Proscenium

Proscenium (pronounced proh-see-nee-uhm or pruh-see-nee-uhm)

(1) In a modern theatre, the stage area between the curtain and the orchestra or the arch that separates a stage from the auditorium together with the area immediately in front of the arch (also called the proscenium arch).

(2) In the theatre of antiquity, the stage area immediately in front of the scene building (probably a medieval misunderstanding).

(3) In the theatre of antiquity, the row of columns at the front the scene building, at first directly behind the circular orchestra but later upon a stage.

1608: From the Latin proscēnium and proscaenium (in front of the scenery) from the Ancient Greek προσκήνιον (proskḗnion), (entrance to a tent, porch, stage) which, in late Classical Greek had come to mean “stent; boothtage curtain”.  The construct in Greek was πρό (pró-) (before) + σκηνή (skēnḗ) (scene; building) + --ion (the neuter noun suffix).  The noun plural is proscenia, the relative rarity of the base word meaning prosceniums is seen less frequently still but both are acceptable.  The standard abbreviation in the industry and among architects is pros.  For purists, the alternative spelling is proscænium and other European forms include the French proscénium and the Italian proscenio, other languages borrowing these spellings.

The occasionally cited literal translation of the Greek "the space in front of the scenery" appears to be another of the medieval-era errors created by either a mistranslation or a misunderstanding.  The modern sense of "space between the curtain and the orchestra" is attested from 1807 although it had been used figurative to suggest “foreground or front” since the 1640s.

Architectural variations

Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts.

Although the term is not always applied correctly, technically, a proscenium stage must have an architectural frame (known to architects as the “proscenium arch” although these are not always in the shape of an arch).  Their stages tend to be deep (the scale of the arch usually dictating the extent) and to aid visibility, are sometimes raked, the surface rising in a gentle slope away from the audience.  Especially in more recent constructions, the front of the stage can extend beyond the proscenium into the auditorium; this called an apron or forestage.  Theatres with proscenium stages are known as “proscenium arch theatres” and often include an orchestra pit and a fly tower with one or more catwalks to facilitate the movement of scenery and the lighting apparatus.

Thrust stage, Shakespeare Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario.

There are other architectural designs for theatres.  The thrust stage projects (ie “thrusts”) the performance into the auditorium with the audience sitting on three sides in what’s called the “U” shape.  In diagrams and conceptual sketches, the thrust stage area is often represented as a square but they’ve been built in rectangles, as semi-circles, half-polygons, multi-pointed stars and a variety of other geometric shapes.  Architects can tailor a thrust stage to suit the dimensions of the available space but the usual rationale is to create an intimacy between actors and audience.

In the round: Circle in the Square Theatre, New York City.

The term theatre-in-the-round can be misleading because the arrangement of the performance areas, while central, is rarely executed as an actual circle, the reference instead being to the audience being seated “all around”.  Built typically in a square or polygonal formation, except in some one-act performances, the actors enter through aisles or vomitories between the seating and directors have them move as necessitated by the need to relate to an audience viewing from anywhere in the 360^o sweep, the scenery minimal and positioned avoid obstructions.  Because theatre-in-the-round inherently deconstructs the inherently two-dimensional nature of the classical stage, it was long a favorite of the avant-garde (there was a time when such a thing could be said to exist).  The arena theatre is theatre-in-the-round writ large, big auditoria with a central stage and like the sports stadia they resemble, typically rectangular and often a multi-purpose venue.  There’s a fine distinction between arena theatres and hippodromes which more recall circuses with a central circular (or oval) performance space surrounded by concentric tiered seating with deep pits or low screens often separating audience and performers.

Winter Talent Show stage, Mean Girls (2004).

The black-box (or studio or ad hoc) theatre is a flexible performance space.  At its most basic it can be a single empty room, painted black, the floor of the stage the same level as the first audience row from which there’s no separation.  To maximize the flexibility, some black-box theatres have no permanent fixtures and allow for the temporary setup of seating to suit the dynamics of the piece and the spaces have even been configured with no seating for an audience, the positional choices made by patrons influencing the performance.  The platform stage is the simplest setup, often not permanent and suited to multi-purpose venues.  Flexible thus but the lack of structure does tend to preclude more elaborate productions with the stage a raised and usually rectangular platform at one end of a room; the platform may be level or raked according to the size and shape of the space.  The will audience sit in rows and such is the simplicity that platform stages are often used without curtains, the industry term being “open stage or “end stage”, the latter perhaps unfortunate but then actors are used to “break a leg” and “died on stage”.

Open Air Theatre Festival, Paris.

