Afterburner

Afterburner (pronounced af-ter-bur-ner)

(1) In aviation, a device placed within, or attached to the exit of, a jet-engine exhaust pipe to produce afterburning.

(2) In engineering, a device in the exhaust system of an internal-combustion engine for removing or rendering harmless potentially dangerous components in the exhaust gases.

1948: A compound word, the construct being after + burn +-er.  The verb after developed from its use as an adverb and preposition, from the Middle English after-, efter- & æfter-, from the Old English æfter- (after, behind, against; later in time; in pursuit, following with intent to overtake), the idea being off + -ter (a comparative suffix), the original formation meant "more away, farther off”.  It was cognate with the Scots efter-, the Old Frisian & West Frisian efter-, the Dutch achter-, the German after-, the Swedish efter, the Old Norse eptir, the Old High German aftar, the Gothic aftra (behind), the Greek apotero (farther off) and the Old Persian apataram (further).  From circa 1300 it assumed the meaning "in imitation of; in the style of" while, as a conjunction in the sense of "subsequent to the time that" the use was inherited from the late Old English.  The phrase “after hours” (hours after regular working hours) dates from 1814 although the exact purpose has always proved elusive but it’s assumed by most to relate to retail commerce rather than terms of employment.  Afterwit was from circa 1500 and deconstructs literally as "wisdom that comes too late" but is familiar feeling of one for whom a perfect piece of repartee comes to mind only after the moment has passed; it’s perhaps surprising afterwit didn’t endure in the language.  The phrase “after you” an element in etiquette meaning “yielding precedence to another” dates from 1650.

Burn was from the Middle English bernen & birnen, from the Old English birnan (to burn), a metathesis from the Proto-West Germanic brinnan, from the Proto-Germanic brinnaną (to burn), from the primitive Indo-European bhrenw- and related to the Middle Irish brennim (drink up) & bruinnim (bubble up), the present stem from bhrewh- & bhru- (linked to the Middle Irish bréo (flame), the Albanian burth, the Cyclamen hederifolium (mouth burning) and the Sanskrit भुरति (bhurati) (moves quickly, twitches, fidgets).  The verb was from the early twelfth century brennen (be on fire, be consumed by fire; be inflamed with passion or desire, be ardent; destroy (something) with fire, expose to the action of fire, roast, broil, toast; burn (something) in cooking) which when applied to objects imparted the sense of “to shine, glitter, sparkle, glow like fire”, the form from both the Old Norse brenna (to burn, light) an two originally distinct Old English verbs: the transitive bærnan (to kindle) and the intransitive beornan (be on fire).  All of these were from the Proto-Germanic brennanan (causative brannjanan), source also of the Middle Dutch bernen, the Dutch branden, the Old High German brinnan, the German brennen, the Gothic brannjan (to set on fire); the ultimate etymology uncertain.  The noun burn dates from circa 1300 in the sense of "act or operation of burning” and was from the Old English bryne, the etymology identical to the verb and prior to the mid-sixteenth century, the usual spelling was brenne.

The Figurative use of burn (of passion, conflict etc.) was in Old English and survives to this day while the literal sense of "be hot, radiate heat" was from the later thirteenth century, the meaning "produce a burning sensation, sting" from a hundred years later.  A further figurative sense, that of "being cheated, swindled or victimized" emerged in the 1650s on the notion that whatever one lost “may as well have been burned”.  The slang use of burned from the late eighteenth century meaning "infected with venereal disease" referred to the sensation which was one of the symptoms.  To “burn one's bridges (behind one)” meant "behave so as to destroy any chance of returning to a status quo" and was used in the late nineteenth century, perhaps because of some of the reckless cavalry operations documented during the US Civil War although it’s a variation on the “burn the boats” (so one’s soldiers have no alternative but to fight, there being no chance of escape) approach known since Antiquity.  To have money “burn a hole in (one's) pocket” was a critique from the 1850s of those with an irresistible propensity to spend whatever money was in one’s possession; the modern expression of economists is of “expenditure rising to meet income”.  The meaning "mark or injury made by burning" is from 1520s while “slow burn” dates from 1938 and refers to a technique in acting.

The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  The –er suffix was added to verbs to create a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb; used to form an agent noun.  If added to a noun it usually denoted an occupation.

The afterburner

Attracted by theoretical work which hinted at improved thrust, Rolls-Royce began ground tests on one of their early jet engines in 1944 although the war ended before the technology was ready for production.  By the early 1950s, most advanced jet fighters had adopted afterburners and they continue generally to be used mostly in military aircraft although a few civilian applications have existed including the now defunct Tupolev Tu-144 and Concorde.

