Flagstaff

Flagstaff (pronounced flag-staf or flag-stahf)

The forms flag-staff & flag staff both exist, the original mistake often replicated and often seen in commercial use.  Flagstaff is a noun; the noun plural is flagstaves or flagstaffs, the latter now more common.

(1) A pole on which a flag is flown (by convention, a flagstaff is shorter, often portable and used with miniature flags while a “flagpole” is used taller, used for full-sized flags and usually a permanent structure.

(2) A locality name in a number of countries.

Circa 1610: The construct was flag + staff.  Dating from the late fifteenth century, Flag was from the Middle English flag & flagge (flag), the origins of which are uncertain.  Possible sources include (1) the early Middle English flage (name for a baby's garment), (2) the Old English flagg & flacg (cataplasm, poultice, plaster), (3) a blend of the nouns flap & fag (in obsolete sense “flap”) or (4) an imitative form of something unknown.  Although it’s speculative, there is support for a link with the Proto-Germanic flaką (something flat), from the primitive Indo-European pleh- (flat, broad, plain), the reference obviously to the shape of a flag.  The Germanic cognates included the Saterland Frisian Flaage (flag), the West Frisian flagge (flag), the Dutch vlag (flag), the German Flagge (flag), the Swedish flagga (flag) and the Danish flag (flag, ship's flag).  The words may be compared with the Middle English flacken (to flutter, palpitate), the Swedish dialectal flage (to flutter in the wind) and the Old Norse flögra (to flap about), all akin to the Old High German flogarōn (to flutter), the Old High German flogezen (to flutter, flicker), the Middle English flakeren (to move quickly to and fro) and the Old English flacor (“fluttering, flying).  Staff (in the sense of a “stick or pole”) was from the Middle English staf (stick or pole, especially one up to 6 feet (1.8 metres) in length and carried in the hand (typically “a military standard”)), from the Old English stæf (plural stafas) (walking stick, strong pole used for carrying, rod used as a weapon, pastoral staff), probably originally stæb, from the Proto-Germanic stab- (the source also of the Old Saxon staf, the Old Norse stafr, the Danish stav, the Old Frisian stef, the Middle Low German & Middle Dutch staf, the Old High German stab, the German Stab, the Gothic stafs and the Middle Dutch stapel (pillar, foundation).

The locality names are probably usually in some way related to the presence of a flagstaff (or flagpole) and there are some romantic tales about how the city of Flagstaff, Arizona (county seat of Coconino County) gained the name, most in some way related to the US centennial celebrations of 4 July 1876 when a large flag was flown from a tall tree (in some tellings it was raised on an actual flagpole made from an impressively straight and tall pine tree felled for the occasion).  The actual details remain murky but all seem convinced the flag flown on the day was the central feature.  Flagstaff is the location of the Museum of Northern Arizona which holds a collection of ten sandpainting reproductions (by an unknown Navajo artist) of photographic images taken by Barry Goldwater (1909–1998), the Republican Party nominee at the 1964 US presidential election.  An avid photographer, Goldwater captured many images of Western landscapes and Native Americans subjects, publishing three books of his photographs between the 1940s & 1970s.  The terms flagstaff and a flagpole often are used interchangeably but among specialists there is a convention distinguishing use:

Flagstaff: (1) A shorter pole or staff, often portable or decorative and seen on tables at international conferences, inform of each representative or delegation. (2) With the exception of those used on vessels or vehicles, the flagstaff is most associated with ceremonial, indoor use. (3) Flagstaffs are often fitted with an ornamental finial (a decorative topper) which is often styled to match the base (which, if fitted, is typically wide and relatively heavy to provide stability.

Flagpole: (1) A typically taller and more robust structure, used outdoors (although there are “full-sized” flagpoles in enclosed buildings. (2) Flagpoles usually are fixed installations and designed to withstand severe weather, holding a flag (or flags) in a permanent or semi-permanent position. Flagpoles can be installed in the ground or attached to a building (or some custom structure), usually with a mechanism for raising or lowering the flag, the most common of which is the halyard system.

Lindsay Lohan with flagstaff equipped Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) Pullman during filing for Liz & Dick (2012).  The Even more then forty years after the last was built, the 600 remains a popular choice for film directors wishing to summon the verisimilitude of wealth, power and evil, the latter because of the roll-call of kleptomaniac, megalomaniac and occasionally genocidal heads of state who formed a great fondness for the things.

