Benzodiazepine

Benzodiazepine (pronounced ben-zoh-dahy-az-uh-peen)

A family of chemical compounds used as minor tranquilizers that act against anxiety and convulsions and produce sedation and muscle relaxation; marketed, with variations, under a number of brand-names and trademarks such as Diazepam (Valium) and chlordiazepoxide (Librium).

1934: Word is a chemical construct, from benzo (word-forming element used in chemistry to indicate presence of a benzene ring fused with another ring) + di (from the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) (twice) + az (nitrogen-substituted) + epine (from the French hepta (seven-membered).

Benzodiazepines are a class of therapeutic agents capable of producing a calming, sedative effect and used in the treatment of fear, anxiety, tension, agitation, and related states of mental disturbance.  Among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, the first benzodiazepine was chlordiazepoxide (Librium), followed by a large variety of agents, including diazepam (Valium) and alprazolam (Xanax), each with slightly different properties.  Benzodiazepines work by enhancing the action of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which inhibits anxiety by reducing certain nerve-impulse transmissions within the brain.

Before the development of the benzodiazepines, the only available anti-anxiety drugs were the barbiturates and meprobamate and, relative to these, the benzodiazepines had fewer unfavorable side effects and a reduced potential for abuse.  The thus quickly became the preferred treatment for anxiety, used also to treat insomnia, general stress, calming muscle spasms and preparing patient for anesthesia or dental surgery.  Side effects include sleepiness, drowsiness, reduced alertness, and unsteadiness of gait but benzodiazepines are not lethal even in very large overdoses, having the tendency only to increase the sedative effects of alcohol and other drugs.  Dependence may however occur, even in moderate dosages, with withdrawal symptoms observed even after short-term use and for long-term users, almost half may suffer withdrawal symptoms which can take months to subside.  As a consequence, some long-term users continue to take the drug not because of persistent anxiety but because the withdrawal symptoms are too unpleasant.

Valium was introduced by the Swiss Roche Labs in 1963.  It was the first billion-dollar medicine and ushered in the era of brand-name drugs, the model of later marketing campaigns for products such as Prozac and Viagra.  In its halcyon years between 1969 and 1982, more prescriptions were written for Valium than any other drug.  The name Valium (which in US trademark law was Hoffmann-La Roche’s proprietary name for diazepam, first registered in 1961) was a creation of the corporation, not, as is often claimed, from a Latin word or formation meaning "to be strong and well".  Valium was no different from Telstra and Optus, creations by consultants needing a word both unique and different enough from others to withstand legal challenge while being something which hints, however vaguely, at what’s being sold.  In Latin, there was validum (strong; powerful; efficacious), vallum (a fortification) and the plant valerian (a herbal sedative), all of which were probably in the corporate mind.  Some with medical connections such as vulnerary (used for or useful in healing wounds), valetudinarian (a person of a weak or sickly constitution) and valetudo (one's state of health (good or bad)) might have been a bit remote so the closest inspiration was likely valere (a Latin verb meaning “to be strong”; “to be well”).  Best of all the sardonic industry jokes was a connection with the Latin vale (goodbye; farewell) although Valium wasn’t much use in suicide attempts, fatal overdoses, while not impossible, were rare.

Xanax tablets.

Xanax is the brand name for the drug alprazolam which is a benzodiazepine.  It is a prescription medication primarily used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorders and (more controversially) depression.  A fast & short-acting benzodiazepine, Xanax works by enhancing the activity of a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which helps to reduce anxiety and promote relaxation.  Xanax is regarded as effective for treating anxiety and related disorders when used as prescribed but can be habit-forming, leading to dependence and addiction.  Lindsay Lohan released (or "dropped" in the fashionable parlance) the track Xanax in 2019.  With a contribution from Finnish pop star Alma (Alma-Sofia Miettinen; b 1996), the accompanying music video was said to be “a compilation of vignettes of life”, Xanax reported as being inspired by Ms Lohan’s “personal life, including an ex-boyfriend and toxic friends”.  Structurally, Xanax was quoted as being based around "an interpolation of" Better Off Alone, by Dutch Eurodance-pop collective Alice Deejay, slowed to a Xanax-appropriate tempo.

Numismatic

Numismatic (pronounced noo-miz-mat-ik, noo-mis-mat-ik or nyoo-miz-mak-ik)

(1) Of or pertaining to currency (coins, paper money etc); of or pertaining to historical coins and coinage.