An afterburner’s purpose is to provide an increase in thrust, usually for supersonic flight, takeoff and in combat. Afterburning is achieved by injecting additional fuel downstream of the turbine and produces significantly increased thrust; the trade-off being very high fuel consumption and inefficiency, though this is considered acceptable for the short periods during which it is usually used.  The quantum of a jet-engine’s thrust is determined by the general principle of mass flow rate and thrust depends on two things: the velocity of the exhaust gas and the mass of that gas. A jet engine can produce more thrust by either accelerating the gas to a higher velocity or by having a greater mass of gas exit the engine.  Designing a basic turbojet engine around the second principle produces the turbofan engine, which creates slower gas but more of it. Turbofans are highly fuel efficient and can deliver high thrust for long periods, but the design trade-off is a large size relative to the power output. To generate increased power with a more compact engine for short periods, an engine requires an afterburner. The afterburner increases thrust primarily by accelerating the exhaust gas to a higher velocity.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird afterburning for additional thrust during take-off (left) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark performing a dump-and-burn (right).

What many people think of as afterburners are actually displays of dump-and-burn at air shows, a procedure where dumped fuel is intentionally ignited using the plane's afterburner. A spectacular flame combined with high speed makes this an interesting sight but it’s just for entertainment.  Fuel dumping is used to reduce the mass of an aircraft about to undertake emergency landings and thus, for other than for safety reasons, dump and burn has no practical use.  In the slang of pilots who flew the early generation of fighters with afterburners the phrase was "lit up the burners" while the dump and burn is also called a "torching" or a "zippo".

Lighting up the burners: Lindsay Lohan in The Canyons (2013).

Stalk

Stalk (pronounced stawk)

(1) In botany, the stem or main axis of a herbaceous plant; any slender supporting or connecting part of a plant, as the petiole of a leaf, the peduncle of a flower, or the funicle of an ovule; the petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.

(2) In zoology, a slender supporting structure in animals such as crinoids and certain protozoans, coelenterates, and barnacles (such as the peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans; the narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.

(3) Analogous with plants, a stem, shaft, or slender supporting part of anything.

(4) In automotive use, a slender lever, usually mounted on or near the steering wheel, used by the driver to control a signal or function (when more than one function cam to be added, “multi-purpose stalk” was coined.

(5) In hunting (and by extension in certain parts of the military), stealthily to pursue or approach prey or quarry.

(6) To walk with measured, stiff, or haughty strides; to proceed in a steady, deliberate, or sinister manner.

(7) Persistently to pursue and, sometimes, attack a person with whom one is obsessed (also used to describe similar analogous behavior in the digital space of the internet.

(8) In architecture, an ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.

(9) One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.

(10 In metal fabrication, an iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it (the core arbor).

1275–1325: From the Middle English stalke or stalken (stem of a plant), from stale (one of the uprights of a ladder, handle, stalk), the construct thought to be the Old English stal (a clipping of stalu (a stave or upright piece of wood (in the sense of a part of a tool or instrument) (and related to Old Frisian staal (handle))) + -k as a diminutive suffix.  The Old English bestealcian (to walk stealthily), stealcung (akin to steal) evolved in unison, as did the Middle Low German stolkeren and Danish stalke.  The Old English forms were from the Proto-Germanic stalla- (source also of the Old English steala (stalk, support) & steall (place), from the primitive Indo-European stol-no-, a suffixed form of stol-, as variant of the root stel- (to put, stand, put in order), with derivatives referring to a standing object or place.  The noun came to be applied to similar structures in animals after 1826.  The corn-stalk (stalk of a corn plant) became a standard descriptor in botany and commerce after 1816, perhaps influenced by the earlier (1800) bean-stalk (from children’s story).  Stalk & stalking are nouns & verbs, stalker is a noun, stalky, stalkiest & stalkier are adjectives.

The verb stalk (pursue stealthily) was from the Old English stealcian (as in bestealcian (to steal along, walk warily)), from the Proto-Germanic stalkon, frequentative of the primitive Indo-European stel- which may have been a variant of ster- (to rob, to steal) although some etymologists suggest the Old English word might have been influenced by the noun.  Interestingly, the meaning "harass obsessively" dates from 1991, well before the world wide web was generally available and at a time when the internet was used only by a tiny few.  The verb stalk is another of those creatures in English which must be annoying to those learning the language.  Originally it meant “moving quietly, with stealth, unobtrusively” and was applied to poachers (one who prowls for purposes of theft) of game (the property of others).  By the 1520s it had come to mean "walk haughtily" (ie essentially the opposite of the original) and etymologists it evolved either from stalk in the circa 1500 sense of “the poacher walking with long, awkward strides” or the Old English stealcung (a stalking, act of going stealthily) and related thus to stealc (steep, lofty).  In hunting, the word was first used of poachers but came later to be applied to all who hunted their prey.  A stalking-horse was originally literally a horse draped in trappings and trained to allow a fowler to conceal himself behind it to get within range of the game without alerting the birds.  The figurative use to refer to ”a person who participates in a proceeding to disguise its real purpose” was first noted in the early seventeenth century and survives in the language of modern politics despite being associated with animal cruelty.

