Knave

 Knave (pronounced neyv)

(1) An unprincipled, untrustworthy, or dishonest person.  A rogue (archaic).

(2) A card (1 x hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades) in the standard fifty-two card pack of playing cards.  Also known as the Jack, the choice of word being sometimes used as an indicator either of class or geographical origin.

(3) A male servant of the lower ranks (archaic).

(4) A man of humble position (archaic).

Pre 1000: From the late Old English cnafa (boy, male child; male servant) from the Proto-Germanic knabon- (source also of the Old High German knabo (boy, youth, servant) and the German knabe (boy, lad)) and thought likely related to the Old English cnapa (boy, youth, servant), the Old Norse knapi (servant boy), the Dutch knaap (a youth, servant), the Middle High German knappe (a young squire) and the German Knappe (squire, shield-bearer).  The ultimate origin is a mystery, the most popular speculation being "stick, piece of wood".  Knave, knavess & knavery are nouns, knavish is an adjective and and knavishly is an adverb; the noun plural is knaves.

Cards and class

The sense of a "rogue or rascal" emerged circa 1200, thought probably reflective of a the (ever-present) societal tendency to equate the poor and “those of low birth" with poor character and propensity to crime, English poet & satirist Alexander Pope (1688-1744) in Essay on Man (1732-1734), capturing the feeling: “From the next row to that whence you took the knave, take the seven; from the next row take the five; from the next the queen.  To show mercy towards such a knave is an outrage to society!”  Despite that however, in Middle English didn’t lose the non-pejorative meaning, a knave-child (from the Scottish knave-bairn) being a male child.  The use in playing cards began in the 1560s, a knave being always the lowest scoring of the court cards.

Lindsay Lohan's Royal Routine (Ace down to the 10 in one suit) in The Parent Trap (1998).  The most desirable of the 40 different straight flush possibilities, under standard poker rules, the odds against holding a Royal Routine are 649,739:1 whereas those of any straight flush are a more accessible 72,192:1.  The difference in the math is there are fewer cards available for a Royal Routine to be assembled.

The use of Jack in cards came from the influence of French.  What the French called a valet, the English knew as a knave (in the sense of a young, male servant).  During the seventeenth century the French started to call such staff “Jack” apparently on the basis of it being a common name among the serving class; it was also the name used for the Knave of trumps at the game All Fours.  Although it appears widely to have been played by all classes, All Fours suffered, perhaps because it was a quick, trick-taking game, the reputation of being something enjoyed only by the lower classes and the choice of “knave” or “jack” came to be treated as a class-signifier, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) in Great Expectations (1860-1861) having Estella express scorn for Pip’s use of the latter.  The class-consciousness in English extends to the adoption of the German Bauer (farmer or peasant), as Bower, collectively to describe (usually when a pair of trumps (by color)) the Jacks in some games.  Knave survived in widespread use well into the twentieth century but US cultural influence has rendered it now mostly obsolete except for a few games where it persists and possibly among those who prefer a dish of tea to a cup.

In packs of cards, Knave (marked Kn) was used until Jack (J) became entrenched after 1864 when, US card-maker Samuel Hart published a deck using J instead of Kn to designate the knave to avoid confusion with the visually similar King (marked K).  Historically, in some southern Italian, Spanish and Portuguese decks, there were androgynous knaves sometimes referred to as maids.  This tradition survives only in the Sicilian Tarot deck where the knaves are unambiguously female and always known as maids.

Tarot

The Jack of Hearts signifies an honest young man in love. He is attractive, kind and generous, the card often announcing a new and intimate friendship. As a lover, the Jack of Hearts is trustworthy, even when absent he will be faithful.  Committed and sincere, he's a most eligible bachelor.

The Jack of Spades card indicates a young man of dark complexion, cunning and devious.  Intelligent, brilliant even, but cynical and exploitative, he will use you and walk away.  The Jack of spades is a sign you will face adversity from a ruthless person; he cannot be trusted.

The Jack of Diamonds represents the Messenger, symbolising also an unfaithful assistant or dishonest employee. The Jack of diamonds is a young man who comes and goes, taking more than is permitted and although quick-witted and cunning, is not trustworthy.

The Jack of clubs means a good friend.  Although flirtatious, he is a sincere, skilful and brave young man.  For a woman, this card represents her fiancé but for a man, it means a more successful and richer rival. This card also signifies education and intelligence.

Dimensionality

Dimensionality (pronounced dih-men-shuhn-nal-i-tee or dahy-men-shuhn-nal-i-tee).

(1) The state or characteristic of possessing dimensions.

(2) In mathematics, engineering, computing, physics etc, the number of dimensions possessed or attributed to an object, space or concept; the nature of the dimensions, considered, in relation to each other or the external world.

(3) In architecture (usually in criticism or theory), as super-dimensionality, micro-dimensionality, complimentary-dimensionality et al, an expression used to critique the scale of designs.

Circa 1910:  A coining of mathematicians said to date from the early twentieth century (though actual use may pre-date this), the construct was dimension +‎ -ality.  Dimension was from late fourteenth century late Middle English dimensioun, from the Anglo-French, from the Latin dīmēnsiōn-, from dīmēnsiō & dīmēnsiōnem, from dīmensus (measuring, measurement, dimension), perfect active participle of dīmētior (measured, regular), the construct being dis- (part’ separate; render asunder) +‎ mētior (measure or estimate; distribute or mete out; traverse), from the Proto-Italic mētis, from the primitive Indo-European meh- (to measure).  The suffix –ality was a compound affix, the construct being -al + -ity and equivalent to the French -alité and the Latin -ālitās.  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.  The derived forms from mathematics and other disciplines (extradimentionality et al) are sometimes hyphenated (extra-dimentionality et al).  Dimensionality is a noun; the noun plural is dimensionalities.

