Vanity

Vanity (pronounced van-i-tee)

(1) An excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc; character or quality of being vain; conceit.

(2) An instance or display of this quality or feeling.

(3) Something about which one is vain or excessively proud.

(4) Lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness.

(5) Something worthless, trivial, or pointless.

(6) A small case, usually used for make-up items.

(7) A usually small dressing table used to apply makeup, preen, and coif hair. Normally quite low and similar to a desk, with drawers and one or more mirrors on top.  Often paired with a bench or stool to sit upon.

(8) A type of bathroom fitting, usually a permanently-fixed storage unit including one or more washbasins.

(9) An alternative name for a portfolio maintained as a showcase for one's own talents, especially as a writer, actor, singer, composer or model.

(10) Any idea, theory or statement entirely without foundation (UK only, now obsolete).

1200-1250: From Middle English vanite, borrowed from Old French vanité (self-conceit; futility; lack of resolve) derived from the Classical Latin vānitās (emptiness, aimlessness; falsity (and when used figuratively "vainglory, foolish pride”), root of which was vānus (empty, void (and when used figuratively "idle, fruitless”).  A more precise equivalent in Latin was probably vanitatem (emptiness, foolish pride).  Root was the primitive Indo-European wano-, the suffixed form of the root eue- (to leave, abandon, give out).  English also absorbed many synonyms and related words: egotism, complacency, vainglory, ostentation, pride, emptiness, sham, unreality, folly, triviality, futility.  Except in religious texts, the old meaning (that which is vain, futile, or worthless) faded from general use, the modern meaning (self-conceited), which endures to this day, is attested from the mid-fourteenth century.  The first reference to furniture was the vanity table, dating from 1936, a use adopted by manufacturers of bathroom fittings in the later post-war period.  The first vanity table seem to have been advertised in 1936.

The Old Testament

Vanity of vanities, said the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

The word translated as vanity appears 37 times in Ecclesiastes, more than in the entirety of the rest of the Old Testament so is clearly a theme of the text.  The meaning of vanity is used here in its original form of something that is transitory and quickly passes away.  In that it’s a literal translation of the Hebrew hebel, best understood in this context as meaning breath of wind, something which, whatever its immediate effects, is soon gone.  Unfortunately for nihilists, emos and other depressives trawling texts for anything confirming the pointlessness of life, biblical scholars agree the phrase is not an assertion that life is meaningless or that our labors in this fallen world are ultimately useless.  Instead, it’s a saying to help people put their lives in the proper perspective.  Ecclesiastes is not saying all our efforts are worthless, just observing that all we do in our three score and ten years upon this earth is but a brief prelude to our eternal existence and much of life escapes our understanding, for we cannot comprehend how everything fits into the grand story of creation.

All very poetic but, perhaps sadly, improbable.  It’s more likely the universe is a violent, doomed, swirl of matter and energy, life is pointless, right or wrong are just variable constructs, everything is meaningless and all any can hope for is a fleetingly brief false consciousness which might make us feel happy.

Vanity Fair

Published in 1678, John Bunyan’s (1628–1688) The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the Christian’s spiritual journey through the sins and temptations of earthly existence to the salvation of the Kingdom of Heaven; a symbolic vision of an English worthy’s pilgrimage through life.  In the village of Vanity is a perpetual fair, selling all things to satisfy all desires and Vanity Fair represents the sin of man’s attachment to and lust for transient worldly goods, a critique echoed later in secular criticisms of materialism.  Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), although making no mention of Bunyan or his work when he published Vanity Fair in 1848, could rely on his readers being well acquainted with the symbolism of the earlier allegory.  By the mid-nineteenth century when Thackeray’s portrait of British society was published, the term had become laden too with secular and class-conscious meanings, suggesting the imagery both of self-indulgent playground and the sense of that stratum of society where the only habitué are the idle and undeserving rich.  Thackeray explored both.

Lindsay Lohan. Vanity Fair Italia, August 2011

Over the years, on both sides of the Atlantic, a number of periodicals have used the masthead Vanity Fair.  The current one has its roots in Condé Nast’s purchase in 1913 of a men's fashion journal called Dress, and Vanity Fair, a magazine devoted to performing arts with an emphasis on theatre.  After a brief, unsatisfactory foray as the combined title Dress and Vanity Fair, in 1914 he re-launched as Vanity Fair and success was immediate, continuing even until well into the depression years of the 1930s.  Curiously different to the vicissitudes of the digital age, although revenue from advertising had collapsed, by the time Condé Nast in 1936 folded Vanity Fair into his companion title Vogue, circulation had reached an all-time high.  The problem was the cover price of an issue wasn’t sufficient profitably to cover production and distribution costs; advertising was essential.  In a situation familiar to newspaper publishers in their halcyon days, it wasn’t advantageous to achieve higher sales.

