Stubborn

Stubborn (pronounced stuhb-ern)

(1) Unreasonably obstinate; obstinately unmoving.

(2) Fixed or set in purpose or opinion; resolute; obstinately maintaining a course of action regardless of circumstances.

(3) Something difficult to manage or suppress.

(4) An object which is hard, tough, or stiff (stone, timber etc) or wood and thus difficult to shape or work; an object such (as a tightly fastened bolt) which is difficult to move; any problems which prove resistant to attempts to secure a solution.

(5) In the slang of the citrus industry, as stubbornness, a disease of citrus trees characterized by stunted growth and misshapen fruit, caused by Spiroplasma citri.

1350–1400: From the Middle English stiborn, stiborne, styborne, stuborn & stoborne, of obscure origin; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noting the earliest known form as stiborn.  Stubborn is an adjective, stubbornly an adverb and stubbornness a noun.

Stubborn is one of a remarkably large number of words in English with an unknown origin and is thus self referential, itself unreasonably obstinate in an unwillingness to disclose its source.  Deconstruction (stub + born) is no help because the spelling seems to have evolved merely to respect the pronunciation (something which in English can’t always be relied upon) and however tempting might seem a link with “stub” (a short, projecting part or remaining piece) (from the Middle English stubbe (tree stump), from the Old English stybb, stobb & stubb (tree stump), from the Proto-West Germanic stubb, from the Proto-Germanic stunjaz& stubbaz and related to the Middle Dutch stubbe, the Old Norse stubbr and the Faroese stubbi (stub), from the primitive Indo-European steu (to push, stick, knock, beat) & stew- (sharp slope)), a thing often immovable and unyielding, there’s simply no evidence.

More correctly, there’s simply no verified evidence.  As modern English coalesced during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, lexicography became more industry than art and there was great interest (and competition) in the production of dictionaries, some of which included etymological detail in their entries.  At this time, it was thought the origin of stubborn was known, the accepted method of the time being to look for similar constructions in Hebrew, Latin and Greek on the basis it was supposedly from these ancient tongues that the words of modern languages were derived.  That supposition wasn’t entirely accurate but was true enough for many of the words in English at the time fully to be understood.  Because the Greek adjective στι-βαρóς (obstinate, stubborn) enjoyed such a similarity of sound with stubborn, that was thought conclusive, hence the entries in early dictionaries.  However, later scholarship proved the two words unrelated and no research has ever offered a plausible alternative.

According to the manufacturers of detergents, the most recalcitrant stains are "stubborn stains".

That stubbornness is a frequently encountered part of the human condition is perhaps indicated by the numbers of words and phrases (most famously “stubborn as a mule”) in English associated with the idea including adamant, determined, dogged, headstrong, inflexible, intractable, ornery, persistent, perverse, relentless, rigid, single-minded, steadfast, tenacious, tough, unshakable, willful, balky, bloody-minded, bullheaded, contrary, refractory, unyielding, obdurate, wayward, obstinate, disobedient, insubordinate, undisciplined & rebellious.

In the interview which accompanied her 2011 Playboy photo-shoot (and Playboy once commissioned research to prove people really did read the text), Lindsay Lohan admitted she “…should have listened to her advisers” and had she done so she would likely have avoided the “problems” so well documented by the tabloid press.  “My stubbornness at 18 and 19-years old got in the way” she added, acknowledging that “…ultimately we are responsible for ourselves and our own actions.”  She returned to the theme in a Vogue interview in 2022 discussing her roles in The Parent Trap (1998) revealing one consequence of her stubbornness complicated things for the production crew.  Her (clearly non-negotiable) demand was that she had to wear a certain nail polish while playing the part of one of the identical twins and that was “Hard Candy” in blue.  Ms Lohan said at the time it was “a big deal” and when it comes to fashion, pre-teen girls are an opinionated and uncompromising lot.  It was of course not a good idea because, with the one actor playing both twins, the distinctive enamel had to be removed with each switch of character.  “It was a nightmare for everyone” she admitted.

