Tiara

Tiara (pronounced tee-ar-uh, tee-ahr-uh or tee-air-uh (non-U))

(1) A jeweled, usually semi-circular, ornamental coronet worn by women.

(2) In the Roman Catholic Church. a head-piece consisting of three coronets on top of which is an orb and a cross, once worn by the pope, or carried before him during certain non-liturgical functions; a symbol of the position, authority and dignity of the pope.

(3) A high headdress, or turban, worn by the ancient Persian Kings and other men of rank.

1545–1555: An English borrowing, via Italian, from the Latin tiara (headdress) from the Ancient Greek tiā́ra & the Ionic τιήρης (tiḗrēs) (a kind of turban).  The etymology of the Latin and Greek forms is wholly unknown.  In English, there was an earlier anglicized form tiar, attested from the 1510s and tiara became common by the eighteenth century.  Tiara is a noun and tiaraed is a verb & adjectives; the noun plural is tiaras.

Grace Kelly (1929–1982; Princess Consort of Monaco 1956-1982), in tiara, pre-wedding photograph, 1956.

The Triple Tiara

Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (circa 1545), woodcut by an unknown Venetian artist.  Historians suspect the depiction of the splendid jewel-studded helmet was substantially accurate but the object may simply have been too heavy safely to wear for all but static, set-piece events, the risk of injury to the neck too great.

The papal triple tiara is a crown which has been worn by popes of the Roman Catholic Church since the eighth century.  Traditionally it was worn for their coronation but no pontiff has been so crowned since Saint Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) in 1963 and he abandoned its use after the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II, 1962-1965).  The name tiara refers to the entire headgear and it has used a three-tiered form since a third crown was added during the Avignon Papacy (1309–1378).  It's also referred to as the triregnum, triregno or Triple Crown.  In a piece of one- (or perhaps four-) upmanship, Suleiman I (Süleyman the Magnificent, 1494-1566, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1520-1566) commissioned from Venice a four tier helmet to show, in addition to the authority claimed by popes, he could add the symbol of his imperial power.  Often put on display as the centrepiece of Ottoman regalia to impress visitors, there's no documentary evidence the sultan ever wore the four layer tiara, crowns not part of the tradition and, fashioned from gold and gemstones, it would anyway have been extraordinarily heavy.

A representation of the triregnum combined with two crossed keys of Saint Peter continues to be used as a symbol of the papacy and appears on papal documents, buildings and insignia.  Remarkably, there’s no certainty about what the three crowns symbolize.  Some modern historians link it to the threefold authority of the pope, (1) universal pastor, (2) universal ecclesiastical jurisdiction and (3) temporal power.  Others, including many biblical scholars, interpret the three tiers as meaning (1) father of princes and kings, (2) ruler of the world and (3) vicar of Christ on Earth, a theory lent credence by the words once used when popes were crowned:  Accipe tiaram tribus coronis ornatam, et scias te esse patrem principum et regum, rectorem orbis in terra vicarium Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi, cui est honor et gloria in saecula saeculorum (Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art father of princes and kings, ruler of the world, vicar on earth of our Savior Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory for ever and ever).

Documents in the Vatican Archive suggest by 1130 the papal tiara had been modified to become a conventional (and temporal) symbol of sovereignty over the Papal States.  In 1301 during a dispute with Philip IV (Philip the Fair, 1268–1314, King of France 1285-1314), Boniface VIII (circa 1230–1303; pope 1294-1303) added a second layer to represent a pope’s spiritual authority being superior to an earthly king’s civil domain.  It was Benedict XII (1285–1342; pope 1334-1342 (as the third Avignon pope)) who in 1342 who added the third, said to symbolize the pope’s moral authority over all civil monarchs, and to reaffirm Avignon’s possession.  A changing world and the loss of the Papal States deprived the triple crown of temporal meaning but the silver tiara with the three golden crowns remained to represent the three powers of the Supreme Pontiff: Sacred Order, Jurisdiction and Magisterium.

Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958) in the papal triple tiara, at his coronation, 1939.

Not since 1963 has a pope worn the triple crown.  Then, the newly-elected Paul VI, at the end of his coronation ceremony, took the tiara from his head and in what was said to be a display of humility, placed it on the altar.  In a practical expression of that humility, the tiara was auctioned, the money raised used for missionary work in Africa although, keeping things in house, the winning bidder was the Archdiocese of New York.  Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) and Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) received tiaras as gifts but neither wore them.  Benedict’s, in a nice ecumenical touch, was made by Bulgarian craftsmen from the Orthodox Church in Sofia, a gesture in the name of Christian unity.  Benedict would have appreciated that, having always kept burning in the window a candle to guide home the wandering daughter who ran off to Constantinople.

Lindsay Lohan, the wandering daughter who ran off to Dubai in Lynn Kiracofe tiara, W Magazine photo- shoot, April 2005.

