Funeral

Funeral (pronounced fyoo-ner-uhl)

(1) The ceremonies for a dead person prior to burial or cremation; the obsequies.  Technically, it’s distinguished from a memorial service by the presence of the corpse although, for various reasons, this is not absolute.

(2) The processional element of such a ceremony.

(3) The sermon delivered at a burial (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English adjective funeral, from the Medieval Latin fūnerālia (funeral rites), originally the neuter plural from the adjective fūnerālis (having to do with a funeral), the construct being fūner- (stem of fūnus (funeral rites; death, corpse) + -ālis (the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals).  The origin of the Latin forms (In Classical Latin the adjective was funebris) is unknown, the common speculation linking to the primitive Indo-European dhew (to die).  The noun emerged in the early sixteenth century, probably from the Middle French plural funerailles, from the Medieval Latin fūnerālia, neuter plural of fūnerālis and the singular and plural were used interchangeably in English until circa 1700.  In Elizabethan times, funeral operated also as transitive verb in the sense of "to mourn".  The adjective funereal dates from 1725, influenced by the Middle French funerail, from the Latin fūnereus, from fūnus.  The Middle English forms from Latin via French displaced the native Old English līcþeġnung (literally the helpfully descriptive “dead body service”).

Funeral differs from burial, cremation, entombment, inhumation, interment & planting in that those words refer to a method whereas funeral concerns the ceremonial aspects; the words obsequies, sepulture & solemnities more synonymous although, historically, the closest was probably the obsolete exequy (the also obsolete exsequy the alternative form), a back-formation from exequies, from the Middle English exequies, from the Old French exequies, from the Latin exsequiās, accusative of exsequiae (train of followers).  Funeral appears in many European languages with the odd variation in spelling but in Portuguese, the velório (wake) is a more common reference.  The adjective funerary (pertaining to funerals or burials) dates from the 1690s, from Late Latin funerarius.  The adjective funest (portending death) emerged in the 1650s and had been obsolete since the late eighteenth century except as a poetic device; it was from the fourteenth century French funeste (unlucky), from the Latin funestus (causing death, destructive; mournful) from fūnus (“funeral rites" in this sense)  The related funestal was from a century earlier and died even sooner.  Funeral is a noun & adjective (the verb long obsolete), funereal, funerary & (the obsolete) funebrial are adjectives, funereally an adverb and funeralize is a verb; the noun plural is funerals.  The adjective funereal is used to refer to anything grim and dour rather than funeral as such and in idiomatic use, to say “it will be your funeral” is to suggest there will be unpleasant consequences if some course of action is followed.

In English, undertaker was an agent noun from the verb undertake, the early meaning, strictly speaking, "a contractor of any sort hired to perform some task" but it was applied mostly to those engaged is some sort of commercial enterprise.  There had long been instances of the use of “funeral-undertaker” but by the 1690s, “undertaker” had come to mean almost exclusively those whose profession was to “embalm and bury”.  Most etymologists conclude this organic shift to linguistic exclusivity came via the word being used as a euphemism for the mechanics of the profession, matters of mortality something of a taboo topic.

Undertaker faded from use as “mortician” and “funeral director” came to be preferred, firstly in the US with the latter soon becoming the standard form in the rest of the English-speaking world.  It was at the July 1895 meeting of the Funeral Directors' Association of Kentucky that it was proclaimed “…an undertaker will no longer be known as an "undertaker and embalmer." In the future he will be known as the "mortician."  This soon spread and the term undertaker is now almost unknown except in historic references or in figurative use in fields such as politics and sport.  In general use, the words "undertake", "undertaken" or "undertaking" are now used to describe just about any activity and with no sense of a taint of association with corpses.

In the narrow technical sense, even in modern use, the terms funeral director, mortician, and undertaker mean the same thing (a person who supervises or conducts the preparation of the dead for burial and directs or arranges funerals"  Nuances have however emerged, especially in the US where a funeral director tends to be someone who owns or operates a funeral home whereas the term mortician implies a technical role, a person who handles the body (the embalmer) in preparation for a funeral.  Often of course, these roles are combined, especially in smaller operations so for practical purposes, funeral director and mortician are generally interchangeable and the place a funeral director or mortician works is usually called either a funeral parlor or funeral home.  Although it would probably once have seemed a bizarre construction, there are also now funeral celebrants who officiate at ceremonies not (or only vaguely) connected with religious practice and are thus analogous to the civil celebrants who perform secular marriage ceremonies.  They're not directly connected with the school of thought which prefers to "celebrate a life" rather than "mourn a death" at a funeral, an approach which can be taken even in an overtly religious service. 

