Handshake

Handshake (pronounced hand-sheyk)

(1) A gripping and shaking of (traditionally the right) hands by two individuals, as to symbolize greeting, congratulation, agreement or farewell.

(2) In digital communication, as handshaking, an exchange of predetermined signals between a computer and a peripheral device or another computer, made when a connection is initially established or at intervals during data transmission, in order to assure proper synchronization.

1801: The construct was hand + shake.  Hand was from the Middle English hond & hand, from the Old English hand, from the Proto-West Germanic handu, from the Proto-Germanic handuz (and related to the Dutch, Norwegian Nynorsk & Swedish hand, the Danish hånd, the German Hand and the West Frisian hân) of uncertain origin although there may be a link to the Old Swedish hinna (to gain), the Gothic fra-hinþan (to take captive, capture), the Latvian sīts (hunting spear), the Ancient Greek κεντέω (kentéō) (prick) and the Albanian çandër (pitchfork; prop).  Shake was from the Middle English schaken, from the Old English sċeacan & sċacan (to shake), from the Proto-West Germanic skakan, from the Proto-Germanic skakaną (to shake, swing, escape), from the primitive Indo-European skeg-, keg-, skek- & kek- (to jump, move).  It was cognate with the Scots schake & schack (to shake), the West Frisian schaekje (to shake), the Dutch schaken (to elope, make clean, shake), the Low German schaken (to move, shift, push, shake) & schacken (to shake, shock), the Old Norse skaka (to shake), the Norwegian Nynorsk skaka (to shake), the Swedish skaka (to shake), the Danish skage (to shake), the Dutch schokken (to shake, shock) and the Russian скака́ть (skakátʹ) (to jump”).  The present participle is handshaking and the familiar past participle handshaked but some dictionaries still list the rare handshook as an alternative; the noun plural is handshakes.

The handshake not a universal cultural practice (the Japanese famously favor the bow although in recent decades it’s executed often as more of a nod) but, in one form or another, it is global and involves usually two people grasping hands and moving them in a brief, up-and-down movement.  The right hand tends to be favored (left-handers sinister obviously) and this has been linked to the symbolism of that being the usual choice when wielding a weapon but that is speculative and the global preponderance of right-handedness may be of greater significance.  Quite when the handshake became a cultural practice isn’t known but it is certainly ancient, at least among those important enough to be depicted in forms of art because the oldest representations date back more than the-thousand years.

Some handshakes promised much; results were varied.  Clockwise from top left:  Mao Tse-tung & Richard Nixon (1972), Yitzhak Rabin & Yasser Arafat (1993), Mikhail Gorbachev & Ronald Reagan (1985), Donald Trump & crooked Hillary Clinton (2016), Martin McGuinness & Queen Elizabeth II (2012) and Nelson Mandela & FW de Klerk (1994). 

Handshake (hand-shake) is a surprisingly modern construction, dating only from 1801 and "hand-shaking" is attested from 1805; the phrases “to shake hands” & “shaking hands” have been in use since the sixteenth century and the use of the noun “grip” to mean "a handshake" (especially one of a secret society) dates from 1785.  Secret handshakes are created so members of clubs and societies may make their affiliation known to another person without needing to use words.  For a secret handshake to be effective it must be specific enough to be recognized by another member yet subtle enough that a non-member would not find the nature of the grip strange or unusual.  Because of the limited possibilities offered by fingers and thumbs, some secret handshakes involve also actions such as using the other hand to touch an earlobe in a certain way or a tapping a foot.  The concept has been documented since Antiquity and is most famously associated with the Freemasons but to speak of the “secret Masonic handshake” is misleading, some researchers claiming there are at least sixteen distinctly identifiable Masonic handshakes and most have speculated there will be dozens more.  Indeed, except in the early years, Freemasonry has never been monolithic and there are known cases of one faction (even within a lodge) developing their own so that they might discuss matter freely without the risk they may be spilling secrets to the other faction.  The mechanics of the secret handshakes used by members of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or are not known.

Lindsay Lohan meets Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanı) since 2003), Ankara, 2017.