Condé Nast Publications revived the title, February 1983 the first issue.  Like most print publications, its advertising revenue has declined but, critically in this market, so have newsstand sales.  Its subscriber base is said to be stable but Condé Nast doesn’t release data indicating the breakdown mix and it’s thus unknown how much of this is made up from less lucrative bundled packages.  Newsstand sales of single-issue copies are a vital metric in this market, editors judged by monthly sales, a school of analysis now devoted to deconstructing the relationship between the photograph on an issue’s cover and copies sold; editorial content, while not ignored, seems less relevant.

The magazine’s future is thus uncertain as are the options were it not to continue as a distinct, stand-alone entity with a print version.  It’s a different environment from 1936 when it was absorbed into Vogue and different even to the turn of the century when Mirabella, a similar publication facing similar problems, closed.  The now well-practiced path of ceasing print production and going wholly digital may become attractive if circulation continues to suffer.  While it true Condé Nast already has digital titles which would seem to overlap with Vanity Fair, that’s less of a concern than cannibalization in print where the relationship of production and distribution costs to individual sales is different; both are marginal in gaining additional digital subscriptions.

Vanity Cases

The vanity case is an ancient accessory, one, three-thousand years old, made from inlaid cedar containing ointment, face-paint, perfume and a mirror of polished metal, was discovered during one of Howard Carter’s (1874–1939) archaeological digs.  Well known in something recognizably modern from the fourteenth century in France and Italy, they became fashionable in England only during the 1700s and then for men, as a small box called a “dressing case”, designed to fit into larger “dressing case”.

Enamel vanity case by Gérard Sandoz, Paris, circa 1927 (left) and cigarette case by Cartier, Paris, circa 1925 (right).  During the 1920s, the modern styles evolved.  Most exquisite were the art-deco creations designed as companion pieces to the cigarette cases newly fashionable with women as the social acceptability of young ladies smoking became prevalent.

Decimate

Decimate (pronounced des-uh-meyt)

(1) To destroy a great number or proportion of; to devastate, to reduce or destroy significantly but not completely (modern use).

(2) To select by lot and kill every tenth person (obsolete except for historic references).

(3) To take a tenth of or from (obsolete except for historic references).

(4) In computer graphics processing, to replace something rendered in high-resolution with something of lower but still acceptable quality.

(5) To exact a tithe or other 10% tax (almost archaic except in the internal rules of some religions).

1590–1600: From the Latin decimātus (tithing area; tithing rights), past participle of decimāre (to punish every tenth man chosen by lot) a verbal derivative of decimus (tenth), a derivative of decem (ten) and decimo (take a tenth), from the primitive Indo-European root dekm (ten).  The related nouns are decimation & decimator, the verbs (used with object) are decimated & decimating.  The most commonly used synonyms now are: wipe out, obliterate, annihilate, slaughter, exterminate, execute, massacre, butcher, stamp out & kill off

Decimate is interesting as an example of two linguistic phenomena.

(1) It’s a foreign word (Latin) which has become part of the English language.  This happens a lot (eg fuselage) because English is a vacuum-cleaner language which sucks in whatever is needed but it’s not universal and there’s no precise rule which decides what become assimilated and what, however frequently used, remains foreign: zeitgeist (spirit of the age) although now common in English, remains German.

(2) It’s a contranym, a word which in modern use, now means the opposite of its classical origins.  In Roman times, it meant to reduce by 10%; now it’s probably understood to reduce to, if not 10% then a least by a large portion.  This is a genuine meaning shift and, except in precise historic references (and then probably foot-noted), the new meaning is now correct.  Decimate thus differs from a word like enormity; if used (as it sometimes is) to mean enormous that’s not an error because by virtue of use, that meaning has been absorbed into the language as a concurrent use with the original.  By contrast, decimate has suffered a meaning shift.

The killing of one in ten, chosen by lots, from a rebellious city or a mutinous army was a punishment sometimes used by the Romans and there have been many instances of it (expressed usually as collective punishment) since, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) explicitly referring to the Roman tradition when in 1934 explaining why there had been so many (retrospectively authorized) executions during the suppression of the so-called "Röhm putsch" (the Führer's actions now sometimes (generously) described as a pre-emptive or preventative strike).  The word has been (loosely and un-etymologically) used since as early as the 1660s to mean "destroy a large but indefinite number of."  This is one of those things which really annoys pedants but given it’s been happening since the seventeenth century, it may be time for them to admit defeat.  Were the word now to be used to convey its original meaning, the result would probably be only confusion.  One point in use which is important is that one should speak of the whole of something being decimated, not a part (eg a plague decimated the population, not disease decimated most of the population).  Decimate remains well-known because is well known because it’s lived on in Modern English, albeit with quite some mission-creep in meaning but the Romans had many other expressions defining the precise proportionality of a reduction by single aliquot part including: tertiate (⅓), quintate (⅕), sextate (⅙), septimate (⅐), duodecimate (¹⁄₁₂) and centesimate (¹⁄₁₀₀).

Smaller but not decimated: Lindsay Lohan full-sized (left), reduced by 10% (centre) & reduced by 90% (right).

