Skeg

Skeg (pronounced skeg)

(1) In shipbuilding, a fin-like projection supporting a rudder and protecting the propeller(s) at its lower end, located abaft a sternpost or rudderpost.

(2) In the design of smaller boats, an extension of the keel, designed to improve steering.

(3) In the slang of naval architects (in certain contexts), a stump or branch (the after-part of a ship's keel).

(4) In the slang of the General Motors (GM) stylists, a “lower fin”, matching the upper on the rear of 1961-1962 Cadillacs.

(5) The fin which acts as a stabilizer on a surfboard.  To suffer some injury after being hit by one of these fins is to be “skegged”.

(6) In Australian slang, a surfer; a person who leads the lifestyle of a surfer (used also derisively in the form “fake skeg” of those who adopt the style an appearance without actually surfing.

(7) A type of wild plum (obsolete).

(8) A kind of oat (obsolete).

(9) In Northern English dialectal use, a look or glance.

(10) In many cultures, a slang term applied to youth suggesting slovenliness, a predilection to petty crime and other anti-social behavior; also used widely in Scottish slang for a surprising variety of purposes including legs, trousers, dirt, scotch eggs, sex and women of loose virtue.

1590–1600: From a dialectal term for a stump, branch, or wooden peg, from the Dutch scheg (cutwater), of Scandinavian origin and related to the Swedish skog and the Old Norse & Icelandic skegg (projection on the stern of a boat).  In some Nordic languages, skegg means “beard” and was from the Old Norse skegg, from the Proto-Germanic skaggiją, from the primitive Indo-European skek, kek-, skeg & keg- (to jump, skip, move, hurry).  The name of the English coastal town of Skegness is though a construct of the Old Norse skegg (beard) + -nes (headland) and was thought a reference to the geography, the original settlement situated farther east at the mouth of The Wash (thus jutting out like a beard from a face).  A link with the Old Norse name Skeggi is thought unlikely.  The skegs of nautical architecture should not be confused with the homophone Sceggs, the acronym for students of Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar school (S.C.E.G.G.S.), seen also in the adjectival forms sceggesque & sceggish (one whose style suggests something similar to the stereotypical student of the school).  Skeg is a noun; the noun plural is skegs.

Lindsay Lohan in wet suit, with surfboard, Malibu, 2011.  The stabilizing skeg is the black protrusion at the back of the board.

On nautical vessels, skegs where they exist fulfill a significant function but they are not an essential part of hull design.  A skeg is an external structural feature, a vertical tapering projection permanently fixed at the aft, usually close to the centre-line.  Most are located in front of the rudder and structurally can often be considered a sternward extension of the keel (the internal, longitudinal members which lend much strength of the hull).  Although in military vessels there are additional functions, the moist significant contribution of a skeg is in hydrodynamics, a skeg designed to influence the flow patterns and thus affecting the dynamics of both the rudder (which is usually in line with the skeg) and propeller(s).  The design is thus a finely tuned equation because while a skeg inherently induces drag, the way it alters the flow pattern can reduces the drag and resistance suffered by the rudder and propeller(s), essentially by transforming the turbulent characteristics of the flow to laminar at the stern.  Historically, skegs were a vital component in maintaining a course and that’s still an important consideration in smaller vessels but in larger craft, improved rudder and advanced navigational as well as stabilization technologies like thrusters have meant skegs are no longer of the same significance in maintaining directionality.

An US Navy Iowa class battleship, showing the inner set of propeller shafts wholly enclosed in a pair of skegs.  On the big ships, the skegs were designed also as load-bearing supports while in dry-dock.

In the modern age, skegs became an unusual feature on warships, a relative few so equipped and the designs varied, some with only a few of their shafts inside skegs while others encased all.  While the traditional design imperatives were shared with other ships, for navies, they also offered the advantage of affording some degree of protection for rudders and propellers against torpedo attack.  Historically, another important attribute of skegs was what they add to a hull’s structural strength, making the (inherently weaker) stern resistant to outside forces and all the last of the US Navy’s dreadnoughts featured skegs.  Their hulls narrowed towards the stern and to save weight lacked the sternpost plates the British, German and Japanese navies always fitted to their battleships and the skegs compensated for this, offering a hull with similar rigidity.

The US Navy’s South Dakota class battleships were fitted with an unusual set of skegs, the design dictated by the relatively short hull, the large outboard skegs helping to reduce the adverse effects of fluid dynamics induced by the hull’s abrupt end.