The golden handshake is a clause in executive employment contracts that provides for a generous severance package in certain circumstances.  Created originally as a relatively modest inducement to attract staff to companies in a perilous financial position, they evolved to the point where multi-million dollar pay-outs were common and they became controversial because they appeared to reward failure and there were suggestions (not only by conspiracy theorists) they were used even as Trojan horses to entice a CEO to drive down a company’s share price (thus becoming eligible for a golden handshake) in the interest of asset strippers and others.  The best operators were able to engineer things so they enjoyed both a golden handshake and a golden parachute (the generous package payable upon retirement in the normal course of things).

In computer communications, a handshake is a signal exchanged between two or more devices or programs to confirm authentication and connection.  In the same way that the human handshake is a process: (1) an offer of a hand, (2) the taking of that hand and (3) the shaking of the hands, in computing, the sequence is (1) seeking a connection, (2) verifying the connection and (3) effecting the connection.  The breaking of the handshake and the termination of the connection in each case constitutes the final, fourth setup.  The purpose of handshaking is to establish the parameters for the duration of the session which involves the devices agreeing on vital stuff like (1) both being switched on, (2) both ready to transmit & receive and (3) that certain technical protocols will be used (familiar to many as famous strings like “9600,N,8,1”).  Handshaking historically was a process separate from the security layers which had to be satisfied once communication was established and again, this is analogous with the handshake in the process of human interaction.

The Duce emulates an illustrious Roman forebear.

As a cultural practice with a history known to date back at least ten thousand years, the handshake has proven a resilient tradition which has survived the vicissitudes of many millennia and even the preference of elbow-bumping and such during the COVID-19 pandemic seems only to have been a minor interruption.  Not all however approved.  The Duce (Benito Mussolini, 1883–1945; prime minister and Duce (leader) of Italy 1922-1943) thought handshaking effete and unhygienic (he was ready for pandemics) and preferred the fascist salute he thought (apparently on the basis of statues from Ancient Rome) more martial.  Still, when meeting friends (even those forced on him by the brutishness of political necessity) he shook hands and a handshake was both his first and last interaction with the Führer (Adolf Hitler, 1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 and of state 1934-1945).  Their smiles when shaking hands always seemed genuine and were noticeably warm when they parted after the attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944.

One historian entitled his work on the relationship between Hitler and Mussolini The Brutal Friendship and that it was but it was certainly enduring.  They shook hands on many occasions, the last of which would happen on the railway station platform close to where the attempt on the Führer's life failed.  At this time, Hitler was using his left hand to shake, the right arm injured in the blast.  After this, they would never meet again.  

For politicians, handshakes are a wonderful photo opportunity and some have been famously emblematic of the resolution of problems which have been intractable for decades or more.  However, such photographs can be unpleasant and sometimes embarrassing reminders of a past they’d prefer was forgotten.  When Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021; US secretary of defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) shook hands with Saddam Hussein (1937–2006; president of Iraq 1979-2003) in Baghdad in December 1983, it was as a presidential envoy of Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; president of the US 1981-1989) and he was there to do business with the dictator.  Iraq at the time had started a war with Iran and was using chemical weapons while practicing abuses of human rights on parts of the Iraqi population and Saddam Hussein had even made known to the US administration Baghdad’s intention to acquire nuclear weapons.  Thus was special envoy Rumsfeld dispatched to offer Washington’s hand of friendship, anybody opposed to the Ayatollahs held in high regards in Washington DC. 

Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein, Baghdad, 1983.

Despite what Mr Rumsfeld would claim twenty years on, he made no mention of chemical weapons or human rights abuses, his discussions instead focusing on the projection of US military force in the Gulf and the need to guarantee and protect the supply of oil.  Later, as international pressure increased on the US to condemn the use of chemical weapons by Iraq it responded with a low-key statement which made no mention of Iraq and actually stressed the need to protect Iraq from Iran’s “ruthless and inhumane tactics”.  When Mr Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad in 1984, during the visit the United Nations (UN) issued a report which stated chemical weapons had been used against Iran, something already known to both the Pentagon and state department.  In Baghdad, the matter wasn’t mentioned and when Mr Rumsfeld departed, it was with another warm handshake.

Nancy Pelosi and Bashar al-Assad, April 2007.

