Trope

Trope (pronounced trohp)

(1) In art and literature, any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense and which tends to become a motif.

(2) In rhetoric, a figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a non-literal or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor.

(3) In geometry, a tangent space meeting a quartic surface in a conic or the reciprocal of a node on a surface (archaic).

(4) In music, a short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music; a pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

(5) In the rituals of Judaism, a chanting (cantillation) pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

(6) In medieval Christianity (and preserved in the rituals of certain factions in Roman Catholicism), either a phrase or verse added to the Mass when sung by a choir or a phrase, sentence, or verse formerly interpolated in a liturgical text to amplify or embellish.

(7) In Athenian philosophy, any of the ten arguments used in scepticism to refute dogmatism.

(8) In Santayanian philosophy, the principle of organization according to which matter moves to form an object during the various stages of its existence.

(9) In metaphysics, a particular instance of a property, as contrasted with a universal.

1525–1535: From the Latin tropus (a figure of speech (in rhetoric)) from the Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos) (a turn, direction, course, way; manner, fashion; a mode in music; a mode or mood in logic (in rhetoric, "a turn or figure of speech)) and related to τροπή (tropḗ) (solstice; trope; turn) and τρέπειν (trépein) (to turn).  Root was the primitive Indo-European trep (to turn), related also to the Sanskrit trapate (is ashamed, confused, literally "turns away in shame") which Latin picked up trepit (he turns), the Latin adoption in the figurative.  The meaning is now understood as something more diffuse but technically, in rhetoric, a trope was "a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used in a sense other than the usual definition".  In English, the word is found often in combined form (such as heliotrope) and occurs also in concrete nouns that correspond to abstract nouns ending in -tropy or -tropism.  Trope is a noun & verb, troper, tropist, tropology & tropism are nouns and tropey is an adjective; the noun plural is tropes.

When younger, Lindsay Lohan's signature trope was playing dual roles (The Parent Trap (1998), Freaky Friday (2003) and I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  During her “troubled starlet” phase, she became emblematic of the “downward spiral” trope.  In 2022, she appeared in Falling for Christmas, Netflix's latest take on the "Christmas movie trope".  Although the scripts for tropes have long followed an algorithm, the studios are said now to be using a predictive form of artificial intelligence (AI) to hone the generation of whatever should have the most audience appeal.  The screen-writers (most of whom drive cars and use other products manufactured using processes in which machines substantially have displaced the human labor content) are are unlikely ultimately to succeed in keeping AI out of their profession and, in the medium term, their future may lie in the creation of the quirky and bizarre but in the economy, that's a niche.  For the formulaic stuff (most commercial cinema), the studios are likely to find the AI path "better, cheaper, faster" and the history of US industrial relations suggests these imperatives will prove irresistible.               

The Stage Five Clinger Trope

Most sources cite origin of the Stage 5 Clinger trope as the movie Wedding Crashers (2005) although there are claims it merely popularized the use; without earlier citations however, the trope’s origin appears to be the movie.  As a technical point, a stage one clinger isn’t initially labelled as such, the term applied retrospectively after syndrome is diagnosed.  If men are smart or lucky, they’ll recognize this by stage two but some men are so stupid they don’t realize until stage four.  While in movie there was no discussion of stages other than “5”, by implication five was most extreme and memes soon fleshed out 1-4:

Stage 1 Clinger: She seems fine

First date goes well, she’s attentive, interested, even gets the drinks sometimes and she makes breakfast.  Afterwards, text messages are fun and flirtatious.

Stage 2 Clinger: Hunter and game

The text messages become frequent, the first hint of the lure / engage / trap strategy of the lone hunter.  SMSs start out OK which lulls you into a false sense of security.  Before long, a few messages have been exchanged, most of which have required you to agree with her about innocuous stuff like the weather or today’s traffic.  Then, she’ll suggest a second date and extract a commitment to a specific time/date/place.  That will be soon.       

Stage 3 Clinger: Manoeuvres

Second date not something you’ll wish to repeat.  Bit creepy, how much she knew about you, clearly adept at mining the web.  To escape, you agree to third date while finding pretext to avoid confirming time.  Within hours, text messages become frequent to the point of nuisance.  Check Facebook and you’ll see she’s friended everyone you know.  Ignore SMS and eventually it goes quiet… for about an hour.  Then she phones.  Third date will not be possible to avoid, the illusion you’ll use it to end things still something you convince yourself to believe.  The S3C stage can frequently be the point of no return.  Acquaint yourself with the tale of Julius Caesar (100-44 BC; Roman general and dictator of Rome 49-44 BC) crossing the Rubicon and ponder.      

Stage 4 Clinger: The circling vulture

By stage four, clinging has slurred effortlessly into stalking and S4C is likely to send your mother flowers on her birthday and attempt at avoidance will prompt texting and calling from other phones.  Those who drive are even more of a threat because, where you go, she can follow so you’ll run into her in the most improbable places, and usually she’ll suggest taking advantage of the coincidence by going to lunch, dinner or whatever else might be close.  No matter how studiously you watch the rear-vision mirror, she’ll hunt you down and find you. 