However, advantages in engineering and metallurgy meant much of the functionality afforded by skegs could be achieved in other ways and skegs became unfashionable in naval architecture.  The modeling and simulations made possible by supercomputers meant hull designs could be rendered which mastered the turbulence caused by fluid dynamics so rudders and propellers were less affected so the skeg was in many cases a source of performance-sapping skin-friction drag with little compensating benefit.  Indeed, not only did this hamper performance, in some cases excessive vibration was caused, something which could only to a degree be ameliorated by changes to the propellers’ configurations.

Cadillac’s Skegs, 1961-1962

Cadillac Coupe DeVille, (1959, left & 1960 right).

The 1959 Cadillac’s tail-fins are the best remembered and most emblematic of the brief, extraordinary era during which the absurdly macropterous flourished.  They’re rightly known as “peak-fin” but it’s a myth they were the tallest because, measured from the ground, those on the 1961 Imperial are just under a half-inch (12 mm) more vertiginous.  The attractions of the style however were fading and in 1960, Cadillac and Chrysler (Ford never really got involved) began to tone them down.  Another cultural phenomenon is that because of the large number of pink 1959 Cadillacs which now exist, many assume they were a common sight when new, the things perhaps made memorable by the sight of the one owned by the admirable Jayne Mansfield (1933–1967).  However, the factory never made a pink 1959 Cadillac and in the era, it was only in 1956 such a color was on the option list and Ms Mansfield had one of those while her 1959 convertible received a custom re-paint.

Cadillac Coupe de Ville, (1961, left & 1962 right).

For the 1961 & 1962 range the fins became lower still but in compensation, the design staff added a lower fin and these, informally they called “skegs”.

1961 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, (left), one of the design proposals for 1961 (centre) & captured German V2 rocket (right).

While of course an extravagance, the skegs could have part of something even wilder because among the design proposals which emerged from the General Motors Advanced Design Studios was one which clearly was the ultimate expression of the motif of the 1950s which borrowed so much from the aerospace industry,  The proposed fins essentially were those of ballistic missiles which for decades were an evolution from the German Vergeltungswaffen zwei (V-2), developed first by the German military with the code name Aggregat 4 (A4).  Vergeltungswaffen is translated variously as "retaliatory weapons" or "reprisal weapons" but in English use is often written as “vengeance weapons”.  Aerodynamically, presumably the proposal has something to commend it and it proceeded far enough into the selection for an expensive, full-sized clay model to be rendered (one wonders what the rejected sketches looked like) but ultimately the longer though somehow more restrained skegs were preferred.

The 1961 Cadillac: The long (left) and slightly less long (right) of it.

One quirk of Cadillac’s brief embrace of the skeg was there were two iterations: skeg long and skeg short.  Whether in response to or in anticipation of some owners preferring their Cadillac in a more conveniently sized package, between 1961-1963 a “short-deck” option was made available on certain body styles.  Offered first on the six-window Sedan de Ville, an encouraging 3,756 were built so the option was in 1962 offered on the four-window Sixty Two Town Sedan but sales actually dropped to 2600, the decline in interest confirmed the next year when only 1575 of the four-window Park Avenue Sedan de Ville were sold.  Using the same 129.5 inch (3289 mm) wheelbase as the regular models but eight inches (200 mm) shorter in overall length (215 vs 223 inches (5461 vs 5664 mm)), space utilization was obviously a little better but the market had spoken.  With fewer than eight-thousand of the short-deck models sold across three seasons while the standard editions shipped in the tens of thousands, the flirtation with (slightly) more efficient packaging was abandoned for 1964; in the course of the following decade, Cadillacs would grow another seven inches (178 mm) and gain over 400 lb (181 kg).

For 1963, the short-deck models returned for another dismal season but the skegs were abandoned, never to return.  The fins however the design studio found harder to forsake, conscious perhaps it was on the 1948 Cadillac they’d first appeared.  Then, modestly sized, they’d been an allusion to the tail-planes used on the twin-boomed Lockheed P-38 Lightning (1939) but the fashion had passed and the fins had to go so, inch by inch, there was a retreat from the heights and exuberance of 1959 until in 1966 the fins were vestigial, a hint which for decades would be retained.

A gang of four Sceggs, Sydney, Australia.

Migraine

Migraine (pronounced mahy-greyn or mee-greyn)

(1) An extremely severe paroxysmal headache, usually confined to one side of the head and often associated with nausea; hemicrania.

(2) A neurological condition characterised by such headaches

1325–1375: From the Middle English, from the Old French migraigne, from (as an imperfect echoic) the Medieval Latin hēmicrānia (pain in one side of the head, headache) and the Greek hemikrania, the construct being hemi (half) + kranion (skull).  The earliest form in English was megrim or mygrame with the spelling revised in 1777 to adopt the French form.  It’s never been clear if any of the European forms are a calque of the Egyptian gs-tp (headache), a construct of gs (half) + tp (head); the link between the Egyptian magical papyri and the Greek hēmikranía (ἡμικρανία) is undocumented and could be coincidental.  The corrupt form megrim was in common use between the fifteenth & early twentieth centuries is now obsolete although it did for a while endure in its secondary senses of "depression; low spirits" (and curiously, "a whim or fancy").  The pronunciation mee-greyn is said to be most prevalent in Scotland.  Migraine is a noun and migrainoid & migrainous are adjectives; the noun plural is migraines.