The phrase open air theatre refers more to the performance than the physical setting.  It means simply something performed not under a roof (although sometimes parts of the stage or audience seating will be covered).  The attraction for a director is that stages so exposed can make use of natural light as it changes with the hour sunsets and stars especially offering dramatic possibilities; rain can be a problem.  Open air theatres are also an example of site-specific theatre (of which street theatre is probably best-known), a term with quite a bit of overlap with other descriptors although it’s applied usually to theatre is performed in a non-traditional environments such as a pubs, old prisons or warehouse, often reflecting the history of the place.  Promenade theatre (sometimes called peripatetic theatre) involves either the actors or the audience moving from place to place as the performance dictates.  Interactive theatre is rarely performed (at least by intent); it involves the actors interacting with the audience and is supposed to be substantially un-scripted but, like reality television, some of what’s presented as interactive theatre has been essentially fake.

Borrowed from antiquity, the proscenium arch theatre was for centuries a part of what defined the classical tradition of Western dramatic art but in the twentieth century playwrights and directors came to argue that modern audiences were longing for more intimate experiences although there’s scant evidence this view was the product of demand rather than supply.  That said, the novelty of immersive, site-specific performances gained much popularity and modern production techniques stimulated a revival of interest in older forms like theatre-in-the-round.

There were playwrights and directors however (some at whatever age self-styled enfants terribles), who preferred austerity, decrying the proscenium arch as a theatre based on a lavish illusion for which we either no longer had the taste or needed to have it beaten out of us.  It was thought to embody petit bourgeois social and cultural behaviors which normalized not only the style and content of theatre but also the rules of how theatre was to be watched: sitting quietly while well dressed, deferentially laughing or applauding at the right moments.  A interesting observation also was that the proscenium arch created a passive experience little different from television, a critique taken up more recently by those who thought long performances, typically with no more than one intermission (now dismissed as anyway existing only to serve wine and cheese) unsuitable for audiences with short attention spans and accustomed to interactivity.

Quite how true any of that was except in the minds of those who thought social realist theatre should be compulsory re-education for all is a mystery but the binge generation seems able easily to sustain their attention for epic-length sessions of the most lavishly illusionary stuff which can fit on a screen so there’s that.  The criticisms of the proscenium arch were more a condemnation of those who were thought its devoted adherents than any indication the form was unsuitable for anything but the most traditional delivery of drama.  Neither threatening other platforms nor rendered redundant by them, the style of theatre Plato metaphorically called “the cave” will continue, as it long has, peacefully to co-exist.

Interahamwe

Interahamwe (pronounced in-ter-ah-ham-way or in-tra-ham-way)

A Hutu paramilitary organization.

1992: A constructed proper noun, described variously as (1) borrowed from a Rwanda-Rundi (a dialect of Kinyarwanda) term or (2) a creation to describe the paramilitary formation.  Literal translation is "those who work together" and is thus a euphemism, one based on the link to the Interahamwe’s preferred choice of weapons: farm tools and the machete.  The construct is intera (from the verb gutera), (to work) + hamwe (together) which is related to rimwe (one).

After the genocide

Flag of the Interahamwe.

Although most associated with the Rwandan genocide on 1994, the Interahamwe began as the innocuous youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), then the Hutu ruling party of Rwanda.  However, like other some political youth movements (the Taliban in Pakistan; the Mandela United Football Club in South Africa et al), the circumstances of the times led to mission creep.

The Rwanda genocide had its origin in the Hutu-Tutsi civil war of 1990-1992.  As violence escalated, use of the word “Interahamwe” changed from a description of the youth group into a broad term applied to almost anyone engaged in the mass-murder of Tutsis, regardless of their age of membership of the MRND.  The translation as “those who work together” became a euphemism for “those who kill together”.  Sardonic forms are not rare in both military and paramilitary jargon; the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) category for suicide-bombers prematurely blown-up by their own malfunctioning devices is “work accident”.

Although their numbers are now much reduced, the Interahamwe retain the ambition to destabilize Rwanda and still operate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the place to which they fled in late 1994.  From there and neighboring countries, along with other splinter groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), they conduct an insurgency against Rwanda although recent operations suggest they're as much concerned with the various criminal activities undertaken to ensure their survival as any political agenda.

Paste

Paste (pronounced peyst)

(1) A mixture of flour and water, often with starch or the like, used as a glue to cause paper or other material to adhere to something.

(2) Any soft, smooth material or preparation which has characteristics of plasticity.

(3) In cooking and baking, a transitional state of some doughs, especially when prepared with shortening, as used for making pie crust and other types of pastry.

(4) Any of various semisoft fruit confections of pliable consistency (almond paste; guava paste etc).

(5) In manufactured food, a preparation of fish, tomatoes, or other food reduced to a smooth, soft mass, as for a relish or for seasoning (eg fish-paste).

(6) In pasta making, a transitional phase during preparation.

(7) A mixture of clay, water etc, for making pottery or porcelain.