Flummery & Pabulum

Flummery (pronounced fluhm-uh-ree)

(1) Oatmeal or flour boiled with water until thick (historically, a slightly tart, jelly-like food of Welsh origin, made from extensively boiling oats, then boiling down the liquid extracted from it).

(2) A fruit custard or blancmange,  any of several bland, gelatinous foodstuffs, made usually from stewed fruit and thickened with oatmeal, cornstarch or flour.

(3) In speech or writing, complete nonsense; foolish humbug; words devoid of meaning (applied especially of flattery); deceptive or blustering speech (applied especially in politics and, as an interjection, an expression of contemptuous disbelief).

(4) Pretentious trappings, useless embellishments or ornaments intended to impress (applied to architecture, interior decorating, fashion etc).

1623: From the Welsh llymru (which was assimilated into English with an –ery ending) of uncertain origin but there may be some link with llymrig (slippery).  The figurative use to describe flattery or empty, meaningless talk, is from the 1740s.  Flummery is a noun; the noun plural is flummeries.

The Welsh llymru was “a jelly derived from oatmeal”, the name first noted in English poet Gervase Markham's (circa 1568–1637) Countrey Contentments (1623) and was known also as wash-brew although in Lancashire and Cheshire, it was called flamerie or flumerie.  The modern spelling was one of the variant forms which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also included thlummery and flamery.  By the nineteenth century, flummery had become the standard form, both to describe bland, unsatisfying food and unsubstantial talk or writing, and nonsense.  The US food with similar meanings is Mead Johnson's pablum, a soft, bland cereal, intended for infants, invalids and the weak.  In post-war Australia, a flummery was the name given to a mousse dessert made with beaten evaporated milk, sugar, and gelatine.  Also made using jelly crystals, mousse flummery became popular as an inexpensive alternative to traditional cream-based mousse.  In the US, it was named blancmange.

Pabulum (pronounced pab-yuh-luhm)

(1) Something that nourishes an animal or vegetable organism; food; nutriments.

(2) Figuratively, food for thought (can be neutral or positive but is more commonly used of material thought bland, dull or intellectually undemanding). 

(3) Material that fuels a fire (now rare except in technical documents).

1670-1680: From the Classical Latin pābulum (food, nourishment; fodder or pasture for animals; nourishment for the mind, food for thought), the construct being pā(scō) (to nourish) +‎ bulum (the suffix denoting an instrument).  Root was the primitive Indo-European peh-dlom, the construct being pe- (to feed) or peh- (to protect; to shepherd) + -dlom (a variant of -trom (the suffix denoting a tool or instrument)).  In the early eighteenth century the adjective pabulary (of or pertaining to pabulum (in the sense of food) and from the Latin pabulosus (abounding in fodder)) enjoyed a brief vogue as a noun (an eating place or a counter in an inn from which meals were served).  Pablum is a noun, pabular is a verb, pabulous, pabular & pabulary are adjectives; the noun plural is pabulums.

Crooked Spiro & Tricky Dick: Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon.

The word in the late seventeenth century was used of food in the widest sense (ie that which feeds or nourishes) and that applied to that taken by people, animals, agricultural crops (in the sense of fertilizer) and even the material used to fuel a fire.  A trademark of manufacturers Mead Johnson, Pablum is a soft, bland cereal, intended for infants, invalids and the weak which was released in 1932 and it was this association which was picked up in the figurative use made of pabulum (to describe vapid or mushy political prose) in a speech made on 11 September 1970 by Spiro Agnew (1918–1996; US vice president 1969-1973).  The tone of the speech (though perhaps not the labored syntax which would be rejected as TLDR (too long, didn’t read) in the social media age) would be familiar to modern audiences used to political figures attacking the news media and was a critique of what later Republicans would label “fake news”.

“In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.  They have formed their own 4-H Club - the “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history”  “…As long as they have their own association, crooks will flourish.  As long as they have their own television networks, paid for by their own advertisers, they will continue to have their own commentators.  It is time for America to quit catering to the pabulum peddlers and the permissive.  It is time to speak up forcefully for the conservative cause."

It wasn’t a new complaint for the aggressively alliterative Agnew and certainly represented well the opinions of Richard Nixon (1913–1994; US president 1969-1974) whose long list (and it was literally a list) of enemies included many journalists, editors and media proprietors.  In November 1969, Agnew had appeared at the Midwestern Regional Republican Conference in Des Moines, Iowa where he attacked “…this little group of men” who he accused of wielding “a free hand in selecting, presenting and interpreting” the news.  Intellectuals, he labeled “…an effete corps of impudent snobs”, a sentiment Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) would later recycle, the phraseology simplified so his “deplorables” would comprehend.  Agnew’s speeches are not classics in the art of rhetoric but remain landmarks in the culture wars which began in the early 1960s and which are being fought still.

