Paramount

Paramount (pronounced par-uh-mount)

(1) Chief in importance or impact; supreme; pre-eminent; of the highest importance.

(2) Above others in rank or authority; superior in power or jurisdiction.

(3) A supreme ruler; overlord (now rare thought often in historic texts).

(4) In law (in a hierarchy of rights), having precedence over or superior to another.

1525-1526: From the Anglo-Norman paramount & paramount (pre-eminent; above), the construct being the Old French par & per (by) + amont & amunt (upward).  Par was from the Latin per (by means of, through), from the primitive Indo-European per- (to go through; to carry forth, fare).  Amont & amunt were from the Latin ad montem (to the mountain; upward), the construct being ad (up to), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European héd (at; to) + montem (the accusative singular of mōns (mount, mountain), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European men- (to stand out, tower).  Synonyms include predominant, preeminent, outstanding, capital, cardinal, chief, commanding, controlling, crowning, dominant, eminent, first, foremost, leading, main, overbearing, predominate, premier, preponderant utmost & prevalent while the most common antonyms are insignificant, secondary & unimportant (in historic land law, the antonym paravail was from the Old French par aval (below), the construct being par + aval (down), the construct being the Latin a(d) + val (a valley), from the Latin vallis; of feudal tenants, it referred to those at the bottom of the hierarchy of rights).  Paramount is a noun & adjective, paramountcy paramountship & paramountness are nouns, paramountly is an adverb; the noun plural is paramounts.

Land law and freehold title

Paramount Pictures promotional poster for Mean Girls (2004).  Then part of Viacom, it was one of the rare times the Paramount logo was rendered in pink.

Paramount was originally a term in feudal land-title law.  It described the lord paramount, the one who held absolute title to his fiefdom, not as a grant dependent upon (or revocable by) a superior lord.  A paramount lord was thus superior to a mesne lord (a landlord who has tenants holding under him, while himself the subject of the holding of a superior lord (a kind of sub-letting), mesne being the general legal principle of something intermediate or intervening) whose title to a fief existed ultimately at the pleasure of a superior. The concept endures in modern land law where titles are listed in documents and, even today, there exist jurisdictions where land, said to enjoy an indefeasible title, can still be subject to “paramount interests” which, although unregistered, can prevail over those formally registered.  In land law, a lord paramount could be male or female but in a charming quirk, in the sport of archery, the noun "lady paramount" (the plural being ladies paramount) is the title awarded to the woman who achieves the highest score.

Paramount logo of the Viacom era.

Introduced in 1914 and now the oldest Hollywood film studio logo still in use, the Paramount Pictures “mountain peak” logo was based on a sketch of Ben Lomond, Utah (elevation 9716 feet (2961 m); a peak in the northern portion of the Wasatch Mountains) by William (W.W.) Wadsworth Hodkinson (1881-1971), the founder of Paramount Pictures.  Many versions have appeared over the years and the text used in conjunction with the image has varied with the company’s ownership structure.  The semi-circles of stars which partially encircle the peak originally numbered 24, an allusion to the two-dozen film stars then signed to Paramount under the Hollywood studios’ “star system” (a restrictive contractual arrangement which, in much diminished form, lasted until the 1960s).

In Australia, the lord paramount is not the crown but the person of the sovereign.  In the strict legal sense, the king or queen (of Australia) “owns” all the land that constitutes the nation of Australia and those who “own” their own little piece by virtue of holding a valid freehold title (fee simple), in the narrow technical sense, actually hold only a revocable grant from the crown (via some instrument of the state) exercising rights delegated by the sovereign (the king or queen).  Although of no practical significance, it’s not a legal fiction and the position of Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) as lord paramount in the system of land tenure in Australia was affirmed by the High Court of Australia in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992), one of the landmark cases which entrenched in Australian law the concept of native title.

Mirror

Mirror (pronounced mir-er)

(1) A reflecting surface, originally of polished metal but now usually of glass with a silvery, metallic, or amalgam backing; used casually, any reflective surface.

(2) Such a surface set into a frame, attached to a handle, etc and used usually for viewing oneself or as an ornament or architectural feature.

(3) In music (of a canon or fugue), capable of being played in retrograde or in inversion, as though read in a mirror placed beside or below the music.