Breakdown of Mercedes-Benz flagstaff part numbers for W116 (1972-1980, left) and W123 (1976-1986, right).  Despite the appearance, as the numbers indicate, the shafts were different although some of the fittings were interchangeable.  Although the W123 (equating with the modern E-Class) was in the “mid-range” market, it was popular in governmental and diplomatic use, being much cheaper than the bigger S-Class (and certainly the gargantuan Großer (Grosser (the W100)) and there was a long-wheelbase (LWB) version with seating for seven to eight.

The term flagstaff is now associated mostly with the devices attached to limousines (and increasingly, armored, truck-like SUVs) used by the military, the corps diplomatique or other government dignitaries.  These are used to fly national flags, personal standards or whatever is appropriate to the occupant’s station.  Because they are used on vehicles which, being used for ceremonial purposes, often travel at low speed in parades, the flags used are sometimes rigid to emulate the appearance of one in a stiff breeze, a similar trick to that NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) used for the flag “flown” on the moon to mark the Apollo 11 landing in 1969.

Flagstaff-equipped Mercedes-Benz 600s (W100, 1963-1981): comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980) (left), comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party 1965-1989) and Pope Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978).

Although not a technically difficult device to create, some manufacturers who serviced the market (Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac, Lincoln & Imperial) offered the flagstaffs as a factory part-number (technically, some coming from third-party coach-builders).  On the Mercedes-Benz 600 they were available either as a pair or single fitting (installed either left or right although they were interchangeable and a single part-number) but there doesn’t seem to have been any asymmetrical installs.  There are photographs of 600s with bumper-bar mounted flagstaff but these were an after-market, third-party fitting and not a factory variation.  Because many Lincolns, Cadillacs, Imperials et al were built by independent coach-builders on either a “commercial chassis” or as a “stretch”, there’s much variation in both the design and placement of flagstaffs.

1960 Rolls-Royce Phantom V Canberra state limousine by Park Ward, Buckingham Palace, 1990.  On limousines, although the most common location of flagstaffs is the front fender (almost always paired), the cars of the Royal Mews (what the British royal family call their garage) fly a standard from a single, central mount at the front of the roof.

Gulag

Gulag (pronounced goo-lahg)

(1) The system of forced-labor camps in the Soviet Union (with initial capital).

(2) Individually, a Soviet forced-labor camp (usually with initial capital).

(3) By association, any prison or detention camp, especially one used for political prisoners (usually not with initial capital).

(4) Figuratively, any place regarded as undesirable or one perceived as being a “punishment-post” (not with initial capital).

(5) Figuratively, any system used to silence dissent (not with initial capital).

1930-1931: From the Russian ГУЛА́Г (GULÁG, GULag or Gulág), the acronym (Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й (Glávnoje upravlénije ispravítelʹno-trudovýx lageréj) translated usually as “Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps” but also, inter alia, “Chief Administration of Corrective-Labor Camps”, “Main Directorate for Places of Detention”, “Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps” etc.).  The noun plural was Gulags.

An example of the way in which a bland acronym (like the 1933 Gestapo (an abbreviated form of the German Geheime Staatspolizei (the construct being Ge(heime) Sta(ats)po(lizei), literally “secret state police”) can become a byword for something awful, although technically, the acronym GULag (Glávnoje upravlénije ispravítelʹno-trudovýx lageréj (Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps)) didn’t come into use until 1930, the origin of what quickly would evolve into a vast, nation-wide network of concentration camps lies in the legal device created almost immediately after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917.  This was the concept of the “class enemy”, a logical crime to gazette under Marxist-Leninist theory and one that could be applied literally to anybody, regardless of their conduct; it was essentially the same idea as the crime of “unspecified offences” which appears in the judicial sentences of some authoritarian states.  Russia, as many of the Bolsheviks knew from personal experience, had a long tradition of “internal exile” and the new regime extended this concept, creating concentration camps for class enemies where convicts were required to perform useful manual labor (forestry, mining, quarrying etc).

