Desmodromic

Desmodromic (pronounced des-moh-drom-ick)

(1) In internal combustion engines, a valve drive-train in which poppet valves are positively closed by a cam and leverage system, rather than a conventional spring.

(2) By extension, in various mechanical devices, a component having different controls for its actuation in different directions.

1953:  A construct from the Ancient Greek δεσμός (desmós) (band, connection; fibrous connection, ligament; bond or knot) + δρόμος (drómos) (a course; travel; road).  The etymology is likely oblique to all but mechanical engineers but denotes the characteristic of valves continuously being "bound" to the camshaft.  The idea of desmo + dromic is thus often deconstructed as something like “running in unison” or “connected racing” but that’s because of the historic association with engines and speed and the desmo- prefix is also used in medicine and other biological sciences in the sense of “being or maintaining a connection”, a desmosome a filament-like substance with which cells adhere to each-other and desmoplakin" is the protein associated with this intercellular junction.  In zoology, the term most closely analogous to desmodromic valve trains is desmopelmous, a type of foot in birds in which the hind toe cannot be bent independently because planter tendons are united (ie they are connected and work in unison).

Conventional valve activation (left) versus desmodromic (right).

Probably as soon as there were poppet valves engineers began to ponder way of perfecting their opening and closing, the use of a spring for the latter effective but inexact and embryonic ideas would have been discussed but it was the German Daimler company which was first granted a patent for a desmodromic like valve-train system for a V-twin engine in 1889.  After that, designs, prototypes and even the odd racing car appeared so equipped and while there was some success on the track, no manufacturer attempted mass-production because of the high costs inherent in the intricate design and, more practically, the formidably frequency with which the system demanded adjustment to maintain perfect operation.  However, as the trophies won in competition had celebrated, the desmodromic arrangement uniquely permitted very high engine speeds and thus more power without the need to increase displacement and therefore bulk and weight.

A desmodromic valve schematic.

During World War II, there were great advances in metallurgy and the design of internal combustion engines and one manufacturer which had learned much was Daimler-Benz which had perfected the pressurized fuel-injection system which early in the conflict had given Luftwaffe pilots some real advantages over the allied opposition which continued to rely on primitive carburettors for fuel delivery, these adversely affected by gravity while the German aircraft were not.  However, the valve-train relied still on a spring to effect closing and this was a limitation which prevented the advantages of fuel-injection being fully explored.  The big aero-engines in the wartime Messerschmitts has been low-revving so the valve-springs weren’t challenged by physics but the company’s interest has returned to the race tracks and there, the systems limitations were exposed, “valve-float” intruding at high engine speeds.  The dreaded valve float is a phenomenon which occurs at high engine speeds when valve springs can’t return the valves to their seat with the cam follower still in contact with the cam.  This means the valves can be launched too high, even to the point where it can be still wide open when the piston arrives at the top dead centre (TDC), something which in the worst case can result in impact between the two, bending or even snapping the valve.  That will often be catastrophic, the debris perforating and possibly collapsing the hot aluminium piston head.  From that point on, the damage caused will be a matter only of extent, ranging from severe to complete destruction.

The Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula One Grand Prix (1954-1955) car used the desmodromic straight-eight in 2.5 litre form.  A 3.0 litre version was created for the W196S (300 SLR) used in sports car racing.  

That was something desirable to avoid in any engine but especially so in a racing car because, as the saying goes, “to finish first, first one must finish”.  Thus was designed Daimler-Benz’s surprisingly simple desmodromic system for the Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula One car for the 1954 season, ruin under the new 2.5 litre (152 cubic inch) displacement rule.  An amusing mix of new (fuel-injection and the desmodromics) and old (archaic swing axles and a straight-eight configuration), it succeeded, dominating the World Championship in 1954-1955 and in 3.0 litre form as the 300 SLR (technically the W196S), sports car racing too.  One thing which proved vital in all this was that the engineers had removed from the desmodromic hardware the small, final closing spring which had previously been thought necessary.  What the Daimler-Benz engineers discovered was that if a residual clearance of a mere 0.03 mm (0.001181099 inch) was machined, by simply leaving the return “desmo valve” in the closed position, the inertia of the valve and the gas pressure in the cylinder was sufficient to maintain the closure, a variation of the exploitation of the long-documented behaviour of fluid dynamics Chrysler would soon market (somewhat opportunistically) as Sonoramic.  The innovation was made possible by the development of metals stimulated by the demands of war; in the pre-war years, the desmodromic design adopted for the W196 simply wouldn’t have been possible.

Schematic of the Mercedes-Benz W196 straight-eight.