Stage 5 Clinger: Thrill of the kill

At this point, her life is scheduled around your own, even to the point where she may now work in the same building, expects to have lunch together every day and a drink after work whenever possible.  When you try to avoid these, emotional meltdowns ensue, the only way to avoid a scene being to agree.  Many of your friends start asking you out as a couple and tell you you’re lucky because she’s wonderful.  She’s been to their dinner parties where she talks about your plans together.  Stage five clinger can also be APC ("actual psycho-chick", the two not synonymous but there’s frequent overlap).  Pursuing another relationship in an attempt to dissuade her brings its own problems, the S5C-APC will spray-paint CHEATER on either their car or yours (in red; unless car is red, then she’ll use black).  At this point, faking your own death begins to look like good tactic.

Crooked Hillary (b 1947) and Bill Clinton (b 1946) in the rain at the formal dedication of the William J Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, November 2004.  Cling on and no matter what, never let go.

The significance of dividing the path of the clinger into stages is it’s vital to extricate yourself from their clutches during the earliest stage possible; it needs to be remembered progression can be rapid, some clingers so adept at the art they're able to skip one or even two stages.  The longer delayed the excision, the harder it becomes and if allowed to reach the later stages, you may be stuck with her forever and for that, you can’t blame her: you're trapped and it's all your fault; you have only yourself to blame.

Vomitory

Vomitory (pronounced vom-i-tawr-ee or vom-itohr-ee)

(1) Inducing vomiting; to make vomitive.

(2) An emetic (a vomitory agent).

(3) Of or relating to vomiting.

(4) An aperture through which matter is ejected or discharged.

(5) In architecture, an opening, as in a stadium or theater, designed to permit large numbers of people to enter or leave (also called vomitorium).

(6) A container for receiving vomitus (whatever is discharged) (obsolete except in historic context).

1595–1605: From the Latin vomitōrius, the construct being vomi- (variant stem of vomere (to vomit) + -tōrius (the suffix added to a participle to create a first- and second-declension adjective).  Vomit as a verb was an early fifteenth century adoption from the Latin vomitus (past participle of vomitare) and was developed from the fourteenth century noun vomit (act of expelling contents of the stomach through the mouth), from the Anglo-French vomit, from the Old French vomite, from the Latin vomitus, from vomō & vomitare (to vomit often), frequentative of vomere (to puke, spew forth, discharge), from the primitive Indo-European root weme- (to spit, vomit), source also of the Ancient Greek emein (to vomit) & emetikos (provoking sickness), the Sanskrit vamati (he vomits), the Avestan vam- (to spit), the Lithuanian vemti (to vomit) and the Old Norse væma (seasickness).  The used of the noun to describe the matter disgorged during vomiting dates from the late fourteenth century and is in common use in the English-speaking world although Nancy Mitford (1904–1973 and the oldest of the Mitford sisters) in the slim volume Noblesse Oblige: an Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy (1956) noted “vomit” was “non-U” and the “U” word was “sick”, something perhaps to bear in mind after, if not during, vomiting.  Vomitory is a noun & adjective (vomitorium is a noun); the noun plural is vomitories.

Predictably, the sight of the words vomitory & vomitorium (and its plural vomitoria) captured the always vivid imaginations of a few medieval “historians” who decided these were specially-built spaces designated for the purpose of allowing an Ancient Roman indulging in epic feats of eating and drinking at an orgy (another medieval favorite when describing the lives of Roman decadents) to stagger off and tickle their throat with a feather, inducing them to vomit up what had just been consumed, emptying the stomach so they might return to gorge more.  The idea of frequent orgies which included binge and purge cycles as an institutionalized feature of Roman life is wholly erroneous.

The correct (sixteenth century) translation of the Latin vomitorium (from the use in Roman architecture) noted the helpfully illustrative derivation from vomere (to vomit) and defined the word as “disgorging the spectators”.  Architects refined the use in the mid-eighteenth century when vomitory first appeared in the literature, then defined as “an entrance piercing the banks of seats of a theatre, amphitheater, or stadium and designed to permit the most efficient ingress & egress of people in volume”.  At the definitional level nothing has since changed although improvements in machinery, engineering and materials have permitted the construction of larger structures with greater human capacity and this has meant the planning and design process in determining the points and process of ingress & egress has assumed increasing importance, to optimize economy of operation, logistical efficiency and, critically, safety, modern building codes especially emphasizing the latter.  In architecture, the word vomitory is often used casually to refer to the whole sub-structure but one is made of components which can includes aisles, cross-aisles (sloped & level walking surfaces), ramps, stairs, tunnels and the particular constructions which are the bulk entry/exit apertures and areas at each end of the system.

Circle in the Square Theatre, Broadway, New York City, built wit classic vomitory.