(2) Of or pertaining to medals, tokens etc, based on the resemblance of many to coins (less common).

(3) Pertaining to the hobby or business of numismatics.

1765: From the late sixteenth century French numismatique (of currency; notes & coins), from the New Latin numismaticus, from the Latin numismat- (stem of numisma (coin, currency, stamp on a coin)) from the Greek nomismat- (stem of νόμισμα (nómisma)) (current coin, piece of money; usage (literally "what has been sanctioned by custom or usage”)) + the Latin –icus (-ic).  The Ancient Greek nomizein (have in use, adopt a custom) was from nómos (custom, law, usage), from the primitive Indo-European root nem- (assign, allot; take).  An earlier form in the same sense was the mid seventeenth century nummary, from the Latin nummarius, from nummus (a coin) and in the late fifteenth century a numelarian was a "money-changer" (from the Latin nummularius).  The adjective numismatical dates from 1716).  The existence of the numismatist (a student of historic coins and coinage) was first noted in 1788, from the French numismatiste, from the Latin numismat-, from numisma; it was one of the most developed and documented fields in archeology because metal coins existed in such volume, survived well in the archeological record and were simple to date.  The noun numismatics (the study of coins and medals with especial reference to their history and artistry) was first used in 1829, describing the discipline of the numismatists.  Numismatic & numismatical are adjectives, numismatically is an adverb and numismatist & numismatics are nouns.

Nummular was from the Latin nummulus ((small amount of) money) + the English -ar (the suffix forming adjectives with the sense “of, pertaining to, or near”).  Nummulus was the diminutive of nummus (a coin; piece of money) + -ulus the (diminutive suffix) and nummus was from the Doric Greek νοῦμμος (noûmmos), from the Ancient Greek νόμος (nómos) (usage, custom; kind of coin), from νέμω (némō) (to deal out, dispense, distribute), from νέμειν (nemein) (to dispense, divide, assign, keep, hold), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European nem- (to distribute; to give; to take”) + -ος (-os) (the suffix forming nouns).

The suffix -ic was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous (for example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulfurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Numismatics became formalized in the nineteenth century, the Royal Numismatic Society founded in London in 1836, the first meeting of American Numismatic Society conducted in New York in 1858; the US organisation remains one of the nation’s oldest cultural institutions.  Related disciplines include Exonumia (which is the UK is known as paranumismatica) which encompasses coin-like objects such as medals & tokens, whether issued for commemorative purpose or as surrogates for currency.  The surprisingly recent field of notaphily collects and studies paper money (banknotes) which now of course includes the new polymer issues (still mostly refered to as “paper”).  Being in some sense a store of value, paper notes have long been accumulated by many people in many countries but it was only in the 1920s it became an identifiable field.  One aspect which can make notaphily an attractive hobby for a certain sort of collector is that some countries maintain registers of all notes issued which, unlike coins, are individually numbers and therefore unique in a sense minted metal is not.  Many numismatists are both exonumists and notaphilists and some even dabble in scripophily, the study and collection of stocks and bonds, items frequently of artistic as well as historic interest which, being printed usually of paper which was both larger and of higher quality than that used for bank notes, offered designers considerably more scope.  Unlike the metal and paper issues associated with currencies, physical stocks and bonds in the collectable sense are now rare because so much of the transactional record has become digital.  The Numismatic Bibliomania Society (NBS) is an educational association founded in 1979 to support and promote the use and collecting of numismatic literature.

One central bank with a great interest in numismatics is the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) which since 1974 has issued hundreds commemorative and other limited-edition runs of currency, the best known of which are the various seven dollar notes issued in honor of successes enjoyed by the national rugby sevens teams.  Most collectors seem to agree the most attractive were the blue notes issued in 2017 to mark the gold medal won at the 2016 Olympic Games and that series was interesting too because one side was printed in portrait mode rather that the in the more usual landscape aspect (although historically, portrait mode was once not uncommon).  Although of interest to collectors, the seven dollar notes were issued in the normal manner, at face value and are counted as part of the Fiji Dollar (FJD) money supply.  On the basis of advertized sale price, it seems perfect copies of the $7 notes trade at a premium of up to 60% against the face value.