Stalking and the web

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN)) operates the Large Hadron Collider (the LHC, a (very) big particle accelerator) to research high-energy physics.  The World Wide Web was invented at CERN in 1989 and the organization in January 1991 delivered the first web browser to other research institutions, a general public release on the internet happening that August.  Stalking quickly ensued.  The web didn’t create stalking in the modern sense of the word as “the unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual or group towards another person or group”; that behaviour has existed probably since the origins of mankind but the existence of the internet certainly opened a vista of possibilities in the way it could be done and use of the word in this context has spiked notably since the early 1990s.  Before the internet gained critical mass, the words stalk & stalking were used mostly in botany and zoology, the use in hunting but a niche.  One inventive use of stalk (sometimes as "stalking with intent") is to describe the rapid and purposeful gait adopted by some catwalk models, something which is often a reasonable achievement give the shoes they have to wear. 

Use of the word "stalking" in English, tracked by the Collins English Dictionary.  The gradual post-war decline reflected increasing urbanization, the spike in use after 1990 tracking with (1) the use to describe on-line behavior and (2) the codification of the offence of stalking in law.

Stalking behaviours are universally understood as related to harassment and intimidation although there were historic differences in definitions in psychiatry and psychology, as well as a myriad of variations in legislative detail between jurisdictions and depending on the jurisdiction, both civil remedies and criminal sanctions may be available.  Stalking is a crime in every state and territory in Australia and has to consist of more than one incident although some jurisdictions require at least three (single offences are dealt with under pre-existing legislation such as assault or intimidation).  The offense as defined in the Queensland Criminal Code (1899) differs in detail from what is used in other places but is illustrative of the modern approach.  Section 359B (as modified by the Criminal Code (Stalking) Amendment Act (1999)) of the Criminal Code and provides a maximum prison sentence of seven (7) years and details the offense as conduct:

(a) intentionally directed at a person (the "stalked person" ); and

(b) engaged in on any 1 occasion if the conduct is protracted or on more than 1 occasion; and

(c) consisting of 1 or more acts of the following, or a similar, type—

(i) following, loitering near, watching or approaching a person;

(ii) contacting a person in any way, including, for example, by telephone, mail, fax, email or through the use of any technology;

(iii) loitering near, watching, approaching or entering a place where a person lives, works or visits;

(iv) leaving offensive material where it will be found by, given to or brought to the attention of, a person;

(v) giving offensive material to a person, directly or indirectly;

(vi) an intimidating, harassing or threatening act against a person, whether or not involving violence or a threat of violence;

(vii) an act of violence, or a threat of violence, against, or against property of, anyone, including the defendant; and (d) that—

(i) would cause the stalked person apprehension or fear, reasonably arising in all the circumstances, of violence to, or against property of, the stalked person or another person; or

(ii) causes detriment, reasonably arising in all the circumstances, to the stalked person or another person.

Herr Vorderwulbecke, outside Westminster Magistrates Court, 2015.

German national Daniel Vorderwulbecke (b 1978) in 2015 became the subject of a restraining order issued in UK by a Westminster magistrate, Herr Vorderwulbecke believing he was (1) the nephew of the late Queen Elizabeth II and (2) married to Lindsay Lohan.  Ms Lohan was scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court to give evidence against Herr Vorderwulbecke (who also identifies as "King Lionheart") on two charges of stalking, relating to over a thousand messages and attempts to see her during theatrical rehearsals.  At the time he was being detained under the Mental Health Act at the Gordon Psychiatric Hospital in Pimlico but unfortunately she was unable to attend, apparently because the hearing conflicted with her completing a community service order for (unrelated) motoring offences in the US.  Herr Vorderwulbecke had what is in police vernacular "a bit of previous", having received several suspended sentences in his native Germany for offences involving violence and the charge sheet in England noted his "delusional obsession" with Ms Lohan.  Because Ms Lohan was not available to give evidence, the two stalking charges were dropped but he received a 12-week prison sentence (suspended for 18 months) and was made subject to a mental health treatment requirement for 12 months relating to harassment of a restaurant manager and two counts of criminal damage.

Proxemics

Proxemics (pronounced prok-see-miks)

(1) In sociology and psychology, the study of the spatial requirements of humans and animals and the effects of population density on behavior, communication, and social interaction.