However, although most probably now understood what is meant by decimate even if they're unaware of the word's origin, it should still be use with some care.  Sir Ernest Gowers (1880–1966) in his revision (1965) of Henry Fowler's  (1858–1933) A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) objected to the "virtual extermination" of rabbits by the agent of the myxomatosis virus being described as a decimation because, with a reported death rate of 99.8%, it was something notably more severe than modern understanding of the word let alone that of a Roman.  In the way of such things the rabbits anyway staged a revival as natural selection did its thing.  Fowler's guide also cautioned that any use "expressly inconsistent with the proper sense... must be avoided", citing "A single frost night decimated the currants by as much as 80%".  The point is taken but that sentence does seem helpfully informative.  Nor are all acts of reduction of necessity instances of decimation; there has to be something destructive about the process.  A photograph can be reduced in size by a Roman 10% or a modern 90% but one wouldn't suggest it has been decimated; it has just be rendered smaller.

Rune

Rune (pronounced roon)

(1) Any of the characters of certain ancient Germanic alphabets (derived from the Roman alphabet), as of a script used for writing the Germanic languages, especially of Scandinavia and Britain, circa 200-1200 AD, or a script used for inscriptions in a Turkic language between the sixth and eighth centuries from the area near the Orkhon River in Mongolia.  Each character was ascribed some magical significance.

(2) Something written or inscribed in such characters.

(3) An aphorism, poem, or saying with mystical meaning or for use in casting a spell; any obscure piece of writing using mysterious symbols; a spell or incantation.

(4) In literary use, a poem, song, or verse.

(5) A Finnish or Scandinavian epic poem, or a division of one, especially a division of the Kalevala.

(6) A roun (secret or mystery) (obsolete).

(7) In computing, in the Go programming language, a Unicode code point.

1675–1685: From the Old Norse rūn & rún (a secret, writing, runic character), cognate with the Old English rūn, the Middle English rune, the obsolete English roun and the Finnish runo (poem, canto).  All were related to the Old Saxon, Old High German and Gothic runa which, like the Old Norse rūn & rún is from the Proto-Germanic rūnō (letter, literature, secret), which is borrowed from either the Proto-Celtic rūnā or from the same source as it.

Of the Runic

Runologists squabble over details of the historical origins of runic writing but there’s a general consensus runes were derived from one of the many Old Italic alphabets in use among the Mediterranean peoples of the first century AD, those who lived to the south of the Germanic tribes.  Earlier Germanic sacred symbols, such as those preserved in northern European rock carvings, also may have influenced the development of the script.  The transmission of writing from southern to northern Europe appears to have been spread by Germanic military formations which would have encountered Italic writing during campaigns amongst their southerly neighbours.  This hypothesis is supported by the association runes have always had with the god Odin, who, in the Proto-Germanic period (under his original name Woðanaz), was the divine model of the warrior leader. The Roman historian Tacitus noted Odin (Mercury in the interpretatio romana) was already established as the dominant god in the pantheons of many Germanic tribes by the first century AD although whether the runes and the cult of Odin arose together or one predated the other remains in dispute.  In Norse mythology however, the runes came from nothing as mundane as an old alphabet.  The runes were never invented or a product of evolution but are eternal, pre-existent forces Odin himself discovered by undergoing a tremendous ordeal.

The Hávamál

The Hávamál (Sayings of Hár, Sayings of the high one) is one of the poems of the Poetic Edda.  A kind of survival guide to for those seeking to live a good life, the form of verse varies, the most notable being where the text shifts to discuss how Odin (Odhins) gained the secret of the magical runes and came to learn the spells.  A work thus both pragmatic and philosophical, the poem’s only known source the Codex Regius, thought to date from circa 800.

The Rúnatal (Rúnatáls-tháttr-Odhins or Odins Rune Song) contains the stanzas in which Odin reveals the secret of the Runes.

I know that I hung on a windy tree

nine long nights,

Wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,

myself to myself,

on that tree of which no man knows

from where its roots run.

No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,

downwards I peered;

I took up the runes, screaming I took them,

then I fell back from there.

The Hávamál concludes with the mystical Ljóðatal, which dwells on knowledge and the knowing of the Odinic mysteries.  A kind of dictionary which lists and provides a legend creating keys to a sequenced number of runic charms, there are linkages with the Sigrdrífumál (known often as Brynhildarljóð, a section of the Poetic Edda text in Codex Regius) in which the valkyrie Sigrdrífa details a number of the runes at her command.  In stanza 151, there’s an allusion to the sending of a tree root carved with runes, a noted motif in Norse mythology and the cause of death of Grettir the Strong.

I know a sixth one if a man wounds me

with the roots of the sap-filled wood:

and that man who conjured to harm me,

the evil consumes him, not me.

The runic-themed imagery used for the cover art of Lindsay Lohan's A Little More Personal (Raw) (2005).