(4) In computing, a disk (often as part of an array), website or other resource containing replicated data.

(5) Historically, a kind of political self-help book, advising kings, princes, etc on how to behave.

(6) In zoology, as mirror carp (known regionally as the Israeli carp) a type of domesticated fish commonly found in Europe but widely introduced or cultivated elsewhere (the name based on the creature’s appearance).

(7) In mathematics & geometry, to create the “mirror image” of a shape across a point, line or plane.

(8) To reflect in or as if in a mirror.

(9) To reflect as a mirror does.

(10) To mimic, replicate or imitate something.

(11) To be or give a faithful representation, image, or idea of something.

1175-1125: From the Middle English mirour, from the Old French mireor (mirror (literally “looker, watcher”)), from mirer (look at), from the Latin mīror (wonder at) & mīrārī (to wonder at), from mīrus (wonderful), from the primitive Indo-European smey- (to laugh, to be glad).  The construct of the Middle English mirour was the Latin Mir(er) + -eo(u)r, from the Latin -ātor, a noun suffix of agency; it displaced the native Old English sċēawere (literally “watcher”), which was also the word for “a spy”.  According to Nancy Mitford's (1904–1973) Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy (1956), "looking glass" is the "U" (upper-class) term while "mirror" is used by the "non-U" (everyone else).  The alternative spelling mirrour is obsolete.  The verb mirror (to reflect) dates from the 1590s and developed from the noun; the related forms mirrored & mirroring soon followed.  The early fifteenth century Middle English verb mirouren meant “to be a model” in the sense of one’s conduct or behavior while the mid-fourteenth century miren (from the Old French mirer) meant literally “to look in a mirror”.  Mirror & mirroring are nouns & verbs, mirrored is a verb, mirrorlike & mirrorless are adjectives and mirrorful is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is mirrors.

In idiomatic use, the phrases “done with mirrors” and “smoke & mirrors” are used to describe things accomplished within the laws of physics but appear in some way the product of “magic”, smoke and mirrors sometimes used by stage magicians in their tricks.  Mirror is used also to refer to a thing that reflects or depicts something else: a website or a political part might claim to “mirror of public opinion” and a student in search of a high grade might do well to “mirror the lecturer’s opinions”.  To “hold up a mirror to” is used to mean: (1) “to represent and by resemblance provide insight into and (2) To elucidate; to make explicit some aspect of.  Historically, a “mirror” was a kind of political self-help book, advising kings, princes etc on how to behave.  Mirrors have appeared in more than a dozen folkloric superstitions, the best-known of which is the seven years bad luck which will accrue to anyone breaking a mirror, the notion first documented in the 1770s and the Queen’s question “Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?” was from the German fairy tale Snow White, first publish in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 as Sneewittchen and subsequently revised for later editions.

1974 BMW 2002 Turbo

The 1973 Frankfurt Motor Show was held in September in an atmosphere of (mostly) untroubled optimism, one indication of which was the debut of the BMW 2002 (E20) Turbo.  In road cars, supercharging had faded from popularity in the post-war years as improvements in technology made it possible to deliver the required output with conventional aspiration and in an era of rising prosperity and low energy costs, increased displacement was an easier path to power and while turbochargers had for decades been widely used in aviation and heavy diesel transports, in cars they were still a rare novelty.  The 2002 Turbo delivered a significant lift in performance so expectations were high, something which seemed justified by the reception the car received at the show and those enchanted by its pace seemed prepared to overlook that as well as enjoying the benefits of turbo-charging, the 2002 suffered also the foibles which afflicted the early implementations of the technology, notably the combination of “lag” (the elapse of time between opening the throttle and the expected response) and the sudden delivery of power (and thus acceleration).