(2) In linguistics, the study of the symbolic and communicative role in a culture of spatial arrangements and variations in distance, as in how far apart individuals engaged in conversation stand depending on the degree of intimacy between them.

1963: A blend created by US anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher Edward Twitchell Hall (1914–2009) for an academic paper published in 1963 (which built on ideas in his book The Silent Language (1959)), the construct being prox(imity) + -emics.  Proximity was a compound word, proxim(ate) +‎ -ity, from the Middle French proximité from the Latin proximitās & proximitāt-  from proximus (from the primitive Indo-European prokwismmos, from prokwe (from whence prope)).  The novel –emics was an extracted borrowing from the word phonemics (the study of phonemes or distinct units of sound in a language; phonology).  Proxemics is the noun, proxemic the adjective.

Empirical research

Proxemics is the study of human use of space and the effects that population density has on behavior, communication, and social interaction.  It’s one of a number of disciplines in the study of non-verbal communication, including semiotics (sign language), haptics (touch), kinesics (body language), vocalics (para-language), and chronemics (structure of time).  Analogous with the way animals use urine and physical posturing to define their territory, the idea is that humans use personal space and concrete objects to establish theirs.

The theory suggests there are four types of distances people keep: intimate (up to 18 inches (.5m)), personal (18 inches to 4 feet (.5-1.2M)), social (4 to 10 feet (1.2-3m)), and public (over 10 feet (3m+)) although those are the distances chosen deliberately by individuals; forced closeness such as experienced on public transport are not part of proxemics.  The theory exists within the discipline of behaviorism and is thus observational rather than being derived from explicit instruction which is why personal distance and physical contact varies by culture, the physical distance between communicators indicating also the nature of their relationship.  Beyond relationships, proxemics attempted to explain other cultural and anthropological phenomena, such as the organization of built environments and living spaces, furniture, walls, streets and fences all being arranged in ways that delineate territory, whether for living, working or meeting others; territories historically existing to provide comfort for inhabitants and induce anxiety in intruders.

Practicing pre-pandemic proxemics: The septuple of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo's Standing Committee at the Eighteenth Congress of the CCP, Beijing, November 2012.  Note the social distancing, an indication of early planning for the COVID-19 pandemic.  The unfortunate fellow (second from left) who spoiled the photograph by wearing the wrong color tie, was expelled from the party and transferred to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) as deputy assistant sanitation inspector.

Practicing pandemic proxemics: Lindsay Lohan in Dubai, April 2020, group photograph of a nonuple, expressing thanks to Dubai Police Force for their help.

Thistle

Thistle (pronounced this-uhl)

(1) Any of numerous perennial composite plants of the genera Cirsium, Cynara, Carduus, Onopordum and related genera, having prickly-edged leaves, pink, purple, yellow, or white dense flower heads, and feathery hairs on the seeds: family Asteraceae (composites).

(2) A common term for many other prickly plants.

(3) The national emblem of Scotland since the fifteenth century.

(4) As the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle (1687), a United Kingdom order of chivalry associated with Scotland; the word denoting membership of this order.

Pre 900: From the Middle English thistel, from the Old English thīstel (the earlier form was þistel).  The origin was probably the Proto-Germanic þistilaz & thistilaz, the source also of the Old Saxon thistil, the Old High German distil & thīstil, the German Distel, the Old Norse þistell & thīstill, the Scots thrissel, the Danish tidsel, the Dutch distel and the Icelandic þistill.  The root is uncertain origin but may have been an extended form of the primitive Indo-European (s)teyg & steig- (to prick, stick, pierce).  The adjective is thistly and the noun plural thistles.

Insignia of The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle.

The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry of the United Kingdom which, unusually, is one of a small class in the personal gift of the sovereign whereas most are conferred on the basis of a recommendation from the various governments where the British monarch remains head of state.  The order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland (1633-1701; James II of England and Ireland) who at the time asserted it was a revival of an earlier order but historians doubt the claim, the royal warrant of 1687 containing some dubious history and most doubtful chronology.  Nor is there any documentary evidence to support the idea an award in some way linked to the thistle was instituted after the Scottish victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the earliest vaguely plausible claim dating from the fifteenth century when James III (1451-1488) adopted the thistle as the royal insignia and minted coins depicting thistles.  There’s nothing however to support any link with knighthoods or other orders of chivalry and all that is certain is that the thistle became established as an emblem of Scotland, attached firstly to the royal court and later to the national identity.

The troublesome Bull Thistle.