The desmodromic valve control system used an opening cam which directly controlled a shoe at the upper end of the cylindrical tappet rod while another (closing) cam used a deliberately out-of-alignment rocker arm which engaged in a hole drilled in the same tappet.  It was simple, precise and effective and reliably delivered such power that even Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) considered matters desmodromic, discussing the matter with Dr Fabio Taglioni (1920-2001) who was working on the idea, his design first used by Ducati in 1954 on their 125 cm³ (7.6 cubic inch) racer and later adopted for many of their production and competition machines, used even to this day. 

Lindsay Lohan with Ducati Monster 600 (Desmodromic) in Freaky Friday (2003).

Not needing return springs, the valves being positively opened and closed by a cam and leverage system, desmodromic offered higher engine speed, more power and a variety of improvements to specific efficiencies.  Despite that, except for Ducati, it never became a system used by volume manufacturers (or indeed low-volume operations) because of the disadvantages which included complexity, cost, noise (especially as the cylinder count grew) and, critically, more frequent maintenance.  It was advances in high-speed photography and later computer analysis which rendered desmodromic an engineering cul-de-sac.  With a frame-by-frame view of how valves and valve springs behaved, designers were able to engineer solutions to the problems previously though inherent to conventional valve-trains and, by the 1980s, vastly more powerful computers permitted the virtual testing of every design permutation.  Eventually, the advantages offered by desmodromics became so small that few attempted to justify to additional cost and maintenance penalty.

2002 Ducati MH900e (desmodromic).

What the photography revealed was that valve float was caused mostly by resonance in the springs which generated oscillating compression waves among the coils and that at specific resonant speeds, the springs were no longer making contact at one or both ends, leaving the valve “floating” before crashing into the cam on closure.  The solutions were varied and some, such as Norton's “mousetrap” or “hairpin” spring were soon discarded because, although they worked well, the engineering challenges in integrating them with existing combustion chamber designs created as many problems as were solved.  A less elegant but more manageable approach was to install as many as three concentric valve springs, sometimes nested inside one other; not for more force (the inner ones having no significant spring constant), but to act as dampers, both absorbing and reduce oscillations in the outer spring (engineers delighting in calling the additional springs “snubbers”).  Again, the advances in metallurgy made possible what was once though unattainable.  Complex valve springs were engineered which did not resonate, being progressively wound with a varying pitch varying diameter and dubbed “beehive springs” because of the shape.  The number of active coils in these springs would vary during the stroke, the more closely wound coils located at the static end, becoming inactive as the spring compressed or (as in the beehive) where the small diameter coils at the top were stiffer.  Thus valve float was conquered with springs.

2023 Ducati Multistrada V4, the first Ducati in decades to use conventional valve activation.

But Ducati persists to this day, their raucous machines, once a cult known to a few now enjoying a wider audience which seems prepared to accept both the frequency of with which valve-train adjustments are required and the inherent clatter (which is admittedly quite spine-tingling if sampled at speed when wearing a crash helmet).  Tellingly, Ducati’s motor-cycles are almost all V-twins because the noise level does become intrusive as the cylinder count increases and their recent Multistrada V4 was the first in decades to not use desmodromic valves, the owner rewarded, inter alia, with recommended maintenance intervals of 60,000 km (37,500 miles), a considerable advance on the traditional 12-18,000 km (7500-11,200 miles).  Advances in engineering techniques have allowed the noise of the desmodromic arrangement to be reduced and there are now four-cylinder Ducatis using the system, appealing to those who lust for top end power.  Among collectors of US muscle cars, Ferraris, Jaguars and such there are those who can think of no more pleasurable way to spend a day than adjusting solid valve lifters or tinkering with an array of carburettors (the fascination of intricacy its own reward), the synchronization of which defy all but the chosen priesthood of such things so Ducati seems likely to offer the devoted their desmodromics as long as such things remain somewhere lawful.

Arch

Arch (pronounced ahrch)

(1) In architecture, a curved masonry construction for spanning an opening, consisting of a number of wedge-like stones, bricks, or the like, set with the narrower side toward the opening in such a way that forces on the arch are transmitted as vertical or oblique stresses on either side of the opening.

(2) In architecture, an upwardly curved construction, as of steel or timber functioning in the manner of a masonry arch.

(3) A doorway, gateway etc, having a curved head; an archway or the curved head of an opening, as a doorway.

(4) Any overhead curvature resembling an arch.

(5) Something bowed or curved; any bowlike part.

(6) In anatomy, any of various parts or structures of the body having a curved or arch-like outline, such as the transverse portion of the aorta (arch of the aorta) or the raised bony vault formed by the tarsal and metatarsal bones (arch of the foot),

(7) In cobbling, a device inserted in or built into shoes for supporting the arch of the foot.

(8) A dam construction having the form of a barrel vault running vertically with its convex face toward the impounded water.

(9) In glassmaking, a chamber or opening in a glassmaking furnace.