Technically, a migraine is a severe, often recurring, headache, usually affecting only one side of the head, characterized by sharp pain and often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, and visual disturbances.  Vasodilation in the brain causes inflammation which results in pain, but the exact cause of migraine remains unknown.  In casual use there’s a tendency, not restricted to hypochondriacs, to use word to describe even mild headaches.

Donald Trump, Crooked Hillary Clinton & Boris Johnson demonstrate the single-handed reaction to a migraine.

Despite advances, the exact causes of migraines are yet fully to be understood and although there's a consensus migraines are complex neurological conditions triggered by various factors, it may be they are inherent to the nature of being human and while treatments may improve, many neurologists have cautioned there may never be a “cure” although it’s noted a susceptibility to migraines seems to run in families, suggesting there may be a genetic predisposition.  At the physical level, abnormalities in the brain's nerve pathways and chemical signaling are believed to be involved, changes in the levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine suggested as causative agents.  The triggers appear to vary between individuals although the most commonly mentioned include foods such as aged cheeses, chocolate, caffeine, and artificial sweeteners, alcohol, stress, hormonal changes (seemingly only in women), changes in sleep patterns, sensory stimuli (bright lights, loud noises, strong odors), weather changes, and certain medications.  Critical too appear to be (1) abnormalities in the brainstem and its interactions with the trigeminal nerve (a major pain pathway) and (2) fluctuations in blood flow to the brain, including constriction and dilation of blood vessels.  Interestingly, as varied as the causes may be, so too is the effectiveness of the treatments and doctors frequently report a regimen some patients finds most efficacious might achieve nothing on others reporting the same symptoms, and possible triggers.

Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the two-handed reaction to a migraine although, given the migraine typically afflicts only one side of the head, this may be a more common response to the (usually) less severe but more widespread headache.

The Migraine Pose

A staple of portrait photography for decades, the migraine pose isn’t new but Instagram is a big-machine database and it’s now easy to identify trends and spikes in techniques.  The migraine look seems to have peaked in late 2018 and although still often posted, the historic moment of the trend seems to have passed.  The pose is achieved by using one hand to pulling the face up by the temples, a look reminiscent of someone suffering a migraine.  Classically done with one hand because the headache from which it borrows the name usually is localised to one side of the head, models adopt the look because it tightens the face, renders cheekbones more prominent and lifts the brows, a kind of instant facelift.  The hand may be placed on the temples, forehead or crown but should be done with a light touch, not a gripping of the head or hair.  Models also caution neophytes not to neglect the hands and nails because nothing spoils even a perfectly composed photograph like a poor manicure.

Gigi Hadad: The perfect migraine pose by a professional model.  With that bone structure and flawless skin, she doesn't need the artifice the technique can lend those falling short of her structural ideal but the pose adds variety to a photo shoot and photographers still like it.

Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022):  Although Mr Joyce seems frequently to adopt the migraine pose, the consensus is it's not an attempt to make himself more attractive in photographs and it's likely he actually suffers headaches.  These could be caused by many things.

Of course, Mr Joyce may also have been the cause of migraines in a few of his colleagues.  He's pictured here in 2018 with Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; Australian prime-minister 2015-2018).

Regalia

Regalia (pronounced ri-gey-lee-uh or ri-geyl-yuh)

(1) The emblems, symbols, or paraphernalia indicative of royalty or any other sovereign status; such as a crown, orb, sceptre or sword.

(2) The decorations, insignia, or ceremonial clothes of any office or order.

(3) A casual term for fancy, or dressy clothing; finery.

(4) Royal rights, prerogatives and privileges actually enjoyed by any sovereign, regardless of his title (emperor, grand duke etc).

(5) Sumptuous food (obsolete except in the odd literary novel).

(6) A large cigar of the finest quality (obsolete except in the odd literary novel). 