Concurrent with though not related to the Watergate affair, in early 1973, Agnew was under investigation on suspicion of conspiracy, bribery, extortion and tax fraud.  While for months denying everything (always good legal advice which succeeds more often than it should), Agnew eventually was forced to negotiate a plea-bargain whereby he would resign from office but avoid jail.  On 10 October 1973, Agnew pleaded no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion and resigned, not a few of those he’d earlier derided as “crooks” not reluctant to ensure the juxtaposition was well publicized.  Facing impeachment for his role in the Watergate affair cover-up, President Nixon (who earlier had made his soon infamous “I am not a crook” speech, followed within a year, saved from prosecution by a presidential pardon, granted by Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977) who had been Nixon’s choice to replace Agnew as vice-president.

Lemon, Orange & Passionfruit Flummery

Ingredients

115g (½ cup) caster sugar

2 tablespoons plain flour

1 tablespoon powdered gelatine

250ml (1 cup) water

2 oranges, juiced & strained

1 lemon, juiced & strained

125ml (½ cup) fresh passionfruit pulp

Whipped cream, to serve

2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp, (extra, to spread on top)

Method

(1) Place the sugar, flour, gelatine, water, orange juice and lemon juice in a medium saucepan. Use a balloon whisk to whisk until well combined. Bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Simmer for 2 minutes.

(2) Pour the mixture into a heatproof bowl and place in the fridge for 1 hour or until the mixture begins to set around the edges. Stir in the passionfruit and transfer to a large bowl. Use an electric beater to beat for 15 minutes or until the mixture is thick and pale.

(3) Pour the mixture evenly into four 310ml (1¼ cups) serving glasses. Cover the glass tightly with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 1-2 hours or until the mixture is set.

(4) Serve topped with whipped cream and with extra passionfruit pulp.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah (pronounced hez-buh-lah or khes-bah-lah (Arabic))

A Shiʿite Muslim political and military organization (though genuinely with cross-denomination support), based in Lebanon but involved also in various regional operations.

1985: From the Persian hezbollah and the Arabic حِزْبُ اللّٰه‎ (ḥizbu llāh) (literally "Party of God"), the alternative spellings being Hizbullah, Hizballah & Hizb Allah, the construct being hezb (hizb) (party) + Allah (God); an adherent is styled a Hezbollahi although in Western commentaries that term seems to be applied more loosely.  Hezbollah is a proper noun.  Hezbollahzation & Hezbollahization are non-standard nouns used only in political science although, like balkanize etc, if use spreads they may enter general use.

The Hezbollah

Flag of the Hezbollah (right), the public display of which is banned in some jurisdictions where both the organization's political & military wings are listed as "terrorist organizations".  The national flag of Mozambique (left) also includes a depiction of a Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle although the Africans fixed a bayonet to the barrel which was a nice touch.  Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975 although the flag wasn’t officially adopted until 1983 as a modified version of what was essentially the battle flag of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO, the Mozambique Liberation Front, the Marxist (later styled “democratic socialist”) resistance movement which fought a war of liberation (1964-1974) against the Portuguese colonial forces).

Although the Hezbollah began to coalesce in 1982-1983 (in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon), it wasn’t until 1985 it assumed the familiar structural arrangement with both military and political wings.  Unlike many organizations with similar pasts, although the personnel structures don't (wholly) overlap, the Hezbollah has never made any attempt to suggest there is any functional or philosophical separation between their political & military wings.  Despite that, during periods when regional tensions are more subdued, they do receive invitations usually restricted to the respectable and a Hezbollah delegation attended the coronation of Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022).

Like the Hezbollah, Hamas, a militant Palestinian resistance movement also operates as an apparatus with military, political and administrative divisions but the distinctions are less defined than those of the Lebanese operation and the name of Hamas comes from a similar linguistic tradition.  Formed in 1987 after the outbreak of the First Intifada against the Israeli occupation, its roots lie in Muslim Brotherhood so, unlike the Hezbollah, it’s thus a Sunni group although the historical and theological differences haven’t prevented the two cooperating when the circumstances have appeared compelling.  The word Hamas is an acronym of the Arabic phrase حركة المقاومة الإسلامية (Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah) (Islamic Resistance Movement), used originally as the initializsm HMS.  In 1988, when the The ميثاق حركة المقاومة الإسلامية حماس (Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement and better known in the West as the “Hamas Covenant” or “Hamas Charter”) was published, this was glossed by the adoption of the Arabic word (حماس) (hamās) (strength, zeal, bravery).