Historians and archivists have devoted much attention to the Codex Regius, reconstructing its timeline from the many fragmentary sources.  The earliest writings appear to have been collections of proverbs, sayings and advice attributed to Othin, probably in the manner so much in the Bible is said to have been the words of Solomon; other dubious claims of connection exist in the texts of the Buddha, Confucius, the Prophet Muhammad and others where the documentary record can never be conclusive.  The collection was thus, probably from its earliest times, elastic in content though always known as "The High One's Words", others taking advantage of the authority Othin’s imprimatur conferred to add such poems or other sayings of wisdom they thought appropriate.  In the nature of such things, the style of writing displays a consistency, important when seeking to imply that the speaker was Othin, a process which is something of a gray area in the history of literary forgery, the later authors perhaps assured what they were adding was what Othin might have said or with which he would anyway have concurred.  So, a catalogue of runes, or charms, was later bolted-on, along with new sets of proverbs, differing in content but not in style from those in the original document.  There are some stylistic variations in form in that some verses verge upon the narrative but the structure of the whole is loose, accommodating the odd innovation without jarring effect.  It’s agreed that structurally the text exists in five parts:

(1) The Hovamol proper (stanzas 1-80): The sayings and proverbs to guide the living of life, a kind of early self-help manual.

(2) The Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111-138): Another collection similar to the first, but these more a discourse on ethics and morality and addressed specifically to a young man known as Loddfafnir.

(3) The Ljothatal (stanzas 147-165): A listing of charms.

(4) The love-story of Othin and Billing's daughter (stanzas 96-102): The love story is something of a cautionary tale, beginning as it does with a dissertation on the faithlessness and general unreliability of women (stanzas 81-95).  Scholars suggest the warning words were the first written with the rest of the poem created as an apt illustration.

(5) This is the story of how Othin got the mead of poetry, the draft document which delivered to him the gift of tongues, an indulgence from the maiden Gunnloth (stanzas 103-110).  Added to this (and obviously later) is the brief passage (stanzas 139 146) recounting Othin’s winning of the runes.  Structurally, the poem needs this section as an introduction to the Ljothatal and any good editor would have insisted on its inclusion.

Of the authorship or even the dates of the accretions, nothing can for sure be known.  All than can be said is that some is very old and some more recent which isn’t a great deal of help but anything else is merely speculative.  The text instead needs to be read as it is: a gnomic collection of the wisdom a violent race living in a brutish world written to help people survive in an unforgiving time when, days when wherever one went, one would be ill-advised to assume one was among friends.  Tellingly, women are not mentioned in the non-narrative sections of the poem, not even a nod to the advantage of having someone to cook and clean for this is very much a work about the world of men on earth, the threats and their consequences.  There’s no discussion of heaven and hell or any after-life, no judgement beyond that of one's fellow men.

Twilight

Twilight (pronounced twahy-lahyt)

(1) The soft, diffused light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, either from daybreak to sunrise or, more commonly, from sunset to nightfall.

(2) The period in the morning or, more commonly, in the evening during which this light prevails.

(3) A terminal period, especially after full development, success, etc.

(4) A state of uncertainty, vagueness, or gloom.

(5) Of or relating to, or resembling twilight; dim; obscure:

(6) Appearing or flying at twilight; crepuscular.

(7) The period of time during which the sun is a specified angular distance below the horizon (6°, 12° and 18° for civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight respectively)

1375-1425: From the Middle English twyelyghte (twilight) from the Old English twēonelēoht (twilight), the construct being twi (double, half) +‎ light, literally “second light, half-light”.  Light was from the Middle English light, liht & leoht, from the Old English lēoht, from the Proto-West Germanic leuht, from the Proto-Germanic leuhtą, from the primitive Indo-European lewktom, from the root lewk- (light).  It was cognate with the Scots licht (light), the West Frisian ljocht (light), the Dutch licht (light), the Low German licht (light) and the German Licht (light).  It was related also to the Swedish ljus (light), the Icelandic ljós (light), the Latin lūx (light), the Russian луч (luč) (beam of light), the Armenian լույս (luys) (light), the Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós) (white) and the Persian رُخش‎ (roxš).  It was cognate with the Scots twa licht, twylicht & twielicht (twilight), the Low German twilecht & twelecht (twilight), the Dutch tweelicht (twilight, dusk) and the German zwielicht (twilight, dusk).  The exact connotation of twi- in this word remains unclear but most etymologists link it to "half" light, rather than the fact that twilight occurs twice a day.  In that twilight may be compared with the Sanskrit samdhya (twilight, literally "a holding together, junction") and the Middle High German zwischerliecht (literally "tweenlight").

Enjoying the crepuscular: Lindsay Lohan at twilight.