1974 BMW 2002 Turbo (left) and as it would appear in a rear-view mirror (right)

However, within three weeks of the Frankfurt show closing, the first OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil embargo was declared, the price of oil increasing four-fold in the wake, something which curbed customer enthusiasm for fast, thirsty machines and while plenty were more affected, between 1973-1975, only 1672 were built but the car is now recognized as a pioneer of the template which European (and later other) manufacturers would adopt and over the decades refine to the point where the dreaded “turbo-lag” became just a memory.  The survival rate was high and although the performance level was later much surpassed (without any need for turbo-charging), they became much sought after by those wanting to enjoy what could be an exciting experience.  They’re now a collector’s item bought more to admire and trade than drive and prices in excess of US$200,000 are not unknown.  When first announced, the cars allocated to the press fleet had “2002” and “turbo” written in reverse lettering on the front spoiler, just to let drivers glancing in their rear-view mirrors was coming up fast although in the six months following the release, a 100 km/h (60 mph) was imposed on the autobahns as a fuel-saving measure so opportunities to overtake were limited.  The message implied in the graphics attracted the interest of the authorities in some German Länder (state governments) which claimed the concept was “aggressive” and cars with the lettering might not be registered.  Aggression has been a sensitive topic in Germany since 1945 and BMW made the graphics and option but apparently nowhere in the country was registration denied and like the originally optional blue strips on Shelby American Mustangs, many 2002 Turbos have since had the graphics retrospectively applied.

Selfie expert Lindsay Lohan, well acquainted with the properties of mirrors.

In computing, the concept of “mirroring” exists in several contexts but the best-known and most widely practiced is in data storage and management.  “Disk mirroring” describes the replication of data stored on one volume onto a physically separate volume, sometimes in the one physical array, sometimes onto media far away.  The attraction of mirroring is that in the event of disk failure, data losses are limited (often eliminated) because the system can continue to use one disk until the failed unit is replaced.  One of the most widely used (and simplest) implementations is RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) Level 1 which in which two disks operate in unison although users only ever see one volume.  Various methods of writing data are used, described usually as synchronous, asynchronous and semi-synchronous and the choice is dictated both by cost and what’s technically possible.  The ideal approach is synchronous writing under which, at most, data losses related to disk failure should be measured in minutes or even seconds.  The industry standard for corporations using mirroring has long been the “hot-swap” which means a failed disk can be pulled from a system while running and a replacement inserted, the RAID software re-mirroring (re-building) the new disk.  A less often seen configuration includes a standby disk which sits in a system, remaining unused until notified of failure in which case it assumes the role of the failed media, re-mirroring beginning as soon as it is found to be on-line.

Frivol

Frivol (pronounced friv-uhl)

(1) An unserious person.

(2) An idle diversion or pastime; a frivolity.

(3) To behave frivolously; to trifle; to squander time; to waste on frivolous pursuits (historically followed by away).

(4) To spend money frivolously (historically followed by away).

1865–1870: A back formation from frivolous, from the French frivole, from the Latin frīvolus (trifling, worthless).  The word exists in Romanian where it’s used in the same sense as in English but in German there’s been a meaning shift and it’s now an adjective meaning saucy; sleazy; ribald (sexual in a frivolous way), the comparative being frivoler and the superlative am frivolsten (in the matter of frivolous sex, the Germans have grades).  The adjective frivolous emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, from the Latin frivolus (silly, empty, trifling, worthless), a diminutive of frivos (broken, crumbled), from friare (break, rub away, crumble).  In courts of law, frivolous was in use by the mid- 1730s to describe arguments (or entire cases) as “so clearly insufficient as to need no argument to show its weakness”.  The related forms were the adverb frivolously and the nouns frivolousness & frivolity.  Dating from the 1790s, frivolity was from the French frivolité, from the Old French frivole (frivolous), from the Latin frivolus.  Frivol is a noun & verb, frivoler (also frivoller) is a noun, frivoled (also frivolled) & frivoling (also frivolled) are verbs; the noun plural is frivols.  Frivol is all contexts is now rare (some sources suggest it is extinct) which is interesting because in English there’s usually a tendency for a short form to prevail over the long; for whatever reason frivolous & frivolity flourished and frivol floundered.