1530–1540: From the Medieval Latin rēgālia (royal privileges; things pertaining to a king), noun use of neuter plural of the Latin rēgālis (regal).  The word stems from the Latin substantivation of the adjective rēgālis, itself from rex (king).  Regalia is a Latin plurale tantum (plural as such, plural only) word that has different definitions. In one ancient (but now rare) definition, it refers to the exclusive privileges of a sovereign, a concept which remains codified in Scots law as Inter regalia (something inherently that belongs to the sovereign) and this may include property, privileges, or prerogatives.  The term is a direct borrowing from the Latin inter (among) and regalia (things of the king).  In Scots law, the division is between (1) regalia majora (major regalia), which are inseparable from the person of the sovereign and (2) regalia minora (minor regalia), which may be conveyed to a subject.  The word originally referred to the formal dress of a sovereign, but is now used of any type of elaborate formal dress or accessories and is applied especially to academic and ecclesiastical robes.  Although regalia is a Latin plurale tantum (plural as such, plural only) which, in the grammar of Latin is a noun (in any specific sense) that has no singular form (eg scissors) in most usage, in Modern English, it’s sometimes used in the singular: regale.  Further to complicate, the plural form of the grammatical descriptor is pluralia tantum.  Regalia is a noun and regalian is an adjective; the noun plural is regalias.

Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) in ecclesiastical regalia (left) and a deconstruction of the layers (right).  The nature of the garments' layers assumed significance in the matter of the cardinal's trial on charges of sexual abuse of a minor, a discussion about the ease and speed with with "accessibility" was physically possible (within the constraints of time and place) being among the evidence offered in defense.

In his original trial the cardinal was convicted, the verdict upheld on appeal to a full bench of the Court of Appeal.  However, upon final appeal to the High Court of Australia (HCA), the conviction was quashed, the judges ruling that the Crown had not beyond reasonable doubt proved the acts alleged happened as described, in the circumstances, in the place and at the time mentioned in the indictment.  Quash means to nullify, void or declare invalid and is a procedure used in both criminal and civil cases when irregularities or procedural defects are found.  In a unanimous (7-0) judgment (Pell v The Queen [2020] HCA 12)) quashing Cardinal Pell’s conviction in the Supreme Court of Victoria (Pell v The Queen [2019] VSCA 186), the High Court set aside the verdict and substituted an acquittal; in a legal sense it is now as if the original verdict never happened. 

Lindsay Lohan being adorned with prom queen regalia (Mean Girls (2004)).

A depiction of Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) in the regalia of a Freemason Grand Master (digitally altered image).

Although no documentary evidence has ever emerged, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.  Masonic Grand Masters wear specific regalia signifying their high rank within the cult.  The details of the garments & accessories vary between the sects of Freemasonry but the core elements are:

Apron: The Grand Master wears an ornate apron which historically was fabricated from natural fibres such as silk or lambskin but it may be some now use modern synthetics which offer some advantages although they lack the same quality of tactility.  The aprons feature intricate embroidery, including Masonic symbols such as the Square and Compasses and may feature gold or silver fringes are common.

Collar: A grand and elaborate collar made of a wide ribbon is worn around the neck, often with a grand master's jewel or other symbol of office attached.  Most ribbons are still the traditional blue with gold or silver embroidery & embellishments.

Jewel: A grand master's jewel is a distinctive medallion or emblem (usually attached to the collar) which includes symbols denoting the authority of the office such as the square, compass, eye or other Masonic insignia.

Gloves: White gloves are a standard part of Masonic regalia (worn not only by a grand master).  The origin of the white gloves was their (alleged) use by stone masons when working on porous materials such as marble, symbolizing purity and the craftsman's clean hands.

Sash or Girdle: In some Masonic temples, grand Masters wear a sash or girdle around the waist, again, often adorned with the cult’s symbols and colors.  Some temples don’t use sashes as part of the regalia because it’s said to be a modern addition with no real link to Masonic tradition.

Hat: The hats, while distinctive, seem to be a fashion choice more than a general tradition.  The most popular seem to be tricorn, bowler or top-hats although evidence suggest regional factors may influence the choice, a wide array of ceremonial caps existing in the photographic record.  In some sects, a specific, unique hat is reserved for use by the Grand Master who may wear it only during ceremonies and rituals.

Youth

Youth (pronounced yooth)

(1) The state (imprecisely defined) of being young.

(2) The appearance, freshness, vigor, spirit etc, characteristic of one who is young (usually as youthful or youthfulness).

(3) The time of being young; early life (figuratively applied also to institutions, ideas, movements etc to describe the first or early period.)

(4) The period of life from puberty to the attainment of full growth (nominal adulthood), sometimes used as a (vague) synonym for adolescence.

(5) Young persons, collectively.

(6) A young person, by convention usually male (which some etymologists suggest is the only correct use).

(7) As a locality name, the Isle of Youth (Isla de la Juventud in the Spanish and formerly the Isle of Pines), an island in the Caribbean, a municipality in southern Cuba.