The early camps, authorized by decree in April 1919, were the prisoner of war (POW) facilities which had become redundant after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) which concluded hostilities between Russia and the Central Powers although the first model camp was in the White Sea region, in what were once the Orthodox Church's monastery buildings on the Solovetsky Islands and the first prisoners were anti-Bolsheviks, mostly left-wing intellectuals and members of the White Army.  The Cheka, the Russian secret police (the first in the alphabet soup of the names adopted (Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKGB, NKVD, SMERSH, MGB, (most famously) KGB & FSB), was allocated the role of administration.  Reflecting the love secret police everywhere have for mysterious acronyms, the Cheka created SLON (Northern Camps of Special Significance) as an administrative template for the Solovetsky Islands which, briefly, was the only camp complex in the Soviet state.  The number of concentration (usually described as “correctional labor”) camps grew sufficiently during the 1920s to outgrow the bureaucratic structures initially formed by the Cheka and in 1930 the GULag was created as a separate division of the secret police which worked in conjunction with the Soviet Ministry of the Interior overseeing the use of the physical labor of prisoners.  Although the camps were sometimes used for those guilty of “normal” criminal offences, the great majority of inmates were political prisoners who were sometimes genuine political dissidents but could be there for entirely arbitrary reasons or even as victims of personal vendettas.  In these aspects there are parallels with the Nazi's concentration camps which also worked as systems of coercion, punishment & repression although the GULag never had a programme industrially to exterminate an entire race.  There was another striking similarity in the camp architecture of the two dictatorships which were nominally ideological opponents.  The German equivalent of the GULag, the Konzentrationlager is remembered for the words Arbeit macht frei (work makes you free) rendered in wrought iron above the gates of Auschwitz I; the inscription через труд (through labor (ie get back home through working)) was the message at the prisoners' entrance to the Magaden camp in Siberia.      

What is sometime neglected in the history of the GULag (and other systems of concentration camps) is that while it is well-understood as part of a system of repression, there were genuine attempts to locate the camps in places where the labor extracted from the inmates could be applied to the maximum benefit for the state, something of great significance because in 1929 comrade Stalin (1878–1953; Soviet leader 1922–1953) announced a programme of rapid industrialization and the first of a succession of five-year plans. In support of this, the Politburo abolished any distinction between political and other crimes and intruded a unified network of camps to replace the hitherto dual prison system.  From this point, accelerating from the mid-1930s, archipelagos of camps were built (substantially by the prisoners) close to sites of huge economic projects such as a canal from the White Sea to the Baltic Sea, gold mining in Kolyma and lines of communications such as the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

The GULag’s second great growth spurt happened during Stalin’s “Great Terror” in 1936-1938 when the upper echelons of the Communist Party, the armed forces, the civil service and even the GULag management were subject to purges and while there were many executions, most were sent to the camps which, never designed for such numbers, were unable to handle the mass influx and the already high death rate increased sometimes threefold.  During comrade Stalin's great purges, the (whispered) joke was that the Russian population consisted of (1) those in the gulag, (2) those just released and (3) those about to go back.  On a somewhat smaller scale, rapid inflows also happened in the early years of World War II because of the need to imprison those deported from territory just occupied by the Soviet Union (Eastern Poland, the Baltics, Bessarabia) but this pressure on capacity was more than off-set by the sudden release of many prisoners to meet the needs of the Red Army which had suffered massive losses in the Nazi invasion.  Needing troops, all was suddenly forgiven and it wouldn’t be until 1945 that the numbers in the camps began again to trend upwards, reflecting the waves of arrests among the ranks of the Red Army, former German POWs and ethnic minorities, including Soviet Jews.  The Cold War also fed the GULag.  In 1948-1949, Stalin launched the construction of new megalomaniacal projects, including the Volga-Don Canal, new power stations, dams, and communications, among them the Dead Road and a tunnel and railway to Sakhalin Island, both of which, despite a horrific death-toll, proved impossible to build and were cancelled when Stalin died in 1953.

