Tantrum

Tantrum (pronounced tan-truhm)

(1) A violent demonstration of rage or frustration; a sudden burst of ill temper, most associated with children but widely applied to the childish outbursts of adults.

(2) To have a tantrum.

1714: One of English’s etymological mysteries, other than being derived from the earlier tanterum, the origin is so obscure there’s no evidence on which to base speculation and while the first known reference in writing is from 1714, it’s likely it had been in (presumably colloquial) oral use for some time.  There are conventions of use such as “temper tantrum” & the common intransitive “throw a tantrum”; synonymous words and phrases include angry outburst, flare-up, fit of rage, conniptions, dander, huff, hysterics, storm, wax, hissy fit & dummy spit.  Tantrum is a noun & verb, tantrumming & tantrumed are verbs and tantrumy is an adjective; the noun plural is tantrums.  The noun tantrummery (on the model of constructions like poltroonery) is non-standard but is sometimes used in political commentary.

Social media, SMS or email posts in ALL CAPS or with an extravagant use of question marks (?????) or exclamation marks (!!!!!) convey shouting and are the textual version of a tantrum although this understanding was learned behaviour; many early systems (Telix etc) available only with upper case characters so there was a greater dependency on (?????) & (!!!!!) to denote anger, the asterisk (*****) & hash (#####) symbols inserted to permit vulgarities (f**k, sh## et al) to be understood without being spelled out.  That was a work-around of some significance because the telecommunication legislation in many nations actually prohibited swearing (even on telephone voice calls) over what was then called a “carriage service”, typical wording in the acts being something like: It shall be unlawful for any person in the operation of any telephone installed within the city, to make use of any vulgar vituperation or profane language into and over such telephone.  (Profanity over telephone: (Code of ordinances, Colombus Georgia, USA, (§ 663 (1914)), Section 14-49).  Such laws probably still exist in many places but instances of enforcement doubtless;y are rare.

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)

Remarkably, as a definable condition, the temper tantrum wasn’t medicalized (as a distinct diagnosis) until 2013 when the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was published.  Named Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD), it was classified as a mood disorder noted as affecting children aged 6-18, an unusual concession by the industry that tantrums in very young children are a normal and healthy (if annoying) aspect of human development.

DMDD was thus a new diagnosis but it really was a shift in classification, reflecting the early twenty-first century view that both the autism spectrum and bipolar disorder (BD, the old manic-depression) were being over-diagnosed.  Also a condition that can cause extreme changes in mood, it was noted that misdiagnosing BD can result in unnecessary medications being prescribed, the long-term use of which were associated with side effects including weight gain, lipid & glucose abnormalities and  reduced brain volume (and a diminished number of neurons in the brain).  Thus it being undesirable that BD be over-diagnosed in the young, DMDD exists as an alternative and, although many of the mood-related symptoms overlap with BD, there are as yet no FDA (the US Food and Drug Administration) approved medications for children or adolescents with DMDD and in the recent history of the DSM, that’s unusual.  There have been instances of updates to the DSM removing diagnoses while the specified drug remains on the FDA schedule but it’s rare for one to appear without an approved medication, the symbiosis between the industries usually well-synchronized.  Advice to clinicians continue to include the note that stimulants, antidepressants, and atypical antipsychotics can be used to help relieve a child’s DMDD symptoms but that side effects would need to be monitored, individual and family therapy to address emotion-regulation skills a desirable alternative to be pursued where possible.  The behavioral distinction between DMDD and BD is that subjects don’t experience the episodic mania of a child with BD and they’re at no greater risk of later developing BD although there is a higher anxiety as an adult.  Because of the potentially stigmatizing effects (possibly for life) of a diagnosis of BD, that’s something which should be applied only with a strict application of the criteria.

The tabloid press like the word "tantrum" and uses it often of certain celebrities, politicians and such.

It’s further noted that DMDD is a diagnosis that should apply to a specific type of mood (the tantrum) distinguished by being extreme and/or frequent; it should thus (as parents have doubtless always regarded tantrums) be thought a spectrum condition.  The markers include (1) severe, chronic irritability, (2) severe verbal or behavioral tantrums, several times weekly for at least a year, (3) reactions out of proportion to the situation, (4) difficulty functioning because of outbursts and tantrums, (5) aggressive behavior & (6) a frequent transgression of rules.  Observationally, DMDD may be indicated by (7) trouble in socializing and forming friendships, (8) physically aggression towards peers and family and even (9) difficulties in the cooperative aspects of playing team sports (although not merely a preference for individual disciplines).  The diagnostic criteria for DMDD require a child to have experienced tantrums (which are severe and/or of long duration) at least three times weekly for at least a year’ especially if between episodes they’re also chronically irritable.  However, if the tantrums are geographically or situationally specific (ie happen only at school or only at church etc) then DMDD may not be the appropriate diagnosis and other disorders (childhood bipolar disorder (CBD), autism, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)) may need to be considered.  A particular difficulty in the diagnostic process is that not only is there a significant overlap of symptoms in these disorders but instances of conditions themselves can co-exist.  With children, it’s recommended that when possible, DMDD treatment begins with therapy (psychotherapy and parent training), medications prescribed only later in treatment or at least starting in conjunction with therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) thought helpful.

