Faith & Doubt

Faith (pronounced feyth)

(1) Confidence or trust in a person, thing, or abstraction.

(2) A belief based not on proof.

(3) Belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion.

(4) Belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit etc.

(5) A system of religious belief.

(6) The obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.

(7) The observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance etc.

(8) A female given name.

(9) As (usually in) bad faith, insincerity or dishonesty, as (usually in) good faith, honesty or sincerity, as of intention in business.

10) Indeed; really (also in the phrases by my faith, in faith) (archaic).

1200-1250: From the Middle English faith, fayth, feith & feyth (also fay, fey, fei (faith) from the Old French fay, fey, fei, feit, & feid (faith), from the Latin fidēs (faith, belief, trust (from which English gained fidelity), from fīdō (trust, confide in), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European bheidth (from bheydth) (to command, persuade, trust (from which English gained bide).  The Middle English forms ending in -th are thought perhaps to represent an alteration of the earliest French form feid under influence of other abstract nouns in -th (truth, ruth, health et al) but may have been formed instead from the more usual Old French forms fay, fey, fei etc. with the English suffix added (also due to assimilation to other nouns in -th), thus making the word equivalent to fay +‎ -th.  The theological sense dates only from the late fourteenth century although religions had been referred to as faiths since circa 1300.  The adjective multifaith (written often now as multi-faith) is a most recent addition.

Before Broken English (1979) changed it all: Marianne Faithfull (1946-2025), Faithless (1978 NEMS Cat: NEL 6012), repackaged re-release of Dreamin' My Dreams (1976).

Doubt (pronounced dout)

(1) To be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.

(2) To distrust.

(3) To fear; be apprehensive about (archaic).

(4) A feeling of uncertainty about the truth, reality, or nature of something.

(5) A state of affairs such as to occasion uncertainty.

(6) In philosophy, the methodical device, especially in the writings of Descartes, of identifying certain knowledge as the residue after rejecting any proposition which might, however improbably, be false.

(7) In theology (and, in earlier times, among poets), a technical device for addressing problems with faith.

1175-1225:  From Middle English douten drawn from Anglo-French and Old French douter or doter, derived from Latin dubitāre (to waver, hesitate, be uncertain (frequentative of Old Latin dubāre)).  Final Latin form was dubium (plural dubia) and the Old English was doute.  Douten entirely replaced the Middle English tweonien (to doubt) which was derived from the Old English twēonian.  The Old French doter from the Latin dubitāre reflected how the meaning had changed in Latin; related to dubius (from which English picked up dubious) meant originally "to have to choose between two things."  The sense of "fear" developed in Old French and was passed on to English. Meaning "to be uncertain" is attested in English from circa 1300.  Related forms are doubtable (adjective), doubtably (adverb), doubter (noun), doubtingly (adverb) and doubtingness (noun).  Most popular today is doubtlessly or doubtless.  English doubtlessly has tended to the permissive.  Where a clause follows doubt in a positive sentence, until well into the twentieth century, it was correct only to use whether but if and that are now acceptable.  In negative statements, doubt is followed by that.  The old practice of using but (as in “I do not doubt but that she speaks truth”) is wholly redundant.

Faith and doubt:  The four dubia cardinals, the pope and the hint of heresy

On 19 September 2016, a letter from Cardinals Carlo Caffarra (1938-2017), Walter Brandmüller (b 1929), Raymond Burke (b 1948) & Joachim Meisner (1933-2017) was delivered to the pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the old Holy Office or Inquisition).  Technically, the letter was a dubia, a respectful request for clarification regarding about certain established teachings which appeared to be challenged by recent events in or statements from the Holy See (especially Pope Francis' (b 1936; pope since 2013) 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia (The Joy of Love) concerned with the pastoral care of families).  Phrased as five questions, the cardinals asked (1) Whether those living in sin were now to be granted Holy Communion, (2) Whether the Church had overturned Saint John Paul II’s (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor (The Splendor of the Truth) which laid down certain fundamentals of the Church's role in moral teaching, (3) Whether there were changes in what constituted certain sins, (4) Whether circumstances or intentions can now transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act subjectively good or defensible as a choice and (5), Whether the church no longer excludes any creative interpretation of the role of conscience and now accepts that conscience can be authorized to permit legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object?  The issues raised were matters of vital interest inside the curia, to theologians and certain other clergy and, though seeming perhaps a little arcane to many, are actually fundamental to the very nature of the Church.