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”.  The classic design is a square or polygonal formation and, except in some one-act performances, actors enter through vomitories between the seating, directors moving them 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.

Lindsay Lohan descending a vomitory after selecting an audience member to participate in a skit, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, November 2012. 

New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre, originally located in another place, sits now in mid-town Manhattan and is one of only two Broadway theaters which feature a thrust stage extending on three sides into the audience.  The architect’s combination of a tri- thrust stage and a U-shaped seating arrangement was chosen to enable the intimacy associated with the company’s older, smaller performance space to be maintained in what was a much larger room.  The design made possible a configurable seating arrangement for up to 650 in which no member of the audience member would be more than eight rows from the stage and the theatre is also one of the few in Broadway with a vomitory, used in some productions as an entry or exit point for members of the cast.

The rare use as an artistic device aside, the purpose of a modern vomitory remains what it was for Roman architects; a thing of pure functionality, the form of which is dictated by efficiency of operation.  Thus, as the volume of stadiums grew, vomitories needed to become either larger or more numerous and there were a number of factors which compelled architects sometimes to follow both courses.  However, just as skyscrapers can’t practically be built as tall as techniques of structural engineering now permit because beyond a certain point the internal volume which needs to be allocated to lift-shafts and stairwells renders them uneconomic, neither can vomitories be allowed disproportionately to absorb space.

Classic vomitory (left) and latitudinal vomatory (right).

Another approach is the so-called latitudinal vomatory which is not new, the best-known extant example of the tradition seen in Warsaw's Royal Lazienki Park, the Theatre on the water (often referred to as the Theatre on the Isle) designed by Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer (1753–1795) and thought one of the more interesting pieces of eighteenth century theatre architecture.  A striking feature of the latitudinal approach is the complete functional and structural separation of stands & vomitories and visually it appeals to architects because it reduces the number of interruptions to the sweep of the horizontal lines which define the terraced surfaces.  The sympathy with the shape of the terraces mean it’s thought by many a truer representation of vomitories as a stadium’s circulatory system, a favorite expression of architects from Antiquity.

Warsaw's Theatre on the water (1790-1793) in the Royal Lazienki Park.  The amphitheatre showing the stairs of the latitudinal vomitory (left), the vista from above (centre) & the lobby level entrance to the vomitory (right).  The design of the amphitheatre borrowed from structures built in ancient Herculaneum.

Whilom

Whilom (pronounced hwahy-luhm or wahy-luhm)

(1) Former; erstwhile (adjective); at one time; at time past (adverb) (both archaic).

(2) While (obsolete in general use but sometimes deployed as a literary device).

Circa 1200: Middle English from the pre-900 Old English hwīlum (at times), dative case of hwīl (while) and related to Old High German hwīlōm and German weiland (of old; formerly).  The meaning by circa 1200 was “at time past” and whilom was a commonly used conjunction from the 1610s and the spelling was for whatever reason the survivor of a few variations, something not unusual in the evolution of language.  In the Old English hwīlum was an adverb meaning "at times; in times passed" and that sense was picked up in the Middle English, the meaning “formerly” acquired in the twelfth century.  For centuries a staple a staple of educated English, use of the adverb dwindled toward the end of the nineteenth century but there was a last gasp, a brief popularity between the end of the Victorian era (1901) and the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918).  Whilom was drawn from Old English at a time when the language was heavily inflected, adjectives, nouns, and verbs adopting different endings depending on the job they were doing.  Whilom (then spelt hwilom), was the dative plural of hwil (which evolved into the Modern English while) but as English gradually abandoned its inflections, the word became a fossil, its ending stuck there permanently. 

The adjective whilom is one of four (the others being erstwhile, quondam and umquhile) with the same meaning (formerly; in the past) and it’s now flagged by most dictionaries as “obsolete”, more traditional editors preferring “archaic”.  The adjective appeared in the fifteenth century, intriguingly with the meaning "deceased" and it’s presumably this which influenced the meaning-shift towards "former" which by the nineteenth century universal although for those who wish to avoid “dead” but find “passed on” a bit naff, whilom might offer promise.

Whilom special friends, Samantha Ronson & Lindsay Lohan, Charlotte Ronson Spring 2009 Fashion Show, September 2008, New York City.

JM Barrie (1860-1937) used it in The Little White Bird (1903), writing “Whom did I see but the whilom nursery governess sitting on a chair in one of these gardens” but even then “former” and “erstwhile” were beginning to be preferred although, perhaps predictably, that made it appeal to PG Wodehouse (1881-1975) who put in Heavy Weather (1933).  It’s seen now only in that graveyard of the linguistically anachronistic: the literary novel.

Omnibus

Omnibus (pronounced om-nuh-buhs)

(1) A now less commonly used term for a bus (a public mass-transit vehicle).

(2) A volume of reprinted works of a single author or of works related in interest or theme, by extension later applied to a television or radio programme consisting of two or more programmes earlier broadcast.