More unusual still was the RBF’s recent 88 cent note which used a Chinese theme.  Issued not through the usual channels but sold directly by the bank for FJ$28 (US$12.77), although legal tender within Fiji, the RFB advised the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it was purely a numismatic issue and thus the aggregate value was not be included in the FJD money supply.  Given the spread between the bank’s sell (FJ$28) and buy (FJ$.88) prices, it’s doubtful any will be used as transactional currency.  The design features imagery drawn from Chinese tradition, alongside Fiji’s coat of arms and the RBF were quite open in saying it’s aimed at the Chinese and wider Asian market, cultures in which the number eight is considered lucky and likely to bring wealth and good fortune.  The RBF must have been advised that the more eights the better because the 88 cent collectors' item was released on the eighth day of the eighth month of the year.  Along with all the lucky eights, one side of the note features an image of the Chinese god of wealth and a money tree with the words "Good luck and good fortune. May prosperity be yours" printed in the corner.  On the reverse is a hibiscus flower, the Fijian coat of arms and the signature of the RBF’s governor.

Despite the RBF indicating the note had been introduced purely as a component of their revenue-raising programme, the issue has generated some controversy because of geopolitical tensions associated with concerns over China's increasing interest in seeking to extend its influence in the pacific.  Putting up as solid a defense as that for which Fiji's rugby sevens are renowned, the RBF dismissed any suggestion it was dabbling in foreign affairs and that its issues were "… similar to that of stamp production, whereby hobbyists can purchase the banknotes and coins for their collections" and since 1974 they have issued hundreds of banknotes and coins with themes as varied as Christmas imagery, noted landmarks and Fijian flora & fauna, over the years raising some FJ$8 million.  Opposition politicians seemed suspicious, one noting that while there was nothing unusual about the RBF creating themed numismatics banknotes and coins, they were usually associated with something specific, often a “commemorative event of national and sometimes international significance".  He added that the meaning wasn’t clear asking: “What does it signify? What does this commemorate?"  Commemorative or not, it’s certainly an achievement for the RBF given there can’t have been many who have convinced the Chinese to pay $28 for something worth 88c.

A note with a face value of 88c is certainly unusual but there have been many issued with denominations outside of the long traditional ($1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 100) numbers.  Although the US Treasury in 1969 purged the large value notes (ie anything above US$100), they had earlier printed notes with values has high as US$10,000, these almost unknown in general use, restricted to institutional and inter-departmental purposes.  During the 1930s, there was even a US$100,000 note but it was technically a “Treasury Gold Certificate” which never entered circulation, use restricted to transactions between branches of the Federal Reserve.

Better known still were the big-value notes associated with economies suffering hyperinflation, a phenomenon which affected the Papiermark, the currency of the German Weimar Republic (1918-1933) between 1921-1923 and economists differ on exactly when the post-war inflation became hyperinflation but by 1923, the Reichsbank had been compelled to print 50 trillion (50 billion: 50×10¹²) mark notes and photographs of people using wheelbarrows filled with bundles of banknotes to buy a few groceries are still printed by German newspapers when warning of the dangers of inflation.  That sounds big but in 2008, Zimbabwe’s central bank issued Z$100 trillion (100 billion: 50×10¹⁴) notes.  Although, all other attempts at amelioration having failed, the Zimbabwe government had attempted to solve the problem of inflation by ceasing to publish the data, economic reality anyway proceeded and inflation peaked (and estimates vary, the actual number not that significant above a certain point) at around 250,000,000%, the existence of big-value notes both a symptom an cause of the problem.  Eventually the government gave up on the dollar, announcing a basket of foreign currencies would be regarded as local tender and citizen’s Z$ balances and holdings could be exchanged for US$ (up to a certain value at something of a discount), a move necessitated apart from all else by lacking the funds to have banknotes printed.

The hundred billion dollar note is impressive but in 1946, facing their own problems of hyperinflation (consumer prices having long been more than doubling every day), the government of Hungry issued 100 quintillion (100 million trillion: 100×10²⁰) pengő notes and that’s apparently the largest denomination bill ever issued.  As in Zimbabwe, the big notes made the problem worse and the currency was replaced which meant the 1 sextillion (one thousand million million million: 100×10²¹) pengő notes which had been printed were never issued.

Many countries (and some financial institutions have over the years issued notes in what would now seem irregular values.  Even the old lady of Threadneedle Street (the staid Bank of England) once printed £4, £15, £25, £40 & £80 notes.

Lindsay Lohan one dollar novelty note.

Ruin

Ruin (pronounced roo-in)

(1) The remains of a building, city etc that has been destroyed or that is in disrepair or a state of decay.