After Stalin’s death, an amnesty was announced for many of those serving sentences for criminal offences and almost all of those deemed to have committed “minor offences” were released although political prisoners remained imprisoned and it wasn’t until “the thaw” under Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964) that widespread releases were ordered after almost four million political crime cases were reviewed and in 1957, as one of a number of reforms, the GULag was abolished and most of the camps shut down.  Khrushchev himself announced that the Soviet economy would no longer based on the slave labor of prisoners which, as a piece of economic analysis was true but while the numbers of political prisoners fell, they did not disappear although they tended now to be only imprisoned for genuine opposition to the regime, dispatched most frequently to labor camps in Mordovia or in camps clustered around the Urals. The conditions remained grim but the death rates were tiny compared to those suffered in Stalin’s time but what also disguised the extent of post-Stalinist repression was than many dissidents were technically not imprisoned but instead declared insane and incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals, many of which closely resembled prisons.  There, the “insane” were often subject to cruel & unusual “medical” procedures.

The number of people who passed through the GULag can never exactly be known but, using archival material which became accessible after the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, historians have estimated between 15-18 million were imprisoned and the death-toll may have been almost 10%, the overwhelming majority of whom were from Russia or the constituent republics of the USSR but others were foreigners, mostly Czechoslovaks, Poles, Hungarians & Frenchmen.  The network of camps dotted around the USSR consisted of almost 500 administrative centres, each running as few as dozens or as many as hundreds of individual camps, historians having documented just under 30,000.  In the West the term GULag became widely known only after the publication in 1973 Russian of novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's (1918–2008) three-volume The Gulag Archipelago, described by the author as "An Experiment in Literary Investigation" which he wrote between 1958-1968, using documentary sources including legal papers, interviews, diaries, statements and his personal experience as a GULag prisoner.

Map of the GULag camp distribution, Plain Talk magazine, 1950.

However, both the system of slavery and the word “GULag” had, during comrade Stalin’s time, been publicized in the West, remarkably accurate maps published in 1950 in the US in Plain Talk (A US anti-communist monthly magazine, 1946–1950) magazine but, despite it being the high Cold War, the revelations didn’t resonate in public consciousness as they would a generation later when Solzhenitsyn released The Gulag Archipelago.

Rapture

Rapture (pronounced rap-cher)

(1) Ecstatic joy or delight; joyful ecstasy; bliss, beatitude, exaltation.

(2) The carrying of a person to another place or sphere of existence.

(3) In Christian theology, the experience, anticipated by some fundamentalist Christians, of meeting Christ midway in the air upon his return to earth.

(4) The act of carrying off (archaic).

1590: A compound word, the construct being rapt + ure (the suffix -ure was from the Middle English -ure, from the Old French -ure, from the Latin -tūra and was used to create a word meaning (1) a process; a condition; a result of an action or (2) an official entity or function).  Rapt was from the Medieval Latin raptūra, (seizure, rape, kidnapping), from the Classical Latin raptus (a carrying off, abduction, snatching away; rape (the future active participle of rapiō)).  In the sense of “carrying off”, the English use was in parallel with the Middle French rapture with the meaning drawn from the Medieval Latin raptura (seizure, rape, kidnapping, carrying off, abduction, snatching away) and the word rape is a cognate of this.  The sense of "spiritual ecstasy, state of mental transport or exaltation" is recorded by circa 1600 (as “the raptures”), the connecting notion being a sudden or violent taking and carrying away.  The meaning "expression of exalted or passionate feeling" in words or music is from the 1610s and from here it became frequently used in sacred music and art.

El rapto de Europa (The Rape of Europa (1628-1629)), oil on canvas by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Prado Museum, Madrid.  It follows a 1562 work in the same vein by Tiziano Vecelli (circa 1489-1576 and known in English as Titian).

The earliest attested use in English is with women as objects and in the seventeenth century it sometimes carried the meaning of the verb “rape”.  The use of the word “rape” in the sense of “carrying off” in so much art and sculpture from Antiquity and the Middle Ages is the cause of much misunderstanding in modern audiences.  Sense of "spiritual ecstasy or state of mental transport” was first recorded in the 1630s and rapture as a verb meaning "to enrapture, put in a state of rapture" (implied in raptured) became widely used.  The adjective rapturous (ecstatically joyous or exalted) dates from the 1670s, the adverb rapturously having emerged a decade earlier.  The verb enrapture, a creation apparently of the church, is attested from 1740.  The adjective ravishing, dating from the mid fourteenth century and meaning "enchanting, exciting rapture or ecstasy" (present-participle adjective from the verb ravish) is now probably associated with Mills & Boon romances but the origin was sacred, the figurative notion being "carrying off from earth to heaven"; the adverb was ravishingly.