(8) In jewelry manufacture, a brilliant, heavy hard lead (glass), (as strass), used for making artificial gems; an artificial gem of this material.

(9) In slang, a hard smack, blow, or punch, especially on the face; used figuratively (usually as “a pasting”) to describe a decisive defeat by a large margin in political, commercial or sporting contexts.

(10) In narcotics production, a by-product of the cocaine refinement process, later sold as a product and the basis for other forms.

(11) To fasten or stick with paste or the like.

(12) To cover with something applied by means of paste.

(13) In computers, to insert something cut or copied (text, images, links etc) into a file.

(14) In physics, a substance which behaves as a solid until a sufficiently large load or stress is applied, at which point it assumes the characteristics of a fluid.

(15) In mineralogy, the mineral substance in which other minerals are embedded.

(16) An alternative name for both pasta and pastry (both long obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English paste (dough for the making of bread or pastry), from the Middle French paste (dough, pastry (and source of the French pâte)), from the Late Latin pasta (dough, pastry cake, paste), from the Ancient Greek πάστα pastē, pásta & pastá (barley porridge), a noun use of the neuter plural of pastós, verbid of pássein (to strew, to sprinkle).  The sense of a "glue mixture, a dough used as a plaster seal" dates from circa 1400, the meaning extended by circa 1600 to "a composition just moist enough to be soft without liquefying".  The use to refer to the heavy glass (made from ground quartz etc) and used most often costume jewelry (imitation gem stones) began in the 1600s.  A pasta was originally a kind of gruel sprinkled with salt, gaining the name probably by association with baste.  Paste is a doublet of pasta and patty.  Paste had actually been in use as a surname since the mid-twelfth century.  The present participle pasting and the past participle pasted & pasted.  In the context of adhesive agents, the synonyms include cement, fix, gum, plaster, stickum & glue.

The verb paste (to stick with paste or cement) dates from the 1560s and was derived from the noun, the meaning "apply paste to, cover by pasting over" emerging circa 1600.  The slang sense "hit hard" was first noted in 1846, probably an alteration of baste (in the sense of "beat" and thus related in meaning to lambaste) influenced by some sense of paste.  The form in the Middle English was pasten (to make a paste of; bake in a pastry).  The noun “paste-up” was first used in 1930 in the printing trades to refer to "a plan of a page with the position of text, illustrations etc indicated", a direct formalization of the oral phrase, the adoption of the “pasteboard” on which the positions were marked, a simultaneous development (since the 1540s, pasteboard had been a type of thick paper, gaining the name from the original method of construction being several single sheets pasted together).  The term pastiness (resembling paste in consistence or color) dates from the 1650s and was typically applied to someone looking slightly grey (a la the flour & water mix of paste) and thus ill, rather than someone with a pale complexion.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Paste Magazine is a monthly music and entertainment digital publication, the evolution of which is emblematic of the effect the internet has exerted on the industry.  Taking advantage of the low-cost entry to global distribution offered by the conjunction of weightless production and the roll-out of broadband, Paste began in 1998 as a website which, as revenue grew, was able, between 2002-2010, to expand to include glossy print editions.  However, the decline in subscriptions and the always low newsstand sales forced it, like many, to revert to an exclusively on-line presence.  Focused on its target demographic, the content is what some analysts describe as: “middlebrow pop-culture, beyond a fanzine, short of academic analysis.”

The pastry in the sense of “food made with or from paste or having it as a principal ingredient” was first described as such in the mid-fifteenth century although as a dish, it’s an ancient recipe.  It wasn’t originally limited to sweet & fruit-filled creations and the adoption by the Middle English paste is thought to have been influenced by the Old French pastoierie (pastry (source of the Modern French pâtisserie)), from pastoier (pastry cook) or else the Medieval Latin pasteria (pastry).  There had been pastry cooks and chefs since the 1650s but the now-familiar specific sense of "small confection made of pastry" didn’t become standardized until the years immediately before the First World War (1914-1918).  Toothpaste (also as tooth-paste) was first sold in 1832.  Earlier there had been tooth-powder (from the 1540s) and tooth-soap (circa 1600), both of which followed the tradition method used for centuries to make a paste for cleaning which was to mix powdered charcoal (or soot) with salt and water until the desired consistency was achieved.

The adjectival sense “cut-and-paste” (made or composed by piecing together existing parts) actually pre-dates computers, noted first in 1938 to refer to edited photographs (also known as ”trick photography”).  The phrase was borrowed in the mid-late 1950s to describe either outright plagiarism or work created variously in haste, carelessly, or without any sense of originally or inspiration and was applied especially to journalism.  The companion term “copy and paste” in the 1970s joined “cut and paste” as technology evolved; in the 1980s, the two processes were integrated into computer operating systems, the two steps usually mediated by the user.  To illustrate the practice, this blog makes great use of "copy and paste", reveals little which is original and seems not at all inspired.  