(2) A destroyed or decayed building, town, etc.

(3) A fallen, wrecked, or decayed condition; the downfall, decay, or destruction of anything.

(4) The complete loss of health, means, position, hope, or the like.

(5) Some substance or other thing that causes a downfall or destruction; blight.

(6) The downfall of a person; undoing.

(7) A person as the wreck of his or her former self; ravaged individual.

(8) The act of causing destruction or a downfall.

(9) To reduce to ruin; devastate; to bring (a person, company etc) to financial ruin; bankrupt; to damage, spoil, or injure (a thing) irretrievably.

(10) To induce (a woman) to surrender her virginity; deflower; loss of virginity by a woman outside marriage (mostly archaic).

(11) To fall into ruins; fall to pieces; to come to ruin.

1325–1375: From the Middle English noun rueyne & ruyen, from the Middle French ruwine, from the Latin ruīna (headlong rush, fall, collapse, falling down), the construct being ruere (violently to fall) + -īna (feminine singular of suffix –īnus).  The Middle English verb was ruyn & ruine, from the Middle French ruyner & ruiner or directly from the Medieval Latin ruīnāre, again a derivative of the Latin ruīna.  In the late Old English, rueyne meant "act of giving way and falling down" (a sense which didn't descend into the Middle English), again from the Latin ruina, source also of the Old French ruine (a collapse), the Spanish ruina and the Italian rovina which is a derivative of ruere (to rush, fall violently, collapse), from the primitive Indo-European reue- (to smash, knock down, tear out, dig up).  The sense of "descent from a state of prosperity, degradation, downfall or decay of a person or society" dates from the late fourteenth century while the general meaning "violent or complete destruction" (of anything) and "a profound change so as to unfit a thing for use" (of one's principles, one's goods etc) was first noted by the 1670s, something of an extension of the sense of "that which causes destruction or downfall", from the early fifteenth century.  The special meaning "dishonor of a woman" (essentially the same as "a fallen woman") dates from the 1620s.  Ruins in the sense of "remains of a decayed building or town" was from the mid-fifteenth century; the same sense was in the Latin plural noun.

The verb ruin emerged in the 1580s, first in the military sense of "reduce (a place) to ruin," transitive, from the noun ruin or the fourteenth century French ruiner and from the 1610s it came to mean also "inflict disaster upon" (someone) which extended by the 1650s to mean "bring to ruin, damage essentially and irreparably".  The intransitive sense of "fall into ruin" dates from circa 1600 but is probably now obsolete except for poetic use or as a literary device.  The still well-known financial sense of "reduce to poverty, wreck the finances of" was first noted in the 1650s.  The late fourteenth century adjective ruinous (going to ruin, falling to ruin) was from the Old French ruinos (which endures in Modern French as ruineux) and directly from the Latin ruinosus (tumbling down, going to ruin) from ruina.  The meaning "causing ruin, tending to bring ruin" was from the mid-fifteenth century and by 1817 it was understood almost exclusively to mean "excessively expensive", hence the still popular phrase "ruinously expensive".

The noun ruination is interesting.  It meant in the 1660s the "act of bringing to ruin, state of being brought to ruin" amd was the noun of action or state from the now rare or obsolete verb ruinate (to go to ruin) which had emerged in the 1540s from the Medieval Latin ruinatus, past participle of ruinare, again from the Classical Latin ruina.  Unlike flirtation, floatation, & botheration, ruination was not a hybrid derivative, being regularly formed from ruinate, the technical point being etymologists think it has the effect of a slangy emphatic lengthening of the noun ruin and that only because the parent verb ruinate (in common use 1550-1700) is no longer heard.  For that reason Henry Fowler (1858-1933) in his authoritative Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) suggested "ruination is better avoided except in facetious contexts".

As a noun, ruin means the remains of a destroyed or decayed place, especially a half-standing building or city.  In the latter sense, it’s used most commonly in the plural, often as “ancient ruins”.  When used as a verb, ruin usually means “to spoil or destroy” although the once use to describe “the loss of virginity by an unmarried woman” is now rare.  Related words, sometimes used a synonyms, include bankruptcy, wreckage, collapse, insolvency, wreck, extinction, demolition, destruction, wipe out, mar, impoverish, overwhelm, injure, shatter, exhaust, demolish, crush, decimate, wrack & deplete.  The synonym of ruin most often used is destruction.  Ruin and destruction both imply irrevocable and either widespread or intense damage although, the pattern of use in Modern English seems to have evolved to use destruction (on a scale large or small) to emphasize the act while ruin emphasize the consequence: the resultant state.  Through use, there’s probably also the implication that a ruin is the result of natural processes of time whereas destruction suggests a sudden violent act or event.  The ruins from Antiquity exist both in what remains from the process of decay and as they have been "restored", usually to reflect the expectations of tourists.  For those who like the idea of what the original resembled, there's the odd replica. 