Pre 900: From the Middle English youthe, youghte & ȝouþe, from the Old English geoguth or ġeoguþ (the state of being young; young people, junior warriors; young of cattle (and related to geong (young)), from the Proto-West Germanic juwunþa, from the Proto-Germanic jugunþō & jugunþiz (youth) and related to the Old Saxon juguth, the Old Frisian jogethe, the Middle Dutch joghet, the Old High German iugund, the Gothic junda and the Latin juventus.  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Juugd, the Gothic junda, the German Low German Jöögd, the West Frisian jeugd, the Dutch jeugd and the German Jugend.  The ultimate source of the Germanic forms was a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root yeu- (vital force, youthful vigor) + the Proto-Germanic abstract noun suffix –itho.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the Proto-Germanic form apparently was altered from juwunthiz by the influence of its contrast dugunthiz (ability (source of the Old English duguð)).  In Middle English, the medial “g” became a yogh (a Middle English letter (ȝ) used mainly where modern English has gh and y), which then disappeared.  The alternative forms yought & youthe are obsolete.  The Middle English youthhede (youthhood, the synonyms being yonghede, yongthe & youthe) was an example of an early nuancing as it described the part of life which followed childhood and is thus the equivalent of the modern adolescence although it’s clear it was also used of youth generally.  Youth, youthism & youthfulness are nouns, youthy is a noun & adjective (both obsolete), youthwards is an adverb and youthful & youthless are adjectives; the noun plural is youths (collectively as youth).

Synonyms are easy to list but harder to use like youth, the meanings tend to be loaded, some working in some contexts but not others and the list includes: juvenility, youngness & youngth (both archaic), youthfulness, immaturity, minority, adolescence, child, childish, kid, lad, teen, teen-ager, youngster, young  minority, immaturity & stripling.  The classic antonym is adulthood but in some contexts old-age, senility and dotage (the one favoured by Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) to disparage Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) before they fell in love) may be applied.

Lindsay Lohan as an 11 year old youth and at a youthful 36.

The adjective youthful dates from the 1560s and much earlier, Old English had geoguðlic and other words formerly used in the same sense were youthlike, youthly, youthsome & youthy.  Yippie was first reported in 1968 and was the “marketing” name of the (not wholly fictitious) "Youth International Party" (modelled on the then commonly used “hippie”), “founded” by counter culturalists Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989), Jerry Rubin (1938–1994), Nancy Kurshan (b 1944) & Paul Krassner (1932–2019).  Youth can be a modifier (youth culture, youth crime, youth worker, youth hostel, youth market, youth justice et al) and be modified (middle youth, troubled youth) while “youthism” (discrimination against the young) is the companion term to ageism (discrimination against the old) although the former is, at law, not an inherently “suspect category” in most systems where the appropriate framework exists; that’s why five year olds can’t sue for the right to hold drivers licences although if someone that youthful in somewhere like Florida or Texas petitioned the US Supreme Court for the right to carry an AR-15, given the composition of the bench, it’s far from certain there wouldn’t be at least a few dissenting opinions supporting his or her right and as a piece of black letter law, under current interpretations, it could be argued a five year old with an AR-15 wouldn’t be any less representative of a “well-regulated militia” than anyone else who now enjoys the right.

Ever inventive, English has coined new derivations as required, the spread encouraged by the emergence of social media.  A “youthemism” is a particular form of euphemism, describing the phrases and photographs used in advertising to make older individuals feel a little young younger; youthemisms appear in the slogans and marketing campaigns for everything from pairs of jeans to “mid life crisis” motor cycles.  Also from advertising (sometime seeking votes as well as sales) is “youthenize” which describes making someone or something more appealing to a younger market; as a transitive verb it can be used to mean “to make youthful or younger; to rejuvenate”.  By obvious analogy with earthquake, “youthquake” seems first to have appeared in Vogue magazine in 1965 and was a reference to the cultural changes being wrought by the youthful baby boomers who were (uniquely in history) both in a critical mass and an economic force by virtue of their unprecedented (for youth) levels of disposable income.  The phrase “fountain of youth” is an allusion to some of the tales from antiquity and is used to refer to any product, exercise regime or other activity which promises to restore or prolong youthfulness.  The non-standard spelling “yoof” is a colloquialism from England which first gained currency during the 1980s, often as “yoof kulture” and in Thatcher-era England was a way of disparaging the behaviour and sloppy language standards among the young.  Like other words intended to offend, there were sub-cultures which adopted yoof as a form of group identity and solidarity, use prevalent among the then emerging “ravers” and the “acid house” scene.

Hitler Youth & Band of German Maidens members on camp together, circa 1937. Sometimes, the boys & girls got to know one another.