Rubber pasties on dagmars: 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham.

Pasties were adhesive patches women wore over the nipples, the purpose either (1) to permit exotic dancers to perform while still conforming with local ordinances or (2) as a modesty device to prevent unwanted protrusions through clothing; the devices had been long available but were first recorded as being sold using the plural diminutive from the verb in 1957 and a rubber analogue was sometimes used on the dagmars which had been added to US automobiles since the 1940s.  Often supposed to have been inspired by the propeller hubs of twin-engined fighter aircraft, the designers were actually invoking the motif of a speeding artillery shell and it was only later they came to be associated with anything anatomical.  By the mid-1950s they'd developed to become increasingly large and prominent, the dagmar’s rubber pastie protecting both the device and whatever (or whomever) it might hit.

Packed as a tablet and approved by the US FDA (Federal Drug Administration) in April 2019, Gelesis’s (a biotech company) Plenity is an oral, non-systemic, superabsorbent hydrogel developed for the treatment of overweight and obesity.  It's listed by the FDA as a medical device rather than a medicine because it achieves its primary intended purpose through mechanical modes of action.  The content of the tablets is made with citric acid and cellulose to create a non-toxic paste.

Gelesis released Plenity into a buoyant market for tech stocks, underwritten by a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation).  Results however, dependent essentially on commission-based sales staff marketing the paste pills directly to family doctors (GPs), proved disappointing and in early 2022 the company announced layoffs.  In common with many tech stocks, valuations of the so-called "SPAC merger deals", sharply have plummeted.

Good things can be wrapped or covered in pastry.  Lindsay Lohan’s chicken pot pie with leeks and veal meatballs appears in Jamie’s Friday Night Feast Cookbook (Penguin Books, 2018).  It serves 8.

Ingredients

2 onions
2 carrots
2 small potatoes
2 medium leeks
Olive oil
300g free-range chicken thighs, skin off, bone out
300g skinless boneless free-range chicken breast
4 rashers of higher-welfare smoked streaky bacon
1 knob of unsalted butter
50g plain flour
700ml organic chicken stock
2 tablespoons English mustard
1 heaped tablespoon creme fraiche
A ½ bunch (15g) of fresh woody herbs
White pepper
3 sprigs of fresh sage
300g minced higher-welfare veal (20% fat)
1 large free-range egg
300g plain flour, plus extra for dusting (for pastry)
100g shredded suet (for pastry)
100g unsalted butter (cold) (for pastry)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).  Peel and roughly chop the onions and carrots, then peel the potatoes and chop into 2cm (¾ inch) chunks.  Trim, halve and wash the leeks, then finely slice.

Place a large pan on a medium heat with one tablespoon of oil.  Chop chicken into 3cm (1¼ inch) chunks, roughly chop bacon and add both to the pan.  Cook for a few minutes, or until lightly golden. A dd the onions, carrots, potatoes and leeks, then cook for a further 15 minutes or until softened.  Add the butter, then stir in the flour to coat.

Gradually pour in the stock, then add the mustard and creme fraiche.  Tie the woody herb sprigs together with string to make a bouquet garni and add to the pan. Cook for 10 more minutes, stirring regularly, then season with white pepper.

Meanwhile, for the pastry, put the flour and a good pinch of sea salt into a bowl with the suet; cube and add the butter. Using the thumb and forefingers, rub the fat into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Slowly stir in 100ml of ice-cold water, then use the hands to bring it together into a ball without over-working.  Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes, during which, make the meatballs.

Pick and finely chop the sage, season with salt and pepper, then with the hands scrunch and mix with the veal.  Roll into 3cm (1¼ inch) balls, gently place in a large pan on a medium heat with half a tablespoon of oil and cook for 10 minutes or until golden all over, jiggling occasionally for even cooking.

Transfer the pie filling to a large (250 x 300mm (10-12 inch)) oval dish, discarding the bouquet garni.  Leave to cool, then dot the meatballs on top.

Roll out pastry on a clean, flour-dusted surface until it's slightly bigger than pie dish. Eggwash edges of dish, then place the pastry on top of the pie, trimming off any overhang, pinching the edges to seal and make a small incision in the centre. Use any spare pastry to decorate the pie if preferred.  Eggwash the top, bake for 50 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the pie is piping hot.  Leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Solidifying coca paste.

As late as the mid-1970s, in the United States, the medical establishment and scientists working the field entertained few concerns about cocaine, essentially because (1) thousands of years of use in South & Central America suggested the base ingredient was not harmful, (2) there were any number of narcotics flooding the US market which were of greater concern, (3) cocaine was anyway so expensive that it was used only by a tiny number of people and (4) alcohol and tobacco use produced outcomes in society a thousand time worse (doctors emphasizing the last two points by pointing out that while clinicians would regularly see cirrhosis of the liver, most would spend their entire careers never seeing a case induced by vintage champagne).