Noted temper tantrums

3 Ketchup Bottles (2021) by Kristin Kossi (b 1984), Acrylic on Canvas, US$8000 at Singulart.

Details of President Trump’s (Donald Trump, b 1946, US president 2017-2021) tantrum which included his ketchup laden lunch ending up oozing down an Oval Office wall were recounted during the congressional hearings into matters relating to the attempted insurrection on 6 January 2021.  Although apparently not the first time plates were smashed in the Trump White House during episodic presidential petulance, such outbursts by heads of government are not rare.  Indeed, given the stress and public scrutiny to which such folk are subject, it’s surprising there aren’t more although it’s usually only years later, as memoirs emerge, that the tales are told.

Warren Harding (1865–1923; US president 1921-1923) was once observed strangling a government official with his bare hands although that might have been understandable, his administration notoriously riddled with corruption.  When Harding dropped dead during his term, it was probably a good career move.  Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; head of state (1934-1945) and government (1933-1945) in Nazi Germany) ranting meltdown in the Führerbunker on 21 April 1945 as the Red Army closed on Berlin became a tantrum of legend and was the great set piece of the film Downfall (2004) about the last days of the Third Reich, a scene which has since generated hundreds of memes.  Even before the Watergate scandal began to consume his presidency, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) was known for his temper tantrums, often under the influence of alcohol.  His aides would later recount his expletive-laden tirades during which, apparently seriously, he would order bombings, missile launches and assassinations.  All such instructions Nixon issued during these drunken tantrums were ignored and if informed the next day that the relevant military action or murder had not been carried out, usually he would respond: "Good".  His predecessor’s, (Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969)) moods were said to be just as volatile and during episodes he would sometimes wish for whole countries to be destroyed although he stopped short actually of ordering it.

Admiring glance: George Stephanopoulos looking at crooked Hillary Clinton.

Reports of Bill Clinton’s (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) tantrums tend to emphasize their frequency and intensity but note also how quickly they subsided.  In the memoir of George Stephanopoulos ((b 1961; White House Communications Director 1993 & presidential advisor 1993-1996)) focusing on his time as communications director, it’s recounted that Clinton regularly lost his temper and would yell at the staff, the in-house code for the outbursts being “purple fits”, so named because of how red Clinton’s face became during the SMOs “Standard Morning Outbursts”.  Secret Service staff later interviewed were kinder in their recollections of the president but seemed still traumatized when describing his wife’s volcanic temper and Bill Clinton’s outbursts do need to be viewed in the context of him being married to crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).

Anthony Eden (1897–1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957) was elegant, stylish and highly strung; one of his colleagues, in a reference to his parentage, described Eden as “half mad baronet, half beautiful woman” and his great misfortune was to become prime-minister, the role for which he’d so long been groomed.  Ill-suited to the role and in some ways unlucky, his tantrums became the stuff of Westminster and Whitehall folklore, reflected in the diary entry of Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1965 & 1951-1955) physician (Lord Moran, 1885-1975) on 21 July 1956: “The political world is full of Eden's moods at No 10 (Downing Street, the PM’s London residence)”.  The tales of his ranting and raging appeared in much that was published after his fall from office but in the years since, research suggests there was both exaggeration and some outright invention, one contemporary acknowledging that while Eden certainly was highly strung, “…he seldom became angry when really important matters were involved, but instead did so over irritating trivialities, usually in his own home, and very seldom did he lose his temper in public”.  Unfortunately, the best-known "tantrum" story of the 1956 Suez Crisis in which Eden is alleged to have thrown an full inkwell at someone with whom he disagreed (a rubbish bin said to have been jammed on his head in response), is almost certainly apocryphal.

TERF & Terf

TERF & Terf (pronounced turf)

(1) The acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist (trans-exclusionary radical feminism), a fork of the fork of radical feminism which maintains a trans woman’s gender identity is not legitimate and rejects the inclusion of trans people and the gender-diverse in the feminist movement.

(2) In genetics as (1) TERF 1 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 1), a protein which in  humans is encoded by the TERF1 gene & (2) TERF 2 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 2), a protein present at telomeres throughout the cell cycle. 

2008: Coined by Australian feminist writer Viv Smythe (@vivsmythe (fka @tigtog, @hoydenabouttown & @GFIComedy) although Ms Smythe suggests the acronym may previously have been in use but her blog entry is the oldest instance extant, hence the credit.  By virtue of use, TERF has become a word and thus the noun terf (and its variations) is correct.  The use in genetics dates from the 1990s , the definitions written as part of the project which decoded the human genome (the complete results of which weren't released until March 2022).   