Of the frivolous and the vexatious

In legal proceedings, “frivolous” & “vexatious” are terms used to describe certain classes of argument or even an entire case.  An action or claim is labeled frivolous when it self-evidently lacks any merit or basis in law and has no reasonable prospect of success.  An action or a litigant is labeled as vexatious when they engage in persistent, repetitive, or burdensome litigation, often with the primary goal of annoying, harassing, or frustrating the opposing party.  Like the frivolous, a vexatious action is often one with little prospect of success but is characterized by a pattern of behavior rather than the lack of merit in a specific claim and the phrase “abuse of process” is often used in conjunction with “vexatious”.  If a litigant is found repeatedly to commence such actions, courts sometimes declare them a “vexatious litigant” and intervene to prevent them filing new suits without the permission of the court.  The terms “serial litigant” is also sometime used in this context but the courts will not move against a party simply on the basis of the frequency with which actions are brought; provided a actions are on sound legal grounds and have a reasonable prospect of success, as a general principle, there is no limit on their number.

Courts do act more harshly against the vexatious than the frivolous because the former (often involving the legal system in repetitive and burdensome litigation) are being used as a weapon, sometimes as devices to harass or annoy and sometimes as a way of attempting to cause the other party to have to spend so much in legal fees that they will discontinue the case.  Each matter is dealt with on its merits but courts can impose sanctions on both litigants and counsel; it’s not unusual for litigants declared vexatious to be self-represented because no lawyer will agree to run the action.  Although there can be nuances, a case is frivolous if it has no reasonable chance of succeeding, and is vexatious if the court finds it would be unreasonable to ask the other party to defend the matter.  Lindsay Lohan went through a “serial litigant” phase and the makers of GTA were not the only plaintiffs to suggest she was running frivolous cases, the accusation usually that the legal proceedings were being commenced only to seek publicity:

Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018)

In a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court, Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Agreeing with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “… artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey wrote in his ruling.  Judge Fahey's words recalled those of Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) when in Jacobellis v Ohio (378 U.S. 184 (1964) he wrote: “I shall not today attempt further to define… and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.  But I know it when I see it…”  Judge Fahey knew a basic white girl when he saw one; he just couldn't name her.  Lindsay Lohan's lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

Lindsay Lohan v E-Trade Securities LLC, New York State Supreme Court, Nassau County, No. 004579/2010

In 2010, one of Lindsay Lohan’s more unusual forays into litigation was settled prior to reaching trial.  In the Supreme Court of New York, Ms Lohan had filed suit for US$100 million against online investment site E-Trade, in connection with their Super Bowl ad featuring a "milkaholic" baby girl named Lindsay.  The claim was based on the allegation the commercial was mocking her on the basis of some drug and alcohol related matters which had involved the police, saying the work additionally improperly invoked her “likeness, name, characterization, and personality” without permission, violating her right of privacy.  In the statement of claim, the actress sought US$50 million in compensatory damages and US$50 million in exemplary damages as well as demanding E-Trade cease and desist running the commercial and turn over all copies to her.  One interesting technical legal point raised was that Ms Lohan enjoyed the same “single-name” recognition as celebrities such as talk-show host Oprah (Winfrey) or the singer Madonna (Ciccone).

The E-Trade commercial had been broadcast during the Super Bowl on 7 February 2010 as part of a series built around the theme “babies who play the markets”, and attracted an audience of around 106 ½ million viewers in the US market, then a record number.  E-Trade filed a statement of defense in which it said the claims were “without merit”, and that Lindsay Lohan wasn’t the world's only Lindsay, noting Lindsay was in 2008 the 380th most popular name for new-born American girls, down somewhat from 241th in 2004 when Mean Girls was released.  Grey Group, the advertising agency which produced the commercial later added the “milkaholic Lindsay” was named after a member of its account team although this apparently wasn’t added to the statement of defense.  The plaintiffs did raise the matter of dismissal as frivolous but the judge said the matters raised were "potentially legally substantive" and allowed the case to proceed.  After some months, a settlement was reached between the parties, both sides bound by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

Pitbull (Armando Christian Pérez, b 1981).