(10) Cunning, crafty or sly.

(11) Playfully roguish or mischievous.

(12) A preeminent person, a chief (largely obsolete except for technical use in ecclesiastical or other hierarchies, (Archdeacon, Archbishop, Archangel, Archduke, monarch, matriarch et al).

(13) One of the basic patterns of the human fingerprint, formed by several curved ridges one above the other.

1250-1300: From the Middle English arch, from the Old English arce, ærce & erce, from the Old French arche, from the Vulgar Latin arca, feminine variant of Latin arcus (arc, a bow), from the Classical Latin atchi, from the Ancient Greek arkhi (to rule).  From the Latin, other European languages similarly borrowed including the Old Norse erki, the Dutch aarts, the Middle Low German erse, the Middle High German & German erz and the Gothic ark.  Archangel was universally borrowed unchanged from the Greek.  Arch was added to many words borrowed from Latin and Greek in the Old English period; it subsequently became a productive form added to nouns of any origin, which thus denote individuals or institutions directing or having authority over others of their class (archbishop; archdiocese; archpriest, archdeacon). More recently, arch, has developed the senses “principal” (archenemy; archrival) or “prototypical” and thus exemplary or extreme (archconservative); nouns so formed are almost always pejorative (archvillain).

Some variations of the arch.

The original meaning, used in architecture of building, bridges and other structures, was by the early fifteenth century applied to eyebrows and anything having this form.  The sense of "chief, principal" used first in the twelfth century as archangel became extended to so many derogatory uses that by mid-seventeenth century, it acquired a meaning of "roguish, mischievous" although over time that softened, by the nineteenth century generally understood to mean something like "saucy".  The verb arch emerged in the early fourteenth century in the sense of "to form an arch" (which had be implied in the earlier arched) and within a hundred years there was the transitive sense "furnish with an arch".  Arch is a noun, verb & adjective, arched is an adjective, arching is a verb, noun & adjective and archly is an adverb; the noun plural is arches.

The Court of Arches

Church of St Mary-le-Bow (bow the archaic name for arch), London, a Church of England parish church in the City of London.

Churches have existed on the site since 1080, the present building designed by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) and built over a decade, finally completed in 1680.  The tower has for centuries been noted for its bells which are the source of the legend of Dick Whittington calling him in 1392 back to London where he would sit as lord mayor.  In London tradition, to be thought a true Cockney, one had to be born within earshot of the bells so the demographics of that race were interrupted for two decades, the damage inflicted in 1941 by the Luftwaffe so severe it would not be until 1961 the bells again rang.

A record from the Court of Arches Act books, first session of Trinity Term, 22 May 1665 (Arches A 4, f.115v)

The Court of Arches is the provincial court for Canterbury.  Having both appellate and original jurisdiction, it is presided over by the Dean of the Arches, who is styled "The Right Honourable and Right Worshipful the Official Principal and Dean of the Arches".  The dean must be a barrister of ten years' High Court standing or the holder or former holder of high judicial office, the appointment made jointly by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.  Although it has sat in other places, the court’s permanent seat is the Church of St Mary-le-Bow, the arches of which lend the court its name.  Technically, the proper jurisdiction of the court is limited to the thirteen parishes belonging to the archbishop in London but, as the office of Dean is united with that of Principal Official, the dean receives and determines appeals from the sentences of all lesser ecclesiastical courts within the province.  Many original suits are also heard, where lesser courts waive jurisdiction by letters of request.  The original jurisdiction formerly exercised by a separate provincial court, known as the Court of Audience, was long ago abolished.

Lindsay Lohan under a colonnade arch, Miami, Florida, 2013.

The official principal of the Arches court is now the only ecclesiastical judge empowered to pass a sentence of deprivation against a clerk in holy orders.  The appeals from the decisions of the Arches court were once made directly to the sovereign but are now heard by the judicial committee of the Privy Council except on matters of doctrine, ritual or ceremony, which go to the Court for Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved.  Charmingly, the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Act 1532, dating from the reign of Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) remains one of the statutes empowering the court’s original jurisdiction though since the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, it no longer hears appeals from the consistory courts of the bishops in all testamentary and matrimonial causes.

Pood

Pood (pronounced pood or poot (Russian))

(1) An old Russian unit of mass, equal to 40 Russian funt, or about 16.38 kg (36.11 lb).

(2) A Russian unit of mass used for kettlebells (a hand-held weight used in physical training and competition), now rounded off to 16 kg (35.274 lb pounds).

(3) In computing, as POOD, (principle of orthogonal design), a model of database design with parameters designed to avoid redundancies and duplicated routines.