TERF was said first to have been coined as a “deliberately neutral” descriptor of a certain intellectual position among certain feminists, CISgender women who self-identify as feminist but who oppose including transgender women in spaces (physical, virtual & philosophical) which their construct of feminism reserved for those assigned female at birth.  Implicit in this is the denial that trans women (or anyone anywhere on the trans gender spectrum) are women; they regard them as men and because, by definition, men cannot coexist with their feminist construct, they must be excluded.  However, though TERF was of the feminists, by a feminist, for the feminists, once in the wild it is public property and TERF didn’t long stay neutral, soon used as a slur, applied as a term of disparagement by those sympathetic to trans rights and just as quickly embraced by some TERFs in an act of reclamation (a la slut, the infamous n-word etc).  In use online since at least 2008, TERF has different connotations, depending on who is using it but even when it’s been applied as something purely descriptive, feminists who have been labeled TERF have called the term a slur because it has come to be associated with violence and hatred.  It is a loaded term.

Sainte Jeanne d'Arc (Saint Joan of Arc) (1903) by Albert Lynch (1860–1950).  Joan of Arc with proto TERF bangs: latter day TERFs arouse such hatred there have probably been whisperings of burnings at the stake.

The coining of TERF inspired some neologisms.  TERF bangs (existing only in the plural and noted since 2013 although use didn't trend until 2014) is a sardonic reference to a woman's hairstyle with short, straight, blunt-edged bangs (historically called baby bangs and a variation of what's known by some hairdressers as the "Joan of Arc" fringe), especially when paired with a bob and claimed to be associated with TERFs, the link impressionistic and possibly an example of a gaboso (generalized association based on single-observation).  The link is thought to be part of the opposition to transphobia, the TERF bangs noted for their relationship to the Karen (speak to the manager) bob and all Karens are assumed to be transphobic.  TERFdom is either (1) the holding (and expression) of trans-exclusionary feminist views or (2) being in some way present in the on-line TERF ecosystem.  TERFism is the abstract noun denoting variously the action, practice, state, condition, principle, doctrine, usage, characteristic, devotion or adherence to TERFDom.  TERfturf is an expression variously of the physical, virtual or philosophical space occupied by TERFdom.  TERFy, TURFish & TERFic are adjectives (usually applied disparagingly) which suggest someone or something may be tending towards, characteristic of, or related to trans-exclusionary feminism or those who hold such views.  It's tempting to ponder TERFery, TERFed & TERFistic and the use to which they might be put but there's scant evidence of use.

TERF also provided the model for the back-formation acronym SWERF (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist), describing the position of those radical feminists opposed to the sex industry (including pornography), regarding all aspects of the business as exploitative and that women who participate are victims of coercion, any assertion of agency or willing participation a form of false consciousness.

TERF, TWERF and others

Whatever the life TERF subsequently took, Ms Smythe’s original piece was a critique of the undercurrent of transphobia in the UK British media, something hardly hard to detect nor restricted to the most squalid of the tabloids.  However, as she noted, regardless of her purpose or the context of the text, TERF has became a weaponized device of the culture wars which, in the way of the battle, assumed its identities at the extremes of the trans-inclusion & trans-exclusion positions and it could hardly have followed a different course, the notion, however applied, hardly one amenable to subtle nuances (although some have tried).  That it had the effect of being an inherently schismatic force in radical feminism seemed especially to disturb Ms Smythe and later she would suggest a more accurate (or certainly less divisive) acronym would have been “…TES, with the “S” standing for separatists”, adding that many “…of the positions that are presented seem far too essentialist to be adequately described as feminist, let alone radical feminist.”  Of course, that view was in itself exclusivist and a kind of assertion of ownership of both “radical” and “feminist” but that’s entirely in the tradition of political philosophy including the strains which long pre-date modern feminism, gatekeepers never hesitant in lowering the intellectual portcullis, intruders rarely welcome.

Still, it wasn’t as if feminism had been immune from the fissiparousness which so often afflicted movements (secular and otherwise), the devolution into into competing doctrinal orthodoxies of course creating heretics and heroes and to think of the accepted structure of the history (first wave, second wave etc) as lineal is misleading.  Nor was the process organic and it has been claimed there are TERFs (notably some of the self-described) for whom the identification with feminism became attractive only when it seemed to offer a intellectual cloak under which push transphobia, an accusation leveled at members of the US organization Gender Identity Watch (GIW).   Described variously as a “hate group” and the “Republican party in sensible shoes”, GIW’s best known activities include lobbying and monitoring legislatures and courts to try to ensure those who are transgender are not granted either the status of women or whatever rights may accrue from that.  Their basis was simply definitional, those designated male at birth (DMaB) can never be anything beyond men in disguise (MiD) and thus have no place in women’s spaces.