(3) Something pertaining to, including, or dealing with numerous objects or items at once, the best known example being the omnibus bills submitted to a legislature (a number of bills combined as one).

(4) As a pre-nominal, of, dealing with, or providing for many different things or cases. 

(5) In philately, a stamp issue, usually commemorative, that appears simultaneously in several countries as a common issue.

(6) In public transportation, a service which stops at every station, as opposed to a point-to-point express.

(7) In literary use as a humorous device, a jack of all trades (a person with knowledge in multiple fields, usually with some hint of lacking competence in at least some).

(8) In restaurants, both (1) a waiter’s assistant (obsolete, replaced by busboy or (now more commonly) busser or commis waiter) & (2) later the small, wheeled cart used by a waiter's assistant.

1829: A adoption in English to describe a "long-bodied, horse-drawn, four-wheeled public vehicle with seats for passengers", from the French voiture omnibus (carriage for all, common (conveyance)), from the Latin omnibus (for all), dative plural of omnis (all), ablative of omnia, from the primitive Indo-European hep-ni- (working), from hep- (to work; to possess) or hop- (to work; to take).  Bus was thus a convenient shortening to describe the (then horse drawn) forms of public transport and subsequent uses by analogy with transporting (even weightless) stuff is derived from this.  The present participle is omnibusing or omnibussing and the past participle omnibused or omnibussed; the noun plural is either omnibuses or (for the public transportation) omnibusses; the attractive omnibi unfortunately wholly non-standard.

Omnibus entered English to describe a “horse-drawn, long-bodied, four-wheeled public vehicle with seats for passengers” in 1829 as a borrowing from the French where it had been in use for a decade, introduced in Paris in the winter of 1819-1820 by a Monsieur Jacques Lafitte (1761-1833) who used the term voiture omnibus”, combining the French word for "carriage" with the Latin phrase meaning "for all".  An Englishman named George Shillibeer (1797-1866) was the coach-builder to whom Lafitte awarded the contract to build his omnibuses and after returning to London, he built similar models, introducing them in 1929 to immediate success.  In the manner of the Brougham and Hansom cabs, they were known first as Shillibeers (and use of his name to describe the vehicles did persist until late in the nineteenth century) but omnibus was soon preferred and that for more than a century remained the official designation (and indeed still appears in some legislation and ordinances) but predictably, the public preferred the more phonetically economical "bus" and that endures to this day.  Encouraged by his success, Mr Shillibeer remained entrepreneurial, introducing in 1858 the “funeral omnibus” which combined in the one vehicle (in separate compartments), accommodation for both coffin (casket) and mourners.  Thus a combination of bus and hearse, the advertising suggested that for smaller funeral parties it would be cheaper than hiring multiple vehicles (with their attendant staff and horses).  Perhaps for cultural reasons it seems not to have been a success, but hearses with similar configuration are used in some countries and, in the West, some are built with seating for up to four passengers, apparently intended for the undertaker’s staff.

Lindsay Lohan display advertising on Italian omnibus, Milan.

The use of omnibus to describe a junior staff member in a restaurant who was assigned essentially “all the tasks the waiters preferred not to do” dates from 1880 and came soon to be applied to the wheeled carts such helpers used to more around crockery, cutlery, flatware and such.  This simultaneous use may have proved confusing or else three syllables was just too much because by 1913 the carts were being called busses and their operators busboys (although that seems not to have survived our more gender-sensitive age and “commis waiter” seems now preferred (usually as “commis”).  Omnibus was the name of a long-running live TV series (1952-1961) hosted on US television by expatriate English journalist Alistair Cooke (1908-2004).  The use of omnibus to describe a legislative bill which addresses a number of vaguely related (or even wholly dissimilar) matters in the one document technically dates from 1842 although, as an adjective referring to legislation "designed to cover many different cases, embracing numerous distinct objects", it was in use in the US as early as 1835 and is most famously associated with the act (made of five separate bills) passed in 1850 to secure the Compromise of 1850 which (temporarily) defused a political confrontation between slave and free states over the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War.

The Man on the Clapham Omnibus

1932 Lancia Autoalveare, a triple-decker omnibus which served the Rome-Tvoli route.  The upper deck was apparently, at least on some occasions, designated as "non-smoking" but history doesn't record whether the bus company enjoyed any more success than the government of Italy in enforcing such edicts.

The phrase “man on the Clapham omnibus” was one adopted (apparently from early in the twentieth century) by judges of English courts to illustrate the “reasonable person”.  The word “reasonable” had been in English since circa 1300 as a borrowing from the Old French raisonable and the Latin rationabilis (from ratio) and in this context was an attempt by example encapsulate “the average man” or “the man in the street”, judges varying in their descriptions of this construct but meaning usually something like “a reasonably intelligent and impartial person unversed in legal esoteric” (Jones v US, DC Court of Appeals).  When the phrase was in 1903 used by Lord Justice Sir Richard Collins MR, the Clapham omnibus would have been horse drawn and he credited the expression to one he’d heard mentioned by a previous Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, Lord Bowen (1835-1894).