So it's largely a matter of how those within the profession prefer to style themselves and Funeral Director seems now the most popular choice although mortician remains widely used in the US.  Mirriam-Webster helpful suggests provides:

Funeral Director: A person whose job is to arrange and manage funerals.

Mortician: A person whose job is to prepare dead people to be buried and to arrange and manage funerals.

Undertaker: One whose business is to prepare the dead for burial and to arrange and manage funerals.

In the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, a pauper's funeral was a funeral for a pauper paid for by the state, originally under the terms of the under the English Poor Law (last codified in 1834 but with legislative antecedents which stretched back centuries.  The common law right of the dead to a dignified burial was first recognized in England in R v Stewart, 12 AD. & E. 773 (1840) and was thus an early recognition of basic human rights.  The phrase "pauper's funeral" is now not widely used in formal discourse but apparently remains undertakers slang and, around the old British Empire, local authorities quietly conduct thousands of funerals a year.  Although not a "State Funeral" as defined, each is a funeral paid for by the state.

Top - Ceremonial funerals: Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) (left), Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021) (centre) & Baroness Thatcher (1925-2013 (right).

Bottom - State Funerals: George V (1865-1936) (left), George VI (1895-1952) (centre) & Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965 (right). 

So, when Lord Salisbury (1893–1972) was asked by one of Winston Churchill’s (1874-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) private secretaries what a State Funeral was, in answering “A funeral paid for by the state” he was only partly correct, a State Funeral in the UK requiring uniquely the consent of both houses of parliament: the Commons and the Lords Spiritual & Temporal.  In the UK, the state funeral has long been a rare thing and in recent years it’s become more exclusive still, Elizabeth II’s upcoming event only the sixth in the last hundred years of which two were not departed sovereigns, the last being Churchill’s in 1965.  The big, set piece, televised events which look like State Funerals such as those of the Queen Mother (1900-2002 and Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) were styled as “ceremonial funerals” and over the same period there have been eight of these.  There has been speculation about the form Elizabeth’s funeral (operation "London Bridge", planned since 1962) will take, some suggesting it will, befitting the end of an era, be a glittering, elaborate spectacle which will contrast with the later coronation of Charles III, that expected to be something simpler than the last in 1953, reflecting the changed times.  It's not known how many people, over the years, have been involved in planning "London Bridge" but as a comparison, some sources claim 277 souls were on the committee which designed the State Funeral of Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912-1994; The Great Leader of the DPRK (North Korea (1948-1994)).  

Not all jurisdictions treat them as such rarified events.  While governments have different rules for state funerals, few show the largess of the Australian states which grant them to well-behaved pop singers and reasonably successful football coaches though, being obviously symbolic, they serve many purposes: both Adolf Hitler (1889-1945, Nazi head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and Comrade Stalin (1878–1953; Soviet leader 1922-1953) attended (as chief mourner) a number of state funerals where the deceased had been murdered on their orders.

Mormon Funeral Potatoes

Although often called Mormon Funeral potatoes (although the same general recipe also produces great potatoes, cheesy potatoes, hash brown casserole, cheesy hash browns & party potatoes), the unusual combination of potatoes and toppings is popular beyond Utah as a traditional potato hotdish or casserole in the US West and Midwest.  The name "funeral potatoes" comes from the frequency with which the side-dish is served at funerals where it's popular not only because of tradition but the ease with which it can be transported and re-heated.  It remains a standard component of funerals conducted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).  Although there are variations, the recipe usually includes hash browns or cubed potatoes, some type of cheese, onions, a cream soup (chicken, mushroom, or celery) or sauce, sour cream, and a topping of butter with corn flakes or (latterly) crushed potato chips.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 50-55 minutes

Serving time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

20 oz frozen hash browns, slightly defrosted
2 cups of a cheese which melts well (cheddar, mozzarella etc)
1.5 cup of sour cream
1 can of cream soup (alternatively use 1 cup of stock concentrate and increase sour cream to 2 cups)
8 tablespoons of butter, melted
1 cup of corn flakes
1 cup of fried onions
Salt, pepper to taste

Instructions

(1) Pre-heat oven to 330^o F (165^o C) and butter baking tray.

(2) In large bowl, thoroughly mix hash browns, sour cream, chicken soup, dried onion, butter, salt and pepper and cheese.