Other theorists developed their own form of exclusivism.  The idea behind the back-formation TWERF (Trans Women Exclusionary Radical Feminist) was that it was "pure womanism", the needs of trans women being not only different from “real” women but irrelevant too, again by definition because trans women are still men and even if in some way defined as not, were still not “real” women.  The distinctions drawn by the TWERFs was certainly a particular strain of radical feminism because they raised no objection to the presence of trans men, the agender and even some other non-binary people into at least some of their women-only spaces although the rationale offered to support this position did seem sometimes contradictory.  Some however seemed well to understand the meaning and they were the transsexual separatists, apparently a cause without rebels, support for the view apparently close to zero.  The transsexual separatists argue that they need to be treated, for the purposes of defined rights, as a separate category, a concept which received little attention until the Fédération internationale de notation (Fina, the International Swimming Federation) in June 2022 announced a ban on the participation of transgender women from elite female competition if they have experienced “…any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age twelve, whichever is later."  As something a workaround designed somehow to combine inclusion and exclusion in the one policy, Fina undertook to create a working group to design an “open” category for trans women in “some events” as part of its new policy.  The transsexual separatists may not have expected Fina to be the first mainstream organization to offer a supporting gesture but what the federation has done may stimulate discussion, even if the work-around proves unworkable.

Discursiveness is however in the nature of feminist thought, the essence of the phases of renewal which characterized progress, formalized (if sometimes misleadingly) as waves and it’s unrealistic to imagine trans-related issues will be resolved until generational change allows a new orthodoxy to coalesce.  It really wasn’t until the high-water mark of second wave of feminism in the early 1980s that some of the early radical feminists began to attempt to distance the movement from the issues pertaining to trans people, reflecting the view that the implications of what was characterized as the transgender agenda would only reinforce sexual stereotyping and the gender binary.  Even then, the position taken by radical feminists was not monolithic but it was the exclusionists who attracted most interest, inevitable perhaps given they offered the media a conflictual lens through which to view the then somewhat novel matter of trans rights, until then rarely discussed.  Third wave feminism was a product of the environment in which it emerged and thus reflected the wider acceptance of transgender rights and few would argue this has not continued during the fourth wave, the attention given to TERF (and its forks and variations) an indication of the interest in the culture wars and the lure of conflict in media content (whether tabloid or twitter) rather than any indication a generalized hardening of opposition among feminists.

Preposition

Preposition (pronounced prep-uh-zish-uhn)

(1) In English grammar, any member of a class of words found in many languages that are used before nouns, pronouns, or other substantives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, and that typically express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship, as in, on, by, to, since.

(2) To position in something in advance or beforehand (often as pre-position).

(3)  An exposition; a discourse (obsolete).

1350-1400: From the Middle English preposicioun (in grammar: "indeclinable part of speech regularly placed before and governing a noun in an oblique case and showing its relation to a verb, adjective, or other noun"), from the Old French preposicion, from the Latin praepositiōn & praepositionem (nominative praepositio) (a putting before, a prefixing), noun of action from the past-participle stem of praeponere (put before), the construct being prae- (before (source of the English pre-)) + pōnere (put, set, place (past participle positus and related to  praepono (to place before)).  In grammatical use, it was a loan-translation of the Greek prothesis (literally "a setting before").  In the Old English, foresetnys was a loan-translation of the Latin praepositio and it exists in modern French as préposition.  In grammar, it's so called because it's placed before the word with which it's phrased (eg block of iron) and the more recent form meaning “to position in something in advance or beforehand” appears not to have been used before the early 1960s.

Sentences and prepositions

Another example of the medieval reverence for Latin, the “rule” in English that a sentence should not end with a preposition is an import from the classical language and an accurate description of the old practice.  English grammar however differs from the Latin, and the rule does not fit English where, certainly in speech, a final preposition is normal and idiomatic.  In short, the “rule”, which in Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858-1933) dismissed as a "cherished superstition" never existed, although many attempted enforcement.  

Portrait of John Dryden (1730) by George Vertue (1684-1756), line engraving on paper, Scottish National Portrait Gallery (Print Room).

Some have even been converts to the cause.  The younger John Dryden (1631–1700), a fine stylist of English and the nation's first poet laureate, would lace his sentences with terminal propositions yet in later life would edit his first editions "correcting" the indiscretions of youth, explaining that "...in considering whether what I write be the idiom of the tongue, …and have no other way to clear my doubts but by translating my English into Latin".  This Fowler would paraphrase as "...you cannot put a preposition (roughly speaking) later than its word in Latin and therefore you must not do so in English".  Even in the seventeenth century few were as punctilious although Fowler did note Edward Gibbon's (1737-1794) refinement of the "rule": Discerning "...that prepositions and adverbs are not always easily distinguished, kept on the safe side by not ending sentences with "on", "over", "under" or the like, even when they would have been adverbs".  Like those who care nothing for that other non-rule, the dreaded split infinitive, yet never commit it to writing lest they be thought unsophisticated by the fastidious, Gibbon wanted to keep up appearances.  Like Gibbon, Dryden's quill secured his reputation as a writer, his downfall nothing to do with his English, dismissed in 1689 from the laureateship because, as a devout papist, he refused to swear an oath of allegiance when the crown passed into protestant hands.  Up with such he had to put.  