Another of Lindsay Lohan's forays into litigation did however give a judge the opportunity to discuss the parameters a court works with when deciding whether an argument can be ruled "frivolous".  In 2011 she sued hip hop artist Pitbull over the lyrics in his song Give Me Everything, which included the line: So, I’m toptoein’, to keep flowin’, I got it locked up, like Lindsay Lohan.  Ms Lohan cited the lyric as a violation of her publicity and publicity rights which caused her emotional distress, claiming the lyrics “includes an unwarranted, unauthorized, and unfavorable mention of [her] name and personality, and allusions to her physical and mental character.”  The judge dismissed on technical grounds the claim made under New York Civil Rights law, adding that the First Amendment anyway affords full protection.  What was more interesting was the discussion of the argument the song was commercial rather than expressive in nature, the judge ruling that even if the work was created for the purpose of “making a profit”, that does not mean her name was “used for advertising or purposes of trade within the meaning of the New York law“ and that, on the facts of this case, even if that were proved, the “isolated nature of the use of her name” (just one line in the song) would “prove fatal” to the claims.  Putbull’s counsel indicated they wished to have the court sanction Ms Lohan for filing a frivolous lawsuit (an abuse of process) but the judge, noting the paucity of case law in this field, said the lack of precedent meant there was no clear indication the case would be doomed and the claim was therefore not so frivolous as to warrant the imposition of a sanction.  Lindsay Lohan thus remained free to litigate, which she did.

Aesthete

Aesthete (pronounced es-theet or ees-theet (especially British))

(1) A person who has or professes to have refined sensitivity toward the beauties of art or nature.

(2) A person who affects great love of art, music, poetry, etc and indifference to practical matters.

1880–1885: From the Ancient Greek αἰσθητής (aisthētḗs) (one who perceives), the construct being aisthē- (variant stem of aisthánesthai (to perceive)) + -tēs (the Greek noun suffix denoting agent).  It was a Victorian back formation from aesthetics, from either the German Ästhetik or the French esthétique, both from Ancient Greek αἰσθητικός (aisthētikós) (of sense perception), from αἰσθάνομαι (aisthánomai) (I feel).  There is probably no exact synonym, the closet being connoisseur but it conveys a slightly different implication and the derived noun hyperaesthete is used sometimes as a term of derision directed at the excessively civilized.  The rarely used alternative spellings esthete & æsthete are now used only as literary devices and are otherwise obsolete.  Aesthete is a noun and aesthetic is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is aesthetes.

Aestheticism

View of Amalfi (1844), pencil, ink & water colour by noted aesthete John Ruskin (1819-1900).

Aestheticism was a nineteenth century movement in European art now best remembered for the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, with no need for it to serve any political, didactic or other purpose.  The modern expression most associated with the movement is l’art pour l’art (art for art’s sake).  The movement is held to have been a reaction to the prevailing utilitarian social philosophies and what was said to be the ugliness of the industrial age and the philistinism of the newly prominent mercantile class.   Its philosophical framework was built in the eighteenth century by German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) who argued for the autonomy of aesthetic standards, set apart from considerations of morality, utility or pleasure.  The idea attracted many including Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) and Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) and it was the French philosopher Victor Cousin (1792–1867) who, in 1818, coined the phrase l’art pour l’art.  It was at the time controversial.  The establishment regarded art and literature as part of the ethical and social construct, something certainly challenged by what seemed a decadent display of sensuality and a flaunting of sexual and political experimentation.  The phrase art for art’s sake became identified with the energy and creativity of aestheticism but was adopted also by those who feared the implications of a decoupling of art and morality: that the dangerous ideas of art could infect politics and challenge the social order.

Aesthete is now rare and the more familiar related form is the noun & adjective aesthetic (1) concerned with beauty, artistic effect, or appearance; appealing to one's sense of beauty or art & (2) the study of art or beauty; that which appeals to the senses; the artistic motifs defining a collection of things.

Fedora

Fedora (pronounced fi-dawr-uh or fed-dohr-uh)

A soft felt or velvet hat with a curled medium-brim, usually with a band and worn with the crown creased lengthwise.

1887: An invention of American English, from Fédora, an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou (1831-1908), the protagonist of which was the Russian princess Fédora Romanoff, played originally by Sarah Bernhardt.  Bernhardt, a noted cross-dresser, wore a center-creased, soft brimmed hat which was adopted by feminists of the age, then known as women's-rights activists.  The name comes from the Russian Федо́ра (Fedóra), feminine form of Фёдор (Fjódor), from the Ancient Greek Θεόδωρος (Theódōros) (gift of god), derived from θεός (theós) (god) and δῶρον (dôron) (gift).  The ultimate root was the Indo-European dhes- (forming words for religious concepts) + dōron (gift) from do- (to give)).