In use, stubborn, dogged, obstinate & persistent imply some fixity of purpose or condition and resistance to change, regardless of changing circumstances or compelling evidence.  There are however nuances, stubborn and obstinate both imply resistance to advice or force but stubborn is more suggestive of an innate quality and is used almost exclusively when referring to inanimate things; by convention, to be obstinate seems to demand there be some process of thought or at least character (mules presumably difficult in nature rather than in any way thoughtful).  One who is dogged might be both obstinate and stubborn but dogged can also imply tenacity, a pertinacity and grimness of purpose in doing something, especially in the face of difficulties which seem insurmountable and one who persists in seeking to solve an apparently insoluble problem can be lauded for their, dogged, stubborn determination.  Persistent implies having a resoluteness of purpose, one who perseveres despite setbacks and discouragement.  Some insist stubborn describes an extreme degree of passive obstinacy and while that tends to be true when the word is used of objects, among the sentient, stubbornness can manifest as anything but passive.

In the Bible there are passages which suggest stubbornness in the doing of God's work is a virtue but the trait was sometimes clearly a sin.  In the Book of Deuteronomy (21:18-21 as part of the Deuteronomic Code), the penalty of death by stoning is specified as a punishment for a stubborn and delinquent son.  The text is an interesting example of the usefulness of the Bible as a historic document, the inclusion in the Deuteronomic Code an attempt to reform the breakdown in family life characteristic of an era in which the absolute power parents had once exercised over their children had dissipated, hence the notion that the authority of a village's elders must be both invoked and exercised.  As a solution (though perhaps without the executions), it sounds like many modern suggestions to solve the problem of youth crime and juvenile delinquency.  

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (King James Version (KJV 1611))

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

The 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 (it's an myth spread by Gore Vidal (1925–2012) that the Kennedys drove only Buicks) driven by Senator Ted Kennedy (1932-2009) in which Mary Jo Kopechne (1940-1969) died.  The accident happened at close to midnight, the pair having left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the east coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Kennedy survived, having left the scene of the crash in circumstances never satisfactorily explained.  The car in which he left the young lady to die belonged to his mother.  By the the time of the accident, Oldsmobile had ceased to use the Delmont name which was offered only in the 1967 & 1968 model years. 

As recent events and judicial decisions illustrate, in the United States there is a tension created by the dynamics which existed from the first days of white settlement, the competing lust to live free from oppression versus the undercurrent of a muscular, puritanical religiosity.  The Old Testament force of the latter in November 1646 prevailed upon the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, inspiring a law providing, inter alia, for the capital punishment of male children found disobedient to their parents.  Although the death penalty was later removed (though punishment for recalcitrant daughters was added in an early example of gender equality), the law was not repealed until 1973 although, as the troubled life of Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy might suggest, enforcement had by then long fallen into disuse.  Similar laws were enacted in Connecticut in 1650, Rhode Island in 1688, and New Hampshire in 1679.

The Massachusetts statute: "If a man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient years and understanding sixteen years of age, which will not obey the voice of his Father, or the voice of his Mother, and that when they have chastened him will not harken unto them: then shall his Father and Mother being his natural parents, lay hold on him, and bring him to the Magistrates assembled in Court and testify unto them, that their son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death."

King Manuel II (standing, third from left) in May 1910, European royalty gathered in London for the funeral of Edward VII and among the mourners were nine reigning sovereigns, the image colorized from a sepia-toned original.  Dom Manuel II ("The Unfortunate" 1889–1932) reigned as the last King of Portugal and the Algarve 1908-1910, his brief tenure occasioned by the Lisbon regicide of 1908 in which his father and elder brother were murdered.