1100s: From the Russian пуд (pud), from Low German or Old Norse pund (pound) (unit of weight and measure), from the Late Latin pondo (by weight; in weight), from the Classical Latin pondus (weight, heaviness, density), From the Proto-Italic pondos, from the primitive Indo-European spénd-os & pénd-os, from spend- and pend-..  A doublet of pound, the alternative spelling was poud.  Pood is a noun; the noun plural is poods (pudi or pudy in Russian).

Instructions for using a 1 pood kettlebell.

Under comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), the pood, like other units of weight defined by the system used in Imperial Russia, officially was abolished in 1924 but, beyond the big cities, the old ways remained in wide use until the 1950s and, for informal transactions (which at times constituted a substantial part of the Soviet economy) it really went extinct only as the older generations died off.  One quirk however remains, the weight of the traditional Russian kettlebells (a hand-held weight used in physical training and competition), cast in multiples and fractions of 16 kg (the metric version of the pood), the 8 kg ketterbell a ½ pood, a 24 kg a 1½ pood.  Informally, among traders, bulk agricultural communities such as grain, potatoes and beets are sometimes expressed in poods, reputedly because the sacks used in retail distribution are still made in sizes in which quantities such as 8, 16, 32, 48 & 64 kg can conveniently be bagged.

1 pood kettlebells in the shape of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s head, Heavy Metal Shop, Moscow.

Had all the relevant evidence been presented in court when Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) was tried before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg (1945-1946) he’d likely have been hanged but as it was, convicted on counts 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes against humanity) he was sentenced to twenty years, most of which were served in Spandau Prison.  In there, he wrote the notes for what became his not wholly reliable but still valuable memoir and a prison diary.  Selectively edited, The Spandau Diary (1975) was one of the minor classics of the genre, not least because it was probably more helpful than all the many reports by psychologists and psychiatrists in assessing whether his fellow inmate Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi deputy führer 1933-1941) was mad, either during his trial or subsequently.  It was also a rich source of the type of anecdotes which distinguish prison journals, one of which came from a Soviet guards who, after Speer observed to him the new Soviet prison director “didn’t seem so bad”, recited an old Russian proverb: Человека узнаешь, когда с ним пуд соли съешь which he translated as “you do not know a man until you have used up a pood of salt with him”.  Speer, then in the fourteenth year of his sentence, was interested enough to look up just how much a pood weighed but didn’t comment further.  As other prison diaries have noted, guards provide much practical advice.  A year earlier, resting in bed with a swollen knee, he mentioned to one of the Soviet guards that the Russian doctor had prescribed two aspirins a day.  Knowing the guard to be “a veterinarian on the side”, he asked how a horse with a swollen knee should be treated.  “If horse cheap, shoot dead.  If good horse, give aspirin” he was told.  Again, Speer added no comment.

Khlebosolyn: Young ladies in traditional dress presenting bread and salt to a visitor.

Quite how long it would take two chaps to work their way through 16 kg odd (35 lb) of salt is geographically and culturally variable.  In a modern Western household, that quantity of salt would typically last years and while after that long two people should be well acquainted with each other’s foibles, in pre-Modern Russia, a pood might have been absorbed more quickly.  For one thing, in the pre-refrigeration age, salt was often used in bulk to cure and preserve food including meant and fish and that was sometimes necessary even in Russia’s colder parts and there was also much boiling of food in salt water.  Prized since Antiquity, highly taxed in Imperial Russia and therefore expensive, salt was also an important part of cultural tradition.  A ritual invoked when greeting important guests was to present on the table a loaf of bread, placed upon a rushnyk (an elaborately embroidered cloth), atop which was placed a salt cellar.  The ceremony is the origin of the Russian word khlebosolny (literally “bready-salty”) which expresses someone’s hospitality, bread and salt traditional symbols of prosperity and good health.  So, salt consumption in old Russia was quite a bit higher than in modernity (not counting the high levels in processed food) and the consensus is the proverb probably means people truly don’t know anyone until they’ve spent a year or more together.

Pood is wholly unrelated to poodle (a dog breed dating from 1808), from the German Pudel, a shortened form of Pudelhund (water dog), the construct being the Low German Pudel (puddle) (related to pudeln (to splash) and the Modern English puddle) + the + German Hund (hound; dog).  The origin in German is thought related to the dogs originally being used to hunt water fowl, but in England and North America, it was always a term for an undersized fancy or toy dog with long, curly hair.  The essentially decorative qualities of the diminutive canine meant that in UK the figurative sense of "lackey" emerged in 1907, perhaps derived from the British army slang “poodle-faker”, defined in the slang dictionaries of the age as “an ingratiating” but thought always used euphemistically as a gay slur.  Despite legislative reform which removed all legal prohibitions on homosexual acts, that sense survived into twenty-first Australia to be used on the floor of the parliament by Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013), later famous for her “misogyny speech” which deplored sexism and sexist language (when aimed at her).  In 2009, she used the imagery of “mincing” & “poodle” as a slur against another (male, married and with four children) parliamentarian who was admittedly really annoying and needlessly neat and tidy but it was a slur nonetheless.