In the Western world, between the demise of the top hat after the First World War and the abandonment of hats in the 1960s, three variations on a theme, the Fedora, the Trilby and the Homburg vied for choice as men’s headgear, all popular in a way the bowler hat never was.  Fedoras used to be made mostly from wool, cashmere, rabbit or beaver felt, some of the more expensive varieties blended with mink or chinchilla (and rarely mohair, vicuña, guanaco or cervelt).  After enjoying a 1990s revival, they came to be made from any available material, including modern synthetics.

The Trilby (left), Homburg (centre) and the Fedora (right).

The Fedora first became fashionable during the 1920s, displacing the less rakish Homburg (named after Homburg in Imperial-era Germany from where it originated as hunting headgear) although it was the similar, though narrow-brimmed, Trilby (also known in the UK as the “Brown Trilby”) which was said to be more popular with the rich.  The Trilby proved attractive to those often at the track, apparently because, with a narrow brim and one slightly turned up at the back, it made more convenient the carrying of a pair of binoculars.  The name Trilby was derived from a hat worn in the stage adaptation of George du Maurier's (1834-1896) 1894 novel Trilby.  Just another hat in most countries, it suffered by association in Germany because a black Trilby was the choice of most Gestapo officers.

Lindsay Lohan wearing Fedora with coat of unknown provenance, Chiltern Firehouse, London, 2014.

The Homburg did make a mid-century comeback after it became the choice of the UK's pre-war foreign secretary Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957).  The highly strung Eden was the most stylish politician of the age, although his sartorial elegance failed to impress the Duce, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) noting he had “…never met a better dressed fool.”  It was his colleague Rab Butler (1902–1982) who, noting the character of Eden's parents, reckoned genetics could explain why Eden was "half mad baronet, half beautiful woman" and he understood that something as distinctive as a hat could convey a political message if the association was widely understood.  At the time when the great dividing line in British politics was the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940), Eden was replaced as foreign secretary by the pro-appeasement Lord Halifax (1881–1959; UK Foreign Secretary 1938-1940), Butler becoming his under-secretary.  One thing an under-secretary gets allocated is a parliamentary private secretary (PPS), a member of parliament (MP) keen to stake a claim to advancement and on his first day in the Foreign Office (FO), Butler took the PPS to a quiet corner and told him to discard his homburg since it was "too Edenesque" and to "buy a bowler", the hat almost always worn by Halifax.  The PPS had no great regard for Eden and had adopted the homburg merely because he liked the look but anyway took the advice, delighted to be unexpectedly appointed a FO PPS, noting in his diary "...just think, bowlers are back".

Subduction

Subduction (pronounced sub-duhk-shuhn)

(1) The action of being pushed or drawn beneath another object.

(1) An act or instance of subducting; subtraction or withdrawal; an act of taking away.

(2) In geology, the process by which collision of the earth's crustal plates results in one lithospheric plate being drawn down or overridden by another, localized along the juncture (subduction zone) of two plates, sometimes resulting in tensions and faulting in the earth's crust, with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

(3) In specialized us in applied optics, the act of turning the eye downwards.

(4) In mathematics, a surjection between diffeological spaces such that the target is identified as the push-forward of the source.

1570-1580: From the Latin subductiōn (nominative subductiō) (pulling up, computation).  The original sense was “withdrawal, removal; the action of taking away” (originally of noxious substances from the body), from the Latin subductiōnem (nominative subductiō) (a withdrawal, drawing up, hauling ashore), a noun of action from the past participle stem of subducere (to draw away, take away).  From the 1660s it was used in the sense of “an act of subduing; fact of being subdued” while the now familiar geological sense, referring to the edge of a tectonic plate dipping under a neighboring plate came into use in English only by 1970, following the adoption in French in 1951.  The word is now peculiar to geology, the newness a consequence of plate tectonics becoming well understood only from the mid 1960s.  The verb subduct (used first in the 1570s in the sense of “subtract”) was from subductus, past participle of subducere, and the geological sense is from 1971, a back-formation from the noun subduction.  Subduction is a noun, subduct, subducting & subducted are verbs, subductively is an adverb and subductive is an adjective; the noun plural is subductions.