The judicial choice of a bus passenger was based on the idea that such a person could be thought to be representative of an upstanding, respectable and thoroughly ordinary member of society, one for whom views of things were not infected by legal technicalities.  The choice of Clapham was significant only that it was an unexceptional London suburb something like many of dozens that might be said to have been “typical” of the city.  The man on the Clapham omnibus was thus in the tradition of legal fictions, a hypothetical person used for illustrative purposes, the first known instance of which in Western legal tradition was the creation by Roman jurists of the figure of bonus pater familias (good family father) a chap said to be not only respectable but unrelentingly and reliably average in every aspect of life.  In the Canadian province of Quebec, the very similar standard of the bon père de famille is derived from the Roman bonus pater familias.  The reasonable man (now of course a reasonable person) is a necessity in many aspects of law because so many standards upon which cases are decided depend on the word reasonable.  Were the consequences of an action reasonably foreseeable?  Would a reasonable person believe a certain thing told to them?  Was a claim by advertisement reasonable?  Was the violence used reasonable given the manner in which the defendant was assaulted.

Crooked Hillary dumping on deplorables, Georgia, 2016.

Omnibuses have long been used by politicians for their campaign tours.  They offer lots of advantages, being offices and communications centres with at least some of their running costs offset by a reduction in staff travel expenses.  Additionally, with five large, flat surfaces, they are a rolling billboard although that can be good or bad.  In 2016, one of crooked Hillary Clinton’s campaign buses was photographed in Lawrenceville, Georgia dumping a tank full of human waste onto the street and into a storm drain.  The local news service reported that when police attended the street was “…was covered in toilet paper and the odor was noxious”.  Hazmat crews were called to clean up the scene and the matter was referred to the environmental protection division of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources.  The Democratic National Committee (DNC) later issued an apology, claiming the incident was “an honest mistake.”  Using the word “honest” in any statement related to crooked Hillary Clinton is always a bit of a gamble and there was no word on whether the dumping of human excrement had been delayed until the bus was somewhere it was thought many deplorables may be living.  If so, that may have been another “honest mistake” because Gwinett County (in which lies Lawrenceville) voted 51.02% Clinton/Kaine & 45.14% Trump/Pence although the symbolism may not have been lost on much of the rest of Georgia; state wide the Republican ticket prevailed 50.38% to 45.29%.

Crooked Hillary Clinton’s campaign buses also attracted memes referencing a crash and a breakdown.  Both were fake news but surprisingly prescient, the Clinton/Kaine ticket securing an absolute majority of votes cast but failing to gain the requisite numbers in the Electoral College because the campaign neglected adequately to target areas in states the DNC regarded either (1) solidly in the possession of their machine or (2) populated by folk from the "basket of deplorables" and thus worthy only of a dumping of shit, figurative and literal.  Like the candidate, the 2016 campaign was something like what was planned for 2008, taken from the cold-room, rechauffed and served with the claim it was fresh.  It wasn't quite that the staff had "learned nothing and forgotten everything" but it does seem the operation was top-heavy with political operatives and lacking in those with a mastery of the techniques of data analysis.  All the evidence suggests there was no lack of data, just an inability to extract from it useful information. 

Before Photoshop imbued all with cynical disbelief, the triple decked omnibus was a popular vehicle for April fool's day pranks, the photograph on the left published in Lisbon on the day in 1951.  The one on the right is from 1926 and was in the German magazine Echo Continental (trade publication of the auto and truck parts manufacturer Continental AG) which "reported" the development of Berlin's new triple-decker city omnibus.  So lovely are the art deco lines, it's a shame it wasn't real.

Nolle

Nolle (pronounced nol-ee)

In law, an oral and verbal shorthand for nolle prosequi (pronounced nol-ee pros-i-kwahy or nol-ee pros-i-kwee): an entry (historically a certificate) made upon the records of a court when the plaintiff or prosecutor will proceed no further in a suit or action. The official abbreviation is nol. pros.

1681:  From the Latin, the construct being nolle (unwilling) + prosequi (to pursue), literally “unwilling to pursue” which, in the context of legal proceedings, is a formal notice of discontinuance by a prosecutor or plaintiff.  Nolle was the present active infinitive of nōlō (I do not wish; I refuse), a formation based on ne- (not) +‎ volō (I want) or velle (will).  Prosequi was the present active infinitive of prōsequor (I escort, I pursue, I describe), the construct being prō- (forward direction, action) +‎ sequor (follow).  As a verb, nolle-pross is attested from 1880.