By virtue of her education in a Roman Catholic school, Nancy Pelosi (b 1940; speaker of the US House of Representatives 2007-2011 and since 2019, member of the house since 1987) was well acquainted with the Bible so after shaking hands with Bashar al-Assad (b 1965, President of Syria since 2000) in April 2007, to use the phrase “The road to Damascus is a road to peace” must have been a deliberate choice.  It might also be thought a curious choice given that at the time the president was providing shelter and protection to a range of terrorist groups involved in attacking US forces in Iraq.  As speaker of the house, Ms Pelosi would have received high-level intelligence briefings so presumably was acquainted with the facts and had she been uncertain, could have had aides prepare a summary from publicly available sources.  As recent events in the Far East have illustrated, the speaker’s forays into foreign affairs are not helpful to the State Department.

Bus

Bus (pronounced buhs)

(1) A large motor vehicle, having a long body, equipped with seats or benches for passengers, usually operating as part of a scheduled service; sometimes called omnibus, motorbus or trolleybus

(2) A similar horse-drawn vehicle.

(3) A passenger automobile (or airplane in casual use) used in a manner resembling that of a bus.

(4) In electrical transmission, short for of busbar.

(5) In ballistics, the part of a MIRV (multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicle (an exoatmospheric ballistic missile)) payload containing the re-entry vehicles, guidance and thrust devices.

(6) In astronautics, a platform in a space vehicle used for various experiments and processes.

(7) In computer architecture, a communication system that transfers data between components inside or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components (wire, optical fibre, etc) and software, including communication protocols.

1832: A clipping of the French omnibus.  Omnibus dates from 1829 and was used 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.  The sense "to travel by omnibus" dates from 1838; the transitive meaning "transport students to integrate schools" is American English from 1961.  The meaning "clear tables in a restaurant" is first attested 1913, probably from the four-wheeled cart used to carry dishes. The electrical sense is derived from a figurative application of the automotive sense; the use in computer architecture followed this model.  “To miss the bus” in the figurative sense of a lost opportunity is from 1901 and credited as an Australian invention (although the OED lists a figurative “miss the omnibus” from 1886).  It was most famously used by Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940) during the "Phoney War".  On 5 April 1940, confident the previous eight months spent building up armaments meant the west was now invulnerable to invasion, Chamberlain felt sufficiently confident to declare to the House of Commons "Hitler has missed the bus".  The Wehrmacht invaded four days later.

The bus wars

For IBM, the decision in 1980 to adopt an open bus architecture for the original PC was a good idea at the time.  Anticipating the PC being a niche-market product, the open bus was seen as a way to encourage sales by encouraging smaller manufacturers to produce expansion boards (cards) but not involving IBM in what would be an activity of marginal profitability. However, the PC soon became a huge sales success and the open bus meant manufacturers were soon producing their own PCs, not just the expansion cards and by the mid-1980s, IBM weren’t best pleased to find of all the PCs being sold, relatively few were genuine IBMs.  Their response in 1987 was to develop a proprietary bus for the new range (the PS/2 PCs & the OS/2 operating system) which, unlike open architecture, would attract royalties from the cloners, the new bus called Micro Channel Architecture (MCA).  Technically MCA offered many advantages, most obviously an early implementation of the soon-familiar plug’n’play which (usually) worked surprisingly well as well as a twenty percent increase in bus speed.  Apart from the cost, the main drawback was the lack of backward compatibility; not only did third-party manufacturers have to re-tool to design and produce new motherboards & cards, consumers could not re-use their existing cards, something important at the time.

8-bit ISA (XT)

16-bit ISA (AT)

32-bit EISA

32-bit VESA

16-bit MCA

32-bit MCA

A pack of the biggest cloners didn’t like this and responded with their own design, an enhancement of the original AT (which they re-named Industry Standard Architecture (ISA)) called Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) which either matched on felt only slightly short of the technical improvements provided by MCA.  EISA advantages were (1) cost breakdown, (2) it was free for anyone to use and (3) backward compatibility.  IBM wasn’t impressed, stressing the technical superiority of 16 & 32-bit MCA, noting a mixing of 8, 16 and 32-bit cards in the one bus would inevitability result in one device getting very hot, leading to what they called “…a silicon barbeque”.  For a while, the bus wars raged and while it’s true MCA was better, it wasn’t that much better so for many the additional costs were hard to justify.  Had the bus wars continued, it could have gone either way because while EISA was free, it was a cul-de-sac, it’s development potential limited whereas IBM could have both improved MCA and lowered its licensing fees.  However, the development of the the PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus rendered both MCA and EISA (and the short-lived VESA) obsolete.  When USB (Universal Serial Bus) devices became ubiquitous, the whole system board became unknown to all but the nerds.