Die Ruinenwerttheorie: Albert Speer and the theory of ruin value.

Ruin value is a concept from architectural theory.  It suggests the design of representational architecture should be such that when eventually the structures crumble or collapse, what remains should be aesthetically impressive ruins which will long endure without any need of maintenance.  The idea was promoted by Hitler’s (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) architect, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), who first discussed it while planning for the 1936 Summer Olympics and subsequently published a paper as Die Ruinenwerttheorie (The Theory of Ruin Value).  Underling the idea was not merely the stated rationale for the theory but also the assertion such structures would tend inherently to be better built and more imposing during their period of use.  The notion was supported by Hitler, who planned for such ruins to be a symbol of the greatness of his thousand-year Reich, just as the remains from antiquity were symbolic of Hellenic and Roman civilizations.

Bank of England as a ruin (1830) by draftsman and artist Joseph Gandy (1771–1843)

In his memoirs (Inside the Third Reich, 1969) Speer laid claim to the idea, saying it was an extension of German architect Gottfried Semper's (1803-1879) views on the use of "natural" materials and the avoidance of iron girders.  Speer’s post-war writings however, although invaluable, are not wholly reliable or entirely truthful, even on technical matters such as armaments and architecture.  Ruin value was an older concept and one much-discussed in nineteenth century Europe, the romantic movement in art and architecture much drawn to, if not exactly what antiquity was, then certainly a neo-classical construct of what they imagined it to be.  This fascination even sometimes assumed a built form: a "new ruined castle" was actually built in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel in the eighteenth century and the motif affected the architect commissioned to design the Bank of England building.  When Sir John Sloane (1753-1837) presented the bank's governors with three oil sketches of the planned buildings one of them depicted it as new, another when weathered after a century and a third, what the ruins would look like a thousand years hence.

Architectural ruins, a vision (1798), water color on paper by Joseph Gandy

A watercolor imagining the Rotunda at the Bank of England (designed by Soane and completed in 1798), drawn in the year of its completion but showing the structure in the style of a Roman ruin.  The small figures of men with pickaxes working around a fire amidst the ruins recall the calciatori of Rome, who pillaged marble from its ancient sites to be burned into lime. This atmospheric watercolor recalls Piranesi's views of ruin with its dramatic point of view, fallen fragments in the foreground.  This drawing was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1832, thirty-four years after it was executed, at the time of Soane’s retirement as architect to the Bank, under the romantic title of Architectural Ruins–A Vision (RA 1832, number 992) and accompanied by lines from Prospero's speech (Act IV, scene 1) in Shakespeare's The Tempest:

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,

the solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve.

The ruin that never was.  A model of Speer's Volkshalle (people’s hall), centrepiece of Germania, the new capital of the Reich to be built over Berlin.

Speer based his design on a sketch made by Hitler himself in 1925, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome which had been created for an empire that lasted centuries.  Clever use of steel and lightweight concrete behind stone cladding permitted the scale of the structure.  The Volkshalle would have risen some 950 feet (290m), the oculus in the centre of the dome 150 feet (46 metres) in diameter, so big that Michelangelo’s dome of St Peter’s could have been lowered through it.  The volume of the building was such that it would have its own micro-climate and weather patterns; clouds would have formed, and rain drops falling on the masses below.   The Volkshalle symbolized an empire planned to endure a thousand years but the Third Reich fell after barely a dozen years and neither Volkshalle nor Germania were built and at war's end, surrounding the proposed site, Berlin lay in ruins.

Coquetry

Coquetry (pronounced koh-ki-tree or koh-ke-tree)

(1) Actions designed to excite erotic attention, without intending to reciprocate such feelings (now applied exclusively of women towards men); flirtatious teasing.

(2) A display of affectation of amorous interest or enticement (now applied exclusively of women towards men); flirtation.

(3) The behavior or the arts of a coquette.