The meaning "light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon at morning and evening" dates from the late fourteenth century, used often in the form "twilighting").  It was used originally (and most commonly) in English with reference to evening twilight but occasionally, beginning in the fifteenth century, referred also to the light of dawn.  The figurative extension dates from circa 1600.  The "twilight zone" is from 1901 (in a literal sense of the part of the sky lit by twilight), the use extended after from 1909 to refer to topics or cases where authority or behavior is unclear, the origin of that probably the 1909 novel In the Twilight Zone by Roger Carey Craven, the reference is to the mulatto heritage of one character, the idea of what used to be called the "half-breed", one who might be equally be claimed or disowned by either race.  The name was re-used in 2016 by Nona Fernández (b1971) (translated into English by Natasha Wimmer (b 1973)) in a novel about Chile under the dictatorship (1973-1990) of General Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006).  The US TV series of that name is from 1959.  The connotation of “twi” in this context is uncertain with most etymologists concluding it appears to refer to "half" light, rather than the state of twilight which occurs twice a day although in Sanskrit samdhya (twilight) was literally "a holding together” or “junction”, a formation known also in the Middle High German zwischerliecht, literally "tweenlight".  Twilight today is most commonly used with its original meaning of the evening light but from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth, it was used also to refer to the morning twilight.  The figurative extension is first recorded circa 1600.

Götterdämmerung

Richard Wagner (1865) by August Friedrich Pecht (1814–1903), oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ney York.

Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), is the fourth and final part of Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, usually known as The Ring or Ring Cycle).  Lasting some fifteen hours and usually presented over several days, its debut performance was at the Bayreuth Festival on 17 August 1876.

A great set piece drama and the grandest moment in Opera, the Ring Cycle is about the destruction of the gods and in a final battle with evil powers and although based on an old Norse myth, a dubious translation of the Old Icelandic Ragnarǫk (fate of the gods) meant it entered Modern German as Ragnarökkr (twilight of the gods).  In the Norse, the story was of "ancestral voices prophesying war" between mortals and the gods, a conflict ending in flames and flood but leading finally to the renewal of the world.  Wagner's work differs much from the Old Norse.

Part 1: Das Rheingold (Rhinegold)

The Rig Cycle begins with the dwarf Alberich seizing the gold of the Rhinemaidens. Alberich denounces love to gain possession of the magic ring which gives its wearer ultimate power; the ring is the world’s most desired object.  Rhinegold is the story of the gods; one learns of the suffering of Wotan and the problems the gods have in repaying Fafner and Fasolt, the giants who built Valhalla.

Part 2: Die Walkure (The Valkyries)

Brunnhilde and her father Wotan struggle with their pride to decide the ultimate destiny of mortals, the Valkyries being about the deep, tortured relationship between gods and mortals.  The gods also war with each-other but nobleness, especially in love, prevails over the oaths and the divine promises of the gods. Siegmund, the mortal hero, dies because his father, Wotan, is obliged to obey his wife, Fricka.

Part 3: Siegfried

This is the story of the hero, Siegfried, how he grows to manhood, how he discovers love and loss.  Raised by the Nibelung Mime, Siegfried is young, innocent and fearless and with help from a mysterious wanderer (Wotan in disguise), Siegfried finds the pieces of his father's sword.  Notung reforges the blade and Siegfried kills the dragon Fafner who guards the hoard of Nibelung gold stolen from the Rhinemaidens, taking possession of Alberich's cursed ring.  Siegfried is then drawn to follow a birdsong to find the sleeping Brunnhilde whom fate has destined him to awaken and fall in love with.  Waking her, Siegfried gives the ring to Brunnhilde to symbolize his oath of undying love and fidelity.

Part 4: Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)

Under an ambiance impending doom, all face the consequences of their choices; the Nibelung Alberich's curse upon the Ring proving prophetic for whoever holds the ring is ultimately destroyed.  Although Wotan's disempowerment was, in part three, foreshadowed by Siegfried breaking his spear, the doomed fate of the gods is sealed when Alberich's evil son, Hagen dupes and cruelly murders the brave mortal hero Siegfried.  Devastated, Brünnhilde has a huge funeral pyre built by the river, takes the ring and tells the Rhinemaidens to claim it from her ashes.  Brünnhilde then mounts her horse and rides into the flames.  As she burns, the Rhine overflows, quenching the fire and the Rhinemaidens swim in to claim the ring.  Hagen tries to stop them but they drag him to his death in the depths.  As they celebrate the return of the ring and its gold to the river, a red glow fills the sky for Valhalla, the last resting place of the gods is ablaze and the gods are consumed by the flames.

Sedulous

Sedulous (pronounced sej-uh-luhs)

(1) Of a person: diligent in application or pursuit or attention; constant and persevering; steadily industrious; assiduous.

(2) Of an activity: carried out with diligence.

(3) Persistently or carefully maintained.