The very existence of the Hezbollah disturbs some but certainly not the structural-functionalists who note that for an institution to continue to exist, the niche it inhabits must remain.  Those whose fastidiousness in this & that lead them to suggest some alternative to Hezbollah would be preferable seem never to go into details and the reluctance is understandable.  There are many countries in which the substitution of one political party for another can be modelled and the implications pondered but it's scarcely possible to imagine Lebanese politics without the Hezbollah.  As far as can be foreseen, it seems something permanent and Lebanon has for decades been a troubled place, badly served by its elite; it is not going to become a liberal democratic state in the Nordic mode.  Just as the yakuza (the Japan-based transnational organized crime syndicates and usually in katakana as ヤクザ) deploy rapidly in the aftermath of disasters like the Kobe earthquake (1995) and the Fukushima “incident” (2011) to provide affected populations with food, shelter and medical aid, it was the Hezbollah’s well-resourced (compared with the Lebanese state) social welfare infrastructure which was mobilized to provide the first response after the explosion in the Port of Beirut (2020).

The Beirut Port explosion, 20 August 2020, viewed from the sea, showing the mushroom cloud and effect of the blast wave.  It was one of the most powerful non-nuclear, man-made explosions ever recorded.

Such comparisons are intriguing because the yakuza are an integral part of the Japanese nuclear industry and much money was paid to them by TEPCO (the Tokyo Electric Power Company which ran the Fukushima plant) to keep secret the existence of cracks in vital parts of the machinery.  Although much of the world seems to think the meltdown (TEPCO and the Japanese government preferred “incident”, a word with a long cultural tradition until the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) called a spade a spade) was something which “happened in 2011”, it’s an ongoing event and will be for the next 40-50 years because unless TEPCO continues to pump water into the “hot” reactor core, the meltdown will resume.  That water has to go somewhere and for those 40-50 years the plan is to continue to pump it into the Pacific Ocean; there is no immediate alternative.  The pumping project will likely demand increasing yakuza involvement because they are willing lucratively to be involved in projects others prefer to avoid.  Some allege the invaluable role fulfilled by the Hezbollah in responding to the explosion at the Port of Beirut in August 2020 has a similar quality of circularity because the triggering of some 2¾ tonnes of ammonium nitrate (an explosive equivalent in excess of 1 kiloton of TNT (similar to some small, tactical nuclear weapons)) because a Hezbollah weapons cache was held in the same facility.  No evidence has been produced to support that and most analysts believe the blast was the result of an enormous quantity of explosive being stored in a low security environment, welding work on the day said to have “lit the fuse”.  However, whether all will ever be known about the matter is unclear because the Hezbollah (and others with their own reasons) have managed to ensure investigations have been curtailed.

Lindsay Lohan's Instagram post of photographs taken while on holiday in Lebanon, June 2022. 

Hezbollah has been the name of various Islamic groups in the twentieth century, the first known reference in English being from 1960, describing an Indonesian guerilla battalion of 1945 that appears to have been either an off-shoot of or successor to Laskar Hizbullah, formed by the Japanese to give military training to young Muslims they had recruited to their cause (an aspect of which was the training to become a kamikaze (ie suicide bomber)).  Laskar Hizbullah was ostensibly national-wide but, unlike the Lebanese namesake, had little effective central organization and, given the circumstances of 1945, didn’t enjoy the ongoing support from Tokyo the Hezbollah has had from the ayatollahs in Tehran.  It was militarily ineffective but its idea (if not the actual structures) carried over to post-war anti-colonial forces and (debatably) the communist movement which in the mid-1960s the Indonesian government suppressed, the death-toll of that claimed to be close to half-a-million.

Contra

Contra (pronounced kon-tra)

(1) Against; contrary or opposed to; in opposition or contrast to; against, anti.

(2) An arrangement (usually between companies) whereby they exchange goods and/or services on a basis agreeable to both, often without any exchange of cash.

(3) In politics (sometimes used in a derogatory sense), a conservative; originally tied to Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries.

(4) In accounting, as contra-entry or contra-account, an entry or account which cancels another entry or account.

(5) In music, an informal term for any of the musical instruments in the contrabass range (contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet or (especially) double bass).

(6) In dance, a type of country dance most identified with the New England region in the US (mostly obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English contra (against, over against, opposite, on the opposite side; on the contrary, contrariwise) from the Latin contrā.  The Latin contrā (against) meant originally "in comparison with" and was the ablative singular feminine of com-teros, from the Old Latin com (with, together) + -tr, (zero-degree form of the comparative suffix -ter-).  As used as a noun in English, it meant "a thing which is against another" by 1778, an evolution of the earlier sense of "the contrary or opposite" from the 1640s.  English also picked up the practice from Late Latin in using contra as a prefix.  In French, it became contre- which passed into English as counter-, the Old English equivalent of which was wiðer (which survived in dialectical English as withers and in Scottish as widdershins), from wið (with, against).  There was also contraindicate (to indicate the contrary of (a course of treatment, etc)) from the 1660s, an evolution from the 1620s forms contraindicated & contraindication, contra-indicate the rare verb.  The use to describe the forces opposed to the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua since 1979 began in 1981, Contra a shortened form of the Spanish contrarrevolucionario (counter-revolutionary).  Contra is a noun, verb, adjective & adverb; the noun plural is contras.  