(3) Put mixture in baking tray, spreading to an even depth.

(4) Evenly sprinkle cornflakes on top by gently crushing them.

(5) Bake for 50-55 minutes.  Allow to cool down for 10 minutes before serving.

The Machete funeral hearse

Lindsay Lohan in habit, emerging from hearse in Machete (2010).  The Machete hearse was based on a 1987 Cadillac Brougham (1987-1992).

Between 1931-1979, General Motors' Cadillac division offered a line called the Cadillac Commercial Chassis, a long-wheelbase, heavy-duty platform which was mechanically complete but with a partially built body (without bodywork rear of the windscreen, doors and other panels included on request).  Produced on the D platform (exclusive to Cadillac), the Commercial Chassis was used by coach-builders to create high-roofed ambulances, hearses (often called funeral coaches in the US) and cleverly designed hybrids which at short notice could be converted from ambulances to hearses or used by a coroner's staff to transport a corpse; they were popular in towns with small populations.  The early Commercial Chassis were based on the Series 355 (1931-1935) and the Series 75 (1936-1992) from 1936 and although there were specific modification to the frame, the mechanical components were always shared with the 75 which, used for the big limousines, meant costs were amortized across the ranges.  After 1980, production continued on the downsized platform but there was no longer a separate D platform, the partially bodied cars structurally identical to the mainstream line.  The landau irons (which some coachbuilders insist should be called "carriage bars") on the rear side-panels emulate in style (though not function) those used on horse-drawn carriages and early automobiles (the last probably the Mercedes-Benz 300 (the “Adenauer”; W186 (1951-1957) & W189 (1957-1962)) Cabriolet D).  On those vehicles, the irons actually supported the folding mechanism for the fabric roof but on hearses they are merely decorative, there to relieve the slab-sidedness of the expanse of flat metal.

Salad

Salad (pronounced sal-uhd)

(1) A usually cold (a few are “warm”) dish consisting of vegetables, as lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, covered with a dressing and sometimes containing fruit, seafood, meat eggs or other additions; any of various dishes consisting of foods, as meat, seafood, eggs, pasta, or fruit, prepared singly or combined, usually cut up, mixed with a dressing, and served cold (often with a modifier: Caesar salad, Niçoise salad, pasta salad, Greek salad, Thai salad, tossed salad, chicken salad, potato salad, fruit salad etc).

(2) Any herb or green vegetable, as lettuce, used for salads or eaten raw.

(3) Figuratively, a mixture or assortment of people or things, similar or disparate.

1350–1400: From the Middle English salade & salad (raw herbs cut up and variously dressed), from the Old & Middle French salade, from the Old Provençal salada, from salar (to season with salt), from the Northern Italian salada & salata, from the Vulgar Latin salāta (literally "salted" and short for herba salata), from salāre, the feminine past participle of salāre (to salt (in Antiquity, the Romans seasoned vegetables with brine or salty oil-and-vinegar dressings)), the construct being sal- (genitive salis; stem of sāl (salt)) + -āta- (added to nouns to form adjectives and akin to –ate).  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  Salad’s alternative spelling between the sixteenth & nineteenth centuries was sallet.  Salad is a noun: the noun plural is salads.

In Europe, the Dutch salade, the German Salat, the Swedish salat and the Russian salat are from Romanic languages.  The early use was exclusively of herbs and vegetables but came later to be extended to dishes including meat chopped and mixed with uncooked herbs and variously seasoned, the point being that the meat was an addition to a concoction predominately of vegetables.  As a reference to the raw herbs and vegetables themselves, in the US by the early nineteenth century most had limited the application of “salad” to lettuce while all else were “greens” although, except in the South, “salad” has in recent years crept back.  Salad oil "olive oil used for dressing salads" was known by the 1550s and the salad fork was listed for sale as early as 1808.  The salad bar was an invention of US English, attested by 1940.

The idiomatic salad days is a rarely used phrase that survives because William Shakespeare (1654-1616) used it once in all that he wrote and it’s used exclusively in the plural; nobody has ever had a “salad day”.  It’s presumed usually to convey a sense of youthful innocence enthusiasm and idealism associated with inexperience and is sometimes confused with “halcyon days” which actually summons the idea of a time of calm, a nostalgic idealizing of a past.  Not all however thought something worth repeating just because it came from the bard's quill.  The unforgiving Henry Fowler (1858-1933) thought salad days just a cliché and even doubted the accepted meaning.  In Modern English Usage (1926) he though youth, like salad might variously be thought (1) green & raw, (2) prone to a preference for highly flavored tastes or (3) innocent as a herb unlike corrupted meat.  Even for the old curmudgeon that seems a stretch but his point was that few who used the phase properly understood its meaning and it was thus “fitter for parrots than for human speech”.