1530–1540: From the Latin sēdulus (diligent, industrious, sedulous; solicitous; unremitting; zealous), an adjectival derivative of the phrase sē dolō (diligently (literally “without guile”) which replaced sedulious.  The origin of sēdulus is murky but it was probably from sēdulō (diligently; carefully; purposely; zealously) and the construct may have been sē- (the prefix meaning “without”) + dolō (singular of dolus (deceit, deception; evil intent, malice (and cognate with the Ancient Greek dolus (ruse; snare), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European del- (to count, reckon) + -us (the suffix forming adjectives).  In English the form was created with the suffix –ous.  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The noun sedulity (diligent and assiduous application, constant attention) sates from 1542.  The synonyms include diligent & assiduous and words which hint at the meaning include constant, untiring & tireless.  Sedulous is an adjective, sedulousness & sedulity are nouns and sedulously is an adverb.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, 2011.

Because of the variations in spelling in Medieval Latin, scholars have debated whether the correct form is sedeō or sē dolō, those of the former citing assiduus, some of the latter insisting even that the construct can only be sē dolus.  It carries the whiff of linguistic snobbery.  Medieval Latin (perhaps better understood by an alternative descriptor: Church Latin), never universally adopted the forms or rules of Classical Latin and within Europe, variations in form were common.

Carp

Carp (pronounced kahrp)

(1) To find fault or complain querulously or unreasonably; be niggling in criticizing; cavil.

(2) A peevish complaint; to find fault with; to censure; to complain about a fault.

(3) A large, freshwater teleost (of, or relating to the Teleostei (fish with bony skeletons)) food fish of the family Cyprinidae (Cyprinus carpio), characterized by a body covered with cycloid scales, a naked head, one long dorsal fin, and two barbels on each side of the mouth.  It was native to Asia but was widely introduced in tropical and temperate waters; an important food fish in many countries and an introduced invasive pest in others.  There is one .cyprinid genus which tolerates salt water although many at times inhabit brackish water.

(4) Any of various other fishes of the family Cyprinidae; a cyprinid.

(5) In botany, a combining form occurring in compounds that denote a part of a fruit or fruiting body (best known in the form endocarp (the woody inner layer of the pericarp of some fruits that contains the seed).

(6) To say; to tell (obsolete).

1200-1250:  From the Middle English carpen (talk; to speak, to tell (someone something)), from the Old Norse karpa (to brag, wrangle) & karp (bragging) of unknown origin but linked to the Vulgar Latin carpere because of the meaning shift to “find fault with”, under the influence of the Latin carpō.  By the late fourteenth century, the sense had been further refined to mean “complain excessively about minor faults, often petulantly or without reason.  The Latin carpere (literally “to pluck” was used to convey the idea of "to slander or revile”), from the primitive Indo-European root kerp- (to gather, pluck, harvest).  The original sense in English (talk; to speak, to tell (someone something)) was between the mid-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries maintained in the noun carper (talker), an agent noun from the carp; the modern sense of “a fault-finder” began to prevail from the 1570s.  Thus carping, which in the late thirteenth century was recorded as meaning “talk, speech; talkativeness, foolish talk” and was a verbal noun from the verb also by the 1570s came to be used to impart the idea of “unreasonable criticism or censure”.  The botanical use was from the New Latin -carpium, from the Greek -karpion, a derivative of karpós (fruit).

Among critics, there are clappers and carpers.

The name of the fish was from the late fourteenth century Middle English carpe, via the Old French carpa (the source also of the Italian & Spanish carpa), from either the Middle Dutch or the Middle Low German karpe and cognate with the Old High German karpfo, the Middle Dutch carpe, the Dutch karper, the Old High German karpfo & the German Karpfen (carp).  Although documentary evidence is lacking, some etymologists suggest the origin may be East Germanic (perhaps the unrecorded Gothic karpa) because the fish was in the fourteenth century introduced into English waterways from the Danube.  The Lithuanian karpis and the Russian karp are Germanic loan words but the most attractive name for the fish is doubtlessly the Japanese koi, first noted in 1727.  The ubiquitous goldfish is a type of carp and was introduced to Europe from China where it was native, their natural dull olive skins rendered by selective breeding into silver, red & black as well as the familiar orange.  The phrase “living in a goldfish bowl” dates from 1935 and was used figuratively to suggest a “lack of privacy”, based on the circular bowls in which the domestic pet fish were often kept, affording all a 360^o view of their activities.  The use of the noun gallimaufry (a medley, hash, hodge-podge) to describe various recipes of carp stews is mysterious but presumably related to the many other ingredients included to make the dish more palatable, the freshwater carp not highly regarded compared to the alternatives.  Carp convey a specific sense of the way a criticism is delivered and is subtly different from words like deprecate, condemn, censure, grumble, quibble, complain, criticize or reproach is that it’s held to be something nit-picking or pedantic.  Carp & carper are nouns; carped is a verb and carping is a verb, adjective & noun; the noun plural is carps although, of the fish, carp tends to be used when speaking collectively except when it’s regarding two or more species in which case it’s carps.