The contras and the Sandinistas

Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) Flag.

The contras were active from 1979 to the early 1990s in opposition to the left-wing government in Nicaragua (the Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction).  The term was a short-form of la contrarrevolución (counter-revolution) although there were intellectuals in the movement who disliked the label because they thought it suggested something negative or reactionary.  They preferred comandos (commandos) though peasant sympathizers also called the rebels los primos (the cousins), reflecting in many ways the character of the early movement as one of civilian irregulars.  In the White House, contra wasn’t greatly favored either and by the mid-1980s, marketing types in the Reagan administration (1981-1989) introduced “democratic resistance” to press conferences though it never caught on outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Undeterred, by the press’s scepticism towards newspeak, on the ground, the ever-optimistic CIA liaison operatives encouraged use of la resistencia.

National flag of Nicaragua.

Believing the domino theory applied as much to central America as once it had been applied in east Asia, almost from the beginning the contras received military and financial aid from the US.  Congress cut the appropriations but the White House continued support with funding provided through a variety of imaginative (and covert) money-making schemes and slush funds which culminated in the Iran-Contra affair (Iran-Contragate), the biggest scandal of the Reagan years.  The affair (noted if not openly discussed by the ayatollahs in the Persian ماجرای ایران-کنترا‎ and definitely not by the Contras in the Spanish Caso Irán–Contra) was a back channel CIA (the US Central Intelligence Agency) operation run out of the White House, secretly to sell weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran, then subject to an arms embargo.

The cover story for the operation was the armament shipments were part of an intricate web of deals to free seven American hostages held in Lebanon by the Hezbollah, a paramilitary operation which started as modestly as many others but which would evolve into a something which simultaneously would effectively take over the Lebanese state while acting as the regional proxy of Tehran (or a sub-contractor to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard depending on the interpretation).  The story wasn’t entirely untruthful but the administration arranged the first sales prior to the hostages being seized.

Sandinista graffiti.

Ronald Reagan’s (1911–2004; US president 1981-1989) world view was never as simple as his detractors suggest but it was starker than most of the Washington establishment and he didn’t support the position, which had become predominate during the Cold War and certainly after the Vietnam war, that the geopolitical structure of the world should be thought of as stable and permanent.  That was the view of the power-realists like Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1973 & secretary of state 1973-1977), theorists who believed problems needed to be managed over decades whereas Reagan thought problems needed to be solved: the Soviet Union was a problem, Cuba was a problem and the Sandinistas were a problem.  The Congress however had prohibited the provision of aid to the Contras. 

In 1985, the administration began a diversion of the profits the Iran operation to the Contras although it’s still not certain the president authorized this, so many of the supporting documents having been destroyed, the lesson of Nixon’s tapes well-learned: If stuff gets burned it can’t become evidence.  Within a year the story broke and after many denials about many things, Reagan was forced to appear on nationally television, taking “full responsibility” for the affair, suggesting what began with good diplomatic intensions, ran astray in a classic case of mission creep.  A commission was appointed to investigate and concluded no evidence existed to prove the president either knew of or approved the detail of operations.  Although several dozen administration officials were indicted and some were convicted, many were overturned on appeal and while a couple served terms of probation, most of the rest were pardoned by President George HW Bush (1924–2018; George XLI, US President 1989-1993) even before coming to trial, some noting the evidence suggested George XLI had his own reasons for not wishing the some matters to be aired in court although whether that included the role the CIA allegedly played in the distribution of crack cocaine in US cities during the 1980s has never been clear.

Trinitite

Trinitite (pronounced trin-a-tight)

(1) The glassy residue left on the desert floor after the Trinity nuclear bomb test of 16 July 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA.

(2) By extension, any melt glasses left by nuclear bombs (known also as Alamogordo, atomsite glass or nuclear melt glass).

1945: Compound word trinit(y) +‎ -ite.  Trinity is from the Middle English trinitie & trinite from the Anglo-Norman trinitie or trinite (or ternite, trenite, trinetei, trinitiet & trinitet) from the Latin trīnitātem, accusative singular of trīnitās (the number three; a triad; the Trinity), from trīni (from trīnus (triple) from trēs, from the Proto-Italic trēs, from the primitive Indo-European tréyes (three)) + the suffix -itās from the Proto-Italic -itāts & -otāts from the primitive Indo-European –tehts, the suffix forming nouns indicating a state of being.  The suffix –ite is from the Ancient Greek -ίτης (-ítēs) and was adopted in Latin as part of Greek loanwords, both as –ītēs but also often as -īta.  It was used in Biblical tribal names (Thus either Levītēs or Levīta; plural in –ītae) and in the Medieval Latin of religious groups, such as Marcionītae, Ebiōnītae, Monophysītae.  It’s an adjective-forming suffix, especially of nominalised adjectives identifying groups of people as "those belonging to".  Trinitite is a noun; the noun plural is trinitites.  The verb trinitize is unrelated; it's from Christian theology and means "to divide into a trinity".

