his image as someone rather insubstantial but he’ll always be remembered for allowing the country to have two elections contested by a Mr Peacock and a Mr Hawke.  It was a time of such coincidences, the National Party (the old Country Party) at the time including Mr Blunt (Charles Blunt, b 1951) and Mr Sharp (John Sharp, b 1954).

The Crooked Hillary Clinton Burger (2016) as advertised (left) and as sold (right) after having been taken from the cold storage facility where it had been stored since 2008, rechauffed and served as "freshly made".

Ambushed in 2008 by Barack Obama's (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) twenty-first century style campaign to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for that years presidential election, crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) ran another analogue era effort in 2016 against Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021).  To an extent, it worked because crooked Hillary did gain an absolute majority of votes cast but failed to secure the requisite numbers in the Electoral College because the campaign team neglected adequately to target areas in states both her crew and the Democrat National Committee (DNC) regarded either (1) solidly in the possession of their machine or (2) populated by folk from the "basket of deplorables" and thus not worthy only resource allocation.  Like the candidate, the 2016 campaign was something not greatly different from the 2008 plan, taken from the cold-room, rechauffed and served with the claim it was fresh.  It wasn't quite that the staff had "learned nothing and forgotten everything" but it does seem the operation was top-heavy with political operatives and lacking in those with a mastery of the techniques of data analysis.  All the evidence suggests there was no lack of data, just an inability to extract from it enough useful information.  Fortunately, in 2017, crooked Hillary published What Happened (a work of a dozen-odd pages somehow  padded out to over 500 using the "how to write an Amazon best-seller" template), in which she explained how everything was someone else's fault.

Bachelorette

Bachelorette (pronounced bach-uh-luh-ret or bach-luh-ret)

(1) An unmarried young woman.

(2) In Canada, a term for a small apartment suitable for a single man (ie can accommodate bed, fridge, TV & microwave).

1935: Some sources date the word from 1895 but it appears more likely bachelor-girl was first seen in 1888 and bachelorette is an American invention first noted in 1935.  The construct was bachelor + ette.  Bachelor (the alternative spellings have included bachelor, batcheler & batchelor) was from the Middle English bacheler, from the Anglo-Norman and Old French bacheler (modern French bachelier), from the Medieval Latin baccalārius & baccalāris.  The ultimate source is murky and strangely, although Old French had bachelette (young girl) in the 1400s, it's something English seems never to have borrowed.  Bachelor proved adaptable and in addition to the familiar modern sense of “a man socially & legally able to marry but as yet unmarried” it’s been used of (1) the lowest grade of degree proper awarded by universities and other tertiary institutes of education, (2) a knight who had no standard of his own, but fought under the standard of another in the field (obsolete), (3) among London tradesmen, a junior member not yet admitted to wear the livery or emblem of the guild (obsolete), (4) a kind of bass, an edible freshwater fish (Pomoxis annularis) of the southern US and (5), as Knight Bachelor, the oldest and now lowest grade of knighthood in the UK’s honors system (and not part of the hierarchy of the orders of chivalry).  The –ette suffix was from the Middle English -ette, a borrowing from the Old French -ette, from the Latin -itta, the feminine form of -ittus.  It was used to form nouns meaning a smaller form of something.  Bachelorette is a noun; the noun plural is bachelorettes.  Unfortunately, the noun bacheloretteness seems not to exist.

Once were spinsters

While a noted bachelorette: Lindsay Lohan, wearing Fendi, at the opening of the re-designed Fendi Boutique, Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, February 2008.  Ms Lohan's wedding was announced in 2022.