Not discouraged by tiresome, inconvenient history, in 1687 James VII issued letters patent for an order of knighthood "reviving and restoring the Order of the Thistle to its full glory, lustre and magnificency".  Intended to be exclusive, membership was limited to twelve but James was deposed in the Glorious Revolution (1688) and no appointments to the order were made beyond the original eight although the exiled House of Stuart continued to issue what came to be referred to as “the Jacobite Thistle”, these not acknowledged by the British Crown.  The award of the Thistle resumed in 1704, before even the 1707 Acts of Union under which the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain.  The motto of the order is Nemo me impune lacessit (No one provokes me with impunity), an adoption of that which had been used by the Royal Stuart dynasty of Scotland since at least the 1570s.  It's used also by three of the British Army's Scottish regiments and appears on both the royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of Scotland and the version of the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom used in Scotland.

In the UK’s order of precedence, Knights and Ladies of the Thistle rank second only to the Order of the Garter and the wives, sons, daughters and daughters-in-law of Knights of the Thistle also can rise a few notches on the order of precedence, a courtesy not extended to any relative of a Lady of the Thistle, something which must be seen as an anomaly in the early twenty-first century but which probably cannot easily be reformed in isolation, any alteration in these things likely to trigger a chain-reaction of events in a system designed to resist change.  The television show Yes Minister did offer an alternative explanation for the mechanism for awarding the Thistle, suggesting “…a committee sits on it”.

Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; prime minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) in his Knight of the Thistle robes.

Like the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1348) and the Royal Victorian Order (1896), the Thistle lies in the personal gift of the sovereign rather than being an award made by governments as is the case with most honors.  Unusually too, the Thistle is geographically specific, awarded only to those with some connection to Scotland, although, they need not be actually Scottish.  The equivalent Irish Order, the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick (1783) was for those with an association with Ireland handled in a similar manner to the Thistle but awards were restricted after independence was granted to Eire (southern Ireland) in 1922 and the order has been dormant (though not abolished) since 1936.  This follows the practice applied to imperial honors tied to particular colonies of the Raj and the old British Empire, the Indian (the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India (1861) & the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (1878)) and Burmese (the Order of Burma (1940)) orders dormant since the respective grants of independence in 1947 & 1948.  Presumably, were Scotland to become an independent state, the Thistle too would lapse into a similar state of abeyance.

Clan Lindsay car seat covers.

Clan Lindsay is a Scottish clan of the Scottish Lowlands although the origins of the Lindsay name lie in England, south of the border.  Lindsay is a toponym (a word derived from the name of a locality), itself drawn from the Old English toponym Lindesege (Island of Lind), a reference to the city of Lincoln, in which Lind is the original Brittonic form of the name, the “island” referring to Lincoln being an island in the surrounding fenland.  Under Roman occupation, the area in Lincolnshire now occupied by the city of Lincoln was known as Lindum Colonia, shortened in the Old English to Lindocolina and later to Lincylene, Lindum a Latinized form of a native Brittonic name which had been reconstructed as Lindon (pool or lake).  In the late nineteenth century, as the modern convention in the Western World (Christian name + Surname) became (more or less) standardized, like many others, surnames Lindsay and Lindsey began to be used as given names although it wasn’t until the mid-1960s that it became common in the Commonwealth to use them for girls, a trend which spread quickly to the US and by late in the century, the use for boys rapidly declined, the two trends presumably not unrelated.

Lindsay Lohan in tartan for Freaky Friday (2003) costume test photos (left), the Clan Lindsay tartan garden flag with swan crest, augmented by the thistle (national flower of Scotland) emblems (centre) and Clan Lindsay T-Shirt with stylized thistle (right).  The Clan Lindsay motto is Endure Fort (Endure Bravely).

Constitution

Constitution (pronounced kon-sti-too-shun)

(1) The formal or informal system of primary principles and rules regulating a government or other institution.

(2) In law, a legal document describing such a formal system.

(3) In Roman Catholicism, a document issued by a religious authority serving to promulgate some particular church laws or doctrines.

(4) A person's physical makeup or temperament, especially in respect of robustness; the general health of a person (now less common except in technical use).

1350-1400: From the Middle English constitucioun & constitucion (edict, law, ordinance, regulation, rule, statute; body of laws or rules, or customs; body of fundamental principles; principle or rule (of science); creation), from the twelfth century Old French constitucion (constitution, establishment) (which persists the in modern French constitution), a learned borrowing from the Latin cōnstitūtiō & cōnstitūtiōnem (character, constitution, disposition, nature; definition; point in dispute; order, regulation; arrangement, system), from cōnstituō (to establish, set up; to confirm; to decide, resolve).  A common use of cōnstitūtiōnem was as a noun of state from past-participle stem of constituere (to cause to stand, set up, fix, place, establish, set in order; form something new; resolve),  The construct was constitute +‎ -ion.  Constitute was from the Middle English constituten, from the Latin cōnstitūtum (neuter of cōnstitūtus, past participle of cōnstituō (to put in place, set up, establish).  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  Constitution & constitutionality are nouns, constitutionally is an adverb, constitutional is an adjective; the noun plural is constitutions.