Indeed, in the late 1970s, the only people concerned about cocaine use in the US seemed to be politicians who equated the drug’s widespread depiction in film and television as a glamorized thing associated with wealth, power and decadence, with an actual popularity of consumption.  Hence the origins of the moral panic around cocaine, something perhaps inevitable after the white power was “rediscovered” earlier in the decade after being barely noticed by law enforcement agencies since the 1940s.  Many US scientists even advocated legalization.  What changed both the concerns and the consequences in the US was paste.  Known in Peru and Bolivia as pasta basica de cocaina (or more commonly) basé or basuco, paste was a glutinous substance that oozed from the solvent-soaked coco leaves during the manufacture of the white powder ultimately sold in North America, Europe and other first-world markets.  Once discarded as a unwanted by-product, those with access to the paste had begun drying it to crumble in cigarettes.  Smoked, it was absorbed almost instantly through the air sacs of the lungs (which have the surface area the size of a tennis court) a vastly more efficient mechanism compared with the nasal membranes which are the passage for the traditional "snorting" of cocaine.  Reaching the brain within twenty seconds, the difference was extraordinary, users reporting a hit which offered an intensity of pleasure like no other.  Unfortunately, there was a price to pay, the rush lasting only minutes, replaced as it dissipated by a craving as intense as the initial experience had been, addiction instantaneous.

Paste however wasn’t suitable for distribution in rich markets because it truly was an industrial waste product with side-effects, containing residues of not only the toxic solvents used in the process such as kerosene and battery acid but stuff as diverse as lead and cement dust.  What was needed was a marketable, mass-produced form of paste because it had which had the two characteristics which cocaine lacked, an intense high and an irresistible addictiveness (like LSD, cocaine really isn’t addictive).  The solution emerged in the US in the early 1970s in a relatively straight-forward process which removed the hydrochloride salt from the refined powder, thereby freeing the cocaine base which could be heated and inhaled, hence the slang “freebasing”.  Chemically however, that was inefficient and made no economic sense so freebasing remained restricted to dealers, chemists (amateur & professional) or those with a lot of disposable income so inclined.

Rare though the economics of the early process made use, the consequences were noted and it was clear to researchers that if ever it became possible to produce an inhalable paste at scale and a lower price, there would be an epidemic of use.  A combination of circumstances, including the change by the Carter administration (1977-1981) of long-practiced US policies towards the helpful (if distasteful) administrations in Central America and the subsequent actions of the Reagan administration (1981-1989) in the region, meant that’s exactly what happened.  By the early 1980s, increases in volumes and improvements in distribution had seem the street price of cocaine in the US collapse, inducing producers to create a variation of paste, “crack” cocaine (named because of the sound it made while being consumed) which could be sold in tiny, conveniently packaged quantities to a vastly expanded market which, given the extraordinarily addictive properties, created its own inertia.  As a business model, it was good; cheap, transportable and enjoying a long shelf life, crack was highly profitable and the scourge of many US cities for more than a decade after the early 1980s.  Crack transformed the demographics of cocaine consumption in the US; what had been the preserve of an upper-middle class elite shifted to be the choice of the lowest-income communities and the effects were profound, including a reaction to the disparity in sentencing between the few cocaine users actually prosecuted and those imposed on huge numbers of crack users.

Still controversial are the allegations the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved with the distribution of crack in US cities as a by-product of the need to generate the funds needed to help effect regime change in Nicaragua, the money needed after the Congress shut off US assistance to the Contras, the rebel movement opposing the Sandinista government (which begat also the Iran-Contragate scandal).  An internal CIA investigation found that while there had been some involvement in trafficking narcotics to fund the Contras, there was nothing to link the agency with distribution in US cities.  Journalist Gary Webb's (1955-2004) 1998 book about the allegations (Dark Alliance) is an engaging but difficult read (a companion dramatis personae would help).  It covers so much that unless one is an expert in the history of the trade, it's hard to draw conclusions.  Relying on the reviews, one is inclined to be skeptical about many of the linkages he made.

Furlong

Furlong (pronounced fur-lawng or fur-long)

A unit of distance, equal to 220 yards (201.168 m) or ⅛ mile (0.2 km).

Pre 900: From the Middle English from the Old English furlang or furh (length of a furrow), the construct being was furh (furrow) + lang (long).  The Middle English was forwe or furgh, the Old Frisian furch, the Old High German fur(u)h and the later German frche.  In Latin porca was the ridge between furrows.  For over a thousand years, accepted abbreviation has been fur.