Counter-intuitively, considering the blood-soaked histories of Europe’s squabbling dynasties, of all the hundreds of cognomina (names appended before or after the person's name which are applied to identify their nature) attached to kings and princes, it seems only to have been Louis X of France (1289–1316; King of France 1314-1316 & King of Navarre (as Louis I) 1305-1316) who was informally styled "The Stubborn" (Louis le Hutin), although, just to stress the point, he was known also as "Louis the Quarrelsome" & "Louis the Headstrong".  Because in royalty names are so often recycled (John, Frederick, Louis, Charles etc), cognomina are genuinely helpful to historians and are for readers, probably more mnemonic that Roman numbering (Louis XI, XII, XIII etc).  While there has been much use of the usual suspects (the Brave, Great, Good, Bad, Cruel, Victorious etc) and some have been merely descriptive (the Fat, Bald, Tall, Hairy etc (although some of these were ironic)), some were evocative:

There was the Abandoned (John I of Aragon), the Accursed (Sviatopolk I of Kiev), the Affable (Charles VIII of France), the Alchemist (John, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach), the Apostate (Julian, Emperor of Rome, the Arab (Phillip I, Emperor of Rome), the Astrologer (Alfonso X of Castile), the Bad (applied to many but famously associated with Emund of Sweden), the Bastard (of which there have been many more than those to whom the sobriquet was attached, the best known being William I (better known as the Conqueror)), the Beer Jug (John George I, Elector of Saxony), the Bewitched (Charles II of Spain), the Bloodaxe (Eric I of Norway), the Bloodthirsty (doubtless a widely used adjective but the most cited seems Ismail of Morocco), Bloody (Mary I of England (and the well known Vodka cocktail)), the Cabbage (Ivaylo of Bulgaria), the Crosseyed (Vasili Kosoi, a Muscovian usurper), the Devil (Robert I, Duke of Normandy), the Indolent (Louis V of France (also the Sluggard which in this context imparts much the same meaning)), the Drunkard, (Michael III, Byzantine Emperor although one suspects he was one of many), the Dung-Named (Constantine V, Byzantine Emperor), the Executioner (Mehmed I of the Ottoman Empire, again one of many), the Fat (most associated with Charles III, Holy Roman Emperor), the Fowler (Henry I of Germany, a notable figure of the First Reich), the Hairy (Wilfred I of Urgel), the Impaler (the infamous Vlad III of Wallachia (Basarab Ţepeluş cel Tânăr of Wallachia was the Little Impaler)), the Impotent (Henry IV of Castile), the Mad (of which there should have been more than there are and associated (fairly or not) with Lorenzo de' Medici of the Florentine Republic), Minus-a-Quarter (Michael VII Dukas, Byzantine Emperor (and apparently the only regal sobriquet derived from monetary policy)), the Priest Hater (Eric II of Norway), the She-Wolf (Isabella of France), the Be-shitten (James II (of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland)), the Stammerer (Louis II of France), the Terrible (a popular one but best remembered for Ivan IV of Russia), the Unfortunate (which could fairly be applied to many but seems linked only with Manuel II of Portugal and the Algarve (who was unfortunate (o Desaventurado) but it could have been worse (he survived to see out his years in Twickenham) and he was known also as the Patriot (o Patriota)).

Dimple

Dimple (pronounced dim-puhl)

(1) A small (permanent or transient) natural indentation in the chin, cheek, or sacral region, probably due to some developmental fault in the subcutaneous connective tissue or in underlying bone (but can manifest as a result of trauma or the contraction of scar tissue).

(2) Any similar slight depression.

(3) To mark with or as if with dimples; to produce dimples in.

(4) In metalworking, to dent a metal sheet so as to permit use of bolts or rivets with countersunk heads; to mark a metal object with a drill point as a guide for further drilling.

(5) In glassmaking, a bubble or dent in glass.

1350-1400: From the Middle English dimple & dympull (natural transient small dent in some soft part of the human body) from the Old English dympel & dyppan (a dip, a hollow in the trail or road), probably from the Proto-Germanic dumpila- (sink-hole), probably related to the Proto-Germanic dumpilaz & dumpa- (hole, hollow, pit), from the primitive Indo-European dhewb- (deep, hollow), a construct of the dialectal dump (deep hole or pool) +‎ -le (the diminutive suffix).  It was akin to the Old High German tumphilo (pool) from whence German gained Tümpel (pool), the Middle Low German dümpelen and the Dutch dompelen (to plunge).