The meaning “action of establishing; creating" dates from circa 1400 while that of "way in which a thing is constituted" was from circa 1600.  The once common sense of "physical health, strength and vigor of the body" was from the 1550s, extended some thirty year later to "temperament & character", both now rare though not yet archaic.  The sense of "mode of organization of a state" emerged around the turn of the seventeenth century, evolving gradually to by the 1730s conveying the idea of a "system of principles by which a community is governed", finally by the late eighteenth century being understood as “document of basic or foundational laws”, something which reflected the influence of the US and French constitutions.  Although rare, constitutions of nations can be described as “unwritten” which is a little misleading because probably every aspect of an “unwritten” constitution in a modern state does exist somewhere in writing (statute, legal judgments etc) so a better expression is probably “un-codified”.  The best known example of the “unwritten constitution” is that of England where it’s understood as the collective name for the fundamental principles established by the political development of the English people embodied variously in common law, statute and in long-accepted precedents.  Liking the flexibility afforded, no British government has ever seriously contemplated a written constitution.

The adjective constitutional dates from the 1680s in the sense of "pertaining to a person's (physical or mental) constitution" and came to be used to mean "beneficial to bodily constitution" in the mid-eighteenth century and came later to be applied adjectivally to heath remedies as varied as morning walks and the odd medicinal brandy.  The meaning in legal judgements "authorized or allowed by the political constitution" was first used in 1765 while the “constitutional monarchy” (a monarchy constrained by law and democratic institutions) was first described (in France and apparently without irony) in 1801.  From constitutional as a legal concept came the inevitable adverb constitutionally, recorded first in 1767 although the noun constitutionality (quality of being in accord with a constitution) seems not to have left the judicial pen until 1787.

The substantive moments in Australian constitutional development

1770: Captain James Cook, on a voyage under the auspices of the Admiralty, claims eastern coastline of Australian continent for the British Crown.

1788: Government of the UK conducts successful invasion on 26 February.  Colony of NSW established and occupation of the continent begins as a colonial project, initial as a penal settlement.

1825: Limited self-government granted by the Colonial Office which (with variations in detail) is between 1825-1890 introduced for the colonies of NSW, Tasmania, New Zealand, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia.

1901: The six Australian colonies federate as the Commonwealth of Australia.  The Australian Constitution, an act of the Imperial Parliament, becomes basic law on 1 January 1901 creating the Parliament of Australia which subsequently also passes the act of constitution, thus creating the nation state in its original form.

1903: High Court of Australia constituted.

1927: Division of the Imperial Crown which, in effect, creates the Kingdom of Australia although this will not be formalised until 1973.  This was the mechanism which began the process of the relationship with the monarch being one increasingly disconnected from the UK government.

1931: Statute of Westminster granted (almost complete) legislative independence to the Dominions (including Australia) although it would be some time before the Australian government sought to formalize the implications of this.

1949: Australian citizenship created.

1969: The removal of rights of appeal from federal courts to the Judicial Appeal Committee (the board) of the Privy Council.  This had the effect of making rulings of the High Court final in all matters of Commonwealth law while appeals to London from state and territory courts remained possible.

1986: The Australia Acts (simultaneous acts of the UK and Australian parliaments) sunder last remaining legal connections between the two parliaments and legal systems (section 74 of the constitution notwithstanding).

The passage of the Australia Acts meant Australia retained two remote constitutional connections of which, strictly speaking, only one was with the United Kingdom.  The first is through the monarch, not as the King of England but of Australia and of each of the states and the relationship between the monarch (as head of state) and the Commonwealth is purely personal and wholly unconnected with the UK.  Were the UK to become a republic this would have no constitutional effect in Australia and the head of state would remain whomever is the relevant living successor in the line of succession from Queen Victoria (1819-1901; Queen 1837-1901).  The argument that more correctly the line of succession should begin from a later monarch because of the change in constitutional relationship is an interesting one for legal theorists but because of the biological continuity, there’s no difference in consequence.

King William IV sits before a pie containing two dozen blackbirds, served to him by Lord Melbourne (1836), colored lithograph by HB (John Doyle (1797-1836).  Lord Melbourne (1779–1848; UK prime-minister 1834 & 1835–1841) was the last prime minister dismissed by the monarch, William IV (1765–1837; King of the United Kingdom & King of Hanover 1830-1837) determining his commission in 1834.