Subduction is a geological process which happens where the boundaries of tectonic plates converge and one plate moves under another, being forced or, under the force of gravity, sinking into the mantle. Regions where this process occurs are known as subduction zones and rates of subduction are usually small, averaging one to three inches (25-75mm) per year.

Affected plates include both oceanic and continental crusts.   Dutch scientists Douwe van der Meer, Douwe van Hinsbergen, and Wim Spakman of Utrecht University published Atlas of the Underworld in the journal Tectonophysics documenting ninety-four distinct slabs.

Etching

Etching (pronounced ech-ing)

(1) The art, act or process of making designs or pictures on a metal plate, glass etc, by the corrosive action of an acid instead of by a burin.

(2) An impression, as on paper, taken from an etched plate.

(3) The design so produced.

(4) A flat (usually metal) plate bearing such a design.

1625–1635: The construct was etch + -ing.  The verb etch was from the Dutch etsen (to engrave by eating away the surface of with acids), from the German ätzen (to etch), from the Old High German azzon (to cause to bite or feed), from the Proto-Germanic atjaną, causative of etaną (to eat), from the primitive Indo-European root ed- (to eat) (from these sources English gained “eat”).  The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).  The “etching scribe” was a needle-sharp steel tool for incising into plates in etching and the production of dry points.  Etching is a noun & verb; the noun plural is etchings.

The noun was the present participle and gerund of etch (the verbal noun from the verb etch) and was used also in the sense of “the art of engraving”; by the 1760s, it was used also to mean “a print etc, made from an etched plate" and the plates themselves.  The term etching (to cut into a surface with an acid or other corrosive substance in order to make a pattern) is most associated with the creation of printing plates for the production of artistic works but the technique was used also as a way to render decorative patterns on metal.  In modern use, it’s also a term used in the making of circuit boards.  In idiomatic use (often as “etched in the memory”), it’s used of events, ideas etc which are especially memorable (for reasons good and ill) and as a slang word meaning “to sketch; quickly to draw”.  The Etch A Sketch drawing toy was introduced 1960 by Ohio Art Company; a kind of miniature plotter, it was a screen with two knobs which moved a stylus horizontally & vertically, displacing an aluminum powder to produce solid lines.  To delete the creation, the user physically shook the device which returned the powder to its original position, blanking the screen.

Rembrandt's Jan Asselyn, Painter (1646) (left) and Faust (circa 1652).

Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669)) wasn’t the most prolific etcher but he remains the most famous and his output provides an illustrative case-study in the evolution of his mastering of the technique, his early work really quite diffident compared with his later boldness.

What came to be known as etching gained the name from the Germanic family of words meaning “eat & “to eat”, the transferred sense an allusion to the acid which literally would “eat the metal”.   Etching is an intaglio (from the Italian, from intagliare (to engrave) technique in printmaking, a term which includes methods such as hard and soft ground etching, engraving, dry-point, mezzotint and aquatint, all of which use an ink transferring process.  In this, a design is etched into a plate, the ink added over the whole surface plate before a scrim (historically starched cheesecloth) is used to force the ink into the etched areas and remove any excess.  Subsequently, the plate (along with dampened paper) is run through a press at high pressure, forcing the paper into etched areas containing the ink.  The earliest known signed and dated etching was created by Swiss Renaissance goldsmith Urs Graf (circa 1485-circa 1525) in 1513 and it’s from those who worked with gold that almost all forms of engraving are ultimately derived.

Lindsay Lohan, 1998, rendered in the style of etchings.

A phrase which was so beloved by comedy writers in the early-mid twentieth century that it became a cliché was “Want to come up and see my etchings?”, a euphemism for seduction.  The saying was based on some fragments of text in a novel by Horatio Alger Jr (1832–1899), a US author regarded as the first to formalize as genre fiction the “rags-to-riches” stories which had since the early days of the republic been the essence of the “American Dream” although it wasn’t until the twentieth century the term came into common use (it’s now used mostly ironically).