The noun was the original form, describing a small dent in some part of a person's surface soft tissue (skin), applied especially to that produced in the cheek of a young person by the act of smiling and was always associated with youthful attractiveness rather than being some sort of flaw although it was all based on the less attractive "pothole", hence the link with words of Germanic origin which tend to this meaning.  From the Proto-Germanic dumpilaz also came other forms meaning "small pit, little pool" including the German Tümpel (pool), the Middle Low German dümpelen and the Dutch dompelen (to plunge).  The verb dates from the 1570s (implied in dimpled), as the intransitive, "form dimples", derived from the noun and the transitive sense "mark with dimples" emerged circa 1600.

Use as a proper noun actually pre-dates the descriptor of the physical characteristic, Dimple as a place name noted circa 1200 and as a surname from the late thirteenth century.  The extension of the meaning to a generalized "slight indentation or impression in any surface" is from the 1630s.  The related noun philtrum (dimple in the middle of the upper lip), first noted 1703, is medical Latin, from a Latinized form of Greek philtron, (literally "love charm").  Dimple is a noun; the verbs (used with object) are dimpling & dimpled (which is also an adjective).  Synonyms (applied to non-human dimples) include divot, hollow, concavity, cleft, dent, pit & depression.

Young lady with dimple.  A dimple will always draw the eye.

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.

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.

Nautical

Nautical (pronounced naw-ti-kuhl)

(1) Of or relating to ships, navigation, sailors & other admiralty matters.

(2) As nautical mile, a measure of distance.

1545-1555: From the Middle French nautique (pertaining to ships, sailors, or navigation) from the Latin nautic(us) (of or relating to ships or sailors), from the Ancient Greek ναυτικός (nautikós) (seafaring, naval), from nautes (sailor), from naus (ship), from the primitive Indo-European nau (boat).  Nautical is the adjective, nauticality the noun and nautically the adverb; associated words include navigational, seafaring, maritime, marine, aquatic, naval, oceanic, pelagic, salty, ship, abyssal, thalassic, boating, deep-sea, navigating, oceangoing, oceanographic, rowing, sailing & seagoing.

The nautical mile

A unit of distance measurement used in maritime, air and space navigation, one nautical mile was defined originally as one minute (one sixtieth of a degree) of latitude along any line of longitude.  It’s since been re-defined several times and although the international nautical mile is set at 1852 metres (about 1.15 miles), other definitions co-exist: a US Navy nautical mile being 1853.2480 metres (6080.2 feet) whereas UK Admiralty charts use an even 6080 feet.  No standardized nautical mile symbol has ever been agreed with M, NM, nmi and nm variously used.

The derived unit of speed is the knot, a vessel at one knot along a meridian travels approximately one minute of geographic latitude in one hour.  The word knot was originally an admiralty term to measure speed, derived from counting the number of knots unspooled from a real of rope in a certain time.  Curiously, although kn is the ISO standard symbol for the knot, kt is also widely used, particularly in civil aviation.

The reason the generally accepted definition of national territorial waters was set at three nautical miles (5.6 km) was wholly military; it was maximum range of the big ordnance of the age, the cannon-ball.  Developments in ballistics and politics soon rendered the three mile limit irrelevant and states began to claim larger areas but, although the League of Nations Codification Conference began discussions in 1930, nothing was resolved either then or at the subsequent United Nations Conferences on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I 1956-1958 & UNCLOS II 1960).  It took a ten-year process (UNCLOS 1973-1982) to secure international agreement that the national territorial limit was set at twelve nautical miles, the provision coming into force in 1994.

Lindsay Lohan's nautically themed Vanity Fair photo shoot, Marina del Rey, California, October 2010.  The location was the Sovereign, a motor yacht built in 1961 for the film star Judy Garland (1922-1969).

Rook

Rook (pronounced rook)

(1) A large Eurasian passerine bird, Corvus frugilegus, with a black plumage and a whitish base to its bill from the family Corvidae (crows) and noted for its gregarious habits.