Now used exclusively (though usually informally) in horse racing, the furlong had the same ad-hoc origin as much of the old English units of weights and measures (codified in 1925 as the Imperial System which replaced the Winchester Standards (1588-1825) and in official use in the British Empire from 1926).  The furlong (220 yards, 201.168 m) was based on the length of an average plowed furrow (hence “furrow-long,” or furlong) in the old English common-field (sometimes called open and typically of 10 acres) system. Each furrow ran the length of a 40 × 4-rod acre (660 feet).  

The standardization of linear units such as the yard, foot, and inch was undertaken by governments between 1266-1303, taking what were the historically acknowledged sizes of rods, furlongs, and acres as fixed and simply defining them as the newly standardized units. Thus, the furlong, often measured as 625 northern (German) feet, became 660 standard English feet, and the mile, always 8 furlongs, became 5,280 feet.  The medieval origins of what became the Imperial System of weights and measures was based often on the capacity of man and  beast, reflecting the priorities of the time, a furlong the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting and an acre the amount of land tillable by one man behind one ox in one day.

Grand National Course, Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool

Furlong was used from the ninth century to translate the Latin stadium (625 feet), one-eighth of a Roman mile, thus the English word came to be understood as "one-eighth of an English mile".  This meant the English mile was different in length from the Roman one but this had surprisingly few practical consequences because the mile was so rarely used in legal documents.  By comparison, furlong became one of the standard measures in property titles and land deed records.  For that reason it was the mile and not the furlong which was redefined during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England and Ireland 1558-1603).

Although the UK has substantially abandoned the use of imperial measures, they remain substantially in use in the US, Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia although industrial use in the US has long switched to metric.  Having "got Brexit done", Prime-Minister Boris Johnson (b 1964, UK prime-minister since 2019), freed from the oppression of bureaucrats in Brussels, recently permitted nostalgic grocers again to price their products in pounds and ounces alongside kilograms and grams, a human right long denied by EU diktat.  Other hold-outs include international aviation which is a mix, aircraft now all made with metric measurements (although in casual use, wingspans etc are often spoken of in imperial) yet fuel loads are measured exclusively in kilograms and altitude always in feet (and all radio communication is English, reflecting the influence of the US in the 1940s when the regulations were drafted).  That may also explain why computer monitors are still measured in inches are are the wheels of cars (despite the occasional efforts of the French to nudge this niche to things metric).

Bride

Bride (pronounced brahyd)

(1) A woman on her wedding day, both before and after the ceremony of marriage.

(2) In needlework, a connection consisting of a thread or a number of threads for joining various solid parts of a design in needlepoint lace (also called a bar, leg or tie).

(3) An ornamental string used to tie a bonnet.

(4) Figuratively, an object ardently loved (obsolete).

(5) In theology, an expression to describe a woman who has devoted her life to some calling (eg “a bride of Christ”) which precludes marriage.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English bride, from the Old English brȳd (bride, betrothed or newly married woman), from the Proto-Germanic brūdiz (bride; woman being married).  It was cognate with the Old High German brūt, the Old Norse brūthr, the Gothic brūths (daughter-in-law), the Saterland Frisian breid & bräid (bride), the West Frisian breid (bride), the German & Low German Bruut (bride), the Dutch bruid (bride), the German Braut (bride), the Danish brud (bride), the Swedish brud (bride).  The use to describe the bonnet tie dates from 1865-1870, from the French bride (bonnet-string (literally “bridle”)), from the Middle French bride, from the Old French bride (rein, bridle), from the Middle High German brīdel (rein, bridle), from the Old High German brīdil (rein, bridle) and related to the Old High German brittil (rein, strap) and the French bretelle (from the Proto-Germanic brigdilaz (bridle)), the Spanish brida and the Italian briglia.  Restricted almost exclusively to needlework, the present participle is briding and the past participle brided; the noun plural is brides.  The spellings brid, bryd, bryde & brude persisted in English but are all long obsolete.

Lindsay Lohan in costume as a bride for an episode of the TV series Two Broke Girls, 2014.  It was in June 2022 confirmed that Lindsay Lohan had married Bader Shammas (b 1987), a vice-president with Credit Suisse, the couple based in Dubai.  Describing herself as the "...luckiest woman in the world", she added she was "...stunned that this is my husband. My life and my everything.  Every woman should feel like this every day".  Although the details haven't be finalized, it seems that to mark the event, there will be a ceremony in the United States.