Being inherently a thing of numbers, in both pure and applied mathematics, dimensionality matters.  There is equidimensionality which, strictly speaking in the quality enjoyed by two (or more) dimensions exactly the same but the term has also been used in architecture as (1) a fancy way to say that things are (by mathematical standards) “roughly the same” and (2) a synonym for symmetrical.  Nobody seems to have come up with “hetrodimensionality” or something like that, asymmetrical apparently adequate.  In psychiatry, unidimensionality is the quality of measuring a single construct, trait, or other attribute; it's a clinical tool, an example of which is a unidimensional personality scale which would contain items related only to the respective concept of interest.  It's not the same as the pop-psychology term "one-dimensional" which is an allusion to functional, intellectual, emotional etc limitations in individuals or institutions.  A particular use of that appeared in the book One-Dimensional Man (1964) by German-American philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979).  Marcuse argued modern capitalism had reduced culture to a technological rationality and individuals to mere economic units, their value measured only by their industrial productivity.  Moreover, the genius of this system was that the false consciousness of the victims was manipulated to the point they became defenders of their own oppression.

Superdimensionality on the beach: A gigantic Lindsay Lohan.

Nondimensionality refers to quantity or measurement with no physical units attached, often represented as a ratio of two quantities that have the same units, such as the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference (which is represented by the nondimensional quantity π, or pi).  It’s not quite a revenge on the physicists who have identified certain particles with dimensions yet no mass, nondimensionality being useful in that relationships between different physical quantities can be expressed without the need to have specific units of measure.  Unidimensionality (the opposite of multidimensionality) refers to a measurement or quantity involving only one dimension or aspect; it is used not to imply there is only one dimension but in situations where the critical quality can be described using a single variable or dimension.  The classic examples of unidimensionality are the three dimensions length, width & breadth.  Multidimensionality involves two or more dimensions.  The companion terms “curse of dimensionality” and “blessing of dimensionality” are both commentaries of the volume of data available but reference not the data but the processes applied to the information.  The curse of dimensionality is that in some cases there can be an unmanageable amount of data; there is simply too much information even to assess what should be discarded.  However, for other purposes, the same data set could be invaluable, the volume making possible what once was not, thus the blessing of dimensionality.

String theory: Lindsay Lohan in string bikini, Mykonos, Greece, 2014.

Extradimensionality underlies string theory, a (highly) theoretical construct which has provided a number of speculative frameworks in an attempt to unify what are still considered the fundamental forces at work in the universe (gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces).  The essence of string theory in that the fabric of the universe is composed not of point-like particles in space but very small, one-dimensional forms (the nature of which varies according to the version of the theory) which act like “strings”, vibrating at different frequencies.  The strings are said to exist in another dimensional space-time than the four with which we are familiar (length, width, depth & time) and some string theorists have suggested there may be ten or more dimensions.  The most significant aspect of the behavior of the strings is said to be their interaction with both the space in which they exist and other strings in other spaces (although on the latter point some theorists differ).  The intricate equations describing the strings and their dimensions has allowed very complex models to be built and from these, the handful of people of the planet who understand both the mathematics and their implications have drawn a number of inferences about the universe said variously to be “fascinating”, “speculative” and “nonsensical” and one of the delights of string theory is that it can be neither proved nor disproved.  Word nerds however can be grateful to the stringers because they adopted “compactified”, the word describing the way the dimensions beyond the verifiable four are curled up (or scrunched) at scales so small they remain unobservable with current technology.

Superdimentionality

Model of Germania, built to scale.

Superdimentionality is the application of exaggerated dimensions to designs, some of which actually get built.  It a popular motif for the kitsch structures favored by tourist attractions of which Australia has many (the big pineapple, big prawn, big golfball, big lobster, big gumboot et al) but for Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), superdimentionality was the dominant concept for the entire Nazi empire; reichism writ large.  The idea was well documented in the plans for Germania, the re-building of Berlin designed by a team under Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), the centerpiece of which was the monumental Volkshalle (People's Hall), sometimes referred to as the Große Halle (Great Hall).  The hall would have seated 180,000 under a dome 16 times larger than that of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and in its vastness was a classic example of the representational architecture of the Third Reich.  Although it’s obvious the structure as a whole was intended to inspire awe, the details also conveyed the subliminal messaging of much fascist propaganda, fixtures like doorways sometimes four times the usual height, the disconnection from human scale emphasizing the supremacy of the state.

German conceptual H-45 battleship.

Hitler also thought the materiel supplied to his military machine should be big.  After being disappointed by proposals for the successors to the Bismarck-class ships to have the armament increased only from eight 15-inch (380 mm) to eight 16 inch (406 mm) canons, he ordered OKM (Oberkommando der Marine; Naval High Command) to design bigger ships.  Although none were ever built, Germany lacking the facilities even to lay down the keels, the largest (the H-44) would have had eight 20-inch (508 mm) cannons.  Even more to the Führer’s liking was the concept of the H-45, equipped with eight 31.5 inch (800 mm) Gustav siege guns but the experience of surface warfare at sea convinced Hitler the days of the big ships were over and he would even try to persuade the navy to retire all their capital ships and devote more resources to the submarines which, as late as 1945, he hoped might still prolong the war.  However, he never lost faith in the promise of bigger and bigger tanks, an opinion share by none of the tank commanders who were appalled at the designs of some of the monstrosities he ordered prepared.