Faith and research: Lindsay Lohan with Qur'an, April 2016.

Of interest too was the structural question: the authority of the pope.  The cardinals' view was that a pope's duty is to defend and preserve the doctrines and teachings of the church, these being eternal and unchanging.  The alternative view is the pope is the bishop at the head of an absolute theocracy.  So, when speaking on matters of doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, the pope's authority is absolute and he is held to be infallible.  Use of this power is called speaking ex cathedra, (the Latin cathedra and sedes translate as "chair", a historic symbol from Antiquity for a teacher and one preserved in academia for the office of professor, and the "see" of a bishopric.  The significance of ex cathedra (from the chair) is that a pope occupies the "chair of Peter" (the "Holy See") by virtue of being the successor of Peter himself.  Saint Peter being held to be, ex-officio, the spokesman of Christ (and therefore, as the "Vicar of Christ on Earth" speaking the words of God) and every pope since has fulfilled this role), a matter long assumed even before it was declared at the First Vatican Council (Vatican I;1869-1870).  Although invoked formally only once since, papal infallibility remains as a pope's thermo-nuclear option in these matters.

The dispute remains afoot because Pope Francis neither acknowledged nor replied to the cardinals' respectful dubia.  Less deferential was another letter delivered some months later in which several dozen Catholic theologians, priests and academics went further than the cardinals and formally accused Pope Francis of spreading heresy, a document the like of which hadn't been sent to a pope since the 1300s.  Stunningly, it was one step short of actually accusing the pontiff of being a heretic.  The squabble may last at least as long as Francis' pontificate although, unfortunately, in these modern times, it can no longer be resolved by Inquisition having accusers burned at the stake.  Francis has proved a quick learner in the handling of social media and, perhaps borrowing from the Anglicans, appears to feel some problems are best solved by pretending they don't exist although it may be he simply didn't see the point, recalling the words of world-weary Benedict XIV (1675–1758; pope 1740-1758): "The pope commands, his cardinals do not obey, and the people do what they wish."  He ignored the theologians’ letter.

Interestingly though, early in 1919, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (b 1927; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus since), although without mentioning the five dubia, did respond and his words would have pleased the two cardinals still alive.  His answers were an unambiguous (1) no, (2) no, (3) no, (4) no and (5) no.  With a Benedictine certainty reminiscent of Pius IX's (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) Syllabus Of Errors (1864), he spoke of a “...crisis of morality…, the hypothesis that morality was to be exclusively determined by the purposes of human action..." to the point there could no longer be said to be any "...absolute good, any more than anything fundamentally evil; (there could be) only relative value judgements”  He warned of the risk of a world in which there was “…no longer was (there an absolute good), but only the relatively better, contingent on the moment and on circumstances..."  He’s discussed this theme before: that a church of true-believers is better than one that just accepts what happens to suit whoever wishes to join the club.  Benedict didn’t say it but he may think if that’s what people want, they may as well become Anglicans, his documented opinion that a smaller Church which remains pure is preferable to one larger but corrupted by the falsehoods post-modernist structures claim as moral and intellectual equivalents of traditional teachings.

Nor did he add the words of Pius IX which so many see when reading between the lines the pope emeritus has written during the pontificate of Francis: "If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the Catholic faith, do not follow him". 

Faith and Doubt in the Century's Poets, Edited by Richard A Armstrong (1843-1905), Bib ID 2635856, James Clarke & Co, London, 1898, pp136.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: The spirit of revolt.
William Wordsworth: Revelation through nature and man.
Arthur Hugh Clough: Between the old faith and the new.
Alfred Tennyson: The larger hope.
Matthew Arnold: The eternal note of sadness.
Robert Browning: Faith triumphant.

The nineteenth century can be thought a truly scientific age and the discoveries revealed provoked much writing about the defensibility of a faith based upon much shown to be impossible or at least improbable.  While poets agonized, theologians rationalized where they could, finding allegory and analogy useful devices to explain where they could the less plausible passages of scripture and for everything else offered a fudge: “you need not believe it but you must accept it.”

Align

Align (pronounced a-line)

(1) To arrange in a straight line; adjust according to a line.

(2) To bring into a line or alignment.

(3) To bring into cooperation or agreement with a particular group, party, cause etc; to identify with or match the behavior, thoughts etc of another person.

(4) In radio transceiving, to adjust two or more components of an electronic circuit to improve the response over a frequency band, as to align the tuned circuits of a radio receiver for proper tracking throughout its frequency range, or a television receiver for appropriate wide-band responses.