In some Australian waterways, carp have become a notable environmental threat, crowding out native species and adversely affecting water-quality because of their mud-sucking ways, causing erosion and killing of trees close to the water’s edge.  Although some water birds benefit from the abundant food source, they’re a rare winner.  The invasive species was introduced to the countries over a hundred years ago but the populations spiked massively after the 1960s when one genetic strain escaped from a fish farm in Victoria and in some places carp now constitute some 90% of the aquatic biomass.  As filter feeders (mud-suckers), they forage in the riverbeds, damaging aquatic plants, a feeding style which induces turbidity in the water, something unsuitable for many native fish.  Carp reproduce quickly, lack natural predators and are highly adaptable, able to take over ecological niches adding further stress to local flora & fauna.

In October 2022, a six-year research project to investigate the potential to introduce a herpes virus to control the carp delivered a final report to the Commonwealth & state governments.  In the national parliament, then deputy prime-minister and minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce MP (b 1967; thrice deputy prime-minister of Australia, 2016-date (the gaps due to “local difficulties”)) warmed to the idea of unleashing a venereal disease on “disgusting, mud-sucking carp”.

Caprice

Caprice (pronounced kuh-prees)

(1) A sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.

(2) A tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality; capriciousness; a disposition to be impulsive.

(3) In music, as capriccio, a term for a kind of free composition.

(4) A brief (and hopefully torrid) romance; a fling

(5) A model name used by General Motors (GM) in several markets.

1660-1670: From the French caprice (whim) & capricieux (whimsical), from the Italian capriccioso from capriccio (a shivering), possibly from capro (goat), from the Latin capreolus (wild goat).  Another theory, drawn from folk etymology, connects the Italian compound capo (head) + riccio (hedgehog) suggesting a convulsive shudder in which the hair stood on end like a hedgehog's spines.  The application in musical composition to describe a kind of free composition dates from the 1690s, the sense drawn from the Italian capriccio (the music characterized by a “sudden start or motion”); earlier it meant "a prank, a trick".  The closest synonym is probably whim but vagary, notion, fancy & fling can, depending on context, summon a similar meaning.  An act of caprice differs from a fiat in that the latter, although it may be arbitrary, is an authoritative sanction issued by those vested with a certain legal authority.  The descendents include the Danish kaprice, the German Caprice and the Romanian: capriciu.  Caprice & capriciousness are nouns, capricious is an adjective and capriciously is an adverb; the noun plural is caprices.

Infamously capricious in her youth, Lindsay Lohan is now a mature and responsible mother.

Ford, and the rest of the industry, learned much from the Edsel debacle of the late 1950s.  Although unlucky to be launched into the teeth of the worst recession of the post-war boom, mistakes in conception, design and production had been many and may anyway have been enough to kill the thing.  The lessons learned had been expensive, depending on the source, a loss between US$250-300 million is usually quoted and that was at a time when a million dollars was a lot of money although how much of that loss was real or a product of taking advantage of accounting rules has never been clear.  None of the most expensive aspects to design and build (1) engine, (2) transmission, (3) suspension, (4) body platforms and (5) assembly plant production lines were unique to the Edsel, all being shared variously with other Ford, Mercury and Lincoln models; surprisingly little was exclusive to the Edsel, indeed that sameness was one of the complaints about a car which Ford had puffed-up as “all new”.  That essentially left interior and exterior trim, body panels, marketing and the distribution network to pay for.  Ford certainly lost a lot of money on the Edsel but perhaps not quite as much as the books suggest.  Still, it was a big loss and the corporate capriciousness wasn’t repeated in the 1960s.  The Edsel had been a bad implementation of a sound concept: a spread of brand-identities across a market with a wide price-spread so a corporation can achieve economies of scale using many of the same resources to produce products which to compete both at the low-end on cost-breakdown and in segments where prestige or exclusivity matters.  Ford’s notion was that General Motors (GM) and Chrysler were at the time better able to cover the market because both had more brand-names, GM having five: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick & Cadillac as did Chrysler: Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler & Imperial.  Ford had only three: Ford, Mercury & Lincoln (the short-lived Continental Division (1956-1957) a failure).

Thus the attraction of adding another, an idea which worked well with products like washing powder although, in the auto industry, costs tended to be higher and the model wasn’t essential to cover a broad market, Mercedes-Benz for decades successfully using the one brand for diesel taxis, trucks small and large, Formula One racing cars and cars up to the grandest limousines.  Indeed, the idea by Daimler-Benz to resurrect adopt the long moribund Maybach name to sit atop the range was a failure, reflecting the misunderstanding by the MBA-types involved of the value of the Mercedes-Benz brand which had been acceptable for kings, queens, popes, presidents and potentates.  Only salesmen with no background would think dotcom millionaires and the other newly-rich would be more attracted to Maybach than Mercedes.  Another brand might not have been a bad idea but Maybach should have been positioned as a platform for the front wheel drive and other categories which, frankly have only devalued the three-pointed star; while some have been good cars, they simply were not Mercedes-Benz as they once were understood. 