Hitler’s study in the Reich Chancellery (1939) (left) and his (rarely used) big desk in the corner, the big doors behind (right)

Perhaps surprisingly, there’s no record Hitler ever complained the Mercedes-Benz built for his use were too small but then they were by even by the standards to which popes, presidents and potentates were accustomed, big.  Certainly, there’s no record of him asking Daimler-Benz for anything larger as Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970; President of France 1958-1969), in 1965 aghast at the notion the state car of France might be bought from Germany or the US (it’s not known which idea he thought most appalling and apparently nobody bothered to suggest buying British) requested of coachbuilder Henri Chapron (1886-1978).  Le General’s only stipulations about his Citroën DS Presidential were (1) it had to be longer than the extended Lincoln Continentals then used by the White House for Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1969-1969) and (2) the turning circle had to be tight enough to enter the Elysée Palace’s courtyard from the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and then pull up at the steps in a single maneuver.  Chapron managed to fulfill both requirements although the contrast between the Citroën’s rather agricultural 2.3 litre (140 cubic inch) four-cylinder engine and the Lincoln’s 7.0 (430) V8 was remarkable, De Gaulle probably regarding the Lincoln’s additional displacement as typical American vulgarity.

Mercedes-Benz 770K (W150), Berlin 1939.

Hitler though would have been impressed by the big V8 although he would doubtless have pointed out the 7.7 litre (468 cubic inch) straight-8 in his Mercedes-Benz 770K was not only bigger but also supercharged and he’d have found nothing vulgar in any of the American machine’s dimensions.  The 770Ks used by the Führer were produced in two series (W07 (1930-1939) & W150 (1939-1943)) of what the factory called the Grosser Mercedes (the Grand Mercedes) and while the earlier cars were available to anyone with the money (seven between 1932-1935 purchased by the Japanese Imperial household for the emperor’s fleet and adorned with the family’s gold chrysanthemum), the W150s were made exclusively for the upper echelons of the Nazi Party although to smooth the path of foreign policy, some did end up in foreign hands such as António Salazar (1889–1970) dictator of Portugal 1932-1968), Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) & Field Marshal Mannerheim (commander-in-chief of Finnish defense force 1939–1945 and president of Finland (1944–1946).  Though large and impressive, by 1938 the W07 was something of a engineering relic and although the demands of the military were paramount in the economy, resources were found to update the Grosser to the technical level of the more modern 540K by adopting a lower tubular chassis with revised suspension (the de Dion axle at the rear something which should have appeared on the post-war cars) and a new, five-speed, all synchromesh gearbox.  Making the selection of first gear effortless was of some significance because so much of the 770K’s time was spent at crawling speed on parade duty but, despite the bulk (and the weight of the armored versions with 1¾ inch (45 mm) glass could exceed 5500 kg (12,000 lb), speeds in excess of 160 km/h (100 mph) could be achieved provided one had enough autobahn ahead although at that pace, even the 195 litre (52 US gallon, 43 Imperial gallon) fuel tank would soon have been drained.  Some sources also claim five were built with two superchargers, raising the top speed to 190 km/h (118 mph) but the tale may be apocryphal.

Mercedes-Benz G4 during Hitler’s entry in Vienna following the Anschluss (the absorption of Austral into the Reich), 14 March 1938.  The statue in the background is of the Archduke Charles Louis John Joseph Laurentius of Austria, Duke of Teschen (1771–1847) and often referred to as “Archduke Karl”, mounted on the Heldenplatz.

Also appealing to Hitler was the big, three-axle G4 (W31).  The factory developed six-wheel (and ten-wheel for those with dual rear wheels) cross-country vehicles for military use during the 1920s but after testing a number of the prototype G1s, the army declined to place an order, finding them too big, too expensive and too heavy for their intended purpose.  Hitler however, as drawn to big, impressive machines as he was to huge, representational architecture, ordered them adopted as parade vehicles and the army soon acquired a fleet of the updated G4, used eventually not only on ceremonial occasions but also as staff and command vehicles, several known to have been specially configured, some as baggage cars and at least one as a mobile communications centre, packed with radio-telephony.  Eventually, between 1934-1939, fifty-seven were built, originally exclusively for the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command)) and OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command)) but one was gift from Hitler to Franco and the Spanish G4, one of few which still exists, was restored and remains in the royal garage in Madrid.  According to factory records, all were built with 5.0, 5.3 & 5.4 litre straight-eight engines but there is an unverified report of interview with Hitler’s long-time chauffeur, Erich Kempka (1910-1975), suggesting one for the Führer’s exclusive use was built with the 7.7 litre straight-eight used in the 770K Grosser.  Most of the 770s were supercharged so, if true, it's a tantalizing prospect but this story is widely thought apocryphal, no evidence of such a one-off ever having been sighted.

Nudge

Nudge (pronounced nuhj)

(1) To push slightly or gently, especially with the elbow; a gentle push.

(2) To give a nudge.

(3) To annoy with persistent complaints, criticisms or pleas; to nag.