Salad days was spoken by Cleopatra in Act 1, Scene 5 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (circa 1607).

CHARMIAN The valiant Caesar!

CLEOPATRA By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth

If thou with Caesar paragon again

My man of men.

CHARMIAN By your most gracious pardon,

I sing but after you.

CLEOPATRA My salad days,

When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,

To say as I said then. But come, away,

Get me ink and paper.

He shall have every day a several greeting,

Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.

Having spoken longingly of Antony. Cleopatra doesn’t like it mentioned that once she spoke of her lover Caesar with the same ecstasy and when reminded they were her own words, Cleopatra concedes the point but puts it down to the rash impetuosity of youth, salad days when she was “green in judgment, cold in blood”.  The convention explanation of salad days as Shakespeare’s device is that the Cleopatra used the image of the salad (green and cold) as something served before the richer, more substantial, hot main course, making the point it was youthful inexperience which made her idealize her affair with Caesar.  It was the passionate Antony who made her blood boil.  Shakespeare never returned to the phrase but had earlier used “green” in the same sense.  In Hamlet (circa 1601), when Ophelia is speaking to her father Polonius, about her troubled relationship with Hamlet, he says “You speak like a green girl; Unsifted in such perilous circumstances.”

Others liked it though.  Although Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness (1954)) tended to overshadow the later work of French novelist Francoise Sagan (1935-2004), her Salad Days (1980) is especially admired in English translation and one of the century’s better evocations of the well-worn tale of star-cross’d lovers.  Quite how many cook books, entertaining guides and such have been titled “Salad Days” (there have also been not a few “Salad Daze”) is not known but it’s many.  When Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of England and other places variously 1952-2022) delivered a Silver Jubilee Royal Address (1977), she reiterated the vow to God and her people she gave in her twenty-first birthday broadcast (1947), adding: “Although that vow was made in my salad days, when I was green in judgment”, it still held.  Her conclusion was different from Shakespeare’s Cleopatra whose feelings had changed since those salad days.  Elizabeth II never wavered.

In the aftermath of her death, the words she spoke in those salad days were widely and admiringly quoted: 

"I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong."

There were however historians who, in their capacity as public psychologists, noted that few thought to trouble the people of 2022 with her concluding remarks:

"But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do: I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it."

Egg & Potato Salad

Ingredients

6 large Dutch cream(or Desiree) potatoes, cut into 50 mm (2 inch) cubes

6 eggs, at room temperature

250 grams crème fraîche

200 grams mayonnaise

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

70 grams salted baby capers, rinsed and drained

100 grams cornichons, thinly sliced

2 golden shallots, thinly sliced

To garnish: some flat-leaf parsley, torn

Instructions

(1) Cook potatoes in boiling salted water until tender (10-15 minutes), then drain and set aside to steam dry.

(2) While the potatoes are cooking, place eggs in a saucepan of salted boiling water and cook for 8 minutes (for medium-cooked yolks), then drain and transfer to iced water to stop cooking. Peel, quarter and set aside.

(3) Combine remaining ingredients in a bowl and season to taste. Add potato and gently mix to coat well, then transfer to a platter, top with eggs, scatter with parsley, season with black pepper and serve.

Hysteria

Hysteria (pronounced hi-ster-ee-uh (U) or hi-steer-re-ah (non-U))

(1) In casual use, an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality, laughter, weeping, etc.

(2) In psychoanalysis, a psychoneurotic disorder characterized by violent emotional outbreaks, disturbances of sensory and motor functions, and various abnormal effects due to autosuggestion.

(3) In clinical psychiatry, conversion disorder.

(4) In (historic) clinical medicine, a mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability etc without an organic cause (archaic).