A Rapture, by Stereo Alchemy, starring Lindsay Lohan, Petey Wright, and Sofia Boutella (from the album God of love).  Directed by Yu Tsai.

In Christian eschatology, the rapture refers to the end of days when all Christian believers (both the living and resurrected dead) will rise into the sky and join Christ for eternity, a vision in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:17)). 

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Rapturists prefer this to less exclusive second comings such as those mentioned in Second Thessalonians, Matthew, First Corinthians and Revelation.

Home Thoughts from Abroad (1845) by Robert Browning (1812–1889)

I

Oh, to be in England now that April’s there

And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England—now!

II

And after April, when May follows

And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—

That’s the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over

Lest you should think he never could re-capture

The first fine careless rapture!

And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children’s dower,

Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Rapture (2019) by Roberta J Heslop (b 1973), oil & acrylic on canvas.

Desideratum

Desideratum (pronounced dih-sid-uh-rey-tuhm, dih-sid-uh-rah-tuhm or dih-zid-uh-rey-tuhm)

Something wanted or needed; something lacked and desired.

1645-1655: A learned borrowing from Latin dēsīderātum (something that is desired), neuter nominative singular of dēsīderātus, the passive past participle of dēsīderāre (to desire), from dēsīderō (to desire, want, wish for).  The construct in Latin has long been debated with most etymologists preferring the prefix de- (the Latin intensifer) + (possibly) sīdus (star; constellation) though the connection is speculative.  The English word is cognate with the French desideratum and the Spanish desiderátum.  The noun plural was dēsīderāta, rendered in English as desiderata.

An example of a Latin word in English (while remaining still obviously “foreign”, other offshoots of the Latin verb were nativized in Middle English: desiderable (wished for, desired (mid-fourteenth century) also worthy of being admired); desideracioun (longing, yearning (late fifteenth century)); desiderantly (with ardent desire (circa 1500)).  The related form desiderate (feel a desire or longing for) dates from the 1640s but is long extinct.

Charlemagne and Desiderata

Desiderata (written sometimes as Ermengarda) was one of four daughters of Desiderius, King of the Lombards.  In the year 770, in an arranged political marriage, fashionable at the time, she became Charlemagne’s (748-814) second wife, an attempt to make less unfriendly the relations between the Franks and the Lombards.  The union was controversial.  Pope Stephen III approved not at all of the Lombards, regarding them as barbarians and Charlemagne seems not to have been enthusiastic, the marriage producing no issue and lasting barely a year with all records of it erased from the Royal Frankish Annals.  One biographer noted the ceremony but claimed it was all the idea of Charlemagne’s mother.

Debate still surrounds her name.  Some historians suggest Desiderata emerged from a nineteenth century editorial error during the transcription of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica which capitalized the 'D' in desideratam filiam (“desired daughter” in Latin) and it’s more likely Desiderata's name was actually “Gerperga”.  The evidence offered for the hypothesis is somewhat circumstantial but the name certainly fits in with the names of Desiderius' other daughters, all of which end in the suffix “perga”.  Even this error was sometimes compounded by a back formation to Desideria, a more probable first name (the feminine form of Desiderius, her father's name), or translated (as into French) as Désirée.

Charlemagne and Desiderata.  In art, Desiderata is depicted usually as the same height as her husband or only slightly shorter and paintings of her alone show a willowy figure.

In Medieval legend, Charlemagne was often said to be 6’ 6” (2m) in height and that, tall even today, would have meant he towered over his subjects, a typical male in the Carolingian period standing about 5′ 6″ (1.69m).  Up to a point, height confers many advantages and is historically associated with authority and leadership so a little Medieval exaggeration is not unexpected, research now suggesting Charlemagne, although tall, wasn’t quite as elongated as his myth.  Using x-rays and CT Scans to examine his bones lying in the Aachen Cathedral, scientists concluded he was between 5′ 10″ and 6′ 4″ (1.79-1.92).  This finding is supported by some contemporary evidence, his friend and courtier, the Frankish scholar Einhard (E(g)inhardus in the Latin and known also as Eginhard or Einhart, circa 775–840) noting he “…was large and strong, and of lofty stature, though not disproportionately tall”.

The statuesque Desiderata at home.