(4) In behavioral economics (and other disciplines), the use of positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions as ways to influence behavior.

(5) In internet use, a feature of instant messaging software used to get the attention of another user, as by shaking the conversation window or playing a sound.

(6) In gambling (slot machines; fruit machines etc), the rotation by one step of a reel of the player's choice.

(7) Slightly to move.

(8) In slang as “giving it a (bit of a) nudge”, high alcohol consumption in the context of binge drinking.

1665-1675: From the Middle English, a variant of the earlier nidge & knidge, akin to the Old English cnucian & cnocian (to knock).  In other languages, there were similar forms.  There was the Yiddish nudyen (to bore), first noted in English in 1877, apparently derived from the Polish nudzić (sometimes written as nudnik in translation (and both from Slavic words meaning "fret, ache”)) and in the 1960s modern Yiddish adapted nudge (nudjh in Modern Yiddish) to mean complainer or nagger (presumably to satisfy the demand from daughters-in-law needing descriptors of Jewish mothers-in-law).  In the Nordic region, dating from the seventeenth century there was the Icelandic nugga (to push, rub or massage) and the Norwegian nugge or nyggje (to jostle, rub, push slightly with the elbow), from the Proto-Germanic hnōjaną (to smooth, join together), from the primitive Indo-European kneh- which may have had some relationship to the Ancient Greek κνάω (knáō) (to scratch, scrape), source of the English noun acnestis (the section of an animal's skin that it cannot reach in order to scratch itself, usually the space between the shoulder blades).  There was also the Scots nodge (to push, poke, nudge), knidge (to push, squeeze), gnidge (to rub, press, squeeze, bruise) & knudge (to squeeze, press down with the knuckles) and the Middle Low German nucke, nücke & gnücke (a sudden push, shock, impetus).  Nudge is a noun & verb, nudged & nudging are verbs, nudger is a noun, nudgy is an adjective and nudgingly is an adverb; the noun plural is nudges. 

Nudge theory

The most famous example of a nudge is the etching of the image of a housefly into the urinals at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport (actually an idea dating back decades).  It’s to nudge men towards “improving the aim" and one feminist critic suggested images of dartboards so “men could keep score.”  She may have been taking the piss.

First appearing in the 2008 book Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by University of Chicago economist & Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler (b 1945) and Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein (b 1954), nudge theory was a concept now part of the behavioral sciences, political theory and economics.  It suggests the use of positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to try to achieve non-forced compliance with desirable objectives.  Nudge theory attracted criticism from both left and right because it is a form of social engineering although the specifics of the critiques vary but it certainly was organizationally influential, the seemingly radical that government could maintain the freedoms enjoyed by citizens in the democratic West while simultaneously helping them make better choices in matters relating to their health, happiness & wealth.  Within months of publication, over 500 nudge units or departments had been created around the world, including institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations (UN).  However, in recent years, critics have challenged the both the effectiveness of the idea and even that nudges by governments are inherently less intrusive and thus more likely to sustain civil freedoms than other approaches (taxes, legislation etc).  One obvious difficulty for both sides of the argument is that any attempt to find a correlation between nudges and alleged outcomes cannot easily be reduced to numbers so conventional economic modeling is often not useful.

Lindsay Lohan at dawn, resting in a Cadillac Escalade, Los Angeles, May 2007.  The idiomatic Australian phrase “gave it a bit of a nudge last night” is an allusion to having taken too much strong drink.

Phial

Phial (pronounced fahy-uh)

A small container or bottle, used to store liquids.

1350–1400: From the Middle English viole (vessel used for holding liquids), (a variant of fiole which existed also as phiole & fiole), from the Old French fiole, via the Old Provençal fiola, from the Medieval Latin phiola, from the Latin phiala (a broad, flat, shallow cup or bowl), from the Ancient Greek φιάλη (phiálē) (flat vessel, dish, flat bowl for drinking or sacrificing) of unknown origin.  The evolution was influenced also by the twelfth century Old French fiole (flask, phial) which at least in parts accounts for the of proliferation of spelling in Middle English (fiole,phiole,phial,fial,viole,vial,viele and the modern vial).  Phial is a noun & verb; the noun plural is phials.

Lindsay Lohan pouring from modern civilization's most ubiquitous phial (or vial), PepsiCo Pilk promotion, December 2022.  

The aluminium can used to contribute much to litter, both as thoughtlessly they were discarded when empty and because the sealing tabs were detachable, beaches & parks in the 1970s notorious for being strewn with the things.  The problems substantially were solved by (1) making a fee payable when the cans were handed in to a recycling centre and (2) changing the tab's design so the whole mechanism remains attached.  Aluminium does consume large amounts of electricity during the production process but if "green energy" can be used it's one of the less environmentally destructive metals and, (1) being light it reduces the fuel load required during transportation & storage and (2) being non-ferrous it doesn't rust.  It is one of the best and most economical efficient metals to recycle.

Phial is a doublet of vial.  In technical use (in science), some institutions have drawn distinctions between the two (1) phials being larger than vials and (2) vials are for liquids related to medicine and phials for other fluids but in general use they remain interchangeable (although consistency within documents is obviously recommended).  In the US, early in the twentieth century, phial became close to extinct after hundreds of years of being nearly as common as vial while elsewhere in the English-speaking world, vial emerged as the preferred form during the post-war years and phial seems now a romantic form restricted to fiction, historical and spiritual writing.  Vial must never be confused with its homophone vile.  A vial is a noun describing a vessel in which liquids are kept; vile is an adjective, applied most often to morally dubious characters like crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).  "Vial Hillary" works about as well as "crooked Hillary". 