No-billing

The legal shorthand is “to nolle” but the more common expression is now “no-bill”.  The nolle prosequi is most familiar in criminal cases when it’s used by the state to discontinue prosecutions but some jurisdictions maintain the device in civil matters where it may used as a declaration by a plaintiff voluntarily withdrawing a claim although a retraxit (a motion for voluntary dismissal) is now a more commonly used procedure,

A nolle prosequi is not the same as a verdict of not guilty; it merely terminates the existing case and, as a general principle, doesn't disbar continuation of the case at a later date, if a prosecutor so empowered wishes.  However, the common law position has been modified in some jurisdictions to provide that if the attorney- general issues a certificate of nolle prosequi, no-one may prosecute the charges.  That exemption aside, anyone whose prosecution has been subject to a nolle prosequi is not “found not guilty” and therefore cannot plead autreufois acquit (a peremptory plea made before the commencement of a trial in which a defendant asserts they were earlier tried for the same crime under same facts of the case) in respect of the relevant offence at any subsequent resumption; as a general principle, double jeopardy cannot apply.

Attorneys-general in Australia have been reluctant to intervene in matters if they regard a request as political rather than technical or procedural.  In 1977, Bob Ellicott QC (b 1927), attorney-general in the second (1975-1980) Fraser administration, resigned rather than accede to the prime-minister’s request he take over a (somewhat bizarre) politically-inspired case and close down the prosecution (although in resigning he also cited the matter of costs).  In 2022 however, the new Australian Labor Party (ALP) attorney-general Mark Dreyfus (b 1956; Attorney-General of Australia 2013 & since June 2022) announced he had directed Commonwealth prosecutors to nolle the prosecution of lawyer Bernard Collaery (b 1944), prosecuted for his part in exposing a bugging operation undertaken by agents of the Australian Security Intelligence Service (ASIS; the overseas intelligence organization) against Timor-Leste during negotiations over the ownership of oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.

One must be sympathetic to any attorney-general who is expected to reconcile matters involving international relations (probably always somewhere within the rubric of “national security”) with legal or democratic principles.  The attorney sits atop the legal system in Australia, representing a government which insists all who appear in the nations courts must always speak the truth and imposes sometimes severe punishment on those who do not yet he was in the position of considering whether to continue the prosecution of someone who would be brought before one of those courts and accused of telling the truth.  It’s true that historically one has been able to fall foul of the law for telling the truth (such as in matters of defamation) but as a general principle courts do insist on hearing and protecting the truth.  National security matters are however a special case and there are also laws imposed on those working from agencies such as ASIS which prevent public or other disclosures, truthful or otherwise.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Bugging the government of another nation, perhaps especially an ally and close neighbor when the intelligence sought was essentially commercial, does raise ethical issues and also of note was that “Witness K” (who revealed the bugging) actually used proper channels to report what he regarded an inappropriate action he had been ordered to execute although, interestingly, a judge would during the course of the proceedings rule that it was not relevant whether or not the action undertaken by ASIS was lawful.  That may sound strange but in the context of national security matters and the details of the charges actually presented, it’s undoubtedly the correct ruling.  The competing principles displayed in the long tale illustrate why, in matters of national security, it pays not to be too bothered by (sometimes shifting) principles and focus instead on the essentially un-shifting interest of national security and there are precedents from the UK which support this view.  Everybody spies on everybody else and it’s usually the best course that these things remain secret; we have a right not to know.  No-billing the prosecution was surely the best thing to do but really, those who find distasteful the idea of bugging other people’s offices perhaps shouldn’t go into the spying business.

Party comrade Jacob Zuma in court.

Certificate of nolle prosequi issued by the office of the South African Director of Public Prosecutions (KwaZulu-Natal Division) in response to complaint made by Jacob Zuma.

William (Billy) Downer (b 1956) is a retired South African prosecutor.  In an echo of the case (Sankey v Whitlam & Others, (1978) 142 CLR 1, (1978) HCA 43) which in 1977 Bob Ellicott declined to nolle, Mr Downer is privately prosecuting the former President of South Africa, party comrade Jacob Zuma (b 1942; President of South Africa 2009-2018) on charges of fraud and corruption.  Mr Zuma objected to Downer’s involvement in his case and claimed that the retired prosecutor acted unlawfully by leaking information to the media.  Despite a request from Mr Zuma, the Director of Public Prosecutions declined to prosecute Mr Downer, issuing a no-bill while noting this did not preclude the former president initiating a private prosecution; this, Mr Zuma has undertaken.  The first hearing of Mr Downer's case against Mr Zuma has been set down for August 2022.

DARVO

DARVO (Pronounced dhar-vo)

The acronym of Deny, Attack & Reverse Victim and Offender.

1997: Coined by US academic psychologist Dr Jennifer J Freyd in 1997 in Violations of power, adaptive blindness, and betrayal trauma theory in the journal Feminism & Psychology (7, 22-32).  The initialism references both the behavior of perpetrators of wrongdoing (said to be prevalent especially among sexual offenders) and the tactic used in courtrooms by counsel for the defense, attacking the victim, reversing the roles of victim and offender.