It was the physicist Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967), head of the Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic weapons, who choose the name of the test site for the first atom bomb: Trinity.  He’s remembered for a snatch of verse he said the sight of the first atomic explosion made him recall, words from the Bhagavad Gita: Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.  Oppenheimer also had a fondness for the metaphysical poetry of John Donne (1572–1631), the Church of England cleric, and said he remembered also:

As West and East
In all flat Maps—and I am one—are one
So death doth touch the Resurrection

While those lines do not a Trinity make, others do such as Batter my heart, three person’d God and the Holy Trinity permeates much of his Donne's work.

Variations since Trinity include kharitonchik (melt glasses from the Soviet nuclear bomb Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan), impactite (metamorphic minerals caused by meteor heating of non-meteoritic materials), impact glass (melt glasses caused by meteor heating of non-meteoritic materials), fulgurite (melt glasses caused by lightning strikes) and fusion crust (metamorphic minerals on the surface of meteorites caused by atmospheric entry heating).  Trinitite has also been referred to as atomsite or Alamogordo glass (after the nearby city).

Physicist Norris Bradbury (1909–1997; director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory 1945-1970), group leader for bomb assembly, stands next to the partially assembled "Gadget" (code-name for the first plutonium A-bomb) atop the test tower, New Mexico, 16 July 1945).

The Trinity test of the plutonium A-bomb in New Mexico in July 1945 was a genuine test.  The uranium A-bomb which had also been built and which ultimately was dropped on Hiroshima in August was a device in which the scientists had such faith that it was deemed no test was necessary, something that sounds astonishing now but among all the physicists and engineers attached to the Manhattan Project (the A-bomb development team), there were no dissenting voices.  As a uranium bomb, the Hiroshima device was (at least for decades) a genuine one-off, all subsequent nuclear weapons being plutonium-based devices (and that may still be true; the details of the DPRK’s (North Korea) bombs remaining murky).  A uranium bomb turned out to be (relatively) easy to design and build and the trigger mechanism was simple but production of uranium to the specification required was a slow and exacting process given the machinery at the time available.  By contrast, a supply of weapons-grade plutonium was possible with the existing facilities but it was a formidable engineering challenge to create the trigger mechanism while ensuring the device remained within the size and weight parameters of a gravity bomb dropped from an aircraft which would have to fly thousands of miles to reach the target.  The Hiroshima bomb could be made to explode simply by firing a uranium bullet into the uranium core but if that approach was used with plutonium, all that would happen would be the melting of the core.  The solution was to surround the core with sufficient high-explosive to create the pressure required to trigger the chain reaction.  It was this process that the Trinity was staged to test.

Trinitite on the desert floor.

Although the test was over seventy-five years ago and completely fulfilled the purpose of testing the plutonium bomb, it was in another sense an extraordinary experiment in high-energy physics and even in the twenty-first century, analysis of the data and the physical aftermath at the site continues to reveal interesting discoveries.  Geological excavations in 2005 confirmed that the explosion, as predicted, initially pushed-down the ground but that it then rebounded, forcing the material upwards into the fireball in the sky where it was vaporized before cooling and crystallizing, eventually raining down in the form of the trinitite fragments.  Most of the trinitite was green because of the iron content in the sand while a smaller volume was black because their source was the iron from which Trinity’s tower structure was constructed and, being refined and processed, the iron content was much greater than that in the sand.  Finally, among all the trinitite, there was found a tiny number of red crystals which gained their color from all the copper cables which were also vaporized.  The propensity of copper to color its immediate environment was well-known, the mining conglomerate Rio Tinto formed in 1873 with a company name from the Rio Tinto (red river or Tinto River); the highly acidic river in the Sierra Morena mountains of southwestern Spain that runs red & orange because of the high copper content in the surrounding soil.

Red Trinitite.

Beginning in that fraction of a second when the nuclear age was born was the process which produced the red crystals, the extreme pressure and temperature (the Trinity site was briefly hotter than the surface of the Sun) forging a most unusual structure within one grain of the material just 10 micrometers across (barely longer than a red blood cell).  Made from silicon, copper, calcium and iron, the rare form of matter was called a quasicrystal.  Normally, crystals are made from atoms locked in a lattice that repeats in a regular pattern but quasicrystals, while having a structure that is orderly like a normal crystal, don’t have patterns which repeat and this grants quasicrystals properties forbidden to normal crystals.  First discovered in laboratory observations during the 1980s, quasicrystals also occur naturally in meteorites, matter transformed by stars, another place of extreme heat and pressure.