(5) To join with others in a cause.

(6) In computing, to store data in a way consistent with the memory architecture ie by beginning each item at an offset equal to some multiple of the word size.

(7) In bioinformatics, to organize a linear arrangement of DNA, RNA or protein sequences which have regions of similarity.

Circa 1690: From the Middle English alynen & alinen (copulate (of wolves & dogs)), from the Middle French aligner, from Old French alignier (set, lay in line (sources of the Modern French aligner)).  The construct à (to) + lignier (to line) was from the Latin lineare (reduce to a straight line) from linea (line).  The French spelling with the -g- is un-etymological, and aline, the early alternative spelling in English is long obsolete and was never revived as US English.

The transitive or reflexive sense of "to fall into line" is attested from 1853 with the use in international relations first noted in 1923 in the sense of (return to previously aligned positions) in reference to European international relations and use spiked after 1933 in the League of Nations in discussions about the disputes which would from then only worsen.  The noun alignment (arrangement in a line) dates from 1790 and misaligned (faulty or incorrect arrangement in line) was originally used in engineering, documented from 1903 although, curiously, realign (align again or anew), a back-formation of realignment was in common use in railway construction by the mid 1800s.  References to the Non-Aligned Movement (formalized in 1961), appeared in documents in 1960 although the concept of geopolitical non-alignment was much discussed after 1934 in debates in the noble but doomed League of Nations (1920-1946 (although a moribund relic after 1940)).

The Non-Aligned Movement

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states with some one-hundred and twenty members.  It began during the cold war as a loose organization of countries, not formally aligned either with Washington or Moscow, the centres of the two major power blocs.  The NAM was formed in Belgrade in 1961, the project of Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964; Prime-minister of India 1947-1964), Sukarno (1901–1970; president of Indonesia 1945-1967), Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970; president of Egypt 1954-1970) and comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980).  The cross-cutting cleavages of the cold war meant the NAM was never wholly synonymous with the third world but those nations provided the bulk of the organization’s membership.  Nor was the NAM politically monolithic, the organization doing little to reduce tensions between members Iran & Iraq or India & Pakistan (NATO notably more successful in suppressing things between squabbling members), its most noted fracture over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979; while some Soviet allies supported the invasion, others (particularly Islamic states) condemned it.

The NAM: members in dark blue, those enjoying observer status in light blue.

Quite what role the NAM has fulfilled since the end of the Cold War is not clear.  Its ongoing survival may be nothing more than bureaucratic inertia or the tendency for political structures to live on beyond the existence of the purpose for which they were created, a phenomenon noted in academic literature in both political science and organisational studies.  So, sixty years on, it still exists, even conducting virtual summits during the COVID-19 pandemic although it’s been many years since anything said in its forums attracted much attention.  Of late however, as the building blocks of the New Cold War have taken shape, there’s been much speculation about the future composition of the NAM as a bi-polar arrangement consisting of (1) the West and (2) the BRICS seems to be coalescing.  The origin of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China (South Africa added later)) was in an economist’s paper (2001) discussing the high-growth economies which showed the greatest potential and the organisation has recently added Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.  The claims by the BRICS secretariat that what is envisaged is a “multi-polar world” are interesting in as much as they’re being made rather than for their credibility but there are many not unhappy at prospect of a bi-polar planet being formalized and the form in which this emerges will be dependent on how certain nations in the NAM decide to re-align.  While there’s still a degree of medium-term predictability about Russia, China and other usual suspects, players like India and Brazil (which can be open to temptation and civilizing influences) and may emerge as a political dynamic, either as horse-traders or fence-sitters.

The overlay: the first, second & third worlds

First World Blue: Essentially the anti-communist bloc of the cold war.  Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the definition has shifted to include any country with stable (ie non-violent) political systems, some degree of democracy, a legal system which at least pretends to adhere to the rule of law, a market-based economy and a high standard of living.  Best thought of as the rich world, these are the countries in which it’s (usually) safe to drink the tap water.

Second World Red: The Second World referred to the nominally communist or socialist states mostly under the influence of the Soviet Union.  Soviet control varied from actual satellite states to those merely in degrees of sympathy with Moscow.  Relationships were often fractious, the most celebrated tiff being the Sino-Soviet split.

Third World Green: Originally, the term was a political construct to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Communist Bloc but, even among scholars of political economy, there never emerged a consensus about just which countries constituted the third world.  The most used, but least defined of the three worlds, it’s essentially now a less politically correct way of referring to what economists now call the developing world.