1795-1805: From the New Latin hysteria, from hysteric, from Classical Latin hystericus, from the Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (husterikós) (a suffering in the uterus, hysterical), from ὑστέρα (hustéra) (womb).  It’s from the same classical root that French gained hystérie and the long-archaic alternative English form is hysterick.  Now entirely obsolete as a medical term, hysteria is most often used as (1) a descriptor of someone behaving in an emotionally over-wrought way (with many feminist critics noting the loaded associations whether applied to men or women) or (2) in sociology and psychology (as mass hysteria) to describe a phenomenon that manifests as a collective illusion of fears in a whole or a sub-set of a population.  Like many terms that start with a non-silent h but have emphasis on their second syllable, some people precede hysteric with an, others with a.  Both practices are acceptable in modern English as long as use is consistent.  Hysteria & hystericalness are nouns, hysteric is a noun & adjective, hysterical is an adjective and hysterically is an adverb; the noun plural is hysterias, hysteriae or hysteriæ (the latter two rare even in the medical literature).  According to the trackers, the most common noun plural is hysterics.

Once exclusively female

For reasons both of linguistic and physiological determinism, until the nineteenth century it wasn’t possible for men to receive a diagnosis of hysteria, regardless of how hysterically they might have behaved.  Western medicine had long accepted the Ancient Greek belief hysteria was caused by a disturbance in the uterus and thus was exclusively a condition of women; an alternative description was uterine melancholy.  While drawn from the Greek hystera (uterus), the word is not ancient, the phrase in Greek medicine being hysterical suffocation.  The Greeks thought the uterus moved through the body, eventually strangling her and inducing disease, hence the tradition of centuries the disorder could exist only in women.  The mysterious tarassis was suggested as a name for male hysteria but is noted by only a few sources and then as either obscure or archaic although the Tarassis (male hysteria) mini-skirt is available from RedBubble as part number 31587934.

Jean Martin Charcot, Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière (A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière, 1887), oil on canvas by André Brouillet (1857–1914), Paris Descartes University, Paris.

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) was a French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology with a great interest in hysteria, most notably that exhibited by his patient Louise Augustine Gleizes (1861-1904), the woman who is the focus of this painting.  Professor Charcot was one of the seminal influences on early-modern neurology, psychology & psychiatry but his protocols for treating patients like Mademoiselle Gleizes would appal modern ethics committess.  First exhibited at the Salon of 1887 in the Louvre's Salon Carré, Brouillet's painting however is one of the most famous in the history of neurology so there's that. 

Lindsay Lohan, hysteria scene, The Canyons (2013).  Professor Charcot would have known what to do.

Late in the nineteenth century, Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) early work with diagnosed hysterics was important in his development of psychoanalytic therapy, one patient ever calling the treatment a "talking cure" and within the profession it’s still known as “talk therapy”.  It wasn’t until 1980 the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) withdrew the word.  In the first edition of the DSM (DSM–I (1952)) the condition was named “conversion reaction” while, in DSM–II (1968), it was grouped with dissociation disorder under the new diagnostic category of “hysterical neurosis” although, later, conversion disorder was conceptualised as a disorder of the brain associated with disordered emotions.  The transition to a system that classified psychiatric disorders by clinical phenomenology rather than aetiology resulted in the elimination of “hysterical neurosis” from DSM–III (1980), supplanted by “dissociation  disorders” and “conversion disorders” with the latter separated from the former and listed as a “somatoform disorder”. Thus, since 1980, somatoform disorders and the dissociative disorders have been separate categories in the DSM (the changes generally reflected in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD)), the nomenclature progressing thus:

1952 DSM–I: Conversion reaction

1968 DSM–II: Hysterical neurosis (conversion type)

1980 DSM–III: Conversion disorder

1992 ICD–10: Dissociative (conversion) disorder

1994 DSM–IV: Conversion disorder

2013 DSM-5: No substantive changes, confirming symptoms once labeled under the broad umbrella of hysteria would fit under what is now referred to as somatic symptom disorder.

Terpsichore

Terpsichore (pronounced turp-sik-uh-ree)

(1) In Classical Mythology, the goddess of dancing and choral song and one of the nine Muses who were daughters of Zeus (god of sky and thunder) & Mnemosyne (the goddess of memory).

(2) In choreography; the art of dancing (should always be lowercase).

(3) In astronomy (as 81 Terpsichore), a main belt asteroid.

Circa 1760: From the Classical Latin Terpsichorē from the Ancient Greek Τερψιχόρη (Terpsikhórē) (literally “enjoyment of dance”), noun use of the feminine of terpsíchoros (delighting in the dance), the construct being τέρψις (térpsis; térpein) (to delight; enjoyment) + χορός (khorós) (dance; chorus); it’s from terpsíchoros that English gained chorus.  The Greek was térpein was from the primitive Indo-European root terp- (to satisfy) source also of Sanskrit trpyati (takes one's fill) and the Lithuanian tarpstu & tarpti (to thrive, prosper).