Whether there’s artistic licence in the art in which Desiderata appears isn’t known but for her to be close to Charlemagne’s height would have made her very tall for the time.  That is of course not impossible.  Human height is determined by genetics and while factors like health-care and nutrition can, over generations, have the effect of increasing the average height of given populations, it’s possible the absolute maximum height attainable has changed not at all during the existence of modern humans.  That may apply also to age; although the average of the life-span may increase, the maximum possible under ideal genetic and environmental circumstance may be the same now as thousands of years ago.  Whether the increasing understanding of DNA and genetic manipulation will allow us to tamper.

Wypipology

Wypipology (pronounced wahy-pee-pol-uh-jee)

A (usually darkly) humorous slang term for the (uncredentialed) branch of cultural anthropology in which a “researcher”, usually a person of color, “observes or studies” the behavior of wypipo (white people).

2017: The construct being wypipo (African-American slang for “white people” generally, especially those perceived to be racist, unaware of their own privilege, or engaging in cultural appropriation) based on African-American colloquial pronunciation of the phrase “white people”) + -ology (formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy).  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  The alternative spelling is wipipology, a practitioner in the discipline is thus a wypipologist or wipipologist.

Michael Harriot, world-renowned wypipologist.

Technically, wypipology is a back-formation from wypipologist, the term coined by journalist Michael Harriot (b 1972), formerly a contributor to the Black-focused website theroot.com and still writing for certain mainstream publications such as the Guardian.  Mr Harriot appears first to have used the word on-line in 2017 although there are unattested references to instances of use in 2016; in his self-edited biographical note on the Root website, Mr Harriot describes himself as a “world-renowned wypipologist.”  The core of wypipology lies in creating something of a parody of (what to some extent may itself be a caricature) the manner in which generations of white cultural anthropologists and sociologists used a language of “otherness” to describe Black societies, contrasting the civilized (white) cultures with those of the Blacks which were characterized variously as uncivilized, primitive, backward, savage etc.

Due for publication in January 2023, Michael Harriot says his Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America (HarperCollins, 288 pp, ISBN:0358439167) will be a comprehensive appraisal of American history in which the dominant narrative is directly confronted and corrected to showcase the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.

The point was not that white sub-cultures weren’t studied or observed; indeed, in the era of massive growth in sociology during the post-war years, many sub-sets of white society, divided across many lines, were the subject of many studies.  However, just as Edward Said (1935-2003) in Orientalism (1978) created a critique of the (Western) field of Oriental Studies in which he deconstructed the distorted cultural representations which he claimed were the product of centuries of Eurocentric prejudice against what lies east and south of Suez, Hariott identified the prevalent white attitude as one of cultural insularity which, combined with a feeling of superiority to non-whites, meant the prevailing attitude could be only inherently racist and oblivious to their multi-layered privileges of whiteness.  One advantage of Hariott’s wypipology was that it was couched in the style of darkly absurdist humor, not something that could be said of Said’s inch-thick polemic and the instances cited by an observant wypipologist might range from the ridiculous to the deadly.  In recent years, theroot has given awards to the white folks thought to have committed the most egregious offences but there were none in 2021, perhaps because Mr Hariott ceased his association.  

Variations on the idea of subverting the constructs of white civilization and their comparison with Black backwardness have often used the language of cultural anthropology and sociology to make the point: 

The fictitious tribe Nacirema ("American" spelled backwards) was first described in a satire of academic anthropology in the June 1956 edition of American Anthropologist and is still used in universities to demonstrate to students the extent to which they are racially pre-conditioned.  In a passage describing seemingly ritualistic practices involving cleaning the mouth, because it's written in a style usually associated with that detailing the practices of pre-modern people, most students when asked, associate it with Black people gathered in a clearing in the jungle.  It's actually a description of 1950s middle-class white Americans brushing their teeth.

Babakiueria (1986) (released on VHS Tape & DVD as Babakiueria (Barbeque Area)) was a satire in which the history of a white invasion of an indigenous nation was reversed.  The events stayed much the same, only the colors were changed.

The 1992 Austrian film Das Fest des Huhnes (The festival of the chicken) was a presentation of the customs and lifestyles of the "native peoples" of Upper Austria, described by a team of Black African anthropologists, using the language and style of white anthropologists.