The multi-polar school in Mean Girls (2004) lacked a NAM

The discipline of behavioralism is not as fashionable as once it was but its tools and methods remain in use in fields as diverse (or similar according to some) as political science, marketing, crowd control and zoology, much of the work exploring group dynamics, both internally and the interactions between factions.  Although it wasn’t intended to be taken too seriously, one structuralist did make the point that the sheer number of cliques (20-odd) in the Mean Girls high school meant it was unlikely a “non-aligned” grouping would emerge because the extent of the multi-polarity was such that the concept made no sense; even in the dynamic system of ever-shifting alliances between small numbers of cliques, in a sense all simultaneously were non-aligned with the majority of others.

Apostolic

Apostolic (pronounced ap-uh-stol-ik)

(1) Of or characteristic of an apostle.

(2) Pertaining to or characteristic of the twelve apostles.

(3) Derived from the apostles in regular succession as bishops.

(4) Of or relating to the pope as being chief successor of the apostles.

1540–1550: From the French apostolique (pertaining to, related to, or descended from the apostles), from the Church Latin apostolicus (apostolic), from the Ancient Greek ἀποστολικός (apostolikós) (apostolic), from apostolos.  The derived form apostolical emerged also in the fifteenth century.  The construct in the Church Latin apostolicus was apóstol(os) + -ic.  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Apostolic succession

Apostolic succession is the term describing the method through which the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church is held to derive its unique validity by virtue of an unbroken chain of succession from the twelve apostles (or disciples) of Christ.  The mechanics of this are that every bishop is ordained by a previously ordained bishop and that linkage reaches back two millennia to the apostles.  The purity of apostolic succession is an important part of the mystique of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican maintains the linkage is exclusive to them, the schism of 1534, in which Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) separated the English Church from Rome, sundering also the apostolic succession.  Fearing some doubts might exist, Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903; pope 1878-1903) in 1896 delivered Apostolicae Curae, stating all the Church of England’s ordinations were "…absolutely null and utterly void…".

In terms of canon law, it’s not hard to see the pontiff’s point but the English archbishops soon issued their retaliatory Saepius officio, a highly technical piece, offering a kind of elaborate Tu quoque defense which did little except answer questions nobody had asked.  Almost a century later, the Anglicans offered another, admittedly more convincing but still legalistic, argument based on Anglican consecrations since the 1930s being co-performed by bishops recognized by Rome, so, given the effluxion of time, all Anglican bishops were now also in the old Catholic succession; Apostolicae curae, while not invalid, had been rendered obsolete by events, most obviously the bishops in dispute having by then dropped dead.

The view probably never had any chance of being accepted by the Holy See but the Anglicans’ ordination of women and embrace of gay clergy ended all discussion.  In 1998, Cardinal Ratzinger (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the old Holy Office or Inquisition) issued a statement confirming Leo XIII’s view, adding ominously that anyone who denies such truths "... would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church".  There the matter has since rested.

Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) places hands on the head of newly ordained bishop Peter Bryan Wells (b 1963; apostolic nuncio to South Africa and Botswana, apostolic nuncio to Lesotho and Namibiaand & titular Archbishop of Marcianopolis since 2016) of the United States.  St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican, 19 March 2016.

Cardinal Pell’s appointment as a bishop was in an unbroken chain of apostolic succession from the twelve apostles of Jesus; by touch, he’s able to add links to the chain.  Within the Roman Curia (a place of Masonic-like plotting & intrigue and much low skulduggery), Cardinal Pell's nickname was “Pell Pot”, an allusion to Pol Pot (1925–1998, dictator of communist Cambodia 1976-1979) who announced the start of his regime was “Year Zero” and all existing culture and tradition must completely be destroyed and replaced.

Damocles

Damocles (pronounced dam-uh-kleez)

(1) As "Sword of Damocles", an allusion to the always imminent threats faced by those in in positions of power (classical meaning).

(2) As "Sword of Damocles", any situation threatening imminent harm or disaster (modern use frowned upon by purists).