Bus scene in Mean Girls (2004). 

Gild

Gild (pronounced gild)

(1) To coat with gold, gold leaf, or a gold-colored substance.

(2) To render something with a bright, pleasing, or specious aspect; having the color or appearance of gold.

(3) Smear with blood; to make red, as with blood (archaic except in historic reference).

(4) To adorn in some way.

(5) In cooking, to render some surface with a golden appearance.

(6) To make appear drunk (now rare).

1300–1350: From the Middle English gilden & gulden (to gild, to cover with a thin layer of gold), from the Old English gyldan (akin to gold) and related to the Old Norse gylla (to gild), the Old High German ubergulden (to cover with gold) (the verb from gultham (gold)) and the Middle High German vergülden, from the Proto-West Germanic gulþijan, from the Proto-Germanic gulþijaną, from gulþą (gold).  In historic UK use, the noun gildsman was an alternative spelling of guildsman (a man who is a member of a guild).   Gild is a noun & verb, gilding is a verb & adjective, gilded is a verb, begild is a verb & adjective and begilded & gildable is an adjective.

1967 Cadillac Eldorado.

The figurative use of gild apparently began in the late sixteenth century.  The noun gilding (golden surface produced by gilding (the verb)" was from the mid fifteenth century, the verb pre-dating the form by some two decades.  The adjective gilded emerged 1400 as the past participle of the Middle English gilden and by the early fifteenth century was used also as a noun with the sense of "gilding".  The noun eldorado entered English in the 1590s from the Spanish El Dorado (the golden one ( the name given in the sixteenth century to the country or city laden with gold believed to lie in the heart of the Amazon jungle)); it was derived from the past participle of dorar (to gild), from Latin deaurare (to gild, to gild over), the construct being de- (probably used here as an intensifier) + aurare (to gild), from aurum (gold).  The legend began with the tales of early Spanish explorers and, regarding gold, there would once have been some truth in the story but, in the way of such things, there was embellishment (gilding the story as it were) until Eldorado was thought a city where the “streets were paved with gold” and for two centuries this drew explorers and adventurers.

Cartoon with a modern feeling: Chicago Labor Newspaper's (1894) critique of the policies of the Pullman railroad company.

The terms “gilded age” and “golden age” are sometimes confused, the former coined by Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) as the title of their 1873 novel.  The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today was a novel which satirized greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America and it lent the name to the period of US history (circa 1870-circa 1900) immediately prior to the era of progressivism and reform when something was done about political corruption and economic exploitation by the trusts (rail, steel etc).  A gilded age is thus suggestive of a time in which things seem superficially attractive and there is prosperity but the activity conceals the squalor and ugliness beneath.  Whenever there are periods of great social and economic inequality such as that which has evolved in the West over the last four-odd decades (trickle-down economics and its better disguised successors) with aggregated wealth high but disproportionately held by a tiny minority, the term gilded age is often suggested as a descriptor: Gilded age 2.0 in the fashionably modern parlance).  A golden age differs in that it’s associated with a period of peace, prosperity and progress, often expressed by historians in phrases such as the “golden age of the Gupta dynasty” which referred to the Gupta Empire in India which existed between the fourth and sixth centuries.

Gilding the lily: 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible with after-market accessories (1) rear fender skirts (spats) and (2) “Continental” spare tyre kit.  The “Continental” alluded to was the Ford Motor Company’s original Lincoln Continental (1940–1942 & 1946–1948), first seen in 1939 in the one-off vehicle commissioned for his personal use by Edsel Ford (1893–1943; president of the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) 1919–1943).  The Continentals included both features but use of skirts was common whereas the externally mounted spare type housing had become unusual and it became for decades a signature motif of Lincolns and much beloved for just as long by the after-market industry, “Continental kits” appears of some most improbable cars. 