The mincing poodle tapes.

Pith

Pith (pronounced pith)

(1) In botany, the soft, spongy central cylinder of parenchymatous tissue in the stems of dicotyledonous plants such as the soft, albedo, fibrous tissue lining the inside of the rind in fruits such as orange and grapefruit.  Also called medulla botany: the central core of unspecialized cells surrounded by conducting tissue in stems.

(2) In zoology, the soft inner part of a feather, a hair etc.

(3) By analogy, the important or essential part; essence; core; heart.

(4) Significant weight; substance; solidity.

(5) In pathology, the spinal cord or bone marrow (archaic).

(6) Strength, force, or vigor; mettle (archaic).

(7) In the veterinary sciences, to sever or destroy the spinal cord of a vertebrate animal, usually by inserting a needle into the vertebral canal.

(8) As pith hat or pith helmet, a type of headgear made from the fibre sholapith, worn by during the nineteenth century by European explorers and imperial administrators in Africa, Asia and the Middle East before being adopted by military officers, rapidly becoming a symbol of status or rank, latterly re-defined as a symbol of oppression, especially because of their association with the British Raj in the Indian sub-continent.

Pre 900:  Middle English from the Old English piþa or pitha from the Proto-Germanic piþô, cognate with the West Frisian piid (pulp, kernel), the Dutch peen (carrot) & pitt and the Low German peddik or pedik (pulp, core).  All were derived from the earlier piþō (oblique pittan), a doublet of pit.  Both the Old English piþa (pith of plants) and the Germanic variations enjoyed the same meaning but the figurative sense (most important part(s) of something) existed only in the English form.  The pith helmet dates from 1889, replacing the earlier pith hat (1884), both so called because they were made from the dried pith of the Bengal spongewood.  The verb meaning from the veterinary sciences "to kill by cutting or piercing the spinal cord" is first attested in 1805.

The Pith Helmet

The pith helmet, known also as the sun helmet, safari helmet, topi, topee, or sola topee is a lightweight cloth-covered piece of headgear made of the pith of the sola or shola (Indian spongewood) plant, covered with white cotton and faced with (often green) cloth.  Topee (pith helmet) was from the Hindi टोपी (ṭopī) (hat) and the Urdu ٹوپی‎ (ṭōpī) (hat).  The form has some linguistic overlap, the long -e phonetic suffix (variously and inconsistently as -e, -ie, -ee) often appended to create slang forms, affectionate diminutives or to indicate something was a smaller version of an original.  In Indian English for example, a coatee was a hook upon which one hangs one's coat, something unrelated to the original use in English where a coatee was a coat with short flaps, a mid-eighteenth century Americanism, the formation modeled on goatee, a style of beard at the time especially popular south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Symbols of the Raj, the pith helmet and the G&T.

Most associated with the military and civil services of the European powers during the colonial period of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, they were routinely issued to or chosen by those going to hot climates.  As a general principle, the army used dark colours and civilians light, even white helmets but under modern conditions, the military found them not suitable for the battlefield; the British Army withdrawing them from active use in 1948 although they continue to be worn on some ceremonial occasions although the famous plumed helmets are now seen less often.  Widely popular now only in Vietnam where it’s a remnant of French influence, its niche now is in the nostalgia-fashion industry although, as a symbol of white colonialism, use can be controversial.

George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) with Lord Hardinge (1858–1944; Viceroy of India 1910-1916), Government House, Calcutta, 1911.  Of fashions under the Raj, the fictional depictions on screen where white linen suits often predominate can be misleading; pith helmets, especially during the cooler months, were paired with any daywear.  Until 1911, Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the capital of British India.

While First Lady, Melania Trump’s (b 1970) choice of clothing was often analysed in search of political meaning, a deconstruction her husband escaped except for the commentary about the length he chose to allow his ties to hang and those observations were more personal than political.  Mrs Trump as well aware of the media's interest and in October 2018, on safari near Nairobi, Kenya, wore a pith helmet, attracting criticism for donning a symbol of white colonial rule.

Presumably, even had she been unaware (which is unlikely), the White House would have spelled out the implications so the pith helmet was worn to be provocative and the reaction wouldn’t have been unexpected because a few weeks earlier, while visiting a migrant child detention centre, she choose a Zara jacket (US$39) emblazoned across the back with the words I REALLY DON'T CARE, DO U?.  Clearly a garment for a photo-opportunity, it was worn not while in the presence of the children but only when entering the aircraft and helicopter used for the trip.