The relationship is of interest because in legal theory, everything done by the governments (state and federal) is lawful because of powers which can be traced back to those of the monarch.  These powers are a construct of conventions, codified law, legal fictions and precedent and can be understood when deconstructed rather than observed in operation.  For example, the King, being the Lord Paramount in Australia technically owns all the land and other traditional forms of ownership (leasehold & freehold) are actually grants from the crown which may be revoked.  This is of course best thought of as a legal fiction and more of a trustee relationship but does illustrate the way that all power exercised by governments is ultimately derived from those held by the monarch.

A saltwater crocodile.

The powers of the monarch of course exist but can’t in most cases be exercised by the monarch.  Of great interest to Australians is the right of the monarch to dismiss a prime-minister and this power still exists in the UK (those who suggest otherwise have no basis on which to base the assertion) but because in Australia the powers have been delegated to a governor-general, the monarch does not usually retain this personal authority.  However, although it’s not certain, it’s probable that a monarch does re-assume the power if standing on Australian soil but its exercise is politically unthinkable so were the need to arise to sack an Australian prime-minister while a Monarch was visiting, they would immediately be taken for a day’s deep-sea fishing, it being necessary only to be 12 miles (20 km) off the coast to be in international waters, thus allowing a governor-general do their dirty work.  If the need was to dismiss a state premier or territory chief minister, then the monarch would need only to go for a swim because once beyond the low-water line off the coast, they would be splashing around in commonwealth waters and the governor would be free to swing the axe.  That sound tactic would be fine except in the Northern Territory because up there, anyone stepping foot in the ocean will probably be eaten by a saltwater crocodile (known up there, almost affectionately, as "salties") so a wise monarch will make a sudden dash for the Queensland, South Australian or Western Australian border, presumably choosing whichever is the closer.  Even though the Northern Territory government has (most unfortunately) done away with the de-restricted (ie no speed limits) roads in the outback, the monarch is exempt from such tiresome rules so it’d be a quick trip.

In the pink, taking a morning constitutional: Lindsay Lohan out walking, Los Angeles, 2010.

The other connection has long been thought a historic relic.  Section 74 of the constitution provides for an appeal from the High Court to the Privy Council if the court issues a certificate that it is appropriate for the Privy Council to determine an inter se (a case concerning constitutional relations between the Commonwealth and one or more states or between states) matter.  The only such certificate was issued in 1912 and in 1985, the High Court judges (unanimously) observed that the power to grant such a certificate “…has long since been spent… and is obsolete".  However, it’s there with full legal force so, in the strict constitutional sense, an appeal from the High Court, however unlikely, remains possible.

Cluster

Cluster (pronoubced kluhs-ter)

(1) A number of things of the same kind, growing or held together; a bunch.

(2) A group of things or persons close together.

(3) In US military use, a small metal design placed on a ribbon representing an awarded medal to indicate that the same medal has been awarded again (equivalent to UK & Commonwealth “bar”).

(4) In phonetics, a succession of two or more contiguous consonants in an utterance (eg the str- cluster of strap).

(5) In astronomy, a group of neighboring stars, held together by mutual gravitation, that have essentially the same age and composition and thus supposedly a common origin.

(6) In military ordnance, a group of bombs or warheads, deployed as one stick or in one missile, applied especially to fragmentation and incendiary bombs.

(7) In statistics, a naturally occurring subgroup of a population used in stratified sampling.

(8) In chemistry, a chemical compound or molecule containing groups of metal atoms joined by metal-to-metal bonds; the group of linked metal atoms present.

(9) In computer software, a file system shared by being simultaneously mounted on multiple servers.

(10) In computer hardware, two or more computers working at the same time, each node with its own properties yet displayed in the network under one host name and a single address.

(11) A collective noun for mushrooms (troop is the alternative).

Pre 900: From the Middle English cluster (bunch), from the Old English cluster & clyster (cluster, bunch, branch; a number of things growing naturally together), from the Proto-Germanic klus- & klas- (to clump, lump together) + the Proto-Germanic -þrą (the instrumental suffix), related to the Low German Kluuster (cluster), the dialectal Dutch klister (cluster), the Swedish kluster (cluster) and the Icelandic klasi (cluster; bunch of grapes).  All the European forms are probably from the same root as the noun clot.  The meaning "a number of persons, animals, or things gathered in a close body" is from circa 1400, the intransitive sense, "to form or constitute a cluster," is attested from the 1540s; the use in astronomy dating from 1727.  Cluster is a noun & verb; clustery is an adjective, clustered is an adjective & verb, clustering is a noun, adjective & verb and clusteringly is an adverb; the noun plural is clusters.  The specialized technical words include the adjective intercluster (and inter-cluster) & the noun subcluster (and sub-cluster).