There is a case to avoid the practice in writing but only if the “rule” is applied to the whole text.  Technically, the problem of placing the preposition arises most when a sentence ends with a relative clause in which the relative pronoun (that; whom; which; whomever) is the object of a preposition.  Where writing is edited to be formal, when a pronoun other than that introduces a final relative clause, the preposition usually precedes its object: “He finished the painting to which he had devoted twelve years.”  If the pronoun is that, which cannot be preceded by a preposition, or if the pronoun is omitted, then the preposition must occur at the end: “The librarian found the books that the child had scribbled in.”  Adherence to the rule does tend to render text which appears more correct grammatically even if frequently it differs from English as it is spoken: people tend to say “what did you step on?” not “on what did you step?”

Among stylists of language, other “rules” have been suggested such as avoiding unnecessary prepositions; “I stepped off the ship” is better than “I stepped off of the ship”.  Some authorities also maintain there should be a comma after prepositional phrases at the beginning of a sentence, one publication insisting one is obligatory if the phrase is longer than four words.  While that may seem arbitrary, if applied consistently, it will enhance the rhythm of the text.

Ancestor

Ancestor (pronounced an-ses-ter or an-suh-ster)

(1) A person from whom one is descended (maternal or paternal); forebear; progenitor (often used in the plural and by convention, applied usually to (1) great grand-parents or earlier or (2) those already deceased).

(2) In biology, the actual or hypothetical form or stock from which a (usually dissimilar) organism has developed or descended.

(3) An object, idea, style, or occurrence serving as a prototype, forerunner, or inspiration to a later one; in linguistics, a word or phrase which serves as the origin of a term in another language.

(4) A person who serves as an influence or model for another; one from whom mental, artistic, spiritual, etc., descent is claimed.

(5) In the law of probate, person from whom an heir derives an inheritance; one from whom an estate has descended (the correlative of heir).

(6) In figurative use, one who had the same role or function in former times (now rare except as a literary device).

1250–1300: From the Middle English ancestre, auncestre & ancessour (one from whom a person is descended).  Ancestre & auncestre were from the (early) Old French ancesre & (the later) ancestre (which endures in modern French as ancêtre), from the Latin nominative antecēssor (one who goes before (literally “fore-goer”), from the Classical Latin antecēdere (to procede), the construct being ante (before), from the primitive Indo-European root ant- (front, forehead (and influenced by the derivatives meaning "in front of, before")) + cedere (to go), from the primitive Indo-European root ked- (to go, yield).  Ancessour was from the Old French ancessor, from the Latin accusative antecessorem, from antecedo (to go before), the construct being ante (before) + cedo (to go).  Both rare outside of technical literature, the present participle is ancestoring and the past participle ancestored.  Synonyms include forebear, forefather, founder, antecedent, ascendant, foremother, forerunner, precursor, primogenitor, progenitor, antecessor & foregoer.

The now rare (and probably extinct) antecessor (a doublet of ancestor) dates from circa 1300 in the sense of "an ancestor" and a century later as the more generalized "a predecessor".  The noun ancestry (series or line of ancestors, descent from ancestors) was from the early fourteenth century auncestrie, from the Old French ancesserie (ancestry, ancestors, forefathers) from ancestre, the spelling modified in English under the influence of ancestor.  The adjective ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) dates from the 1520s, from Old French ancestrel (the spelling in Anglo-French auncestrel) (ancestral) from ancestre.  The alternative form ancestorial co-existed for decades after the 1650s but presumably can still be used for linguistic variety although it’s probably obsolete and may thus be thought an affectation.  The adverb ancestrally followed the adjective.

The familiar spelling in Modern English was in circulation by the early fifteenth century and the alternative spellings ancestour, antecessour, auncestor & auncestour (etymologists nothing even more as errors in medieval transcription rather than linguistic forks) are all long obsolete.  The noun plural is ancestors and the always rare feminine form ancestress, dating from the 1570s, is probably extinct except in historic reference.  In the biological sciences and the study of human genealogy, the derived terms include cenancestor (the last ancestor common of two or more lineages, especially the universal last common ancestor (LCA) of all life and grandcestor (not precisely defined but used to refer to more distant ancestors, especially (collectively) those for whom no identifiable records exist.  One interesting modern creation is trancestor (a forebear or forerunner to a trans person, or to modern transgender people in general).