Dominion

Dominion (pronounced duh-min-yon)

(1) The power or right of governing and controlling; sovereign authority.

(2) Rule; control; domination; predominance; ascendancy.

(3) A territory, usually of considerable size, in which a single ruler-ship holds sway (used sometimes figuratively).

(4) Lands or domains subject to sovereignty or control.

(5) In political science, a territory constituting a self-governing commonwealth and being one of a number of such territories united in a community of nations, or empire.  Formerly applied to self-governing former colonies of the British Empire; Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and later, others.

(6) In law, a rare (probably archaic) alternative spelling of dominium.

(7) In taxonomy, kingdom.

(8) A specialized classification in theology; in biblical scholarship, an order of angel in Christian angelology, ranked above virtues and below thrones.

Mid 1400s: From the Middle English dominion (lordship, sovereign or supreme authority), from the Middle & Old French dominion (rule, power), from the Medieval Latin dominionem (nominative dominio) or dominium (lordship, right of ownership), from dominus (lord, master), corresponding to dominium (property, ownership) from domus (house) from the primitive Indo-European root dem (house, household).  The meaning "territory or people subject to a specific government” dates from the 1510s, the specific legal meaning at law “power of control, right of uncontrolled possession, use, and disposal" was codified by the 1650s.  In law, dominion was used from the 1510s to refer to (a territory or people subject to a specific government or control) and in the law of real property, from the 1650s assumed the meaning "power of control, right of uncontrolled possession, use, and disposal".

British sovereign colonies often were called dominions, hence the Dominion of Canada, the formal title after the 1867 union, Dominion Day, the Canadian national holiday in celebration of the union, and “Old Dominion”, the popular name for the US state of Virginia, first recorded 1778.  Dominions are best remembered as the quasi-independent nations under the British Crown, constituting the part of the British Empire best remembered as “the white dominions” or, later, “the white commonwealth”.  Canada was the first, declared in 1867 and Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa followed.  Later additions included the Irish Free State and the states of the old Raj, India, East and West Pakistan, and Ceylon.  The Balfour (Arthur Balfour (later Lord Balfour), 1848–1930, UK prime-minister 1902-1905; Lord President of the Council 1925-1929) Declaration of 1926 recognized the United Kingdom and the Dominions to be "...autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." and the Statute of Westminster (1931), in what was the first general enactment for the constitution of the British Empire since Lord North's (later Lord Guilford, 1732–1792; GB prime-minister 1770-1782) regulating act of 1778, granted them what was close to legislative independence.

The word dominion was earlier used to refer to a geographically-defined political entity without legal status mentioned above.  Wales was thus described between 1535-1801 and New England between 1686-1689.  It was also the popular name for the US state of Virginia, the use first recorded in 1778.  While never bothering fully to define the status, the covenant of the League of Nations made provision for the admission of any “fully self-governing state, Dominion, or Colony”, the implication being that Dominion status was something between that of a colony and a state.  That certainly reflected British Empire practice.

Flag of Canada, adopted 1965.

Canada, officially still uses the title though it’s now merely historical with no constitutional effect, the most obvious residual effect the annual "Canada Day" national holiday (1 July) in celebration of the 1867 act of union which some older folk still refer to as "Dominion Day", the official title until 1982.  Prior to the act of union, the idea of a confederation comprising the colonies of British North America had been for some time discussed and on 1 July 1867, the Imperial Parliament created such a dominion by passing into law the British North America Act which joined the then defined territories of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick & Nova Scotia.  In a typically British colonial "fix", the act created the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the latter to accommodate the French-speaking minority there clustered and made further provisions for other colonies and territories in future to join the dominion.  It was on this constitutional framework that Canada evolved into its present form, the next major event in 1982 when the structurally significant (though by most barely noticed) Canada Act was passed which included the symbolically notable word "patriation" apparently a prime-ministerial invention by Lester B Pearson (1897–1972; Canadian prime minister 1963-1968) who in 1966 coined the term as a as a back-formation from repatriation (returning to a country of origin).