(2) Slang term for a swindler at cards or dice

(3) To cheat, fleece or swindle.

(4) A bad deal; rip off.

(5) In chess, one of two pieces of the same color that may be moved any number of unobstructed squares horizontally or vertically; also called castle.  Rooks start the game on the four corners of the board.

(6) In Canadian heraldry (as chess rook), the cadency mark of a fifth daughter.

(7) A type of firecracker used by farmers to scare birds of the same name (UK).

Pre 900: From the Middle English rok & roke, from the Old English hrōc, from Proto-West Germanic hrōk, from the Proto-Germanic hrōkaz.  In other languages there was the Old Norse hrókr, the Saterland Frisian Rouk, the Middle Swedish roka, the Old High German hruoh (crow), the Middle Dutch roec and Dutch roek (and the obsolete German Ruch, from the primitive Indo-European kerk- (crow, raven).  Related avian forms were the Old Irish cerc (hen), the Old Prussian kerko (loon, diver), the dialectal Bulgarian кро́кон (krókon) (raven), the Ancient Greek κόραξ (kórax) (crow), the Old Armenian ագռաւ (agṙaw), the Avestan kahrkatat (rooster), the Sanskrit कृकर (kṛkara) and the Ukrainian крук (kruk) (raven). The Old French was roc, from the Spanish rocho & ruc, from the Arabic رُخّ‎ (ruḵḵ), from the Persian رخ‎ (rox).  Use as the bird’s name was possibly imitative of its raucous voice, an etymology hinted at by other languages (the Gaelic roc (as in "croak") and the Sanskrit kruc (as in "to cry out")).

In chess

Rook was applied as a disparaging term for persons since at least circa 1500, and extended by 1570s to mean a cheat, especially at cards or dice, this probably associated with the thieving habits of the rook, a habit it shares with other corvine birds like the crow and magpie.  Rook as the chess piece dates from circa 1300, from Old French roc (derived from Arabic rukhkh and Persian rukh) of unknown origin though perhaps related to the Indian name for the piece, rut, from Hindi rath (chariot); the word was, in Middle English, sometimes confused with roc (the enormous mythical bird in Eastern legend.

In chess, as well as castle, the rook has been called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes.  The term castle is, depending on one’s view, informal, incorrect, or old-fashioned and has been cited as a class-identifier.  Rooks can be said vaguely to resemble castles though the connection is unattested.  Curiously, even among those who insist the piece a rook, use persists in the move “castling” in which the rook and king can switch positions along the base-line.  Chess purists insist this is the only permissible use of castle.

Hustings

Hustings (pronounced huhs-tingz)

(1) The temporary platform on which candidates seeking election to the UK House of Commons stood and from which they addressed the electors.

(2) Any place from which political campaign speeches are made.

(3) By extension, the campaign trail in election campaigns; the proceedings at a parliamentary election; of political campaigning in general.

(4) In certain jurisdictions, as Hustings Court, a court of law (obsolete).

Pre 1050: From the Middle English & Old English husting (meeting, council, tribunal), from the Old Danish hūs- (a house), from the eleventh century Old Norse husðing (hūsthing), the construct being hūs- + ðing (thing) (assembly; meeting), so called because it described a meeting of the men who formed the "household" of a nobleman or king (the native Anglo-Saxon for which was folc-gemot).  Husting is a noun, functioning as both singular & plural, the verb use inherently plural; the formation was originally the plural of husting (and established as the usual form by circa 1500), later construed as a singular but the spelling hustings.

On the hustings

The sense of "a temporary platform for political speeches" developed by the 1720s, apparently a reference to London's Court of Hustings, presided over by the Lord Mayor and conducted on a platform in the Guildhall.  The sense widened first to other platforms on which candidates spoke and, by the mid nineteenth century, to electoral campaigning generally, a use which appears first to have been documented in 1872 but is thought already to have been in use for some time

David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) on the hustings, Criccieth, north Wales, 1914.