To refer to the 1959 Chevrolet as a “lily” is a bit of a stretch although the “batwing” rear fins (General Motors (GM) at the time preferred “seagull wings”) and the “cat’s eyes” tail-lamps remain memorable.  The 1959 GM bodies were actually a rush job because the 1958 range was thought staid, bloated and old fashioned compared with the sleek lines of the lines Chrysler had for 1957 ushered in with the slogan “Suddenly it’s 1960s”.  Accordingly (and uniquely), GM’s 1958 bodies were a one-off.  However, whatever one’s opinion of the 1959 Chevrolet, most seem to agree that adding the “Continental” spare-wheel kit and the fender skirts over the rear wheels is gilding the lily but a remarkable number appear in the auction houses so outfitted and almost all the additions are modern re-productions rather than those purchased when the cars were new, or at least young and the photographic record of the era does appear to confirm these accessories were, in period, rare indeed.  It’s thus gilding the lily and an example of the way perceptions of the past can be shaped.

The phrase “gilding the lily” is used to describe the act of adding unnecessary adornment to something already beautiful, the implication being the embellishments are beyond superfluous to the point of detracting from the perfection.  So it's used to mean "unnecessarily to adorn something already beautiful, either in poor taste (a modern expression of which is “bling”) or in an attempt to make something appear more valuable (it has also been used (though less satisfactorily) to mean “inordinately to praise someone”).  It’s of Shakespearian origin although the exact text-string “gilding the lily” appears nowhere in his works, the modern idiom a mis-quote and Lord Salisbury's words were:

Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

King John (circa 1594), Act IV, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1564–1616).

The phrase “gilded cell” seems first to have been used in the early 1980s in the US to describe the unusually pleasant conditions (compared with mainstream jails) often afforded to celebrities or the rich who have been sentenced to a form of confinement for some offence.  In use, “gilded cell” is applied to those serving sentences “in the community” rather than a jail, often when fitted with that latter-day status symbol, the “ankle bracelet” monitor.  In the US, the companion phrase used of those put in federal government jails less unpleasant than most is the usually derisive “Cub Fed” a play on the brand “Club Med”, a well-known chain of all-inclusive beach resorts.  Although the conditions in “Club Fed” institutions are more lenient, that really is a relative measure and these remain minimum-security prisons (technically usually styled Federal Prison Camps (FPC) and nothing like a luxury resort; while these prisons do have dormitory housing, minimal perimeter security, and a lower staff-to-inmate ratio, they still enforce strict routines and restrictions, along with recreational and educational programs.  Despite the public perception, the the inmate population at Club Fed is said to be quite diverse.

In idiomatic use, the use as “gilded cage” refers to a place (and, by extension, a situation) which is superficially attractive but nevertheless restrictive (a luxurious trap) and appears to have been coined by the writers of the popular song A Bird in a Gilded Cage (1900).  In the slang of apothecaries, there was also “gild the pill”, the history of which is murky but it’s said to refer to the ancient practice of coating bitter tasting pills with a thin layer of metal, the modern version of the phrase being “sugarcoat the pill”.  The phrase “gilded cage” refers to a situation where someone is in a luxurious or privileged environment but feels trapped or restricted, the image being an elaborate golden cage which is exquisitely made but a cage none the less.  Those said to live in gilded cages include (1) celebrities who may enjoy lavish surroundings and many luxuries but exist under the “media spotlight” and lack privacy, (2) those in unhappy marriages with someone rich; while they may have all the material comforts this brings, the relationship may be loveless, sexless and constrained by expectations and limitations imposed by a spouse, (3) those in high paid jobs which they don’t enjoy (or may hate); it may be the long hours, stress or travel but it’s also often the case that expectation of lifestyle (and thus expenses) rise to meet income, thus trapping them in the job, (4) members of royal families who are restricted in what they can say, do or wear and (5) politicians, who may disagree with party platform or a decision of cabinet but are compelled to “toe the line”.  The point about the idiomatic “gilded cage” is that at any time, one can escape the confines but to do so means to sacrifice much; it’s all a question of what one wants from life.

Modal

Modal (pronounced mohd-l)

(1) Of, relating to or characteristic of mode, manner, or form.

(2) In music, pertaining to mode, as distinguished from key; based on a scale other than major or minor; of, relating to, or composed in the musical modi by which an octave is divided, associated with emotional moods in Ancient and medieval ecclesiastical music

(3) In transportation logistics, as single-modal, pertaining to or suitable for transportation involving only one form of a carrier, as truck, rail, or ship; related forms are bimodal, intermodal and multi-modal (can also be used figuratively or analogously).

(4) In grammar (of a verb or auxiliary verb form), expressing a distinction of mood, such as between possibility and actuality.