The Gothic cognate bruþs meant "daughter-in-law" and the form of the word borrowed from the Old High German into Medieval Latin (bruta) and Old French (bruy) had only this sense.  In ancient Indo-European custom, a married woman would live with husband's family so the only "newly wedded” female in such a household would have been the daughter-in-law.  In a similar structralist analysis, some etymologists linked the word to the primitive Indo-European verbal root bhreu-, from which are derived words for cooking and brewing, the basis for this the (not wholly unfounded) speculation that such would be the household tasks of the daughter-in-law job.  In what may be a similar vein was the Old Frisian fletieve (bride (but literally "house-gift”)) but it may have been used in the sense of welcoming a new family member rather noting the addition of an economic unit.

In praise of older men

Wedding day of actors Johnny Depp (b 1963) and Amber Heard (b 1986), Bahamas, 2015.  Ms Heard filed for divorce in May 2016.

The noun bridesmaid (young girl or unmarried woman who attends on a bride at her wedding) began in the 1550s as the construct bridemaid (bride + maid). The interpolated “s” is thought un-etymological but emerged in the late eighteenth century and in succeeding decades became the standard form, the “s” presumably indicating a possessive although it may have evolved simply because that’s how the word had come to be pronounced; bridemaid & bridemaids less kind to the tongue.  A bridesman was in the early nineteenth century a "male attendant on a bridegroom at his wedding" although the modern practice is for a groom to be attended by a best man and several groomsmen, matching the bride’s entourage of a maid or matron of honor (the difference being a maid of honor is unmarried while a matron of honor (even if for whatever reason legally single) has already had a wedding of her own (and matron of honor supplanted the earlier bridematron)) and bridesmaids.  Done properly, the numbers should align; the maid of honor and best man acting as chiefs of staff; the groomsmen and bridesmaids paired-off for ceremonial purposes.

Wedding day of Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) and Jerry Hall (1956), London, 2016.  It was recently announced the couple are to divorce.

Brideman & bridegroom (man newly married or about to be) date from the early seventeenth century although the short form groom later prevailed.  The noun bridegroom was from the Old English brydguma (suitor), the construct being from bryd (bride) + guma (man (though also used to mean “boy”)), from the Proto-Germanic gumon- (source also of the Old Norse gumi and the Old High German gomo), literally "an earthling, an earthly being" (as opposed to “of the gods”), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root dhghem- (earth).  In the sixteenth century, the ending was altered by folk etymology, the noun groom (boy, lad) preferred, a hint at the youthfulness which then characterized marriage.  Bridegroom was also a common compound in Germanic languages including the Old Saxon brudigumo, the Old Norse bruðgumi, the Old High German brutigomo and the German Bräutigam.  However, in Gothic, it was bruþsfaþs, literally "bride's lord", the possessive sense of which presumably worked either way depending on the dynamics of the marriage.

The phrase “give away the bride”, whereby the father of the bride “gives away” his daughter to the groom persists and seems, surprisingly, to have escaped serious feminist criticism; perhaps they really are romantics at heart.  The meaning was once literal in that at common law, the bride and all her worldly goods (save for her paraphernalia) passed upon marriage to her husband as real property or mere chattels, the legal significance of “give away” being that the father’s ownership of daughter and goods was at that point unconditionally sundered.  Legislative reform has done away with all that but the ceremonial tradition endures, as does the phrase “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” a lament for one for whom spinsterhood seems a fate.  Other constructions include "war bride" (which can mean either a woman who marries someone going away to war or one who marries (in a variety of circumstances) during a conflict and “bride of the sea” “bride of the fields” etc, on the model of “bride of Christ” and suggesting an exclusive attachment to something or (more commonly) the idea of sharing the attention of a husband with their vocation (seafaring, farming etc).

Wedding day of Boris Johnson (b 1964) and Carrie Symonds (b 1988), London 2021.  Although it was his third marriage, Mr Johnson was married by the Roman Catholic Church, the ceremony conducted at no less than Westminster Cathedral.  Although a  baptized Catholic, the history meant a few eyebrows were raised but under canon law, it was an uncontroversial matter, both previous marriages invalid by reason of lack of canonical form.  The wedding was private but a ceremony of some description has been planned for Chequers in September 2022, the country house of the prime-minister in Buckinghamshire, the invitations said to have been posted before the events of early July which compelled Mr Johnson to announce he'd be leaving office "when the party has elected a successor".  Chequers in early autumn sounds a charming place for a party so it's hoped the Tories don't too quickly find their next leader.  

A “bride price” was money or other valuables paid in some cultures by a bridegroom or on his behalf) to the family of the bride.  Technically, it was the same idea the dowry (from the Middle English dowarye & dowerie, from the Anglo-Norman dowarie & douarie, from the Old French douaire, from the Medieval Latin dōtārium, from the Classical Latin dōs (from the Proto-Italic dōtis, from the primitive Indo-European déh₃tis, from deh₃- (give) and a doublet of dosis.  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek δόσις (dósis) & the Sanskrit दिति (díti)) and was paid to the family of the groom although dowry became a generalized term for the transaction irrespective of the direction.  In some cultures the dowry remains an important component of the structure of society although the practice is not free from controversy.