DARVO references the reaction noted sometimes of perpetrators of wrong doing.  Said to be most prevalent among sexual offenders, as a general principle, it’s treated as a response to being held accountable for their behavior and is in its simplest form an elaborated claim of self-defense or provocation, legal concepts well known (and often codified) in the criminal law as a defenses in assault-related cases.  It can be thought an instance of "victim blaming".  DARVO deconstructed is:

Deny the behavior: This is actually standard legal advice; whatever else may happen during an investigation or subsequent proceedings, an initial denial is unlikely to compromise a later defense whereas an admission, even if later recanted, can be most damaging.  An extreme example was the (unsuccessful) defense strategy of Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946; Austrian-born head of Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Nazi Germany 1943-1945) during the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946).  Whatever he was accused of, Kaltenbrunner, a trained lawyer, denied it; when shown his signature on a documents, he denied it was his, when shown photographs in which he appeared, he denied he'd ever been there and when witnesses attested to what he'd said, he denied he'd ever met them.

Attack the individual doing the confronting: This is the basis of the claim of self-defense or provocation.  Self-defense can, depending on the fact of the case, be a good defense to a charge of assault and can succeed even in instances of death where the charge can be murder.  The defense of provocation where the prior conduct of the victim tends to be either remote in time or indirect in the sense of something said rather than a physical attack, can succeed as a defense but is introduced more often in mitigation as a factor when considering sentencing.

Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender: The perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim (who can be a whistle blower previously unknown to the perpetrator) into an alleged offender.  The variations on this theme most typically include (1) the perpetrator assumes the role of one "falsely accused" or (2) attacks the accuser's credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.

There is also Institutional DARVO which occurs when the DARVO is done by an institution (or with institutional complicity) such as when police wrongly charge rape victims with making a false complaint, institutional DARVO a form of what in the literature of political science is called “institutional betrayal”.  Structural DARVO describes the cultural construct in patriarchal societies where institutions act to protect the interest of its hegemonic components (in Western cultures those white, male and rich).  Other layers can be added to the analysis depending on the structure of a society: In non-Western cultures which can be essentially heterogeneous at what can be defined on some ethnic or racial basis, it can benefit those belonging to the dominant religious, cultural or tribal group.  Anti-DARVO is an omnibus term which encompasses both (1) the research & teaching in academic work describing ways to reduce the negative impact of DARVO (2) actual legislative and procedural innovations such as restrictions placed on the conduct of defense counsel in certain proceedings, especially sexual assault cases.

Dr Jennifer J Freyd.

The use of DARVO had for some time been controversial before Dr Freyd in 1997 coined the acronym and some jurisdictions had introduced some restriction of the extent to which defense counsel were permitted to attack victims (judges are limited in the extent to which they can intervene), especially on matters not directly connected with the offence.  It was also of interest to the mental health community, empirical research published in the literature of psychology & psychiatry both noting the prevalence of DARVO during victim-perpetrator confrontations and a striking correlation among many of the victims displaying feelings of self-blame, the more DARVO the perpetrator used during the interactions, the more victims reported feeling blameworthy for the wrongdoing.  Given the long history of the understanding of the imbalance in the power relationship between perpetrators (usually male) and victims (usually female), the findings were not suggested as unexpected.  One of the most interesting findings to emerge was the importance perpetrators place on the building of the social capital which surrounds their relationship with the victim.  For those who have committed abusive acts, the ability to influence how others perceive them and their victims is indispensable and typically this involves convincing those within their social circle (and even bystanders) either that nothing abusive happened and even if it appeared so it was not harmful.  Constructing a perception that the victim is untrustworthy gives the perpetrator a clear advantage in both social networks and the legal system.  Ultimately, in the absence of other evidence (as, inherently is often the case in these matters), in court it is a battle of competing narratives, the credibility of the authors often decisive.

Dr Freyd’s codification of DARVO however focused attention, both in law reform and the mental health community, the latter having previously documented tactics adopted by perpetrators to temper reactions to their wrongdoings, the umbrella term “outrage management” a construct which included a set of techniques employed to mitigate observers’ negative evaluations of both perpetrators and their objectionable behaviors.  Notably, this included casting doubt onto the credibility of the victim and denying the victims’ versions of events or, more typically, re-constructing the narrative to make them seem something innocuous.  Also identified were strategies intended to deflect blame for wrongdoing even if to some extent admitted: (1) Emphasize previous good behavior or (2) highlight some past suffering (thus inherently identifying as a victim).  Again, both these approaches will be familiar to defense counsel, even those never involved with sexual assault cases.  DARVO may thus be understood as generalized critique, although it’s most associated with sexual assault cases or other violence against women. 

Research about the real-world effect of DARVO is interesting. The findings do suggest that exposure to a perpetrator’s use of DARVO does to some extent displace at least some of the blame for the abusive behavior from the perpetrator to the victim, this hinting at why defense counsel so often adopt the tactic: It works.  The success of DARVO is not that it usually reverses the perception of a victim as blameless in favor of them being wholly culpable but that it introduces elements of doubt.  DARVO indeed often seemed to decreases the extent to which perpetrators are viewed as believable so the technique has the general effect of rendering both victims and perpetrators less believable.  That’s perhaps a predictable consequence of something so obviously antagonistic ("relational aggression" in the jargon).  However, as a legal tactic, success is not infrequent because the purpose of DARVO is not to actually render perpetrator as victim but to induce a perception of doubt about the victim; in criminal law, if that reaches the threshold of reasonable doubt then a jury, if properly instructed, must acquit.  In civil proceedings, cases are decided on a “balance of probabilities” but there too, the element of doubt must affect perceptions.