The adjective terpsichorean (pertaining to dancing (literally “of Terpsichore”)) dates from 1869, and was from the Latinized form of the Greek noun terpsikhore (Muse of dancing and dramatic chorus).  From this came the theatrical slang terp (stage dancer, chorus girl) noted since 1937.  The adjectival form terpsichorean often appears with an initial capital letter because of its etymology from a proper noun.  Either is acceptable but the conventions of Modern English tend eventually to prevail which suggests use of the capital T will reduce with time but, given the rarity of the word except in a few technical and historical disciplines, the classic form is likely to endure among those few who enjoy its use.

In the mythology of Ancient Greece, nine goddesses ruled over art and literature.  The Greeks called them Muses and the Muse of dance and choral music was Terpsichore.  Of late she’s been of interest to astronomers who adopted her as a metaphor for the rhythm and ordered movement in the universe, such as mechanical oscillations.  In Archaic Greece, there were but three Muses, all associated with song and dance; it was only in the classical period they became nine and assigned to distinct spheres: Calliope of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Erato of love poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Polyhymnia of hymns, Thalia of comedy, Urania of astronomy, and Terpsichore of dance and choral music.  The daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, they dwelt in the land of Pieria in the foothills of Mount Olympus.  In later mythology, writers tended to compare the Muses to the sirens but while both were young nymphs famous for their beautiful songs, the Muses sang to enrich men’s souls while the sirens were chthonic and sang to lure them to their deaths.

The Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484-425 BC) wrote his Ἱστορίαι (historíai̯; in the West styled variously as The History or The Histories of Herodotus)) as an account of the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BC).  Although there was once some doubt about the veracity as a historical document (reflecting more the scepticism about medieval editors and translators than the original texts), modern research has concluded the work is one of the most reliable histories from antiquity.  Herodotus was called “The Father of History” by the Roman orator Cicero (103-46 BC) because of the quality of his writing but he's also now acknowledged as the father of historiography's modern structural form.  Written histories had existed prior to Herodotus but he was the first to adopt a recognizably modern thematic form.  At some unknown time, one or more editors reorganized The History into nine chapters, each name after a Muse, one of which was Terpsichore:  Book I (Clio), Book II (Euterpe), Book III (Thalia), Book IIII (Melpomene), Book V (Terpsichore), Book VI (Erato), Book VII (Polymnia), Book VIII (Urania) & Book IX (Calliope).

The Muse Terpsichore In Ancient & Modern Greece.  Allegory of the Muse Terpsichore playing a harp, from the Florentine School of the eighteenth century, oil on canvas by an unknown artist (left) and Lindsay Lohan dancing The Lilo, Lohan Beach House, Mykonos, Greece, 2018 (right).

Despite the similarity, there’s no verified connection between khorós (dance; chorus) and χώρᾱς (khṓrās), inflection of χώρᾱ (khṓrā) (location, place, spot; the proper place; one's place in life; piece of land: tract, land, field; country (as opposed to a city or town), countryside; country, nation.  The origin of khôra is unknown and it may be from a Pre-Greek substrate or other regional language although speculative links have been suggested including χᾰ́ος (kháos) (empty space, abyss, chasm) and χατέω (khatéō) (to lack, miss, need, desire) but few etymologists have supported either and the lack of cognates beyond the Greek rendered research a dead end.  Khōra had been adopted as the ancient name for the land lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers north of Babylon (modern-day Iraq), from the Greek mesopotamia (khōra (literally "a country between two rivers)), from the feminine of mesopotamos, the construct being mesos (middle), from the primitive Indo-European root medhyo- (middle") + potamos (river).  That use borrowed directly from the discussions from Antiquity.

However, khôra did attract the interest of those scourges of late twentieth century linguistics: the French deconstructionists.  Their attention seems to have been excited by the concept of khôra in the sense of “the territory of the Ancient Greek polis which lay beyond the city proper”.  The philosophers of Antiquity, noting the idea of khôra simultaneously as (1) the physical space between city & the wilderness, (2) the time it takes to transverse the space and (3) one’s state of mind while in the space.  It was very much a concept of the indeterminate, a triton genos (third kind), being neither civilization nor the state of nature and city nor wilderness and few things so appealed to the deconstructionists as the indeterminate.