Nor is the idea infinitely scalable.  GM at one time had nine divisions and the pattern evolved that the brand names tend to appear in times of economic buoyancy (al la Edsel) and disappear during or after recessions (Edsel & De Soto after 1958; Imperial after the first oil shock, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury and Plymouth in the wake of the global financial crisis from 2008).  So, while the 1960s were about the most buoyant years yet, Ford didn’t repeat quite the mistake though they certainly repeated one aspect of the Edsel debacle although the implications of that wouldn’t play out for decades.

1965 Ford LTD.

In 1965, Ford reverted to the business model which had worked in pre-Edsel times and introduced the LTD as an up-market option for their full-sized Galaxie.  It seemed a good idea at the time and it was, the option proving popular with customers and lucrative for Ford, the option package costing about US$175 to install yet it added some US$335 to the sticker price and the psychology of turning the mainstream Ford into a “luxury car” seemed also to exert a pull on the buyers’ wallets because it was possible to work through the option list and add some 30% to the bottom line.  Unlike most Galaxie customers, LTD buyers were inclined to tick the boxes.  Even at the time, although generally impressed with the thing (and in fairness to Ford much attention had been devoted to some basic engineering to ensure it was quieter and smoother than before), reviewers did ponder quite what the effect of moving a Ford up-market would be on the companion Mercury Division, positioned since 1938 as up-market from Ford, yet well short of Lincoln.  The corporation aimed to solve that problem by maintaining some differentiation between the two brands and to some degree this worked for decades but eventually the point of maintaining three distinct layers had ceased to have value for Ford and in 2011 Mercury was shuttered.

1965 Ford LTD.

The LTD (it apparently meant “Lincoln Type Design” and not “Limited”) did though have quite an effect on the completion with the entry level ranges of others soon augmented with similar options.  Chevrolet called their effort the “Caprice”, Plymouth, like Ford” preferred a TLA (three letter acronym) and opted for “VIP” while AMC used “DLP” which apparently stood for “Diplomat”.  Of them all, only the Caprice and the LTD endured but the concept overtook the industry which switched increasingly to adding variations of their basic models with as many “luxury” fittings added as the budget would permit.  There were critics at the time who criticized all this as “gingerbread” but buyers responded and soon tufted, pillowed upholstery in crushed velour or even leather could be had in even the most humble showrooms.  A popular name for such models was “Brougham”, borrowed from a nineteenth century horse-drawn carriage named after a member of the UK’s House of Lords and even if most weren’t aware of the etymology, they knew it sounded suitably aristocratic which was all that mattered.  What came in retrospect to be known as the “brougham era” lasted into the 1980s.

1969 Chevrolet Caprice four-door hardtop.

While never the biggest sellers, dealers liked to have four-door hardtops on display because of the perception they generated showroom traffic and although the collector market prefers two-doors (especially convertibles), the four-door hardtops were often Detroit’s most ascetically successful coachwork for full-sized cars.  In 1969, Chevrolet restricted the Caprice range to two & four door hardtops because the more elaborate interior trim (compared to the cheaper Biscayne, Bel Air & Impala) was more susceptible to sun damage which precluded offering a convertible.  That may have been the reason why in the same era some European manufacturers switched from timber veneer to leather for some vulnerable surfaces in a few convertibles although the published explanations were sometime different.  Improvements in the durability of materials meant that when the revised range was released in 1973, a convertible Caprice was added to the range.

1981 Holden WB Caprice.

Holden, the General Motors operation in Australia began selling their own Caprice in 1974.  In the usual way it was a more elaborately-appointed version of an existing model and in GM tradition replaced an existing badge as the top-of-the-range, the Statesman de Ville relegated to become the entry-level of the long-wheelbase cars, the basic Statesman (always aimed at the hire-car business) retired, mirroring Ford which dropped its Fairlane Custom and, added the Marquis (a name borrowed from Mercury) as a Caprice competitor atop the Fairlane 500.  The early Statesman & Caprice never quite matched the appeal of the competition but it did go out in surprisingly fine style, the WB range (1980-1984) a remarkably successful re-styling of the HQ-HJ-HX-HZ platform (1971-1980) which endured for almost half a decade after the smaller, Opel-based Commodore had replaced the mainstream models.  Developed in unusual secrecy, Holden were miffed to learn Ford’s ZJ Fairlane & FC LTD (released in 1979) had beaten them to the market by six months and included the additional side window they’d hoped would make such a splash on the WB.  Instead, they made much of the Caprice having a grill made from steel.  Not that long before, all grills had been made from steel but most had long switched to extruded plastic so to have one genuinely hand-assembled in steel was a point of differentiation although the public response was muted.  Despite the age of the platform, the attention to the underpinnings which began to be taken seriously after 1977 meant the thing was a capable, if thirsty road car and among the dedicated customer base, there was genuine regret when production ended in 1984.  In 1990, Holden revived the name for a stretched Commodore (some of which were even exported to the US and the Middle East to be sold as Chevrolets) and production continued until the Australian operation was shuttered in 2017.