1650s: The English coquetry (effort to attract from a motive of vanity or amusement, trifling in love) was from the French coquetterie, from the verb coqueter (to flirt).  Coquèterie is the modern spelling, now understood as “vanity, knack for fashion and appearance”.  The suffux –eire was from the Old French –erie and equivalent to -ier +‎ -ie; it was used, inter alia, to denote nouns describing qualities or properties.  Coquetry is a noun, coquet is a noun & verb, coquettish is an adjective and the noun plural is coquetries.

Coquèterie (1911), oil on canvas by Félix Vallotton (1865–1925).  At least one critic translated coquèterie as used by Vallotton as “sauciness”.

The original form in French was the early seventeenth century coquet (a beau (literally “a little cockerel”)), the construct being coq (cockerel) + -et (the masculine diminutive suffix) which came to referred to “someone apparently amorous who seeks to appear romantically attractive out of vanity", a meaning derived from the idea of "to swagger or strut like a cock (although the bird’s reputation for lustfulness may have been influential)).  The word was applied to both sexes but after circa 1700 came to be used exclusively of flirtatious women (who we now call a coquette), the adjective coquettish (resembling a coquette, characterized by coquetry) dating from 1702; the extension of meaning to the point where it extended to become also a pure synonym for flirtation (divorced from purpose), seems not to have developed until the late twentieth century.  In ornithology taxonomy, coquettes are several species of hummingbird in the genus Lophornis, and the Racket-tailed coquette in the genus Discosura.

A coquettish Lindsay Lohan, 2016.

Coquetry is a word which must be used with care because it describes behavior, the art and science of the coquette, not her purpose or intent.  An act of coquetry will always be flirtatious but while it (1) may be deployed to seek courtship, (2) there may be hidden agendas or ulterior motives or (3) she may be doing it just for practice or for no particular reason, there being women for whom coquettishness is either habit or calling.

Naff

Naff (pronounced naf)

(1) Unstylish; lacking taste; unfashionable, usually as “a bit naff”.

(2) As “naff around” or “naff about”, to goof off or fool around (now rare, perhaps obsolete).

(3) To decline a suggestion or request someone to depart (as naff off), once widely used as a journalistic euphemism.

(4) A kind of tufted sea-fowl.

(5) In slang, a range of uses, figurative and euphemistic.

1800s:  Naff has had quite a history.  It’s documented (1) (circa 1845) in slang as a noun meaning "female pudenda" which is though possibly back-slang from “fan”, a shortening of fanny (in the UK sense), circa 1940, meaning "nothing" in the slang of prostitutes' slang and (3) (circa 1959) as a verb, a euphemism for “fuck” in oaths, imprecations, and expletives (as in naff off) and (4) as a (1960s) adjective to convey "vulgar, common, despicable" or just generally “ugly or unattractive” which is said to have been used in 1960s British gay slang for "unlovely" and thence adopted into the jargons of the theatre and the armed forces.  There is one source which suggests it was gay slang for “heterosexual” but it’s undocumented; perhaps among them “unattractive” and “ugly” were synonymous on technical, if not aesthetic grounds.  In one sign of the times, in the early 1980s, the last days before deference finally died, the tabloid press generously reported Princess Anne (b 1950) had told a photographer covering an equestrian event to “naff off” rather than the “fuck off” she, apparently more than once, thought better conveyed her feelings.  He late father would probably have approved though it’s doubtful the Murdoch press will show the same restraint should ever the Duchess of Sussex be so expressive.

The use in the gay community and in entertainment circles is thought possibly from Polari. Brought to England by sailors, Polari is a distinctive English argot, examples of which appear in the record since at least the early seventeenth century.  Historically, it was associated with groups of theatrical and circus performers and in certain gay and lesbian communities and in those communities, some words still survive in their slang.  Although some of its later adoptions were influenced by other languages, most of the vocabulary was derived from Italian, either directly or through the Lingua Franca of Mediterranean ports.  The word was first recorded by researchers in the 1840s and was ultimately from Italian parlare (to speak, talk), source of the English borrowing “parle”.  Polari was also sometimes spelled parlary and pronounced puh-lahr-ee, par-lahr-ee, par·lya·ree, puhl-yahr-ee or pahrl-yahr-ee.

Lycia Naff (b 1962) as the three breasted prostitute (left) in Total Recall (1990), the idea revived on the catwalk, Milan Fashion Week, 2018 (right).