Circa 300 BC: From the Ancient Greek name Δαμοκλῆς (Damoklês); like many Greek names, it was a compound from roots chosen for their meaning.  The construct was Δᾰ́μῐος (damos or dēmos) (“people” and in this context the sense probably was “common people” + -κλῆς (klēs (from kleos)) (“glory” or “renown”.  Kleos was a key concept in Greek heroic culture and underpinned many of the myths, referencing especially the kind of glory or fame remembered after death to become legend.  The humble Damocles of the tale was almost certainly apocryphal.  Damocles is a proper noun and Damoclean is an adjective; the noun plural formations are swords of Damocles & Damoclean swords.  Damoclean is an eponymic adjective (meaning it's formed from a person's name such as Marxist (from Marx), Sisyphean (from Sisyphus), Herculean (from Hercules) Kafkaesque (from Kafka), Lohanic (from Lohan) or Stalinist (from Stalin) and in standard usage, such adjectives retain the capitalization of the name from whence derived unless the wholly has been absorbed into the language as common adjectives (such as “quixotic” or “stoic”).

In mythology

In Classical mythology, Damocles was a sycophantic courtier at the court of King Dionysius II of Syracuse.  Damocles was heard to say Dionysius must be very happy  living the life of a king and on hearing of this, the ruler offered to let him live like that for a day.  Delighted, Damocles accepted and was placed on a throne, attended by servants serving him the finest wines at a most lavish banquet.  Hours into the feast, Damocles chanced to look up and saw, just above his head, a razor-sharp dangling sword, suspended by a single strand from the tail of a horse.  Shocked at the risk to his life, Damocles asked the king why the blade was there.  Dionysius explained it was so Damocles might fully experience the life of a king, including the constant sense of danger powerful people must endure.  Damocles asked to be excused from the feast and be allowed to return to his humble station; the king granted his request.  The original meaning from Antiquity (the sword symbolizing the constant threats implicit in the possession of power), has in recent years been diluted by misuse, the term often used to refer to any looming threat.

The Sword of Damocles (1831), oil on canvas by Félix Auvray (1800–1833), Museum of Fine Arts, Valenciennes, France.  In Cicero's tale, the table is attended by male servants but in art these sometimes are replaced with attractive young ladies, either because the painter preferred the look or at the instigation of whomever commissioned the work.

Long thought apocryphal, legend has it the story was in a lost history of of Sicily by Timaeus of Tauromenium (circa 356–260 BC) and it’s speculated the Roman statesman & scholar Cicero (106-43 BC) may have read it in the works of the (1^st century BC) Greek historian Diodorus Siculus for he included it in his Tusculanae Disputationes (Tusculan Thoughts (45 BC)), a five-part treatise of Greek philosophy discussing: the contempt of death; pain; grief; emotional disturbances; and whether virtue alone is sufficient for a happy life).  It was from here the phrase entered classical languages, the Roman lyric poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC) exploring the theme in the Third Book of Odes (23 BC), noting none could be happy "above whose impious head hangs a drawn sword (destrictus ensis)."  It became part of modern European languages after the myths of antiquity were widely published after the Renaissance.  William Shakespeare (1564–1616) explored the theme in Henry IV, Part 1 (circa 1596), Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) used the phrase in The Canterbury Tales (1386-1400) and sixteenth & seventeenth century works sometimes explained the story using the words metus est plenus tyrannis (a tyrant is always fearful).  During the Cold War, both John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) and comrade Khrushchev (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964) described nuclear weapons as Damoclean although JFK was lamenting the threat they posed to humanity whereas comrade Khrushchev was more bullish, telling the West the USSR’s newly tested fifty-plus megaton hydrogen bomb would "hang like the sword of Damocles over the imperialists' heads".

Comrade Khrushchev's Damoclean sword, one of a pair (suspended by the USSR & US) which defined the MAD (mutually assured destruction) doctrine of the high Cold War.

A depiction of 30 October 1961 test of Soviet AN-602 hydrogen bomb (Царь-бомба (Tsar Bomba, known also by the Soviet code names Ivan or Vanya (the Pentagon preferred Tsar Bomb)).  The most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, the design technically was capable of being produced in a form which would have yielded some 100 megatons but the Soviets built it in a smaller scale to (1) reduce the fall-out radius and (2) ensure the bomber would have time to escape the critical blast zone.  For a long time the US estimated the yield at 54 megatons and the Russians at 58 but, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was confirmed the true yield was 50-51 megatons.  That the 100 megaton test never took place was an indication of change in the Kremlin; comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) would have ordered the bigger bomb built and dropped, the risk of sacrificing one aircraft and its crew an acceptable loss for the impression such a blast would have made on minds in Western capitals.  When making a point, comrade Stalin liked to be able to say "They have understood my language".