Conventions of use

Depending on context, the word ancestor can be used (1) to refer to those who constitute one’s direct lineage (father, grandmother, great grandfather etc), (2) one’s ethnic heritage (English, German, Persian etc), or (3) the line of ancient evolutionary descent ((hominoidea, hominiade etc).  Such forbears (usually synonymous with ancestor but can be used more generally (eg political forebares), even without an (often implied) modifier) are also in some sense one’s predecessors (from the Middle English predecessour, from the Old French predecesseor (forebear), from the Late Latin praedēcessor, the construct being prae- (pre-) (before; prior to) + dēcessor (retiring officer), Latin dēcēdō (I retire, I die (source of the English decease)) but that word tends to be used where the human relationships are not familial or with objects.  One’s ancestors are thus (1) exactly known (back as many generations as records exist which, depending on the family, may be recent or stretch back centuries), (2) hypothesized (earlier generations the details of which are undocumented or of which there is no awareness), (3) a generalized expression of ethnic extraction (slavic, Polish-Scottish etc) and (4) an expression of human evolution.

Lindsay Lohan's family tree.  Genealogists traditionally use a trunk and branch metaphor because it's the best way graphically to display the procreative ways of one's ancestors.  

Ancestry is thus not something exclusively human and extends to non-human animal species, plant life and even organisms which are not alive in some senses of the word such as viruses.  So usefully understood is the concept of ancestry that that the word is used even in fields like cosmology (discussing the evolution of planets, stars etc), software (the industry’s naming conventions (1.0, 1.1, 2.0 etc) inherently ancestral), geology (noting the transformative process by which liquid magma becomes rock) and generally in fields such as philosophy, musicology, architecture, painting or any discipline where there is some discernible relationship between an idea or object and that which can be defined as a predecessor.

Nor is it unique to human ancestry that ancestors are individually identified and named to the extent possible.  In the pedigree breeding of animals (cats, dogs etc), the papers exist to trace the lineage of these beasts back further than a goodly number of the world’s population can manage, the best known example of which is are thoroughbred race horses for to qualify as one, it must be possible to trace the descent of each individual back to three Arabian stallions brought to England in the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries: Byerley Turk (1680s), Darley Arabian (1704), & Godolphin Arabian (1729).  Ancestry is also important to those other thoroughbreds, royalty and the aristocracy, for upon it depends inheritance of title, land, wealth and occasionally countries.  Vital therefore but as a guarantee of blue-blooded purity it’s long proved a challenge to maintain because of the proclivity of both species to sire bastard progeny and it could be dangerous too, wars over such matters not unknown and the odd inconvenient bastard has met an unfortunate end.

The muscle car and its ancestors

1970 Plymouth Hemi Roadrunner.

The definition of the muscle car is sometimes disputed and the term is more useful if the net is cast a little wider but the classic definition is “an American mid-sized (intermediate) two-door, four seat car produced between 1964-1972 and powered by the large engines hitherto reserved for the full-sized lines”.  That’s precise but also excludes many machines most (definitionally non-obsessive) folk include when considering the muscle car era such as the highest-performance version of the two-seat sports cars (Chevrolet Corvette, AC Shelby Cobra, AMC AMX), the full-sized machines (Ford Galaxie, Chevrolet Impala etc), the pony cars (Ford Mustang, Pontiac Firebird etc) and the compacts (Chevrolet Nova, Dodge Dart etc).

1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS454 Convertible (LS6).

Apart from what frankly was the craziness of the muscle cars, one reason the machines of the era remain so memorable is that the 1960s represented the industry's last days of relative freedom.  The regulations imposed by government on designers went from being in the 1950s a manageable nuisance (the few rules which existed sometimes just versions of industry protection) to something annoying intrusive by the late 1960s before in the 1970s becoming truly restrictive and costly.  That most of the regulations were a very good idea and in the interest of just about everybody is not the point.

1956 Chrysler 300B.

There had in the 1950s been something of a power race as manufacturers competed to offer increasingly powerful V8s although in that era, there were no intermediate, compact or pony cars, each manufacturer offering essentially a one-size-fits-all range so the biggest, most powerful engines tended to be installed in the most luxurious and expensive of their lines.  The car with the most obvious claim to ancestry is probably the 1949 Oldsmobile 88 which used the new 303 cubic inch (5.0 litre) Rocket V8 which was modest enough compared with what would follow but was certainly a step in the muscle car direction.  Similarly, the 1955 Chrysler 300 was probably the first post-war US sedan blatantly to emphasize performance and it did offer the corporation's most powerful engine but it was still in the same body as the rest of the range.  More convincing ancestors perhaps were offerings by Chevrolet and (improbably) Rambler which offered high-power options in usually inoffensive sedans but the lift was achieved not by increased capacity but the technological advance of fuel-injection.  The tradition was thus of muscular rather than muscle cars (as subsequently defined), the latter needing the smaller platforms which would appear in the early 1960s.