Naff does appear elsewhere but neither (1) the corruption of the Swiss/German surname Neff (perhaps brought to the Middle East by a Crusader or trader) or (2) the Arabic root from a word meaning “one who separates wheat from chaff” are thought to have any link to the use in English.  Naff is the adjective and (the rare) naffness the noun.  There are early (non-vulgar) twentieth century citations of naff as both noun-singular & plural but the form never caught on.  Still, it’s an adaptable word for those attracted: naff, naffness, naffer, naffism, naffology, naffest, naffhead, naffy, naffiest, naffinistic, naffstick, naffily, naffed, & naffing are all there to be used or constructed.  Naff really is quite useful.  None of the vaguely similar words (kitsch, camp, rubbish, unstylish, clichéd, outmoded, inferior, tasteless) convey exactly the same meaning; there’s overlap with many but naff encapsulates nuances of all in a way no other word can.  It possesses a quality best understood by the distinction Susan Sontag (1933–2004) drew in her essay Notes on Camp (Partisan Review, 1964), between “a sensibility” and “an idea”.  Naffness seems a sensibility rather than an idea which lends itself to any precision in definition, a thing which can be sensed when encountered but not defined except in terms either so verbose or abstract as to not be helpful.

Being a sensibility, it’s a thing which can slur across time, some things once fashionable becoming naff and later (allegedly) ironic.

Crunning & Cromiting

Crunning (pronounced khrun-ing)

In high-performance sports training, simultaneously running and crying.

Circa 2020: the construct was cr(y) + (r)unning.

Cromiting (pronounced krom-et-ing)

In high-performance sports training, simultaneously running, crying & vomiting.

Circa 2020: the construct was cr(y) + (v)omit + (runn)ing.

The verb cry was from the thirteenth century Middle English crien, from the Old French crier (to announce publicly, proclaim, scream, shout) (from which Medieval Latin gained crīdō (to cry out, shout, publish, proclaim)). The noun is from Middle English crie, from the Old French cri & crïee.  The origin of the Old French & Middle Latin word is uncertain.  It may be of Germanic origin, from the Frankish krītan (to cry, cry out, publish), from the Proto-Germanic krītaną (to cry out, shout), from the primitive Indo-European greyd- (to shout) and thus cognate with the Saterland Frisian kriete (to cry), the Dutch krijten (to cry) & krijsen (to shriek), the Low German krieten (to cry, call out, shriek”), the German kreißen (to cry loudly, wail, groan) and the Gothic kreitan (to cry, scream, call out) and related to the Latin gingrītus (the cackling of geese), the Middle Irish grith (a cry), the Welsh gryd (a scream), the Persian گریه‎ (gerye) (to cry) and the Sanskrit क्रन्दन (krandana) (cry, lamentation).  Some etymologists however suggest a connection with the Medieval Latin quiritō (to wail, shriek), also of uncertain origin, possibly from the Latin queror (to complain) through the form although the phonetic and semantic developments have proved elusive; the alternative Latin source is thought to be a variant of quirritare (to squeal like a pig), from quis, an onomatopoeic rendition of squeaking.  An ancient folk etymology understood it as "to call for the help of the Quirites (the Roman policemen).  In the thirteenth century, the meaning extended to encompass "shed tears", previously described as “weeping”, “to weep” etc and by the sixteenth century cry had displace weep in the conversational vernacular, under the influence of the notion of "utter a loud, vehement, inarticulate sound".  The phrase “to cry (one's) eyes out” (weep inordinately) is documented since 1704 but weep, wept etc remained a favorite of poets and writers.

Vomit as a verb (the early fifteenth century Middle English vomiten) was an adoption from the Latin vomitus (past participle of vomitāre) 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 wemh & 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).  It was cognate with the Old Norse váma (nausea, malaise) and the Old English wemman (to defile).  The use 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. 