Of course, one attraction of deconstruction was that it was in itself a layer of indeterminacy and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), post-modernism’s most famous explorer of khôra in the context of apophatism or negative theology, was interested not how the word had been understood in the traditions of metaphysics & metaphorics but what meaning could be constructed for something which is neither present or absent, passive or active.  The findings from khôra’s time on post-modernism’s autopsy table did illustrate why deconstruction gained a special role in language because there was surely no other way that Plato’s entirely cosmological concept could become psycho-linguistic and produce, in all seriousness, the idea of khôra as “container of the uncontainable”.  Plato (circa 425-circa 347 BC) had imagined khôra as that space through which something could pass but in which nothing could remain so thus to a French deconstructionist the very essence of tout autre (fully other) and from there it wasn’t very far to the idea of khôra also as time and space interacting.  At that point, in the tradition of post-modernism, khôra meant whatever the observer decided it meant.

The Terpsichore in Modern Greece: Lindsay Lohan dancing The Lilo, Lohan Beach House, Mykonos, Greece, 2018.

Checkered

Checkered (pronounced chek-erd)

(1) Marked by numerous and various shifts or changes; variegated; diversified in color; alternately light and shadowed.

(2) Figuratively, changeable; inconsistent, marked by dubious episodes; suspect in character or quality, often in the forms “a checkered career”, “a checkered past” etc.

(3) A fabric or other material marked with squares (most often in alternating black & white).

1350–1400: Check was from the Middle English chek & chekke, from the Old French eschek, eschec & eschac, from the Medieval Latin scaccus, from the Arabic شَاه‎ (šāh) (king (or check at chess); shah), from the Persian شاه‎ (šâh) (king, shah), from the Middle Persian mlkʾ & šāh, from the Old Persian xšāyaθiya (king), from the Proto-Indo-Iranian kšáyati (he rules, he has power over), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European tek- (to gain power over, gain control over).  The phrase “checkered past” appeared first in print in 1831 as a figurative use in the sense of “variegated with different qualities or events, having a character both good and bad”.  Checkered is an adjective.

Exchequer was from the Middle English escheker and eschequier, borrowed from the Anglo-French escheker and eschekier, derived from the Old French eschequier and escheccheck (chessboard, counting table).  Source was the Medieval Latin scaccarium (chess board).  The meaning with which it’s now most associated, government finances, emerged under the Norman kings of England, basis being the design of the cloth, divided in squares, covering the tables on which accounts of revenue were reckoned with counters.  These reminded all who saw them of a chess board and the name was adopted.  The English respelling with an -x- was because of the erroneous medieval belief that it originally was a Latin ex- word.

Flags in motorsport

Even in the digital age, flags continue to play a vital part in motorsport.  Despite progress, no more efficient or reliable system of has been found instantly to convey information to those in visual range.  The most commonly see flags are:

Green: Normal racing conditions apply.

Yellow: The hazard flag.  Its use varies according to the rules of the sanctioning body but in general: (1) it waved, it denotes a hazard on the racing surface, (2) if stationary a hazard near the racing surface and if two yellow flags are waved simultaneously, there’s a hazard (an object or person) blocking at least part of the racing surface.

Red and yellow vertical stripes: The oil flag.  It’s really the slipperiness flag because it’s used to warn of something on the surface (oil, coolant, sand, gravel, other fluids etc) which mean the track will offer less grip; despite that everybody calls it the oil flag.  Some sanctioning bodies display the flag until the hazard has cleared; others use it only for a couple of laps, the hazard beyond that point deemed "part of the track”.

Red: Stop the race.  This is usually done because a severe accident or natural conditions (weather, earthquake etc) mean it’s too dangerous to continue and, depending on the circumstances, drivers need either immediately to stop or slow to a safe speed and proceed to the pits.  Sometimes it’s used in conjunction with a yellow flag (there’s even a diagonally divided red and yellow flag for this purpose) to indicate the field should assemble for a re-start.

White: The white flag is a more recent innovation and generally is used either to inform drivers a slow moving vehicle is on the track or that it’s the start of the final lap.

Black: The solid black flag is shown to inform a drive they should return to the pits to serve a penalty for some infringement of the rules or to have the vehicle checked because of some concern.  The black flag with an orange disc in the centre (the so-called meatball flag) is used to call a vehicle to the pits to have some mechanical defect immediately rectified.  The meatball flag, either by explicit regulation or convention, is used only when the mechanical defect presents some real or immediate risk to drivers or spectators (oil leaks, protruding bodywork etc)  

Blue: If held in a static position, it tells the drive another vehicle is closely following.  If waved, it means another vehicle is attempting to overtake.