(5) In philosophy & metaphysics, pertaining to a mode of a thing, as distinguished from one of its basic attributes or from its substance or matter; relating to analogous qualifications such as that of rules as obligatory or permissive.

(6) In formal logic, exhibiting or expressing some phase of modality; qualifying or expressing a qualification of the truth of some statement, for example, as necessary or contingent.

(7) In computing, having separate modes in which user input has different effects, as in a graphical user interface (GUI) requiring immediate user interaction and thus presented so that it cannot be closed or interacted behind until a decision is made; used also to indicate different modes operating systems may implement hardware abstraction layers (HAL) such as the real, standard and enhanced modes in early versions of MS-Windows.

(8) In industrial production, a textile made from spun cellulose fiber.

(9) In molecular engineering, a type of analysis used in the study of the dynamic properties of structures under vibrational excitation.

(10) In telecommunications, a measure of bandwidth referencing the signaling rate per distance unit.

(11) In genetics, an ancestral haplotype derived from the DNA test results of a specific group of people.

(12) In linear algebra, a matrix, used in the diagonalization process involving eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

1560-1570: From the Middle French modal (pertaining to or affected by a mode), from the Medieval Latin modālis (of or pertaining to a mode), from the Classical Latin modus (measure, extent, quantity; proper measure, rhythm, song; a way, manner, fashion, style (in Late Latin also "mood" in grammar and logic)) and thus a doublet of mode; the Latin root also supplied the modern modal in French, Spanish & Portuguese and the Italian modale.  The Latin modus is from the primitive Indo-European modos (measure) from med- (to measure; take appropriate measures).  The use in music was first adopted in the 1590s and the word became part of formal grammar in 1798.  Modal is the adjective; modally the adverb.

The modal verbs shall & will

A modal verb is a type of verb used to indicate modality (likelihood, ability, permission, request, capacity, suggestions, order, obligation, or advice) and modal verbs always accompany the base (infinitive) form of another verb having semantic content.  In English, the modal verbs most commonly used are can, could, may, might, must, will, would, shall, should, ought, need & dare.

Regarding the use of shall and will when speaking of the future, there’s no definitive rule, just conventions, which, in a manner not unfamiliar in English, are subject to another contradictory convention.  From that, English speakers are left to make of things what they can.

Will is used:

(1) To describe the future: “The flight will be delayed because of fog.”

(2) To make a prediction: “Italy will one day win the Six Nations.”

(3) To express a decision made at the time: “I will have a G&T”.

(4) To make a request: “Will you get me a G&T?”

(5) To make promises and offers: “I will buy you a G&T.”

(6) To describe the consequence of a conditional phrase: “If it is raining, I will put an umbrella in my bag.”

Historically, “shall” (including other spellings), was often used as an alternative to “will” but, in modern English, “will’ tends now to be preferred for affirmative and negative sentences although “shall” still is used to form questions with “I” & “we”, a practice less common in North America than the rest of the English-speaking world.

Sentences with “shall” are formed in the same way as those built with “will”, the negative form created by adding “not”; the question is made by inverting the subject and “shall”, a universal form although “shall” appears usually only in questions containing “I” & “we”.  As a point of use, some suggest the contraction “shan’t”, commonly used in spoken English, should never appear in the written except in transcription but there’s no historic or etymological basis for this.

Shall is used:

(1) To make offers using I or we: “Shall I make us some lunch?”

(2) To make suggestions using I or we: “Shall we go on a picnic?”

(3) To express formal obligations: “The accused shall plead guilty or not guilty.”

(4) To make a promise: “I shall not be late for lunch.”

(5) To describe the future in a formal manner: “We shall fight them on the beaches…”

So, the convention is to use “will” for affirmative and negative sentences about the future or to make requests.  To make an offer or suggestion with “I” or “we”, use “shall” in the question form.  However, if it’s wished to impart a sense of formality, use “shall” instead of “will”.  So, “will” and “shall” can be interchangeable, adoption depending on context.

Lindsay Lohan will star in Netflix's upcoming film Falling For Christmas which will be available on the platform from 10 November 2022.  The film is the first of her two picture creative partnership with the streamer, the romantic comedy Irish Wish currently in production.  It's predicted most Lohanics swiftly shall stream both.