The Trinity test, the world's first nuclear explosion.

Until their observation in the 1980s, physicists regarded quasicrystals as “impossible” because they would have violated the rules scientists had over centuries constructed to define crystalline materials; the quasicrystal was thus a ‘black swan” moment in physics.  Traditionally, crystals were held to possess what were known as “rotational symmetries”, places where the structure could symmetrically be split in half, along one, two, three, four and six axes.  The black swan quasicrystal broke the rules or, more precisely, proved the rules were wrong, demonstrating instead an “icosahedral symmetry” a construct which includes six independent five-fold symmetry axes; as solids with these rotational symmetries, the quasicrystal is unique.  To the US military-industrial complex, it may also prove uniquely useful because, if a sample could be obtained of a quasicrystal created during nuclear tests conducted by other nations, it could be analyzed and might yield new understandings of their programs and weapons.  It’s always been possible to examine radioactive debris and gases to build models of how the devices were built and the materials used but those signatures decay.  Not only might a quasicrystal reveal new information but, and this is obviously most useful if the analytical process uses non-destructive tests, quasicrystals are a form of matter which goes as close (theoretically) to lasting forever as any yet known.

Lindsay Lohan (right) illustrating the typical hue of green trinitite (left).

What’s sometimes described as “trinitite green” and used for glass crockery or decorative items is misleading because such purity was never in New Mexico after the blast.  A glassy material, most trinitite exists in a range between a pale to olive green but smaller quantities in red and black have also been observed, the coloration dependent on the specific minerals and materials in the blast site.  The green is a product of iron while the red comes from the copper electrical wiring used in the Trinity test equipment being fused together with the quartz and feldspar sand grains from the desert floor.  A quirk is that red trinitite is brightly fluorescent under short wave ultra-violet light whereas the more abundant green variety of typically shows little to no fluorescence under UV, the difference again due to the mineral composition.  Black trinitite is rarest, formed by virtue of the presence of iron alone from the tower with no copper content.

Eponymous

Eponymous (pronounced uh-pon-uh-muhs)

(1) The giving of one's name to something.

(2) Of, relating to, or being the person or entity after which something or someone is named.

1833: The construct was eponym + -ous, from the Ancient Greek ἐπώνυμος (epṓnumos), the construct being ἐπί (epí) (upon) +‎ ὄνυμα (ónuma), a Doric and Aeolic variant of ὄνομα (ónoma) (name).  The word seems first to have been used in the second millennium BC, when, for several decades, the Assyrians named each year after a prominent government official, the alternative form eponymal appearing first in the record in reference to the other classical eponymos, a title of certain magistrates in ancient Greece who gave their names to the years when they held office, a practice later adopted by the English to record statute law.  In England, until 1953, the naming conventions for recording the bills parliament passed used regnal years; a statute gazetted in the seventh year of the reign of George V would have been dated 7 George V and were the system still in use, one passed in 2021 would be sealed 69 Elizabeth II.  Widely used in English (the Victorian age, the Nixon doctrine, the Menzies era etc), eponymic has been used in the sense "name-giving; pertaining to eponymic myths" as well as "of or pertaining to a classical eponymos."  The Greek epṓnymos was derived from onyma (name) the root also of a number of English words, including synonymous, pseudonym and anonymous.   Most dictionaries seem to list the comparative as "more eponymous" and the superlative as "most eponymous" although its difficult to imagine how the terms could be used, something either eponymous or not, unlike a word like "unique" where modifiers ("most unique"; "quite unique" (are now generally accepted (grudgingly by some) although all seem to draw the line at the clumsy "very unique".  Eponymous is an adjective and eponymously is an adverb.

Lohan Nightclub, Athens

Lohan Nightclub is Lindsay Lohan’s eponymous operation in Athens.  Actual ownership seems murky but at least at one point she was said to hold some equity.

Address:      Iera Odos 30-32, Athina, Greece
Telephone:  +30 698 750 1825
Website:      http://lohanathens.com
Facebook:    www.facebook.com/lohannightclub/
E-mail:        info@lohanathens.com

Located in the Kerameikos region of Athens and featuring what’s described as an industrial baroque aesthetic, Lohan Nightclub is described as the only Athenian mega-club.  Opening hours vary with the season and the lighting and sound systems said to be state of the clubbing art.  An entry ticket is €15 (US$15) and VIP tables are available, subject to a minimum spend of around €600 (US$700).  Lohan is said to be a destination for clubbing in its most extreme iteration and it’s suggested if one isn’t wholly committed to all that that implies, one won’t enjoy things.  The Lohan Nightclub’s material on various platforms notes an atmosphere of decadence promising “something decidedly different”, the greeting of bright pink flowers and neon lights promoting the escapist experience within, the overall impression, loud, hedonistic and Lohanic.