The Seven Phials

The seven phials (translated also as cups or bowls) are a set of plagues in the New Testament (Revelation 16), apocalyptic events seen in the vision of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, by John of Patmos.  Seven angels are given seven phials, each a judgement of the wrath of God, to be poured upon the wicked and the followers of the Antichrist after the sounding of seven trumpets.  In the twenty-first century, end-of-times theorists, religious fundamentalists and the habitually superstitious have taken an increased interest in the seven phials because the text in Revelation can be variously interpreted including as a foretelling of AIDS, chronic pollution, species extinction, climate change, wild fires, floods and the rule of various autocrats.

Michelangelo (1475–1564), Last Judgment (circa 1540), Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

When the first phial is emptied, foul and painful sores are inflicted upon those bearing the mark of the beast and those who worship the image of the beast.   

When the second phial is emptied, the seas and the oceans become bitter and all life in the sea dies.

When the third phial is emptied, the rivers turn to blood; angels begin praising God's holy judgments.

When the fourth phial is emptied, the sun causes a major heatwave to scorch the planet with fire; the incorrigible and wicked refuse to repent while they blaspheme the name of God.

When the fifth phial is emptied, a thick darkness overwhelms the kingdom of the beast. The wicked continue to stubbornly defame the name of God while refusing to repent and glorify God.

When the sixth phial is emptied, the great river Euphrates dries up so that the kings of the east might cross to begin battle.  Three unclean spirits with the appearance of frogs come from the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.  These demonic spirits work satanic miracles to gather the nations of the world to battle against the forces of good during the Battle of Armageddon. Jesus says his coming will be like that of a thief in the night, urging his followers to stay alert.

When the seventh phial is emptied, a global earthquake causes the cities of the world to crumble collapse.  All mountains and islands are shaken from their foundations.  Giant hailstones rain down upon the planet and plagues are so severe the incorrigible’s hatred intensifies as they continue to curse God.

Fringe

Fringe (pronounced frinj)

(1) A decorative border of thread, cord, or the like, usually hanging loosely from a raveled edge or separate strip; an edging consisting of hanging threads, tassels etc.

(2) In architecture, engineering, gardening, interior decorating et al, anything resembling or suggesting this (sometimes used loosely).

(3) An outer edge; margin; the periphery.

(4) In political science, something regarded as peripheral, marginal, secondary, or extreme in relation to something else; Those members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views (famously as the “lunatic fringe”).

(5) In optical physics, one of the alternate light and dark bands produced by the diffraction or interference of light.

(6) In tax law, as “fringe benefit”, a non-cash element of earning treated as income for taxation purposes (sometimes at a concessional rate).

(7) To furnish with or as if with a fringe; to serve as a fringe for, or to be arranged around or along so as to suggest a fringe; to be a fringe.

(8) In hairdressing, a style in which hair sits vertically across the forehead (synonymous with “bangs”, the predominant US form although the latter describes a wider range of cuts and, under the influence of social media, is now widely used).

(9) In botany, the peristome or fringe-like appendage of the capsules of most mosses.

(10) In structured performance art, a series of events conducted in parallel with (though not formerly a part of) an established festival (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe et al).

1325–1375: From the Middle English frenge (ornamental bordering; material for a fringe), from the Old French frenge (thread, strand, fringe, hem, border) (which endures in Modern French as frange), from the Vulgar Latin frimbia (a metathetic variant of the Late Latin plural fimbria (fibers, threads, fringe)), from the Latin fimbriae (fringe) of uncertain origin.  It was related to the German Franse and Danish frynse and came to replace the native Middle English fnæd (fringe), byrd (fringe) & fasel (fringe) from the Old English fæs (fringe) & fnæs (fringe).  As a verb which described “to decorate with a fringe or fringes”, use emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.  The meaning “a border, a boundary, an edge” dates from the 1640s while the figurative sense of “an outer edge, the margin” didn’t come into use until the 1890s although fringe had been an adjective since 1809.  The use of the technical term “fringe benefits” was first recorded in 1952.  Fringe is a noun, verb & adjective, fringed & fringing are verbs and fringeless, fringelike & fringy are adjectives; the noun plural is fringes.

For those seeking an example of the fecundity of the human imagination, Urban Dictionary has listing of their contributor’s suggesting of forms in which fringe is an element including mini-fringe, fringe fries, Tetris fringe, stoner fringe, wannabe fringe, minge fringe, vagina fringe, fringe of wisdom, fringe sex, clunge fringe, stu fringe, fringed purse, fringe flicker, pube fringe, fringe binge, fanny fringe, block fringe, fringed unicorn, fringe wizzle, chocolate fringe, box fringe, fringe of darkness, fringe sleeper, fucking fringe & grunge fringe.  Especially in those with some anatomical reference, there may be some overlap in meaning but it remains an impressive list.

Slides from the research which identified the Beta-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase lunatic fringe gene (now called LFNG), an an essential mediator of somite segmentation and patterning.