Remembering the laughter: Bill Clinton (b 1946) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947) at the wedding of Donald Trump (b 1946) and Melanija Knavs (b 1970), Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, 2005.

The adjective bridal (belonging to a bride or a wedding) appeared circa 1200, derived from the noun bridal (wedding feast), from the Old English brydealo (marriage feast), from bryd ealu, (literally "bride ale"), the evolution an example of an imperfect echoic, the second element later (especially after circa 1600) confused with the adjectival suffix –al.  Similar forms were the mid thirteenth century Middle English scythe-ale (drinking celebration for mowers, as compensation for a particular job) and constructions in a similar vein in Scotland.  The first bridal-suite was advertised in 1857, offered as part of a package deal when hiring a venue for a wedding reception.

Cutting the cake: Silvio Berlusconi (b 1936) and Marta Fascina (b 1990) at their "symbolic" wedding ceremony, Lesmo, Italy, March 1922.

Wedding planners estimated Mr Berlusconi's "symbolic" wedding would have cost some €400,000 (US$415,000) the bride's lace gown by Antonio Riva said to have absorbed some 5% of the budget.  Although it certainly looked like a wedding, it actually had no status before Church or state, apparently because of what was described as "an inheritance row between the families" a reference to objections said to have been raised by the groom's five adult children, concerned by the possibility Ms Fascina might gain a right of claim against the 85-year-old's reputed billions of Euros.  The reception was held over lunch at the Da Vittorio restaurant, the menu including veal mondeghili with lemon, ricotta gnocchi and potatoes with saffron and paccheri 'alla Vittorio' as well as sliced ​​beef in red wine with dark potato and cinnamon flavored carrot cream, the entertainment provided by Mr Berlusconi himself who reprised his early career as a cruise ship singer, accompanied by a friend on piano.

Although not verified, reports in the Italian press suggested the "bride" was "offended and very angry about not having a proper wedding", having already had his initials tattooed somewhere (undisclosed).  Mr Berlusconi seemed however delighted with what had been styled a "festival of love" rather than a wedding, telling Ms Fascina she was "a gift from the heavens" and that "You complete me, I couldn't live without you, you fill my life".

Cacophony

Cacophony (pronounced kuh-kof-uh-nee)

(1) A harsh discordance of sound; dissonance.

(2) The use of inharmonious or dissonant speech sounds in language.

(3) In music, the frequent use of discords of a harshness and relationship difficult to understand.

1650-1660: From the sixteenth century French cacophonie (harsh or unpleasant sound) from the New Latin cacophonia, from the Ancient Greek κακοφωνία (kakophōnía) (ill or harsh sounding), from kakophonos (harsh sounding), the construct being being κακός (kakós) (bad, evil) + φωνή (phōnḗ) (voice, sound) from the primitive Indo-European root bha (to speak, tell, say).  The source of kakós was the primitive Indo-European root kakka (to defecate), something which may have been in mind in that notable year 1789, when first cacophony was used to mean "discordant sounds in music".  Cacophony is a noun, cacophonic & cacophonous are adjectives, cacophonously an adverb and the noun plural is cacophonies.  The most natural antonym is harmony although musicologists tend to prefer the more precise euphony.

Noise as music

There were twentieth century composers, all of whom thought themselves both experimental and somewhere in the classical tradition, who wrote stuff which to most audiences sounded more cacophonous than melodic.  Some, like Béla Bartók (1881–1945) and Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951) had a varied output but for untrained listeners seeking music for pleasure rather than originality or the shock of something new, the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007), Charles Ives (1874–1954) and Philip Glass (b 1937) was no fun.  Some critics however, trained or otherwise, claim to enjoy many of these cul-de-sacs of the avant-garde and find genius among the noise.  Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) would have called them formalists.

In popular (sic) culture, Lou Reed (1942–2013) in 1975 released Metal Machine Music, either (1) to fulfil a contractual obligation to a record label with which he no longer wished to be associated, (2) to annoy critics and others he didn’t like, (3) as a piece of electronic music, (4) to win a bet with Andy Warhol (1928-1987) or (5) because he was suffering an amphetamine induced psychosis.  Known as MMM or 3M by fans and categorized by most as noise, drone, industrial or minimal, it’s about two hours of modulated feedback running at different speeds.  Despite the derision attracted at the time, it’s since built a cult following and has been performed live, one approving reviewer suggesting MMM is best understood as “…electricity falling in love with itself”.  The original release was a double album on twelve-inch vinyl and featured a “locked grove” on the final track meaning the noise endlessly would loop, theoretically forever.  This trick couldn’t be done on the new medium of the CD but there were no complaints the omission detracted from the experience.