Checkered:  Also known as the chequered flag, the checkered flag indicates the end of a race.  Some sources suggest historically it was waved to acknowledge the race winner and held static to indicate to others the race had finished but there’s no evidence this practice was ever written into rules or even widely adopted and the checkered flag seems mostly to be waved.  The winner of a race is said to have “taken the checkered flag”.  Checkered flags are usually black and white and rendered in squares or rectangles but different color combinations have been used, sometimes to suit the needs of sponsors.  A noted innovation came in the 1980 Indianapolis 500 when two checkered flags were waved at race-end and the Indy series has adopted this as a standard.

Lindsay Lohan with fingernails in checkered flag pattern.

Various stories have been offered as the origin of the checkered flag in motorsport.  One suggests that in the horse-racing events popular at the large public picnics held during the settlement of the American mid-west during the nineteenth century, when the ladies were ready to serve lunch, they would wave large, checker-board tablecloths to inform the men food was ready and they competition should quickly be concluded.  As motorsport emerged as another amusement for men, because the early competitions were almost always held on dirt tracks, it’s said the contrasting colors of the checkerboard pattern were easier to see in a dusty environment and were thus ideal to signal the finish line.  Historians of the sport think these stories dubious on the basis of a lack of any contemporary evidence and for the some reason they’ve always been unwilling to give credence to any link with late nineteenth century bicycle racing in France.

British Admiralty Flag Chart.  

More convincing is the notion it may have been a borrowing from a naval flag signaling system and those of some admiralties did include a black (or blue) & white checkerboard to denote “Z” (ie final letter and thus the end in that sense).  It may be true or else, like many things, the checkered flag was chosen for its purpose at random.  What all agree upon is the documentary record.  The earliest known use of the checkered flag, based on the photographic record, is the one used to mark the end of the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup race in Long Island, New York.

Manufacturers used the checkered flag to convey a sense of high performance and to suggest some link (which sometimes was real) with a competition history.

The flag of Croatia

A banner used in Croatia between 925-1102 (left), the current Croatian flag adopted after independence in 1990 (centre) and the Croatian naval ensign (1990).

One of the most ancient symbols to endure in modern nation flags is the red & white checkered pattern used to this day on the flag of Croatia.  The oldest known example dates from 925 and the pattern was used (with the odd interruption) for centuries, even when the country was a non-sovereign component of supranational states such as the Habsburg Empire.  A red star was used instead when Croatia was a part of comrade Marshall Tito’s (1892-1980) Jugoslavija (Yugoslavia) between 1945-1990 but the red & white checks were restored when independence was regained in 1990.

Ivana Knoll at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Noted Instagram influencer Ivana Knoll (b 1992) was a finalist in the Miss Croatia beauty contest in 2016 and for her appearances at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, chose a number of outfits using the national symbol of the red and white checkerboard, matching the home strip worn by the team.  By the standards of Instragram, the design of the hoodie she donned for Croatia's game against Morocco at the Al-Bayat stadium wasn't particularly revealing but it certainly caught the eye.  As if Gianni Infantino (b 1970) doesn't have enough to ponder, the former Miss Croatia tagged FIFA in her posts, fearing perhaps the FIFA president may not be among her 600,000 Instagram followers and her strategy seems to have had the desired effect although whether the design which, does cover her hair, shoulders and legs, will prove sufficiently demur to satisfy the local rules, isn't clear.   The guidance provided by FIFA indicated non-Qatari women don’t need to wear the abaya (the long, black robe), tops must cover their midriff and shoulders, and skirts, dresses or trousers must cover the knees and clothing should not be tight or reveal any cleavage.  In accordance with the rules or not, Ms Knoll proved a popular accessory for Qatari men seeking selfies.

Croatian FIFA World Cup 2022 strips, home (left) & away (right). 

On the basis of her Instagram posts, the German-born beauty wouldn't seem to be in compliance with the rules but thus far there's been no report of reaction from the authorities but if she has any problems, Sepp Blatter's (b 1936; FIFA president 1998-2015) lawyers may be available.  They seem pretty good.  Paradoxically, although the impressively pneumatic Ms Knoll generated much interest in her hoodie, had she worn an all-enveloping burka in the red & white checkerboard, it might have gained even more clicks.