In the science of genetics, “lunatic fringe” was too tempting to resist. As in many fields in science, the privilege of allocating a name for a gene is granted to whomever discovered it and those working on fruit flies and other creatures concocted, inter alia: Tinman (fruit flies with a mutated Tinman gene do not develop a heart); Casanova (Zebrafish with a mutation in the Casanova gene develops two hearts); INDY (I’m not dead yet (a reference to a line in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) a mutation in the INDY gene prolongs the lifespan of fruit flies; Cheap Date (fruit flies with a mutation in the Cheap Date gene become highly sensitive to alcohol); Dracula (Zebrafish with a mutated Dracula gene are hyper-sensitive to light and soon die; Sonic Hedgehog (Fruit fly embryos with mutated Sonic hedgehog gene develop spikes that resembles a hedgehog); Pinhead (a fruit fly gene which resembled humans colloquially called "pinheads"); Groucho Marx (a gene in metazoa that induces excess facial bristles); Ken & Barbie (Mutations in Ken and Barbie result in fruit flies without external genitalia; Grim & Reaper (the genes Grim & Reaper regulate the death process (apoptosis) in fruit flies).  Even the names of some of genes discovered in fruit fly (and other non-human) research proved to be controversial because so many were shared with humans and accordingly the Human Genome Organization’s (HUGO) gene naming committee was petitioned to change them.   As part of this linguistic sanitization, three christened during the decoding of the human genome (Lunatic Fringe, Manic Fringe & Radical Fringe) were anonymized respectively as LFNG, MFNG & RFNG.

Lunatic Fringe, Canterbury, England.

In parts of the English-speaking world, it’s not uncommon to find a hairdressing salon called Lunatic Fringe but it’s less common in North America where the preferred term for what in the UK, Australia etc was traditionally called a fringe, is “bangs”.  Under the influence of social media and other cultural exports, the Americanism has spread and bangs is now commonly heard everywhere and it’s proved technically useful for professional hairdressers who often distinguish between the classic fringe and a variety of cuts called bangs (which might be considered partial fringes), typically a cut which involves some strands cut short in front of the face or longer, usually thicker strands at the sides to “frame the face”.  The origin of the use of “bangs” in this context is mysterious, some claiming it was a clipping of the hairdresser’s phrase “bang off” which meant to cut the hair in front of the face short, straight & even while others suggest a link with “bang tail”, a dressage cut done to horsetails for equestrian events where the tail hairs would be cut straight across.

Lindsay Lohan with fringe cut with the alluring “dangling in the eyes” look, known as early as 1875 as "the lunatic fringe" (left), in costume as Cleopatra in Liz & Dick (2012) with straight cut fringe (centre) and with curtain bangs which are layered but not quite a bottleneck (right).

There is art & science associated with bangs because not all variations suit all face shapes and certainly aren’t suitable (or even technically possible) with all types of hair.  Additionally, some really work only if complementary makeup is applied but the core base for the decision is almost always the shape of the face, particularly the curve of the jaw-line and essentially they pivot from four points: above the brows, at eye level, at cheekbone level and at the jaw-line.  As a general principle, the hairdresser’s four point rule for bangs is (1) square or heart-shaped faces look best with something wispier or feathered fringe to add softness, (2) oblong face shapes work well with blunt-cut bangs, (3) round faces can gain the effect of elongation with side-swept or curtain bangs and (4) oval-shaped faces will usually accommodate any bang.  In the jargon of professionals there are curtain bangs, bottleneck bangs, blunt bangs, curly bangs, side-swept bangs, layered bangs, choppy bangs, braided bangs, wispy bangs, wavy bangs, micro bangs, shaggy bangs, piecey bangs, JBF bangs & clip-in bangs.

Ali Lohan (b 1993) photographed with her pregnant sister wearing Sandal-Malvina Fringe Tank Dress (left).  The shoes are Alexandre Birmen Clarita Platforms although, as the pregnancy progresses, the Instagram feed can be expected increasingly to feature sensible and comfortable footwear such as Nike’s Air Vapormax Multicolor sneakers (right).

Fringe “festivals” (Edinburgh Fringe; Adelaide Fringe et al).are events which “piggy-back” on mainstream “official” events (Edinburgh Festival; Adelaide Festival et al).  They began as “pirate events” but often became so popular they really came to be considered part of the event and schedules of both came to be designed in conjunction.  The notion of them being “fringe” referenced (1) their components being exhibited or preformed not in the main performance spaces but in places on the periphery and (2) their content being (allegedly) avant-garde (“edgy” in arty talk) or too controversial to be staged in the main event.

Theodore Roosevelt in fringed jacket with Winchester Model 1876, customized with a half-round octagonal barrel, pistol grip, deluxe checkered wood, case-hardened receiver and a shotgun-style butt.

The “lunatic fringe” is really not a phrase from political science (although not a few academics seem to enjoy using it); and in this context it was coined by a politician and is a favorite in popular journalism.  Although many dictionaries early in the twentieth century are said to have described “lunatic fringe” as “a splendidly prejudicial British phrase, with its suggestion of hair dragged villainously low over the forehead or edging the circumference of the face in the way that magistrates disapprove of”, it seems first to have been used of political matters by Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) in a letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) on 4 November 1913.   In the letter, he wrote: “I have got some very amusing letters from the lunatic fringe. . . . It is extraordinary how they take hold of people who are just a little mad themselves.”

Lindsay Lohan with "lunatic fringe".