The German form jugend became notorious because during the Third Reich (1933-1945) the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth, 1926-1945 and abbreviated as HJ) was the Nazi Party organization for boys (10-18), intended to instil a sense of nationalism, prevent any from drifting towards delinquency and, more controversially, prepare them for military training proper.  The Bund Deutscher Mädel (Band of German Maidens) was the girls' wing of the Hitlerjugend and, abbreviated as BDM, its purpose was to prepare girls for their traditional role of motherhood.  Perhaps unfortunately, some mixed activities such as the HJ and the BDM going on camps together resulted in much practical preparation for motherhood, revelations of this promiscuity leading Germans to conclude BDM might be better understood as Bund Deutscher Matratzen (Band of German Mattresses).

The word youth has long been applied to the young of both sexes (and now of all genders) but there was (especially among classists) an argument that while anyone could be youthful or possess the quality of youthfulness, only a young male could be described as a youth.  That was skating on etymologically thin ice although it does seem likely the view did reflect the conventions of use in earlier centuries and that was another example of the reverence for antiquity which so flourished in the post medieval-period.  Those who translated the myths from Rome and Greece of course wrote often of the beautiful boys and young men who litter the tales but the girls and women were never youths; they were nymphs, waifs, pixies, sprites, fairies or naiads and this tradition infected academia, more than one professor insisting a youth could be only male.

But now it’s used of anyone young though context still matters.  In clinical medicine for example there are two distinct fields: paediatric medicine and adolescent medicine, puberty the point of delineation.  As a technical distinction in hospitals that’s uncontroversial but other words within the rubric of youthfulness can carry baggage, juvenile for example being innocuous when used in zoology to describe the young of a species but potentially incendiary when applied to people, such remains the influence of the phrase “juvenile delinquency”, popular since the 1960s whenever there’s a need to create a moral panic about the behaviour of youth (complaints about which by older generations have been documented since Antiquity).  Adolescent too has suffered because of phrases like “adolescent humor”, “adolescent behavior” etc which rarely suggest anything positive.

Teenage fencing.

Then of course there is teen-age which true pedants will always distinguish from teenage (pronounced teen-ige) which is a technical herm of fence-builders to describe a technique of weaving which interleaves brushwood to produce a type of fencing called wattle, the weave effected usually horizontally around vertical uprights planted in the ground.  The use to refer to those aged 13-19 dates from 1911 and was used originally of Sunday school classes with the adjective teen-aged first noted 1922 although it wasn’t until the 1950s that an identifiable “teen-age culture” could be said to exist, something of which many (then and now) disapproved but modern capitalism, generally neutral on low-intensity cultural squabbles, identified a new market and in music, clothing, film and just about every aspect of pop-culture, teens have since been a valuable segment, spending either other people’s money (OPM) or their own.  Being teen-aged of course stops with one’s 20^th birthday but youth for some time persists although there’s no general agreement for how long.  A helpful guide though may be the criterion enforced by New Zealand-based tour operator Contiki Tours, long renowned for their innovative model of alcohol-fueled packaged tourism for amorous youth although it seems they now also cater for those who drink rather less enthusiastically than the average Antipodean.  Contiki restrict their tours to those aged 18-35, presumably because at 18 sex is lawful in all countries visited and 35 is the upper limit at which it's (in some cases) plausible for men to hook-up with 18 year old women.  The days when a 21^st birthday was of legal significance have gone but there’s a wide range of ages which (somewhat arbitrarily) are used to at least imply a suggestion of adulthood including matters of sexuality activity (generally 14-18 depending on jurisdiction), obtaining a drivers licence (14-23), voting (15-20), consuming alcohol (5 (with parental supervision) –20), being responsible for criminal acts (8-14) or becoming President of the United States (35).  Lindsay Lohan, having thus attained the statutory age of political adulthood on 2 July 2021, may now seek to become POTUS; that would MAGA.

A montage of images of a teen-aged Lindsay Lohan.  

Legal rights and responsibilities however really don’t define the end of youth because it’s a cultural construct and probably most would accept 25 or even 29 as the end although of course many even beyond this can remain “youthful” and the distinction between someone thought a “youth” or a “young adult” is likely more a judgment of the individual than anything much to do with their age and in casual use, youth, inherently a relative term, can also be applied to the middle aged.  When it was noticed during the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) that certain defendants were being influenced during the communal lunches by the most recalcitrant of the Nazis, it was decided to serve the meals to a number of separate tables and the one allocated to Walther Funk (1890–1960; Nazi economics minister & central bank president) (then aged 56), Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953; Nazi propagandist) (46), Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) (41) & Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 and Gauleiter (district party leader) & Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945) (38) was referred to by jailers and prisoners alike as der Tischjugend (the youth table), the average age of the diners at the other tables much older.  The troublemaker who was the reason the seating plans were changed was Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) (52) who was put in a room to eat alone which he did, most unhappy at being denied his audience.