Lohan Night Club, Athens, opening night, 15 October 2016.

Disinterest & Uninterest

Disinterest (pronounced dis-in-trist (U) or dis-in-ter-ist (non-U))

A freedom from bias or involvement; the absence of any conflict of interest.

1605–15: The construct was dis- + interest.  The prefix dis was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).  It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)).  The verb interest is from the Middle English interest, from Old French interesse & interest (intérêt in modern French), from the Medieval Latin interesse, from the Classical Latin interesse (to concern, to be between).  "The original meaning from circa 1600 was “cause to be interested, engage the attention of”, was based on the earlier (1560s) interesse, from the noun and may have been at least influenced by interess'd, past participle of interesse.  In other contexts, interest can mean “having a stake in or money involved in something, or “charges payable under the terms of usury (borrowing money).

Disinterest is a verb (used with object) although the cost commonly used derived form is probably the seventeenth century adjective “disinterested” (Having no stake or interest in the outcome; free of bias, impartial (and technically a corruption of the adjectives disinterest & disinteressed)).  Disinterest should be associated with words like neutrality, impassivity, detachment, dispassion, impartiality & nonpartisanship.

Uninterest (pronounced un-in-trist (U) or uhn-in-ter-ist (non-U))

A lack of interest in something; indifference.

1890–1895: The construct was un + interest. The prefix –un was from the Middle English un-, from the Old English un-, from the Proto-West Germanic un-, from the Proto-Germanic un-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥-.  It was cognate with the Scots un- & on-, the North Frisian ün-, the Saterland Frisian uun-, the West Frisian ûn- &  on-, the Dutch on-, the Low German un- & on-, the German un-, the Danish u-, the Swedish o-, the Norwegian u- and the Icelandic ó-.  It was (distantly) related to the Latin in- and the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), source of the English a-, the Modern Greek α- (a-) and the Sanskrit अ- (a-).

Dating from the 1660s, the adjective interested was first vested with the now familiar meaning (characterized by concern or sympathy), as the past-participle adjective from the verb interest.  From 1828 it picked up the sense (having an interest or stake (in something) which has since lent confusion to the uninterest / disinterest thing; the sense "motivated by self-interest" attested since 1705 and may be a back-formation from disinterested.  Although it’s clumsy enough to be rare, the noun interestedness (the state or quality of being interested, or having an interest; selfishness) really does exist; fortunately, it not often comes up in conversation.  Uninterest should be associated with words like aloofness, coldness, coolness, detachment, disregard, indifference & lassitude.

Lindsay Lohan looking uninterested.

Some of the vendettas run by the grammar Nazis against contemporary practices (eg the refusal to accept the meaning of the word “decimate” has changed and that those reading histories of the Punic Wars are unlikely to be confused) but the insistence on differentiating between “disinterest” and “uninterest” is a campaign worth or support.  Historically, "disinterested" has had two meanings, the first and still most widely accepted being “impartial; unbiased by personal interest or advantage” and most associated with judges or those who sit on deliberative tribunals (the practical mechanism being the "apprehended bias" test which is a determination of whether a perception of bias might reasonably be inferred from a judge's past comments, conduct or circle of acquaintances).  The second meaning is “having or showing no feeling of interest; indifferent”.  In other words, to ensure the fairness of a trial, judges should be disinterested in the matters before them but certainly not uninterested.  Both senses are long established in all varieties of English but disinterested is often used to mean “not interested” although uninterested seems rarely misused, presumably because disinterested is the more effortlessly economical form and uninterested that bit more clumsy.  Unlike something like “notorious” which is one of those annoying words with one spelling & pronunciation yet two distinct meanings which cannot always be resolved through context, English has given us disinterest & uninterest and so they should both be used in their separate, allocated meanings, thereby eliminating any ambiguity.

Lindsay Lohan as an interested but disinterested judge on The Masked Singer (2019).

Some word nerds, most of whom seem to believe the distinction between the two worth preserving, believe the battle is lost but that the linguistic causalities will be light, in instances where such things matter (usually in courts of law) few likely to be troubled by the mistake which mentally they’ll correct and move on.  Even some once rigorously dictionaries seem to have given up and accepted descriptive reality, the Macmillan saying only “Many people think that this use of the word is not correct” and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in one edition was prepared only to muse it was "Often regarded as a loose use."  Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage noted the a long history of overlapping use, “uninterested” originally meaning what the more fastidious now insist “disinterested” is supposed to mean today, the distinction emerging only in American English in the 1800s. Merriam-Webster conclusion was that “disinterested” has taken on an additional but "uninterested" still means only what it always has which seems a dismally defeatist position for a dictionary to adopt.