Thereafter, the phrase became widely known and has since been used of extremist groups or individuals with radical or unconventional views.  It’s in a sense a successor to the way “ultra” was earlier used (ultimately as both noun and adjective) as a prefix (ultra-Tory, ultra-revolutionary etc) before emerging in its own right as a “curtailed word”.  In modern use, it’s handy in that it’s politically agnostic: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) could say of his Democratic Party challenger, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) that he was “…a candidate that will destroy this country and he may not do it himself. He will be run by a radical fringe group of lunatics that will destroy our country” as effortlessly as earlier Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) could describe the Republican Party’s Tea Party faction as “… a lunatic fringe which the Republican leadership should reign in or else the country would suffer.”  However, although President Roosevelt may have thought he was coining something original, some forty years earlier the phrase had some currency among hairdressers in West Virginia, the Wheeling Daily Register in July 1875 reporting “…lunatic fringe is the name given to the fashion of cropping the hair and letting the ends hang down over the forehead.”

Gundeck

Gundeck (pronounced guhn-dek)

(1) Historically, on warships of the sail era, any deck (other than the weather deck) having cannons in permanent place from end to end.

(2) As gundecking, navy slang for falsifying records (now used also in merchant and other commercial shipping) and a synonym of “pencil whip” (to falsify records to convey the impression tasks have been completed).

1670–1680: The construct was gun + deck. Gun (in this context) was from the mid-fourteenth century Middle English gunne & gonne (an engine of war that throws rocks, arrows or other missiles from a tube by the force of explosive powder or other substance), from the “Lady Gunilda”, a very big crossbow with a powerful shot, the second element of the term from the Old Norse.  Originally restricted to the largest of projectile-launchers, “gun” was later applied to all firearms, pistols beginning to be described thus from circa 1745 although the military resisted the spread, preferring to restrict “gun” to mounted cannons, especially the big, long-barrelled (almost always big-bore) devices used with high velocity and long trajectory shells.  Hence the phrase “great guns” (used by both the army & navy) which were distinguished from small arms (muskets, pistols, rifles) and most western militaries still insist pistols are “side arms” rather than guns.  The idiomatic uses seem all to be modern: The use to describe a “thief or rascal: dates from 1858, the phrase “jumping the gun” was US English from 1812 which referenced a sporting competitor anticipating the starter’s pistol and “guns” to mean “a woman’s breasts” is said to be from as recently as 2006, the coining presumably because it was felt there weren’t a sufficient number of slang terms to use in anatomical tribute.  The origin of “son of a gun” is contested.  One theory suggests it dates from the eighteenth century when women sometimes accompanied sailors on long voyages, giving (as seems inevitable) birth on board, the most convenient place being the space between the cannons on the gundeck.  Such a child would therefore be called a “son of a gun” although this doesn’t account for the girls, the explanation for that perhaps as simple as “daughter of a gun” not so effortlessly rolling of the tongue.  There is no documentary evidence to support this and most etymologists appear to suggest the phrase was merely a euphemism for the vulgar “son of a bitch”.  Best of all however was the US Civil War (1861-1865) era story which in which “son of a gun” was used to explain a young lady’s otherwise inexplicable pregnancy by claiming a fired musket ball had passed through a man’s testicle before lodging in her ovaries.  There has never been any medical support for the theory but it’s not impossible the explanation was accepted (if not actually believed), south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The construct of the name Gunnhildr (of which there are many variations) was the Old Norse gunnr (battle, war), from the primitive Indo-European gwhen- (to strike, kill) + hildr (battle), which technically creates a pleonasm but the duplication may be related to the wish to emphasise the size of the weapon.  The linguistic technique is noted in other languages such as that of the Darkinjung people (the original inhabitants of a part of costal New South Wales (NSW), Australia) in which the word for “water, pond etc” was woy and their name for a large body of water was woy woy (which endures as the name of the town Woy Woy, situated next to a deep tidal channel).  In a military context, the woman's name meant “battle maid”, some of the variations (Hilda, Gunilda, Gunhild, Gunhilda, Gunnhildr et al) familiar from Wagnerian interpretations.  Another Middle English adaptation of the women’s name Gunilda was gonnilde (cannon) and it appears also in a military stocktake (written in Anglo-Latin), a munitions inventory of Windsor Castle dating from 1330: “... una magna balista de cornu quae Domina Gunilda ...”  In the usual military manner, ancillary pieces picked up names associated with their primary device, hence the early fourteenth century gonnilde gnoste (spark or flame used to fire a cannon).  Something which might provide some insight into the (male) military mind is the frequency with which women’s names were used of the most extraordinarily powerful artillery pieces (Mons Meg, Big Bertha, Brown Bess et al).  The other influence on the development of the word may have been the Old French engon, a dialectal variant of engin (engine), the word engine’s original meaning better understood as something like “machine” or “constructed device”.