The phrase “Sword of Damocles” often is misused by those who equate it with just about any kind of threat or even hardship.  Correctly, a “Sword of Damocles” references the idea of a constant, looming threat that “hangs over” those in positions of power or privilege; it’s used to highlight the hidden dangers of success.  Example of misuse exist from earlier centuries but in recent decades it has become common for the term to be applied to just about any random hardship or threat which may be looming so in that sense it has been re-purposed as a kind of intensifier although most critics conclude such use tends usually to be a misunderstanding.  To suggest “the rising price of gas is a Sword of Damocles which hovers over us all” certainly conveys the anxiety which may be induced by a trip to the pump but unless abstracted to absurdity, it’s not describing a personalized or constant threat tied to power or privilege.  Nor is it always correct to speak of an imminent (or even inevitable) disaster; the infamous North Atlantic iceberg which Titanic in 1912 struck was not the ship’s sword of Damocles, however much it represented a threat to the rich and famous aboard.  It that case, the allusion fails what lawyers would call “the remoteness test” in that what’s required is the ironic and specific juxtaposition of comfort with danger.

HuffPost, 8 July, 2010.

In a piece for the HuffPost in 2010, one writer was correct in linking Lindsay Lohan’s life to a sword of Damocles but applied the nature of the connection in a way Cicero didn’t intend.  The suggestion a sentence of "...jail, hanging over her head..." would be thought Damoclean would never have occurred to the Greeks or Romans but as it certainly conveyed to the Huff’s readers he life was troubled.  Years later, in an interview with London’s The Times at her Mykonos Beach Club, Ms Lohan correctly deconstructed the sword of Damocles which sits ready to drop on figures in what can be the claustrophobic hothouse of celebrity pop-culture:  “You have to remember that in LA, I was 19.  I lived there for seven years and it was just people, places and things.  I had too much money, I was way too young and I had no one around to protect me; just people who wanted to come along for the ride. [There was no social media] you couldn’t control anything yourself. There was just the tabloids, and they were out to get me.”  That was it, the relationship between tabloid and starlet can be symbiotic but it’s a knife’s edge existence.

Binge

Binge (pronounced binj)

A period or bout, usually brief, of excessive indulgence in something, historically strong drink but later food and of late, popular culture in digital form.

1854: Etymologists regard binge an adaptation of the northern English dialectical binge, of unknown origin and noted originally as a Northampton dialect word with meanings in Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire including “drinking bout, drink heavily & soak up alcohol” although the original meaning was likely “soak” in the sense of "to soak in water a wooden vessel, that would otherwise leak" to make the wood swell (a meaning free of any association with alcohol), a use noted in Leicestershire Words, Phrases and Proverbs (1848) by English academic Arthur Benoni Evans (1781–1854) who recorded it was "extended locally to excessive drinking", usually in the form "soaking".

During World War I (1914-1918), it came to be applied to eating as well as drinking and binge-eating is now a recognized disorder although the phrase is casually used in a non clinical context.  In the twenty-first century, after the roll-out of fast broadband reached critical-mass, real-time streaming services became viable and binge watching came to be used to describe the practice among youth of streaming many hours of the one programme in one session, something which historically would have been done over weeks or even months.  "Binge watching" however pre-dates the mass-adoption of broadband, recorded first in 1996 when the technology (of necessity) tended to be tapes, or for the early adopters, the DVD (digital versatile disc), introduced that year.  The related forms are binged & bingeing.

Binche: Binging in Belgium

The modern construct which today is Belgium wasn’t created at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), emerging as an independent country only in 1830 after the Belgian Revolution when it it seceded from the Netherlands, itself a political creation of the congress.  Having borders with France and Germany always focused Belgium thoughts on defense and in Medieval times, walls were constructed around many cities.

Of these, the city of Binche retains the longest remains of walls, with some 1¼ miles (2.1 km) of fortifications, some dating from as early as 1230.  Binche is also known for its annual beer festival which takes place just before the start of Lent each year, the highlight the surreal sight of men in clown masks parading through the streets, drinking beer, beating drums and throwing oranges into the crowd.  Visiting foreigners, often unaware Belgium beers are brewed with alcohol content four or five times greater than that to which they’re accustomed, especially enjoy Binche.  Despite that, the alleged connection between Binche drinking and the English term binge drinking is apocryphal; just fake news.

Sleeping beauty re-imagined.

According to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), binge drinking is associated with many health problems including (1) unintentional injuries such as motor vehicle crashes, falls, burns, and alcohol poisoning, (2) violence including homicide, suicide, intimate partner violence, and sexual assault, (3) sexually transmitted diseases, (4) unintended pregnancy and poor pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriage and stillbirth, (5) fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, (6) sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), (7) chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, and liver disease, (8) cancer of the breast (among females), liver, colon, rectum, mouth, pharynx, larynx, and esophagus (9) cognitive decline and (10) memory and learning problems.