Run was from the Middle English runnen & rennen (to run), an alteration (influenced by the past participle runne, runnen & yronne) of the Middle English rinnen (to run), from the Old English rinnan & iernan (to run) and the Old Norse rinna (to run), both from the Proto-Germanic rinnaną (to run) and related to rannijaną (to make run), from the Proto-Indo-European hreyh- (to boil, churn”.  It was cognate with the Scots rin (to run), the West Frisian rinne (to walk, march), the Dutch rennen (to run, race), the Alemannic German ränne (to run), the German rennen (to run, race) & rinnen (to flow), the Danish rende (to run), the Swedish ränna (to run) and the Icelandic renna (to flow).  The non-Germanic cognates includes the Albanian rend (to run, run after).  The alternative spelling in Old English was ærning (act of one who or that which runs, rapid motion on foot) and that endured as a literary form until the seventeenth century.  The adjective running (that runs, capable of moving quickly) was from the fourteenth century and was from rennynge; as the present-participle adjective from the verb run, it replaced the earlier erninde, from the Old English eornende from ærning.  The meaning "rapid, hasty, done on the run" dates from circa 1300 while the sense of "continuous, carried on continually" was from the late fifteenth century.  The language is replete with phrases including “run” & “running” and run has had a most productive history: according to one source the verb alone has 645 meanings and while that definitional net may be widely cast, all agree the count is well into three figures.

The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).

Lilly Dick (b 1999) of the Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens.

The portmanteau words crunning (simultaneously running and crying) & cromiting (simultaneously running, crying & vomiting) are techniques used in strength and conditioning training by athletes seeking to improve endurance.  The basis of the idea is that at points where the mind usually persuades a runner or other athlete to pause or stop, the body is still capable of continuing and thus signals like crying or vomiting should be ignored in the manner of the phrase “passing through the pain barrier”.  The ides is “just keep going no matter what” and that is potentially dangerous so such extreme approaches should be pursued only under professional supervision.  Earlier (circa 2015), crunning was a blend of crawl + running, a type of physical training which was certainly self-descriptive and presumably best practiced on other than hard surfaces; it seems not to have caught on.  Crunning & cromiting came to wider attention when discussed by members of the Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens team which won gold at the Commonwealth Games (Birmingham, UK, July-August 2022).  When interviewed, a squad member admitted crunning & cromiting were “brutal” methods of training but admitted both were a vital part of the process by which they achieved the level of strength & fitness (mental & physical) which allowed them to succeed.

The perils of weed.

Although visually similar (spelling & symptoms), crunning & cromiting should not be confused with "scromiting" (a portmanteau of “screaming” and “vomiting”) a word coined in the early twenty-first century as verbal shorthand for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS).  Hyperemesis is extreme, persistent nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, a kind of acute morning sickness and CHS presents in much the same way.  The recreational use of cannabis was hardly new but CHS was novel and the medical community has speculated the reaction induced only in some users may be caused either by their specific genetic differences or something added to or bred into certain strains of weed although the condition remains both rare and geographically distributed.  The long-term effects are unknown except for damage to tooth enamel caused by the stomach acid in the vomit.

The legendary Corey Bellemore.

An athletic pursuit probably sometimes not dissimilar to the exacting business of crunning & cromiting is the Beer Mile, conducted usually on a standard 400 m (¼ mile) track as a 1 mile (1.6 km) contest of both running & drinking speed.  Each of the four laps begins with the competitor drinking one can (12 fl oz (US) (355 ml)) of beer, followed by a full lap, the process repeated three times.  The rules have been defined by the governing body which also publishes the results, including the aggregates of miles covered and beers drunk.  Now a sporting institution, it has encouraged imitators and there are a number of variations, each with its own rules.  The holder of this most illustrious world record is a three-time champion, Canadian Corey Bellemore (b 1994), who set the mark of 4:28.1 on 23 October 2021.

University of Otago Medical School.

Some variations of the beer mile simply increase the volume or strength of the beer consumed and a few of these are dubbed Chunder Mile (“chunder” being circa 1950s Australia & New Zealand slang for vomiting and of disputed origin) on the basis that vomiting is more likely the more alcohol is consumed.  For some however, even this wasn’t sufficiently debauched and there were events which demanded a (cold) meat pie be enjoyed with a jug of (un-chilled) beer (a jug typically 1140 ml (38.5 fl oz (US)) at the start of each of the four laps.  Predictably, these events were most associated with orientation weeks at universities, a number still conducted as late as the 1970s and the best documented seems to have been those at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.  Helpfully, at this time, it was the site of the country’s medical school, thereby providing students with practical experience of both symptoms and treatments for the inevitable consequences.  Whether the event was invented in Dunedin isn’t known but, given the nature of males aged 17-21 probably hasn’t much changed over the millennia, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn similar competitions, localized to suit culinary tastes, have been contested by the drunken youth of many places in centuries past.  As it was, even in Dunedin, times were changing and in 1972, the Chunder Mile was banned “…because of the dangers of asphyxiation and ruptured esophaguses.”