Squad

Squad (pronounced skwod)

(1) In modern military use, a small number of soldiers (typically between 4-10), under the authority of a corporal or staff sergeant, usually a sub-set of a platoon and the smallest operational unit recognized by the military.

(2) In law enforcement, a group of police officers or other officials, especially one organized to deal with a particular area of law enforcement or a particular event or situation.

(3) Any small group or party of persons engaged in a common enterprise.

(4) In sport, group of players from which a team is selected.

(5) In slang, any group of people with some identifiable connection (especially one’s friends, taken collectively).

(6) In zoology, an (informal) collective noun for a group of squid.

(7) To form into squads (rare except in technical use).

(8) To assign to a squad (rare except in technical use).

(9) In some dialects (UK, dating from the mid-seventeenth century), sloppy mud, of uncertain origin.

1640–1650: From the French escouade, from the Old French esquade, an alteration of esquadre, from the Italian squadra (battalion, literally “square” (from which French gained escadre), from the Spanish escuadra (square (so called from square shape of the formation)), from the Old Spanish, from escuadrar (to square (from the square formations used)), from the from Vulgar Latin exquadra (to square), from the Latin  squadra (a square), the construct being ex- (out) + quadrare (make square), from quadrus (a square), from the primitive Indo-European root kwetwer- (four).  Squad is a noun & verb, squaddie & squadron are nouns and squadded & squadding are verbs; the noun plural is squads.

Before advances in ballistics extended the range of firepower, infantry troops tended to fight in a square formation because it was the most effective to repel cavalry or superior forces. And from this came the idea of the squad as a basic military formation, the Latin squadra meaning “square” although that doesn’t imply Roman squads could number as few as four (as is the modern practice, reflected in the slang term for private soldiers (the army’s lowest rank (technically non-ranked)) in some armies being “squaddie”.  In historic (army) use, a squadron was a body of cavalry comprising two companies or troops, averaging from one hundred and twenty to two hundred soldiers.  Probably the best known military squad is the firing squad, a traditional method of military execution and regarded as among the most honorable forms of dispatch.  By the early nineteenth century the word was extended to any small party or group of persons and the use in sports is traced to 1902.  With the evolution of sporting competitions to become professional, larger groups of players were needed to be on stand-by for selection (to cover injury, illness etc) and these groups came to be called squads.

The use by police forces as both standing institutions dedicated to certain duties (drug squad, dog squad, vice squad, bomb squad et al) and ad hoc formations for a one-off purpose (essentially task forces: royal visit squad, test match squad et al) appears to have begun in 1905 and is now institutionalized.  In police use “squad car” can probably has been applied to any vehicle but is most associated with a marked patrol car.  God squad is a casual terms for those spreading the word of God and is usually reserved for especially devoted lay members of a church.  A cheer squad can either be a formal group of attractive young women employed (cheerleaders) to dance and wave pom-poms in support of sporting teams (their numbers diminishing as attitudes to this and that change) or a description of those who (in a usually unorganized fashion) offer unquestioning and often vocal support to someone (Donald Trump, crooked Hillary Clinton et al) or some idea or institution.  In recent US political use, “The Squad” is the collective term for nine (originally four bolshie women of color) Democrat Party members of the US House of Representatives who self-identify as “progressive” and are labeled by Fox News etc as “socialist” or worse.  It was one of the squad members who coined the term “The Squad” although it’s not believed the inspiration was the Irish Republican Army (IRA) of the same name which was tasked with the assassination of political opponents but that’s probably crossed the mind of many of the old, white men who have dominated US politics for centuries.

Some of "the squad", who seem often angry about something, House of Representatives, Washington DC.

Navies in the 1580s picked up the idea of the squadron (from the Italian squadrone, from the Latin squadra (a square) but that does not imply naval squadrons were either originally or even typically of four ships.  The squadron was simply analogous with the army’s platoon / company / regiment / brigade / division arrangements whereby several squadrons made up a flotilla and several flotillas a fleet (confusingly, several fleets could be assembled into a fleet so to make things clearer tags like “home fleet”, grand fleet” et al emerged and squadrons also attracted specific designations such as “China squadron”, “East Africa squadron et al.  Air forces by 1912 began to use the squadron as the basic formation upon which organizational arrangements pivoted.  Over the years the number varied greatly but classically a squadron consisted of twelve aircraft, made up of four “flights” of three.  Squadrons were organized into “wings”, a collection of which was a “group” and beyond that point the arrangements and naming conventions varied.   In the US military’s recently constituted Space Force, multiple squadrons make up an operations delta or a support garrison.

Suicide Squads

HH Asquith (1852-1928) and his young friend Venetia Stanley (1887–1948).