Moniker

Moniker (pronounced mon-i-ker)

(1) A personal name or nickname as an informal label, often drawing attention to a particular attribute; sometimes also used in commerce.

(2) In computing, an object (an instance of structured data) used to associate the name of an object with its location; many coders prefer “tag”.

1849: Moniker is perhaps from the Irish Shelta munik, munika &  mŭnnik (name), said to be a permutation and extension of Irish ainm (name).  Earlier scholars said it was originally a hobo term, dating it from 1851 and of uncertain origin, perhaps from monk (monks and nuns take new names with their vows) and noted British tramps of the period referred to themselves as “in the monkery”.  Monekeer is attested among the London underclass from 1851 and there were those who claimed to detect “a certain Coptic or Egyptian twang” but, given the uncertainty, all conclude the origin can be only uncertain and the ideas of it being (1) a back-slang of the Middle English ekename (the construct being eke (also, additionally) +‎ name), (2) a corruption of monogram (in the sense of “a signature”), (3) from monarch in the egotistical sense of “I, myself” or (4) from “monk” (monks and nuns take new names with their vows) are all speculative and there’s certainly no link with the primitive Indo-European root no-men (name).  The (rare) alternative forms were monacer, monicker & moniker. Moniker is a noun; the noun plural is monikers.

Lindsay Lohan doing the LiLo, Mykonos, Greece, 2018.

Lindsay Lohan’s moniker LiLo is a blend, the construct being Li(ndsay) + Lo(han).  Being based on proper nouns, in linguistics this would by most be regarded a pure blend, although some would list it as a portmanteau which is a special type of blend in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word (and some insist that in true portmanteaus there must be some relationship between the source words and the result).  As a proper noun in its own right, “Lilo” means “generous One” and its origin is Hawaiian although in some traditions in the islands it can be translated as “lost”.  The LiLo name was also adopted as the name of an impromptu dance Ms Lohan performed in 2018 at the Lohan Beach House on the Greek Island of Mykonos.

English has a tradition of accumulation many words to mean much the same thing and this can be handy because it allows nuances of use to emerge.  Moniker has as one of those words which, despite there being many better-known and probably better understood synonyms, offers variety, a linguistic flourish that doesn’t suffer the boring familiarity of “nickname” or the dubious connotations of “alias”.  The other related forms include epithet, byname, pseudonym, sobriquet pen-name & to-name.  By some typically strange process, in English the French nom de plume (pen-name) is common whereas among the French nom de guerre (literally, “name of war”, referring to the pseudonyms used during wars) is used for all purposes.  The more recent creation "nom de Web" was a humorous coining for those operating on the internet under a cloak of anonymity although for those who object to mixing linguistic sources for such things there was also nom de clavier, the construct being the French nom (name) + de (of) + clavier (keyboard).  Of course, even someone using a nom de clavier will be able to pay their monthly US$8 and attach to it a Twitter blue tick.

The moniker in modern US politics

Monikers in politics are nothing new but Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination and subsequently the presidency then and in 2020 was an example of democratic politics adopting the techniques of reality television and his application of derisive monikers to his opponents proved quite effective in 2016.  The campaign team took the idea seriously from the start, workshopping the possibilities in focus groups to find which gained the best response.  It turned out, based on data from the focus groups there was nothing to choose between crooked Hillary and lying Hillary (as one might imagine) but this was just another big TV show so Trump picked the one he preferred.  Crooked Hillary’s loss was Ted Cruz’s gain: He became Lyin’ Ted which was remembered when, rather than sharing the cold with his those who he represents when Texas froze under a polar vortex, the flew off to sunny Mexico for a vacation.  He was immediately dubbed flyin’ Ted.  The monikers are also recycled “crazy” briefly tried for crooked Hillary, used for Bernie Sanders and later for Liz Chaney, the last use probably because of the attractiveness of the cadence.  The opposing campaign teams noted both phenomenon and effect but all decided they either didn’t wish to adopt the technique or it was too late and to come up with a dirty Donald or cheating Donald or whatever, would have seemed an unoriginal reaction.  They were probably right to resist temptation.