Closet

Closet (pronounced kloz-it)

(1) A small room, enclosed recess, cupboard or cabinet for storing clothing, food, utensils etc.

(2) A small private room, especially one used for prayer, meditation etc.

(3) A state or condition of secrecy or carefully guarded privacy.

(4) A clipping of “closet of ease” and later “water closet” (WC), early names for the flushing loo (toilet; lavatory; privy with a waste-pipe and means to carry off the discharge by a flush of water).

(5) Of or pertaining to that which is private; secluded or concealed; undertaken unobserved and in isolation.

(6) To shut up in a private room for some purpose.

(7) A private room used by women to groom and dress themselves (obsolete).

(8) A private room used for prayer or other devotions (archaic).

(9) A place of (usually either fanciful or figurative in that typically it referred to the state of thought rather than where it took place) contemplation and theorizing (archaic).

(10) The private residence or private council chamber of a monarch accompanied by a staff establishment (page of the chamber; clerk of the closet et al) and related to the bedchamber (archaic).

(11) In a church, a pew or side-chapel reserved for a monarch or feudal lord (regarded as obsolete but the concept endures in that the order of precedence is often used when seating is allocated for ceremonial events conducted in churches).

(12) In heraldry, an ordinary similar to a bar but half the width.

(13) A sewer (Scots dialectical, now obsolete).

1300-1350: From the Middle English closet (a small private room for study or prayer), from the Old French closet (small enclosure, private room), the construct being clos (private space; enclosure) +‎ -et (the suffix used to form diminutives), from the Latin clausum (closed space, enclosure, confinement), the neuter past participle of claudere (to shut).  In French, it tended to be applied to small, open-air enclosures.  The suffix –et was from the Middle English -et, from the Old French –et & its feminine variant -ette, from the Late Latin -ittus (and the other gender forms -itta & -ittum).  It was used to form diminutives, loosely construed.  Some European languages picked up the Old French spelling while others used variations including Czech (klozet) & Spanish (clóset).  Closets can be tiny or fair-sized rooms so the appropriate synonym depends on context and architecture and might include: cabinet, container, locker, room, vault, wardrobe, bin, buffet, depository, receptacle, recess, repository, safe, sideboard, walk-in, ambry, chest of drawers & cold storage.  Closet is a noun, verb & adjective, closeting is a verb (which some dispute) & adjective (plural closets) and closeting is a noun & verb.  The noun plural is closets.

The adjective dates from the 1680s in the sense of “private, done in seclusion”, extended by 1782 as "fitted only for scholarly seclusion, not adapted to the conditions of practical life" (ie in the sense of the “ivory tower”).  The meaning "secret, not public, unknown" was first applied to alcoholism in the early 1950s but by the 1970s had come to be used principally of homosexuality.  This, and the earlier forms (closet anarchist, closet alcoholic, closet Freemason, closet smoker et al) were all based on the idiomatic “skeleton in the closet” (which existed also as “skeleton in the cupboard”), describing some undisclosed fact which, if revealed would cause reputational damage (or worse) to a person.  Literally, the imagery summoned was of someone with a human corpse secreted in a closet in their house, one which had sat there so long the flesh had decomposed to the bone.  The earliest known appearance in print was in 1816 but it’s not known how long it’d been in oral use and it usually implied culpability for some serious offence though not necessarily anything involving a corpse.

Lindsay Lohan's walk-in closet.  To optimize space utilization, the hangers are very thin and covered with black velvet to ensure no fabrics are marked.  In a well-organized closet, items can be arranged in a number of ways such as color, season or type and Ms Lohan does it by manufacturer, the name of the label printed on rail-tags.

The phrase “come out of the closet” (admit something openly) was first recorded 1963 and the use rapidly became exclusive to homosexuals and lent a new meaning to the word “out”.  This meaning itself became nuanced: “To come out” (openly avowing one's homosexuality) emerged as a phrase in the 1960s and was an overtly political statement (obviously different from the earlier “a confessed homosexual” whereas “outing” and “outed” came to be used in the 1970s to refer to people making the homosexuality of others public knowledge.  Outing became controversial because of the argument (made sometimes by those within the gay community) that it was justified if exposing hypocrisy (usually a conservative politician who publicly condemned homosexuality while in private indulging in the practice).  In Spanish use (most notably in Latin America) the noun clóset is used to refer to the state of being secretly gay (from salir del clóset), the plural being clósets.