The press of course sought comment which elicited from the White House the contradictory responses which typified the media-management of the Trump administration (something which under President Biden has if anything become more frequent and just as confused), the president saying it was a message to the “fake news media” while the first lady’s communications chief insisted it was “just a jacket” and that there was “no hidden message”.  Melania Trump herself later (sort of) clarified things, telling ABC News the jack “was a kind of message, yes”, adding that while it was obvious she “didn't wear the jacket for the children” and that it was donned only “to go on the plane and off the plane.... It was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me.  I want to show them I don't care. You could criticize whatever you want to say.  But it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.”

Mrs Trump went on to reiterate he own critique of the media for being "obsessed" about her clothing, noting it was only the jacket which attracted any attention rather than any matters to do with child detention or immigration more broadly: “I would prefer they would focus on what I do and on my initiatives than what I wear.”  It might seem curious a former model would express surprise at interest being taken in the clothes a woman wears but, well aware nothing can be done about that, she proved adept at weaponizing her messages than most of the White House staff ever managed.

Vernacular

Vernacular (pronounced vuh-nak- yuh-ler (U) or ver-nak-yuh-ler (Non-U))

(1) In linguistics, the dialect of the native or indigenous people as opposed to that of those (in Western terms) the literary or learned; the native speech or language of a place; the language of a people or a national language.

(2) In literature, expressed or written in the native language of a place, as literary works.

(3) Using, of or related to such language.

(4) Plain, everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.

(5) In architecture, a style of architecture exemplifying the commonest techniques, decorative features, and materials of a particular historical period, region, or group of people.

(6) Noting or pertaining to the common name for a plant or animal, as distinguished from its Latin scientific name.

(7) The language or vocabulary peculiar to a class or profession.

(8) Any medium or mode of expression that reflects popular taste or indigenous styles.

(9) In linguistic anthropology, language lacking standardization or a written form.

1599: From the Latin vernāculus (household, domestic, indigenous, of or pertaining to home-born slaves), a diminutive of verna (a native; a home-born slave (slave born in the master's household)) although etymologists note the lack of evidence to support this derivation, verna of Etruscan origin. Now used in English almost always in the sense of Latin vernacula vocabula, in reference to language, the noun sense “native speech or language of a place” dating from 1706.  In technical use, linguistic anthropologists use neo-vernacular and unvernacular while in medicine, epidemiologists distinguish vernacular diseases (restricted to a defined group) from those induced by external influences.  There are also variations within the vernacular, concepts like “street vernacular” or “mountain vernacular” used to differentiate sub-sets of native languages, based on geography or some demographic; in this the idea is similar to expressions like jargon, argot, dialect or slang.  Vernacular is a noun & adjective, vernacularism & vernacularist are nouns and vernacularly is an adverb; the noun plural is vernaculars.

Cannabis (known also as marijuana) is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, Cannabis ruderalis).  In the vernacular it's "weed" or any one of literally hundreds of other terms.

Vernacular and other Latin

In the intricate world of linguistics, there are many types of Latin, many of them technical differentiations between the historic later variations (Medieval Latin; New Latin, Enlightenment Latin) from what is (a little misleadingly) called Classical Latin (or just “Latin”) but there was also a Latin vernacular referred to as vulgar Latin, one of many forks:

Vulgar Latin (also as popular Latin or colloquial Latin) was the spectrum of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward and the what over centuries evolved into a number of Romance languages.  It was the common speech of the ancient Romans, which is distinguished from standard literary Latin and is the ancestor of the Romance languages.

Dog Latin (also as bog Latin (ie “toilet humor”)): Bad, erroneous pseudo-Latin, often amusing constructions designed to resemble the appearance and especially the sound of Latin, many of which were coined by students in English schools & universities.  The “joke names” used in Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) (Sillius Soddus, Biggus Dickus & Nortius Maximus) are examples of dog Latin.

Pig Latin: A type of wordplay in which (English) words are altered by moving the leading phonetic of a word to the end and appending -ay, except when the word begins with a vowel, in which case "-way" is suffixed with no leading phonetic change.

Apothecary's Latin: Latin as it was supposed spoken by a barbarian, reflecting the (probably not wholly unjustified) prejudices of the educated at the pretentions of tradesmen and shopkeepers.

Legal Latin: Latin phrases or terms used as a shorthand encapsulation of legal doctrines, rules, precepts and concepts).

Medical Latin: This evolved into a (more or less) standardized list of medical abbreviations, based on the Latin originals and used as a specific technical shorthand.

Barracks Latin: (pseudo Latin on the lines of dog Latin but usually with some military flavor, often noted for a tendency to vulgarity).