Bedchamber

Bedchamber (pronounced bed-cheym-ber)

A now archaic word for bedroom; the alternative form was bed-chamber.

1325–1375:  From the Middle English bedchaumbre, the construct being bed + chamber.  Bed was from the Middle English bed or bedde, from the pre-1000 Old English bedd (bed, couch, resting-place; garden-bed, plot), from the Proto-Germanic badją (plot, grave, resting-place, bed) and thought perhaps derived from the Proto-Indo-European bhed (to dig).  It was cognate with the Scots bed and bede, the North Frisian baad and beed, the West Frisian bêd, the Low German Bedd, the Dutch bed, the German bett, the Danish bed, the Swedish bädd, the Icelandic beður and perhaps, (depending on the efficacy of the Proto-Indo-European lineage), the Ancient Greek βοθυρος (bothuros) (pit), the Latin fossa (ditch),the Latvian bedre (hole), the Welsh bedd (grave), the Breton bez (grave).  Any suggestion of links to Russian or other Slavic words is speculative.

Chamber dates from 1175-1225 and was from the Middle English chambre, borrowed from Old French chambre, from the Latin camera, derived from the Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára) (vaulted chamber); the meaning “room”, usually private, drawn from French use.  As applied to anatomy, use emerged in the late fourteenth century; it was applied to machinery in 1769 and to ballistics from the 1620s.  The meaning "legislative body" is from circa 1400 and the term chamber music was first noted in 1789, not as a descriptor of any musical form but to indicate that intended to be performed in private rooms rather than public halls.

The Bedchamber Crisis, 1839

A Lady of the Bedchamber, a position held typically by women of noble descent, is a kind of personal assistant to the Queen of England.  A personal appointment by the Queen, they’ve existed for centuries, their roles varying according to the relationships enjoyed.  Most European royal courts from time-to-time also adopted the practice.

The 1839 bedchamber crisis is emblematic of the shifting of political power from monarch to parliament.  Although the eighteenth-century administrative and economic reforms created the framework, it was the 1832 Reform Act which, in doing away with a monarch’s ability to stack parliaments with ample compliant souls, shattered a sovereign’s capacity to dictate election results and within two years the new weakness was apparent.  In 1834, William IV (1765–1837; King of the UK 1830-1837)  dismissed the Whig Lord Melbourne (1779–1848; Prime Minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841) and appointed the Tory Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850; Prime Minister of the UK 1834–1835 & 1841–1846).  However, the King no longer enjoyed the electoral influence necessary to secure Peel a majority in the Commons and after being defeated in the house six times in as many weeks, the premier was obliged to inform the palace of his inability to govern, compelling the king to invite Melbourne to form a new administration, one which endured half a decade, out-living William IV.  The king's exercise in 1834 of the royal prerogative proved the last time the powers of the head of state would be invoked sack a prime-minister until an Australian leader was dismissed in 1975 by the governor-general (and in a nice touch the sacked PM had appointed the clearly ungrateful GG).

Queen Mary's State Bed Chamber, Hampton Court Palace (1819) by Richard Cattermole (1795–1858).

By 1839, Melbourne felt unable to continue and the new Queen Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901), reluctantly, invited Sir Robert Peel to assume the premiership, a reticence some historians attribute as much to her fondness for the avuncular Melbourne as her preference for his Whig (liberal) politics.  Peel, knowing any administration he could form would be nominally in a minority, knew his position would be strengthened if there was a demonstration of royal support so asked Victoria, as a gesture of good faith, to replace some of the Whig Ladies of the Bedchamber with a few of Tory breeding.  Most of the ladies were the wives or daughters of Whig politicians and Sir Robert’s request made sense in the world of 1839.

Victoria rejected his request and prevailed upon Melbourne to continue which he did, until a final defeat in 1841.  By then it was clear only Peel could command a majority in the Commons and he insisted on his bedchamber cull, forcing Victoria to acquiesce to the parliament imposing on her the most intimate of her advisors.  This is the moment in constitutional history where the precedent is established of the parliament and not the Crown determining the formation and fate of governments.  Since then, the palace can warn, counsel and advise but not compel.

A lady in, if not of, the bedchamber.  A recumbent Lindsay Lohan in The Canyons (IFC Films, 2013).