Neither bachelor-girl (1888) nor bachelorette (1935) can really be considered proto-feminist because neither replaced spinster; the latter merely re-defined as something applied to older un-married women; in the shifting hierarchy of misogyny, ageism prevailed.  It may thus be thought casual, female-specific ageism, especially because older, un-married men remain described as bachelors even if centenarians.  It’s not clear when spinster came to be thought of as disparaging and offensive but the usage certainly declined with rapidity after World War II and both it and bachelor have effectively been replaced with the gender-neutral single although in English common-law, the older forms lasted until 2005.  There's another quirk.  Middle French had the unrelated bachelette (young girl) which persists in the Modern French bachelière but that applies exclusively to students.  In the narrow technical sense, still sometimes insisted upon in British circles, a more proper neologism would be bacheloress, since -ess is the usual English suffix denoting a female subject, while -ette is a French-origin diminutive suffix, traditionally used to describe something smaller in size.  However, bachelorette was invented in the US where the -ette suffix can indicate a feminine version of a noun without implying a change in size.  In these gender-conscious times, the -ess suffix is anyway falling into disuse due to attempts to neutralize professional terms.  Except for historic references, it’s probably now obsolete and rejecting decadent Western ways, in China, females still unmarried by the age of 25 are classified as "leftover women".

Leftover women

Sheng nu (剩女; shèngnǚ), most often translated as "leftover women" is a phrase (usually considered derogatory), which describes Chinese women who remain unmarried by their late twenties.  First promulgated by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) as a promotion of government programmes, it’s been used in other countries but remains most associated with People's Republic of China (PRC).  As a demographic phenomenon, it was once unexpected because the conjunction of the PRC's one-child policy and the disproportionate abortion of female foetuses had led to a distortion in the historic gender balance.  Births in China since the one-child policy was introduced in 1979 have averaged 120 males for every 100 females compared to a global ratio of 103:107.

A bride with four suspected leftovers.

The term appears to have entered common-use in 2005-2006 and seems first to have appeared in the Chinese edition of Cosmopolitan.  Unlike most of Cosmopolitan's editorial content, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took it seriously and instructed the ACWF (a kind of cross between the CWA (Country Women’s Association) and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) to publish articles stigmatizing women still unwed by their late twenties, reminding them they have lost face.  Borrowing from Maoist tradition (if not theory), the ACWF provided a useful analysis of the problem, concluding that while “pretty girls” didn’t need much education to find a rich partner, “average or ugly” ones who seek higher degrees thinking it will “increase their competitiveness” in the marriage market are delusional; all that happens is they become old “…like yellowed pearls."  The rhetorical flourishes aside, they had a point.  As the numbers of highly educated women rose, the numbers of potential husbands they found acceptable did not.  What the distorted gender balance created by the one-child policy and the selective-sex abortion preferences had produced was an increasingly educated and middle-class female minority not impressed by a less schooled and more rural male majority.

Geographic distribution of leftover women, People’s Republic of China.

“Leftover women” seemed the choice in print but on the internet, the punchier 3S or 3SW (Single, Seventies (referring to the then prominent 1970s birth cohort) and Stuck) was also used instead of sheng nu.  There is an equivalent term for men, guang gun (bare branches (ie men who do not marry and thus do not add branches to the family tree)); shengnan (leftover men) does exist but is rare.

CCP demographers had expressed concerns about the social and economic implications of the one-child policy as early as the 1990s.  In the new century, the policy was first selectively relaxed, then revised to permit additional children for those selected by the CCP as desirable breeders and, on 31 May 2021, at a meeting of the of the CCP Politburo, the three-child policy (三孩政策) was announced.  The session, chaired by Xi Jinping (b 1953; CCP general secretary 2012- & PRC president 2013-), followed the release of the findings of the seventh national population census which showed the number of births in mainland China in 2020, at twelve million, would be the lowest since 1960, an indication of the demographic trend causing the ageing of the population.  The Xinhua state news agency then announced the three child policy would be accompanied by supportive measures to “maintain China's advantage in human resources” but surveys suggested the section of the population the CCP would like to see produce three children per household were generally unwilling to have even two, the reason overwhelmingly the high cost of living in Chinese cities.  The announcement on 26 July 2021 permitting Chinese couples to have any number of children was thus greeted by most with restrained enthusiasm.