Although few were quite as vituperative as Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) who once describes the members of the Australian Senate as "unrepresentative swill", governments in the twentieth century often found upper houses to be such a nuisance they schemed and plotted ways to curb their powers or, preferably, do away with them entirely.  As the electoral franchise was extended, governments were sometimes elected with what they considered a mandate to pursue liberal or progressive policies while upper houses, by virtue of their composition and tenure (some with life-time appointments) often acted as an obstruction, rejecting legislation or imposing interminable delays by sending proposed laws to be “discussed to death” in committees from which “nothing ever emerged”.  This was the situation which confronted the glittering Liberal Party cabinet of HH Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime minister 1908-1916) which in 1909 found the Lords, in defiance of long established convention, blocking passage of the budget.  The Lords was wholly unelected, its membership mostly inherited, sometimes by virtue of some service (virtuous or otherwise) by an ancestor hundreds of years before.  Successive elections didn’t resolve the crisis and Asquith resolved to pursue the only lawful mechanism available: the creation of as many peers as would be necessary (in the hundreds) to secure the passage of his legislation.

That of course required royal ascent and the newly enthroned George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), while making his reservations clear, proved a good constitutional monarch and made it known he would follow the advice of his prime-minister.  As it turned out, the “suicide squad” wasn’t required, their Lordships, while not at all approving of the government, were more appalled still at the thought of their exclusive club being swamped with “jumped-up grocers” in “bad hats” and allowed the legislation to pass.  Actually, “castration squad” might have been a more accurate description because while the Lords survived, Asquith ensured it would be less of an obstacle, substituting the road block of its power of veto with a speed-bump, a right to impose a two-year delay (in 1949 reduced to six months).  The New Labour administration (1997-2010) introduced further reforms which were designed eventually to remove from the Lords all those who held seats by virtue of descent and even the Tories later moved in that direction although the efforts have stalled and a few of the hereditary peers remain.  As things now stand, the last remaining absolute veto the Lords retain is to stop an attempt by a government to extend a parliament's life beyond five years. 

The preserved Legislative Council Chamber in the Queensland Parliament.

Some upper house assassins however truly were a suicide squad.  In Australia, the state of Queensland followed the usual convention whereby the sub-national parliaments were bicameral, the Legislative Council the upper house and like the others, it was a bastion of what might now be called "those representing the interests of the 1%" and a classic example of white privilege.  Actually, at the time, the lower houses were also places of white privilege but the Australian Labor Party (ALP) had long regarded the non-elected Legislative Council (and upper houses in general) as undemocratic and reactionary so in 1915, after securing a majority in the Legislative Assembly (the lower house) which permitted the party to form government, they sought abolition.  The Legislative Council predictably rejected the bills passed by the government in 1915 & 1916 and a referendum conducted in 1917 decisively was lost; undeterred, in 1920, the government requested the governor appoint sufficient additional ALP members to the chamber to provide an abolitionist majority.  In this, the ALP followed the example of the Liberal Party in the UK which in 1911 prevailed upon the king to appoint as many new peers as might be needed for their legislation to pass unimpeded through an otherwise unsympathetic House of Lords.  That wasn’t needed as things transpired but in Queensland, the new members of the Legislative Council duly took their places and on 26 October 1921, the upper house voted in favor of abolition, the new appointees known forever as "the suicide squad".  Despite the success, the trend didn't spread and the Commonwealth parliament and those of the other five states remain bicameral although the two recent creations, established when limited self-government was granted to the Northern Territory (NT) and Australian Capital Territory (ACT), both had unicameral assemblies.

Lindsay Lohan in costume as Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn (a comic book character created by DC Comics), "Halloween bash", Albert's Club, South Kensington, London, October 2016.

Across the Tasman Sea, the New Zealand upper house lasted another three decades but it’s eventual demise came about not because of conflict but because the institution was increasing viewed as comatose, rejecting nothing, contributing little and rarely inclined even to criticize.  Unlike in England and Queensland, in New Zealand the abolition movement enjoyed cross-party support, left and right (although the latter in those days were pretty leftist), united in their bored disdain.  One practical impediment was the New Zealand parliament couldn’t amend the country’s constitution because no government had ever bothered to adopt the Statute of Westminster (1931) by which the Imperial Parliament had granted effective independence to the Dominions but in 1947 this was done.  Despite that, the Labour Party didn’t act and after prevailing in the 1950 general election, it was a National Party administration which passed the Legislative Council Abolition Act, its passage assured after a twenty-member “suicide squad” was appointed and the upper house’s meeting of 1 December 1950 proved its last.  Opposition from within the chamber had actually been muted, presumably because to sweeten the deal, the government used some of the money saved to pay some generous “retirement benefits” for the displaced politicians.  New Zealand since has continued as a unitary state with a unicameral legislature.