Lindsay Lohan in another part of her walk-in closet, here choosing what to pack for an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, May 2014.

The verb closet (shut up as in a closet) was originally usually for purposes of concealment or private consultation and dates from the 1680s.  The water closet (WC and described also in the delightful phrase “closet of ease”) was the ancestor of the familiar modern loo (toilet; lavatory; privy with a waste-pipe and means to carry off the discharge by a flush of water), the term first used in 1755 and later perfected by the famous plumber, Mr Thomas Crapper.  The phrase “walk-in” was used first in the 1890s as a slang term by hotel check-in clerks to refer to those arriving without a reservation (it’s now a standard statistical category in hotels) and by 1928 was used in many forms of commerce to mean “customer who arrived without an appointment”.  The “walk-in closet” was first advertised in the US in 1946 where it described a built-in wardrobe large enough to walk into, some equipped with mirrors, tables, chairs etc).

The Gay Bob Doll

Gay Bob with man-bag.

There’s evidence that for much of human existence, homosexuality has been at least widely tolerated and often accepted but in the West, under the influence of the Christian churches, it came to attract much disapprobation though even in the nineteenth century there were those who (without much success) campaigned for legislative and social change, the odd self-declared homosexual sometimes urging others to out themselves.  However, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the still embryonic “gay liberation” movement understood that “coming out en masse” was of importance because with critical mass came political influence.  Social attitudes did change and it was perhaps an indication of acceptance that in 2005 the cartoon show South Park could run an episode called Trapped in the Closet in which the Scientologist film star Tom Cruise (b 1962) refuses to come out of a closet.  Not discouraged by the threat of writs, South Park later featured an episode in which the actor worked in a confectionery factory packing fudge.  Attitudes and legislative changes didn't always move in unison and things unfolded gradually but that process was still incomplete when, in 1977, the Gay Bob doll was released.

Clothes and accessories were available, including those for dressing the “gay farmer”.

The winds of change were clearly blowing by 1977 because in that year Harvey Milk (1930–1978; member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, 1978) became the first openly gay man elected to public office in California (and it’ll never be known how many of his predecessors were still in the closet).  However, if Milk was out of the closet, Gab Bob came neatly packaged in his own (cardboard) closet buyers able to out him and put him back as required.  Designed to look like popular film stars of the era, Gay Bob’s creator described the doll as perfect for “…an executive’s desk, dash board ornament, the attaché case, the bathtub rim or a health club gym bag”, a notable feature was the doll’s “anatomical correctness”, presumably a sales feature but one which necessitated production being out-sourced to Hong-Kong because US manufacturers declined the contract. 

Gay Bob stepping out of the closet.

Just so there were no misunderstandings, Gay Bob was supplied with a fashion catalog which contained an explanation:  Hi boys, girls and grownups, I’m Gay Bob, the world’s first gay doll.  I bet you are wondering why I come packed in a closet. “Coming out of the closet” is an expression which means that you admit the truth about yourself and are no longer ashamed of what you are.  Gay people are no different than straight people.  If everyone came out of their closets, there wouldn’t be so many angry, frustrated, frightened people.  It’s not easy to be honest about what you are, in fact it takes a great deal of courage.  But remember, if Gay Bob has the courage to come out of his closet, so can you!

Popular since the nineteenth century, mail-order was the on-line shopping of the analogue era.

Conservative activists were of course appalled by Gay Bob, his anatomical correctness and his threateningly optimistic message, describing it all as “a threat to family values” and more “…evidence of the desperation the homosexual campaign has reached in its effort to put homosexual lifestyle, which is a death style, across to the American people”.  The forces of capitalism either agreed or were unwilling to risk a backlash because attempts have the big department stores stock Gay Bob on their shelves were unsuccessful so the doll was sold via mail order, advertisements placed in gay magazines.  One doll cost US$19.50 (including shipping and handling within the US) while a pair could be purchased at a discounted US$35 (and to take advantage of the anatomical correctness, buying a brace was presumably in vogue.  Over two thousand were sold within months and in liberal New York and San Francisco, some boutiques would later carry the product.  Something of a footnote to the LGBTQQIAAOP timeline, Gay Bob is a now a collector’s item, examples in good condition realizing over US$200 at on-line auction sites and of course, those with a pristine, un-violated closet will command a premium.