The class of 2016: (1) Tez Cruz: Lyin’ Ted, (2) Marco Rubio: Little Marco, (3) Elizabeth Elizabeth Warren: Pocahontas, (4) Pete Buttigieg: Alfred E Neuman, (5) Michael Bloomfield: Mini Mike, (6) Jeb Bush: Low Energy Jeb, (7), Hillary Clinton: Crooked Hillary, (8) Bernie Sanders: Crazy Bernie.

Some of the memorable monikers Mr Trump has deployed over the years include: Wacky Bill Cassidy, Sleepin' Bob Casey, Low-Polling Liz Cheney, Wacky Susan Collins, Leakin' James Comey, Shadey James Comey, Slimeball James Comey, Slippery James Comey, Ron DeSanctimonious (Ron DeSantis), Leaking Dianne Feinstein, Jeff Flakey, (Jeff Flake), Rejected Senator Jeff Flake, Al Frankenstein (Al Franken), Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Nasty Kamala (Kamala Harris) Phony Kamala Harris, Corrupt Kaine (Tim Kaine), Cryin' Adam Kinzinger, Senator Joe Munchkin (Joe Manchin), Broken Old Crow (Mitch McConnell), Evan McMuffin (Evan McMullin), Disaster from Alaska (Lisa Murkowski), Fat Jerry (Jerry Nadler), Eva Perón (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), Foul Mouthed Omar (Ilhan Omar), Dummy Beto (Beto O'Rourke), Truly weird Senator Rand Paul, Nancy Antoinette (Nancy Pelosi), Nervous Nancy Pelosi, The Nutty Professor (Bernie Sanders), Adam Schitt (Adam Schiff), Pencil Neck (Adam Schiff), Weirdo Tom Steyer, Goofy Elizabeth Warren, Low-IQ Maxine Waters, That woman from Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer) and Gretchen Half-Whitmer (Gretchen Whitmer).

Sleepy Joe and wife on the campaign trail, 2020.

Even Trump however probably had to reign in his worst instincts, of which there are many.  He must have been tempted to persist calling Joe Biden sleepy-creepy Joe because of the long history of hair-sniffing photographs but, given his own record of locker-room talk, perhaps thought an allusion to senility might be safer.  Sleepy Joe it became although he’d previously flirted with Corrupt Joe, Basement Biden, Beijing Biden, China Joe, Quid Pro Joe and Slow Joe.  Had it been twenty years earlier, he’d probably have dismissed Pete Buttigieg with the gay slur Mayor Buttplug but times have changed.  He actually struggled to find some way successfully to disparage Buttigieg, finally picking up a reference to the Mad Magazine character Alfred E Neuman.  Buttigieg successfully deflected that echo from the analogue age, claiming never to have heard of Alfred E Neuman and suggesting it might be a “generational thing”, the cultural moment having passed.  It may also have been a good tactic; Ronald Reagan’s campaign staff never cared if anyone said he was too ignorant to be president but worried greatly if anyone suggested he was too old.  All the same, between Buttigieg and Neuman, there is some resemblance.

The pot calling the kettle black: Donald Trump in action.

One of the more recent to emerge was Ron DeSanctimonious to describe Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who a well-regarded betting site currently lists as the $2.10 favorite for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 with Mr Trump at $3.10 and all others as outsiders.  Perhaps surprisingly, the Democrat field is more closely contested although Sleepy Joe remains the favorite though it’s a long way out and even Crooked Hillary Clinton is at only $26.00 which doesn’t seem long odds considering the history.  Ron DeSanctimonious has lots of syllables so isn’t as punchy as some of the earlier monikers but Mr Trump has a habit of trying them out to see how they catch on and replacing anything which doesn’t work and in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial election he confirmed he voted for DeSantis so there's that.  However, long words can work well if they roll easily off the tongue which is why Pocahontas gained resonance.  Donald Trump dubbed Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas because of her claim to Native American ancestry which proved dubious but others were more clever still, referring to her as Fauxcahontas.  That was actually an incorrect use necessitated by the need of rhyme and word formation; technically she was a Fakecahontas but as a word it doesn’t work as well.  People anyway seemed to get the point: as a Native American, she was fake, bogus, phoney.

Mr Trump in November 2022 announced he'd be seeking the Republican Party's nomination again in 2024 so monikers old and new might again be deployed although, gloating somewhat over the disappointing performance of Trump-aligned candidates in the mid-term elections, Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The New York Post ran the headline "Trumpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall".  The Trumpty Dumpty line wasn't original, memes and books having circulated for years, but, News Corp having given the lead, it'll be interesting to see if that starts a trend among what Mr Trump calls "the fake news media".