Ecclesiastical Latin: (also as Church Latin or Liturgical Latin), a fork of Latin developed in late Antiquity to suit the particular discussions of Christianity and still used in Christian liturgy, theology, and church administration (events in 2013 confirming that papal resignations are written and delivered in ecclesiastical Latin).  Technically, it’s a fork of Classical Latin but includes words from Vulgar & Medieval Latin as well as from Greek and Hebrew, sometimes re-purposed with meanings specific to Christianity (and sometimes just the Church of Rome).

The idea of the difference is best remembered in the example of the Vulgate Bible, the Latin translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek made by Saint Jerome (circa 345-420), the details of his interpretations (which tended to favor the role of the institutional church rather than the personal relationship between Christ and individual Christian) for centuries the source of squabble schism.  Vulgate was from the Latin vulgāta, feminine singular of vulgātus (broadcast, published, having been made known among the people; made common; prostituted, having been made common), perfect passive participle of vulgō (broadcast, make known).  When after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965), it was decided to permit the celebration of the mass in local languages rather than ecclesiastical Latin, such use was said to be “in the vernacular”.

Under the Raj: three marquises, three viceroys; Lords Lytton (left), Rippon (centre) and Lansdowne (right).  Upon leaving office, UK prime-ministers were usually granted an earldom but viceroys of India were created Marquises, a notch higher in the peerage.

Under the Raj, there were many vernacular languages; indeed, never did the colonial administrators determine just how many existed, all the fascinated dons giving up after counting hundreds and finding yet more existed.  One difficulty this did present was that it was hard to monitor (and if need be censor) all the criticism which might appear in non-English language publications and, because at the core of the British Empire was racism, violence and rapacious theft of other peoples’ lands and wealth, criticism was not uncommon.  In an attempt to suppress these undercurrents of dissatisfaction, the viceroy (Lord Lytton, 1831–1891; Viceroy of India 1876-1880) imposed the Vernacular Press Act (1878), modelled on earlier Irish legislation, the origins of the word in the Latin verna (a slave born in the master's household) not lost on Western-educated Indians.  Not content with mere suppression, Lord Lytton also created an operation to feed to the press what he wanted printed, using bribery where required.  Fake news was soon a part of these feeds and some historians have suggested the act probably stimulated more resentment than it contained.  In 1881, Lytton’s successor (Lord Rippon, 1827–1909; Viceroy of India 1880-1884) withdrew the act but the damage was done.  The legislative reforms of the viceroys of India varied in intent and consequence.  Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927; Viceroy of India 1888-1894) enacted the Age of Consent Act (1891), raising the age of consent for sexual intercourse for girls (married or unmarried), from ten to twelve, any violation an offence of statutory rape.  Those who like to defend what they claim was the civilizing mission of empire sometimes like to cite this but seem never to dwell on the marriage age for girls in England being twelve as late as 1929.

Quean

Quean (pronounced kween)

(1) An overly forward, boisterous, impudent or disreputable woman (archaic).

(2) A (usually) female prostitute (archaic).

(3) A girl or young woman, especially a robust one (archaic British dialectal slang).

(4) A young unmarried woman or girl; daughter (Scots English, quine the alternative spelling).

(5) A useless old woman (a one-off, ex post facto, Australian invention).

(6) In 1930s Australian slang (1) an effeminate man, (2) a suspected or confessed homosexual.

Pre 1000:  From the Middle English quene (a woman; a low-born woman) from the Old English cwēn & cwene (woman (also female serf, hussy, prostitute (as in portcwene "public woman"))), from the Proto-Germanic kwenon (source also of the Old Saxon quan, the Old High German quena, the Old Norse kona, the Gothic qino (wife, woman), the Greek gunē and the Middle Dutch kone & quene (vain or worthless woman).  The ultimate root was the Germanic kwenōn from the Proto-Germanic kwenǭ (woman) from the primitive Indo-European gwḗn (woman) and was related also to the Dutch kween (a barren woman; a barren cow), the Low German quene (barren cow; heifer), the German kon (wife), the Swedish kvinna (woman), the Icelandic kona (woman) and the Gothic qinō (woman) & qēns (wife).

The word had a strange history in the British Isles and the similarity to the homophonic "queen" must have accounted for at least some of the tangle.  Some etymologists the form was used in deliberate opposition to "queen" in the sense of "woman considered without regard to qualities or position" thus the frequent use as a slighting or abusive term for a woman and in the Middle English it could mean "a harlot; an old woman or crone" and by the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries it was in popular use to mean "a hussy; a woman of loose virtue".  North of the border however, things could be different and in the late fifteenth century, in Scotland it carried the sense of a "young, robust woman".  Quean is a noun and queanish an adjective; the noun plural is queans but all are now thought obsolete except for historic purposes.

Queen and quean

Sir William & Lady McMahon.