Amber Heard (b 1986).

DARVO would presumably have remained little more than part of the jargon of law and psychology had it not been for a well-publicized defamation lawsuit (John C Depp II v Amber Laura Heard (CL-2019-2911; Fairfax County Circuit Court)) between two celebrity actors, the matters of dispute relating to the period of their brief and clearly turbulent marriage.  It was a trial notable for reasons other than bringing the concept of DARVO to public attention, it being unusual in the US for defamation suits by public figures to succeed, based on precedent followed for some sixty years.  The substance of the suit was a piece written by Ms Heard and in 2018 published in The Washington Post.  Although the conventional legal wisdom is that where the choice exists, one sues the party with the capacity to pay whatever judgment one hopes to gain, in this case that was tempered by the robust protection courts have afforded the news media under the First Amendment to the constitution.  Mr Depp, as a public figure was anyway limited in his capacity to seek redress for defamation but his strategy seemed more risky still because of the earlier outcome in a defamation trial in an English court in which he sued a newspaper which printed allegations much more serious than anything mentioned by Ms Heard (who in her piece didn’t mention his name).  In that case (the verdict later upheld on appeal) the judge ruled against Mr Depp, noting in his judgment that "…the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms Heard by Mr Depp have been proved to the civil standard” of having, on the balance of probability, to have occurred as alleged.  The conventional wisdom, widely shared at the time, was that Mr Depp’s likelihood of success in a US court was smaller still.

Johnny Depp (b 1963).

As it was, the judge in Virginia ruled any mention of the English case or its verdict inadmissible but whether or not the jury were aware (or during proceedings made themselves aware) of the matter isn’t known.  The celebrity association aside, it was thus a trial of some technical interest, Ms Heard in her piece taking the precaution (if any doubt existed) of self-identifying as ”…a public figure representing domestic abuse".  Mr Depp sued on the grounds that Ms Heard’s statements had damaged his career and reputation; Ms Heard counter-sued on the basis that one or Mr Depp’s legal team had defamed her in statements published in an English newspaper.  Ms Heard’s defense was on the basis of (1) truth and (2) her free speech being protected by the First Amendment.

Dr Kate Manne.

The jury found for both Mr Depp and Ms Heard in their respective suits although, given the nature of the claims and the quantum of damages awarded, it could hardly be represented as anything but a victory for Mr Depp.  That of course was greeted with much commentary on social media though little of that was helpful, reflecting mostly the nature of celebrity culture, Mr Depp’s groupies both more numerous and more strident than those of his ex-wife.  More serious criticism did however discuss the extent to which the verdict could be thought a successful execution of DARVO.  Tellingly, many lawyers noted not only was it exactly that but nor was unusual, the novelty more the publicity attached to it being something between film stars.  The feminist critique was more severe, some claiming that DARVO works as well as it does because it interacts with “himpathy” (the construct him + (sym)pathy) coined by Cornell philosophy professor Dr Kate Manne (b 1983) and defined as “the inappropriate and disproportionate sympathy men and boys (and the more powerful or influential the man the greater the himpathy) often enjoy in cases of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, homicide and other misogynistic behavior”).

DARVO and himpathy are recent constructs but both are said to represent the long history of sympathy shown toward male perpetrators of sexual violence, women having long been expected to endure sexism (including violence) as part of their defined gender role which includes protecting men's reputation and power.  That of course went beyond being a social construct and was reflected in Western legal systems, women (and the bulk of her possessions) often literally “owned” by a husband or father and rape within marriage a statutory impossibility until well into the twentieth century.  DARVO for its success draws on those cultural biases.

Johnny Depp & Amber Heard, Australia, 2015.

Depp v Heard (a civil matter with a jury not sequestered and thus exposed to what were essentially un-mediated publicity campaigns on social media) was obviously not a typical trial and what its effect might be on later criminal matters (with which DARVO is more associated) is uncertain.  Lawyers do however note that in the US, relatively few cases actually proceed to trial and the greatest (and substantially unpublicized) effect is on prosecutors who decide not to proceed with cases (or downgrade charges) because, cognizant of the effectiveness of DARVO, take the decision there’s no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction.  This can be understood as an example of institutional DARVO, reinforcing the imbalance of power which typically exists between victim (typically female) and perpetrator (typically male) and it should not be unexpected that an institution created by the hegemon should act to protect the hegemony.  So, there was nothing contradictory when lawyers remarked of Depp v Heard that the jury’s verdict was remarkable given the evidence and unsurprising given the history.