Canada, officially still uses the title “Dominion of Canada”, though it’s now merely historical with no constitutional effect, the most obvious residual effect the annual "Canada Day" national holiday (1 July) in celebration of the 1867 act of union which some older folk still refer to as "Dominion Day", the official title until 1982.  Prior to the act of union, the idea of a confederation comprising the colonies of British North America had been for some time discussed and on 1 July 1867, the Imperial Parliament created the dominion by passing into law the British North America Act (1967) which joined the then defined territories of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick & Nova Scotia.  In a typically British colonial "fix", the act created the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the latter to accommodate the French-speaking minority there clustered and made further provisions for other colonies and territories in future to join the dominion.

It was on this constitutional framework that Canada evolved into its present form, the next structural event in 1982 when the significant (though by most barely noticed) Canada Act was passed which included the symbolically notable word "patriation" apparently a prime-ministerial invention by Lester B Pearson (1897–1972; Canadian prime minister 1963-1968) who in 1966 coined the term as a back-formation from repatriation (returning to a country of origin).  In this context the difference between "patriation" & “repatriation” was merely political, lawyers agreeing there was no technical point to be argued but as a symbolic gesture, it appealed to politicians who wished to make the point that the Canadian constitution was, for the first time, fully to be in Canadian hands.  Prior to the 1982 act, the process to amend the constitution required the parliament in Ottawa to request the parliament in Westminster to give effect to the change; the United Kingdom assembly thus still functioning as an imperial parliament.  This was the arrangement which prevailed upon the granting of dominion statue in 1867 and while the 1931 Statute of Westminster (limiting the circumstances win which the British Parliament's could legislate for Canada) and the 1949 British North America (No 2) Act (granting the (federal) parliament in Ottawa significant authority to amend the constitution) did render Canada de facto independence, the device of needing to refer major amendments to London remained.

The retention of this authority in London was not the choice of the colonial oppressors, successive British governments having offered to expedite any (patriative or repatriative as preferred; repatriate from the Latin repatriare, the construct being re- (back, backwards, again) + patria (homeland) and cognate to repair (to return)) request from the Canadian parliament, but rather the inability of the politicians in Ottawa to secure the agreement of the politicians in Quebec City about the exact model of any locally-held authority.  In one of the charming quirks which emerged as the decolonization processes of the twentieth century unfolded, the view, rightly or wrongly, of the French-speaking politicians in Quebec was that the UK politicians would be less likely to make changes disadvantageous to them than would other Canadian politicians.

In the end, despite decades of discussion, debate and dissent, unanimous agreement between the federal and provincial governments proved impossible to secure and it was announced by Ottawa that regardless of that, the request would be made unilaterally to patriate the constitution from Britain.  Several provinces challenged that in the Supreme Court of Canada but the judges (in something of an echo of the prevailing view about the circumstance of the 1975 dismissal of an Australian prime-minister in 1975) ruled that provincial consent was not a legal necessity although “substantial consent” by the provincial assemblies was a longstanding constitutional convention.  As it turned out, with a small legislative tweak, the Canadian prime-minister was able to obtain the agreement of nine of the ten provinces, thereby presumably satisfying both spirit and letter.

In Westminster, a few MPs took advantage of the situation to do a bit of virtue-signaling and generally practice the politics of “warm inner glow” by voting against the Canada Act (1982) claiming to be concerned about Canada’s prior treatment of Quebec and its indigenous peoples.  The UK government however, although concerned about a couple of technical points, quickly passed the act and from that point, Canada became wholly independent, the position of Queen Elizabeth II as head of state an entirely personal relationship with the Canadian government with no connection to the government of the UK.  Presumably to try to show the people of Canada something had happened, the name of the Dominion Day national holiday was changed to Canada Day.

King George V with prime ministers at the 1926 Imperial Conference. Back row: WS Monroe (Newfoundland), JG Coates (New Zealand), SM Bruce (Australia), JBM Hertzog (South Africa) and WT Cosgrave (Irish Free State).  Front row: Stanley Baldwin (United Kingdom), King George V, Mackenzie King (Canada).

Creating some confusion, which they seem often to have enjoyed, the Colonial Office referred to all the Empire’s possessions as dominions (with a small d) while those with a capital D were the Dominions (Australia, NZ et al) proper.  Thus all Dominions were dominions but not all dominions were Dominions.  How the Foreign Office must have envied the pedantry.  

Dylan Thomas’ poem And Death Shall Have No Dominion recalls Romans 6:9 (King James translation) “death hath no more dominion”.

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
 
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
 
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

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.