1964 Pontiac GTO.

The first muscle car is usually said to be the 1964 Pontiac GTO, created by offering the 389 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V8 as an option in the intermediate Tempest, the largest engine otherwise available the (now slightly downsized) 326 (5.3 litre) cubic inch unit.  The original GTO was an option package rather than a designated model, this a contrivance to work-around an edict from General Motors (GM, Pontiac’s corporate parent) which didn’t permit the big engines to be used in the intermediate platform.  Such was success of the (highly profitable) GTO that GM rapidly withdrew the prohibition and a rash of imitators immediately emerged, both from the corporation’s other divisions and those under the umbrella of the competition, Ford and Chrysler.

1962 GAZ-21 Volga (rebuilt to M-23 (KGB (V8) specifications)).

GM in the 1960s was in many ways an innovative corporation but also, as circumstances demanded, imitative: The 1962 Chevy II (later Nova) was conceptually a copy of the 1960 Ford Falcon, the 1966 Chevrolet Camaro a response to the 1964 Ford Mustang and the 1965 Chevrolet Caprice was inspired by the debut of the Ford LTD a few months earlier.  That’s accepted orthodoxy but the accepted wisdom has long been the idea of putting a big-car’s big engine into an intermediate-size platform began in 1964 with the arrival of the Pontiac GTO.  It may be however that Pontiac got the idea from America’s ideological foe, the Soviet Union, which anticipated the concept by two years because between 1962-1970, GAZ produced the intermediate sized M-23 Volga (a special-variant of the M-21) for the exclusive use of the KGB and other Soviet “special services”.  Equipped with the 5.53 litre (337 cubic inch) V8 engine from the big GAZ-13 Chaika (Gull) (1959-1981 and in the Soviet hierarchy, second only to the even bigger ZIL limousines (1936-2012)), the car was said to be a not entirely successful piece of engineering but it was certainly faster than the four-cylinder model on which it was based.  It’s never been clear just what was the top speed because the speedometer was calibrated only to 180 km/h (112 mph) but one intrepid KGB apparatchik claimed to have achieved that and reported his Volga was “still accelerating”.  Like some of the US muscle cars which were produced only in small numbers, in its eight-year run, GAZ made only 603 M-23 Volgas (rare thus compared with a US equivalent, the 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda which in that year alone numbered 670) but it perhaps more than the GTO deserves a place in history as the first muscle car.

1971 Plymouth Hemi Roadrunner.

Between 1964-1970, the muscle car movement would evolve into wilder and increasingly more powerful machinery, an evolution which unfolded in unison with similar developments on the ever lighter pony car platforms.  Things peaked in 1970 but by then the writing was not so much on the wall as on bill papers in the Congress and the revised contract schedules of insurance companies, an onrush of safety and emission-control regulation alone perhaps enough to kill the muscle car ecosystem but the enormous rise in insurance premiums was the final killer.  The combination of affordable high power in cars with dubious handling and braking in packages which appealed to males aged 17-25 had proved a lethal combination and the insurance industry reacted.  In name, the muscle cars would linger on for a couple of seasons but demand had collapsed a combination of circumstances which pre-dated the first oil shock in 1973 which would otherwise likely have been the death knell.

Ancestors of the muscle car

1936 Buick Century 66S Coupé (Fisher body style # 36457).

Although the improvement in the economy remained patchy, Buick rang in the changes for 1936, re-naming its entire line.  Notably, one newly designated offering was the Century, a revised version of the model 60, created by replacing the 233 cubic inch (3.8 litre) straight eight with the 320 cubic inch (5.2 litre) unit from the longer, heavier Roadmaster.  Putting big engines into small cars was nothing new and during the interwar years some had taken the idea to extremes, using huge aero-engines, but those tended to be one-offs for racing or speed-record attempts.  In Europe, (slightly) larger engines were sometimes substituted and British manufacturers often put six cylinder power-plants where once there had been a four but their quest was usually for smoothness and refinement rather than outright speed and the Century was really the first time a major manufacturer had used the concept in series production.  It’s regarded by many as the last common ancestor (LCA) of the muscle car.

Much muscle: 1933 Napier-Railton, fitted with a 23.9 litre (1461 cubic inch) W12, naturally aspirated aero-engine.  Between 1933-1937, it would set 47 world speed records in England, France and the United States.  Fuel consumption at speed was an impressive 4.2 mpg (imperial gallons) (67.29 litres/100 kilometers).

The Century gained its name from British slang, “doing the century” meaning to attain 100 mph (161 km/h) on a public road, then a reasonable achievement given the machinery and the roads of the day.  In production between 1936-1942, the Buick’s positioning of the Century in the market was hinted at by initially offering a range of four two door coupés & convertibles and a solitary four door sedan although subsequent demand saw further variations of the latter added in 1938.  Always the most expensive of the short wheelbase (SWB) line, the high-performance Century was as much a niche model as the later muscle cars would be and the Century never constituted more than 10% of production but demand was steady and it remained available until civilian production of cars was prematurely curtailed early in 1942.