In England, the hustings evolved as physical platforms on which candidates spoke to seek the support of electors, a show of hands the usual expression of approval.  It was an informal process in the sense no records were kept of the “votes” but on the basis of the expression of support, a candidate might decide to proceed to the actual poll or decline to contest the seat and reports at the time confirm hustings were often noisy and occasionally violent affairs with more than a whiff of corruption.  The mechanism of the hustings evolved into the more structured pre-selection processes such as primaries and caucuses, the latter the closest (and now the most controversial) in form to the original.

When voting was restricted to a small fraction of the male population, there was sometimes only a single hustings in a parliamentary constituency (especially the geographically small such as the university seats) but were usually more numerous.  The arrangements were formalized by the Reform Act (1832) which somewhat extended the franchise, specifying a separate hustings for every 600 electors, the number reflecting the practical maximum capacity for buildings such as the municipal halls often used for the purpose.  An interesting aspect of the development of democracy in England is that even though voting at the hustings was limited to certain men (the rules varied but involved age, property, income or educational tests and even after the first reform act those eligible were fewer than 10% of the population), it was permitted for others (including women) to attend and view the proceedings, something like the “observer status” at the United Nations (UN), granted to various entities and even at times the odd sovereign state.  The hustings were abolished by the Ballot Act (1872) which made the secret ballot the universal mechanism of election.  The idea of public nomination by acclamation was replaced by the now familiar filing of duly executed and witnessed papers and it was at this point the stranglehold of the parties on the democratic process was effectively institutionalized, their structures evolving as much around the candidate selection process as the actual election.

In 2015, Lindsay Lohan posted on Instagram the suggestion she might be taking to the hustings, running for president in 2020.  History might have been different had Lindsay Lohan been given the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

A candidate’s performance of the platform at public meetings had long been an important part of the electoral process but the advent of photography and later, movies, added new layers, politicians increasingly borrowing the techniques used in dramatic production on stage and screen.  Politicians and their handlers quickly realized the potency of manufactured images and few were as assiduous in their creation as Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; head of state (1934-1945) and government (1933-1945) in Nazi Germany) for whom the realization of a talent for rabble-rousing public speaking came while working as a nationalistic agitator in the chaotic aftermath of the First World War.  After his release in 1925 from the far from unpleasant nine month stint in Landsberg during which he (by dictating to some with better grammar and spelling) wrote his autobiography, Hitler’s political career became more focused, in terms of both the structure and organization of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers' Party) and his own public image, one footnote to the process his publisher’s decision to shorten the name of Hitler’s book from Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit (Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) to the punchier Mein Kampf (My Struggle).  It is a dreary and repetitive work.

More significantly, he worked at honing his techniques of presentation on the hustings, aware of the effects of lighting and camera angle, deliberately he rehearsed movements and gestures to find those most appropriate to use before a live audience, developing an understanding that what was suitable before small, intimate gatherings would lose effectiveness at mass meetings.  He was interested too in the movements and stances which would translate especially well on film, contemporary notes indicating some analysis of the relationship between camera angle and effect.  Hitler’s method of rehearsal was that used by many actors: he performed in front of a mirror, trying to gauge the effectiveness of each pose.  Late in 1925, he had the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957) create images from a variety of angles, better to understand what would best work to appeal to those in an audience which in some cases might be seated in a surrounding circle.  Hitler studied the photographs with great interest and conscious of public perception, ordered the negatives destroyed.

Hoffman however retained the negatives, along with a number of others the Führer had indicated should shredded and published them in his memoir Hitler was my friend, a title which was probably close to the truth, the photographer part Hitler’s inner circle and the one who introduced him to the woman who would for a few, final hours be his wife, Eva Hitler (née Braun, 1912–1945).  Most of Hoffmann’s image archive was seized by the US-American military government during the Allied occupation of Germany as spoils of war and is today held mostly by the US National Archives and Records Administration.  What remained in Germany was assembled as a collection now housed in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library) in Munich.

The technique remains the same.  Crooked Hillary Clinton on the hustings.