Deck (in this context) was from the mid-fifteenth century Middle English dekke (covering extending from side to side over part of a ship), from a nautical use of the Middle Dutch dec & decke (roof, covering), from the Middle Dutch decken, from the Old Dutch thecken, from the Proto-West Germanic þakkjan, from the Proto-Germanic þakjaną and related to the German Decke (covering, blanket) and the Proto-Germanic thakam (source also of the noun thatch), from the primitive Indo-European root steg & teg- (to cover).  It was thus a doublet of thatch and thack.  In English, the sense was soon extended by the Admiralty from “covering” to “platform of a ship” and the apparently mysterious use from the 1590s meaning “the pack of playing cards necessary to play a game” may have been an allusion to the cards being stacked like the decks of a big ship.  In audio engineering, the tape deck was first documented in 1949, apparently a reference to the flat surface of the old reel-to-reel tape recorders.  Dating from 1844, the deck chair gained its name from their well-publicized use on ocean liners.  The phrase “on deck” was an old admiralty term (famously “all hands on deck”) meaning “ready for action or duty” and by the 1740s it had entered general (non-nautical) use, in the US by 1867 entering the lexicon of baseball in the sense of “a batter waiting a turn at the plate”  The phrase “clear the desks” is now used in many contexts (and a favourite in corporate jargon) but originally was an instruction during a sea-battle to remove from the deck of a ship the wreckage of the engagement (downs masts, sails & spars, the dead and injured etc) which might interfere with a renewal of action.  Perhaps surprisingly, it’s documented only since 1852 but was likely to have been in use at sea for generations and it may be a variation of the French débarasser le pont. (clear the bridge).

Ships of the line

HMS Victory’s 32 Pounders on the Lower Gundeck.

Over time, warships evolved from two or three masted galleons into big, multi-decked affairs, the largest of which (those which would evolve into the dreadnoughts and the successor battleships of the twentieth century) were known as “ships of the line” which would form the backbone of the Western world’s great navies between the seventeen and nineteenth centuries before they gave way to the steam-power.  The idea of the “ship of the line” and the gundeck were intertwined because naval combat evolved into a fighting formation called the “line of battle” in which the opposing fleets manoeuvred to form lines so the guns could be fired in broadside (a simultaneous discharge of all the guns arrayed on one side of a ship).  Physics dictated the advantage in battle lay with the biggest ships with the biggest guns, thus the appearance of ships of the line with two, three or even four gundecks.  Of course, as decks with heavy guns were added, the centre of gravity rose and the need to find the optimal compromise balancing speed, stability and firepower preoccupied naval architects.

Model of HMS Royal William (1719), built as a First Rate (100 gun) triple-gundecked ship of the line, it only ever saw active service as a second and third rate ship.

By the turn of the eighteenth century, the definitive shape of a ship of the line had emerged.  The galleons protruding aft superstructure had been abandoned and they could displace as much as 2000 tons and be 200 feet (60 m) in length with crews of 500-800 sailors.  The cannons were arrayed along the (typically) three gundecks, the 30-odd heaviest guns (32-48 lb) on the lower gundeck, a similar number of 20-24 pounders in the middle with 24-30 12 pounders on the upper, the allocation reflecting the naval architects’ concerns with weight distribution.  The Royal Navy, rated it ships of the line according to firepower, the categories being third rate (up to 70 guns), second rate (70-100 guns) & first rate (over 100 guns) but the admirals were also realists, Lord Nelson (1758-1805) reckoning that on shore, a 12-gun fort could hold its own against a 100 gun ship of the line, a lesson which had apparently been forgotten when in 1915 some pre-dreadnoughts were sent to bombard the fortifications on the Gallipoli Peninsular when an unsuccessful attempt was made to force the straits of the Dardanelles and take Constantinople.

Gundecking

The term “gundecking” was naval slang for the falsification of records (and a synonym of “pencil whip”).  The origin of the tem is speculative but the most plausible explanation is said to relate to midshipmen (the lowest rung of the navy’s commissioned ranks) on the gundeck performing their celestial navigation tasks which (three time a day), were used to determine a ship's position using the morning star sights, the noon sun line, and the evening star sights.  However, not all midshipmen were as diligent as their captain would have hoped and rather than completing the dreary business of computing from fresh observations, simply reckoned the position on the basis of the speed and direction earlier recorded by their more contentious shipmates.  In other words, they made an educated guess and wrote down what they thought the numbers should be.  The term gundecking is now used to indicate the falsification of documentation in order to avoid doing the work required and in commercial shipping, the word is heard in cases which come before the courts.  There are stringent regulations which restrict how ships may process their bilge water (a truly disgusting mix of oil, water and sewerage) and on cruise ships with thousands of passengers there’s a lot of it and it’s an expensive business, ships’ engineers required to maintain hourly records of the purification processes prior to discharge into the open sea.  Because it costs a fraction as much to falsify the records and simply discharge the untreated bilge, some are tempted to “gundeck” the books and just open the valves on what is known as a “magic pipe” which is a straight line from bilge to ocean.  Fines in the order or US$40 million have been imposed so the costs of gundecking can be high.

Lindsay Lohan on community service, armed with a pair of ratchet loppers, gardening, Brooklyn Women's Shelter, New York City, 2015.

In 2015, a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles found Lindsay Lohan had been doing a bit of gundecking in recording as “community service” the hours spent working with the charity group Community Service Volunteers (CSV) during the time she was in London appearing in a West End production of David Mamet's (b 1947) Speed-the-Plow (1988).  Some of the hours claimed were absorbed lobbying the US insurance company Esurance to donate US$10,000 (£6,440) to the CSV although a statement issued by CSV confirmed Ms Lohan had volunteered on the organisation's “Positive Futures” project, which works with teenagers in Hackney, adding “She has built strong relationships with the young volunteers she has worked with on the scheme.”  The community service order dates from traffic offences in 2012 and the judge found some of her activities in London, including “meeting & greeting” fans didn’t qualify as “community service” and ordered the gundecked hours be annulled with a further 125 hours to be performed.