Clusters various

Cluster is a (slang) euphemism for clusterfuck; drawn from US military slang, it means a “bungled or confused undertaking”.  The cluster which the slang references is the cluster bomb, a canister dropped usually from an aircraft which opens to release a number of explosives over a wide area, thus the sense of something that becomes a really big mess.  Cluster bombs began widely to be used during the Second World War, the first deployed being the two-kilogram German Sprengbombe Dickwandig (SD-2) (butterfly-bomb).  The US, UK, USSR and Japan all developed such weapons, described in typical military tradition by an unmemorable alpha-numeric array of part-numbers, the battlefield slang then being "firecracker" or "popcorn" and it wasn’t until 1950 that “cluster bomb” was first used by the manufacturers and another ten years before the term came into general use.

However, the informal compound clusterfuck was at first rather more literal, emerging in 1966 meaning “orgy” or some similar event in which intimacy was enjoyed between multiple participants.  The sense of it referencing a “bungled or confused undertaking” started only in 1969, first noted among US troops in Vietnam who, with some enthusiasm, used it both as a graphic criticism of military tactics and the entire US strategy in the Far East.  The standard military euphemism is "Charlie Foxtrot”.

There are alternative etymologies for clusterfuck but neither has attracted much support, one being it was coined in the 1960s by hippie poet Ed Sanders as “Mongolian Cluster Fuck” and this may have been an invention independent of the military use.  The other is said to date from the Vietnam War and have been the creation of soldiers critical of the middle-management of the army, the majors and lieutenant colonels, those responsible for supply and logistics, aspects of war for millennia the source of many military problems.  The insignia for each of these ranks (respectively in gold or silver), is a small, round oak-leaf cluster, hence the notion when there's a screw up in the supply chain, it's a clusterfuck.  It's a good story but etymologists have doubts about the veracity.

Students learning English are taught about euphemisms and the vital part they play in social interaction.  They are of course a feature of many languages but in English some of these sanitizations must seem mysterious and lacking any obvious connection with what is being referenced.  There are also exams and students may be asked both to provide a definition of “euphemism” and an example of use and a good instance of the latter is what to do when a situation really can be described only as “a clusterfuck” or even “a fucking clusterfuck” but circumstances demand a more “polite” word.  So, students might follow the lead of Australian Federal Court Judge Michael Lee (b 1965) in Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited [2024] FCA 369 who in his 420 page judgment declared the matter declared “an omnishambles”. The construct of that was the Latin omni(s) (all) + shambles, from the Middle English schamels (plural of schamel), from the Old English sċeamol & sċamul (bench, stool), from the Proto-West Germanic skamul & skamil (stool, bench), from the Vulgar Latin scamellum, from the Classical Latin scamillum (little bench, ridge), from scamnum (bench, ridge, breadth of a field).  In English, shambles enjoyed a number of meanings including “a scene of great disorder or ruin”, “a cluttered or disorganized mess”, “a. scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation” or (most evocatively), “a slaughterhouse”.  As one read the judgement one could see what the judge was drawn to the word although, in the quiet of his chambers, he may have been thinking “clusterfuck”.  Helpfully, one of the Murdoch press’s legal commentators, The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (b 1966; by Barry Goldwater out of Ayn Rand) who had been one of the journalists most attentive to the case, told the word nerds (1) omnishambles dated from 2009 when it was coined for the BBC political satire The Thick Of It and (2) endured well enough to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2021 Word of the Year.  The linguistic flourish was a hint of things to come in what was one of the more readable recent judgments.  If a student cites “omnishambles” as a euphemism for “clusterfuck”, a high mark is just about guaranteed.

Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak leaves & Swords (1957 version).  These “de-nazified” awards were first issued by the Federal Republic of Germany (the FRG or West Germany) in 1957 and were awarded only to members of the Wehrmacht entitled to such awards.  Production of these awards ceased in 1986.

German law since the end of World War II generally have prohibited individuals from wearing the swastika but in 1957, under pressure from the newly (1955) reconstituted armed forces (the Bundeswehr (literally "Federal Defense")), the Gesetz über Titel, Orden und Ehrenzeichen (legislation concerning titles, orders and honorary signs) was amended, authorizing the replacement of Nazi-era Knight's Crosses with items with an oak leaf cluster in place of the swastika, essentially identical to the Imperial Iron Cross of 1914.

Lindsay Lohan at the Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022) premiere, New York City, November 2022.

The dress was a Valentino sequined embroidered floral lace column gown with jewel neck, long sleeves and concealed back zip.  It was worn with a gold Valentino Rockstud Spike shoulder bag in crackle-effect metallic nappa leather, complemented with Stephanie Gottlieb jewelry including diamond cluster earrings in 18k white gold and a heart shaped yellow sapphire ring with pavé diamonds.