1958 Jaguar 3.4.  VDU 881 was a Jaguar factory car on loan to Mike Hawthorn (1929–1959; FI world champion 1958) who tuned it further and used it both as a road car and for racing.  In VDU 881 he was killed in a motorway accident in treacherous conditions and although high speed was certainly a factor, the exact reason for the crash will never be known, the most common theory being the behavior of the early radial-ply tyres which, although raising the limits of adhesion beyond that of the earlier cross-plys, did tend suddenly to lose grip at the limit rather than gradually and predictably sliding towards that point.

One obvious spiritual ancestor from across the Atlantic was the Jaguar 3.4 (1957-1959), created by the same formula which would become Detroit’s muscle car template: take a big engine from a big car and put it in a small car.  The Jaguar 2.4 had been on sale since 1955, a successful incursion into the market segment BMW would later define with the 3 Series (1975-).  Jaguar had not deliberately neglected the small saloon segment since 1949 but in the early post-war years lacked the capacity to add another line, their resources fully absorbed by production of the XK120 (1948-1654) sports car and the big saloon, the Mark V (1948-1951).  It wasn’t until after the new big car, the Mark VII (1951-1956) had been released that attention (as Project Utah) could be turned to development of a smaller line and that emerged in 1955 as the 2.4, running a short-stroke, 2.5 litre (152 cubic inch) version of the XK-six, the package carefully honed to ensure a genuine 100 mph (161 km/h) was attainable.  Instantly successful, it quickly became the company’s biggest seller and within two years, responding to demand, a 3.4 litre (210 cubic inch) version was released.

Bob Jane in 1959 Jaguar Mk 2 3.8 (with 4.1 litre engine) winner of the Australian Touring Car Championship, Mallala, South Australia, 1963.

Because of the importance of the US market, much emphasis was put on the availability of an automatic transmission but the manual versions were also much fancied, rapid on the road and in racing but even at the time, there were comments that perhaps the power available exceeded the capability of the platform.  Jaguar did (at least partially) acknowledge things weren’t ideal by offering disc brakes, an option which proved popular.  Substantial revisions to the underpinnings weren’t however undertaken until the release in 1959 of the Mark 2 (the earlier 2.4 & 3.4 retrospectively dubbed Mark 1) which much improved the car’s manners.  However, although now fitted with a 3.8 litre (231 cubic inch) XK-six, the new car was heavier so there wasn’t that much of a lift in performance and, at the limit, both could be a handful, even in the hands of experts.  So, even if some don't call it a muscle car, it could behave like one.

Asunder

Asunder (pronounced uh-suhn-der)

(1) To separate into parts; in or into pieces.

(2) Things apart or widely separated:

Pre-1000: From the Old English sundrian & syndrian (to sunder, separate, divide), from sundor (separately, apart), from the Proto-Germanic sundraz & sunder (source also of the Old Norse sundr, the Old Frisian sunder, the Old High German suntar (aside, apart) and the German sondern (to separate), from the primitive Indo-European root sen- & sene- (apart, separated (source also of the Sanskrit sanutar (away, aside), the Avestan hanare (without), the Greek ater (without), the Latin sine (without), the Old Church Slavonic svene (without) and the Old Irish sain (different)).  It was cognate with the Danish sønder, the Swedish sönder, the Dutch zonder, the German sonder, the Icelandic sundur, the Faroese sundur and the Norwegian sunder & sønder (akin to the Gothic sundrō).  The adverb asunder (into a position apart, separate, into separate parts) was a mid-twelfth century contraction of the Old English on sundran, the construct being on (preposition) + sundran (separate position) and in Middle English was used in the sense of "distinguish, tell apart".  The related forms are sundered & sundering. 

Marriage and divorce

Although it appears also in Mark 10:9, the phrase “what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” is best known from Matthew 19:6 and it became part of the Christian wedding ritual, for long preceded at some point by the injunction “should anyone present know of any reason why this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace”.

The formalization of the ritual during the middle ages reflected the medieval church’s regulation of rules within which people could marry.  By the twelfth century, the “consent theory” of marriage had emerged by which a couple married by exchanging certain words, regardless of whether witnesses or a priest was present.  If they exchanged vows without witnesses, the marriage was said to be “clandestine” and while legal (a valid, binding sacrament) it was not licit (allowed), a binary distinction that would appear in the development of the law of both contract and equity. 

Thus the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) forbid clandestine marriages and began the codification of the forms and processes of formal marriage, requiring an announcement of the impending marriage to be “…read or published on three successive Sundays prior…” to the actual ceremony to ensure that impediments to be raised, thus preventing invalid marriages.  Including this in the ceremony was a final chance to object before the marriage was declared, after which it could not be torn asunder.

Torn asunder.  The 2016 Brexit (British exit from membership of the European Union (EU)) referendum was narrowly won by the "leave" campaign.  It was a very bad outcome and one intended to serve the interests of a tiny elite, the members of which stoked the hatreds, fears and prejudices of those less socially sophisticated, inducing them to vote against their own interests.  No good will come of this.