Rumors about the proclivities of Sir William McMahon (1908-1988; Australian prime minister 1971-1972), floated around within the Canberra beltway almost from the time he was first elected to parliament in 1949.  Usually the gossip was conducted in quiet, knowing sniggers but one day, on the floor of the house, Gough Whitlam (1916-2014; Australian prime minister 1972-1975), in one of his moods, called McMahon “a queen” which on reflection, he decided might have over-stepped the mark and told the Hansard office to edit the official record, saying he actually meant “quean” which he assured them meant “a useless old women”.  During the past thousand years it had never meant that and in the 1930s it had been recorded in Australian slang as a gay slur but the press were still forgiving of Whitlam, the view being it was a rhetorical flourish like Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) once calling British politician Duff Cooper (1890–1954) a krampfhenne (a Bavarian dialectical word meaning “nervous old hen”).

Sir Robert Menzies (1894-1978; Australian prime minister 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) himself advised McMahon if he ever wished to become Prime Minister, he would need a wife and children so, upon hearing of Menzies’ plans to retire, he made contact with a young lady he’d earlier met.  He was then fifty-seven, she twenty-four years younger and they became engaged within six months, the marriage eventually producing four children.  Unfortunately, Menzies’ most ill-fated electoral strategy worked and McMahon became prime-minister in 1970.  The governor-general (Sir Paul Hasluck (1905–1993; Governor-General of Australia 1969-1974) who would later appoint him to the prime-ministership, in March 1968 confessed to:

“…a dislike of McMahon, the longer one is associated with him the deeper the contempt for him grows and I find it hard to allow him any merit.  Disloyal, devious, dishonest, untrustworthy, petty, cowardly - all these adjectives have been weighed by me and I could not in truth modify or reduce any one of them in its application to McMahon.  I find him a contemptible creature and this contempt and the adjectives I have chosen to apply to him sum up defects that, in my estimation of other people, cannot be balanced by better qualities."

Sir Paul Hasluck (left) and William McMahon (right) at the swearing-in of the McMahon ministry, Government House, Canberra, 22 March 1971.

Sir Paul did allow that McMahon was renowned for "industry and pertinacity in a cause" but added to his diary a note that it was "...the industry and persistence of a man applying himself often to a mean purpose."  Anxious perhaps that it not appear his opinion was formed from mere prejudice, he recorded that long ago "...the unkindest thought I had of him was to think him something of an oddity and a rather funny little man.  There was a time when I might have sought to find good points for he is a pathetic figure, obviously an incomplete and sorry little person, small in stature, ill-developed, extremely sensitive about his lack of manly qualities and sometimes ingenuous in his bid for liking.  But his vanity and deviousness in self-advancement go beyond a point where one can continue to excuse them or make allowances for them out of sympathy.  I do not respect him and do not trust him."  So even if Sir Paul was at pains to point out he didn't take an instant dislike to Sir William, it seems might have saved time and warming to the topic, he recalled in 1951 hearing McMahon who, although already for over a year a member of parliament, was still acting as a uniformed attendant at functions for the Lord Mayor of Sydney, assisting his aunt by handing out tea and cakes to the ladies in attendance.  Sir Paul must have taken particular delight in adding "He would be the only man among all the ladies and seemed to love it.  He never seemed to be in the company of men but was mincing and simpering like a little girl."  None of these character traits of course disqualify anyone from high political office although they may have contributed to McMahon being reckoned still perhaps Australia’s worst prime-minister although that may be unfair to some of his twenty-first century successors.

Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), escorting Sonia McMahon (1932-2010) to a state dinner, the White House, 1971; husband William bringing up the rear.

There was one highlight during McMahon’s brief, mediocre tenure in the Lodge.  On a state visit to the United States in 1971, his wife wore to dinner a white dress, slit both sides to the armpits and held together from the waist up by rhinestones less than an inch (25 mm) apart.  A garment of extraordinarily daring by the standards of the diplomatic corps, the dress made headlines world-wide and was the subject of more analysis than was ever extended to McMahon.  His wife always dismissed speculation about her husband being a bit gay, claiming the rumors were started by Gough Whitlam after McMahon wore suede shoes into parliament.

Lindsay Lohan in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) (left) and Patrick Mullins' revelations of a middle-aged drama quean, his biography of Sir William McMahon (Tiberius With A Telephone (2020) Scribe, 784 pp, ISBN: 9781922310637 (right)).

The jibe "Tiberius With A Telephone" came also from Whitlam, an allusion to McMahon's reputation for intrigue and an example of his fondness for flaunting his classical learning and flair for conjuring alliterative phrases.  Remarkably, given that for half a century McMahon's brief premiership has been dismissed as insignificant, incipit and inept, Mullins' biography of this previously neglected administration is a revelation and a classic work of political history, an absorbing tale of the middle-years of the twentieth century.