Gown

Gown (pronounced goun) 

(1) A type of woman's dress or robe, especially one full-length and worn on formal occasions and often styled as “evening gown” or “ball gown”.

(2) As nightgown, a loose fitting garment worn by sleeping (historically by both men & women but now most associated with the latter); the shortened for is “nightie”.

(3) As surgical gown, a light, protective garment worn in hospitals by medical staff, a specialized form of which is the isolation gown.

(4) As dressing gown (also call bathrobe), a garment in the form of an open robe secured by a tie and often worn over pajamas, after a bath and prior to dressing or on other occasions where there’s no immediate need to dress.

(5) A loose, flowing outer garment in various forms, worn to denote an office held, profession practiced or as an indication of rank or status, most associated with formal academic dress (sometimes in the phrase “cap & gown”).

(6) Those who work or study at a university as opposed to the other residents of the university town, expressed in the phrase “town & gown”.

(7) Historically, the dress of civil, as opposed to military officers.

(8) To supply with or dress in a gown.

1300-1350: From Middle English goune & gowne, from Anglo-Norman gune & goune (fur-trimmed coat, pelisse), from the Old French goune (robe, coat; nun's habit), from the Late Latin gunna (a garment of fur or leather), from the Ancient Greek γούνα (goúna) (coarse garment), of unknown origin but may be from a Balkan or Apennine language where it seems to have been used as early as the eighth century to describe a fur (or fur-lined), cloak-like garment worn by old or infirm monks; More speculatively, some scholars suggest a Celtic source.  The alternative explanation suggests a Scythian origin, from the Proto-Iranian gawnám (fur), the possibility of this link supported by the Younger Avestan gaona (body hair) and the Ossetian гъун (ǧun).  The alternative spelling gowne is obsolete and descendants in other languages include the Bengali গাউন (gaun), the Japanese ガウン, the Korean  가운 (gaun), the Malay gaun, the Punjabi ਗਾਊਨ (gāūna) and the Welsh gown.  Gown is a noun and verb and gowned is an adjective; the noun plural is gowns.

Surgeon in blood-splattered surgical gown (also called hospital or medical gowns), mid-surgery.

As late as the eighteenth century, gown was the common word for what is now usually described as dress and gown in this sense persisted in the US longer than in the UK and there was on both sides of the Atlantic something of a twentieth century revival and the applied uses (bridal gown, nightgown etc) became more or less universal.  The meaning “a loose, flowing outer garment in various forms, worn to denote an office held, profession practiced or as an indication of rank” emerged in the late fourteenth century and the collective singular for “residents of a university” dates from the 1650s, still heard in the rhyming phrase “town & gown”.  The night-gown (worn once by both men & women but now associated almost exclusively with the latter) became a thing in the fourteenth century.

Lindsay Lohan in white & black color-blocked bandage dress.

Dress dates from circa 1300 and was from the Middle English dressen & dresse (to arrange, put in order), from the Anglo-Norman & Old French dresser, drecier (which persists in as dresser), from the unattested Vulgar Latin dīrēctiāre, from the Classical Latin dīrēctus, the perfect passive participle of dīrigō (to arrange in lines, direct, steer), the construct being dis- (the prefix in this context meaning “apart; asunder; in two’) + regō (to govern, manage), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European h₃reǵ- (straight, right).  The noun dress was derived from the verb and emerged in the sense of “attire” in the early 1600s.  Originally, a dress was always something which covered both the upper and lower parts of the female body but not of necessity in once piece.  The dressing gown seems first to have been described as such in 1854 although in French both robe de chambre (dressing gown) & robe de nuit (nightgown) had been in use for centuries.

Lindsay Lohan in dressing gowns; in the US such things would usually be called bathrobes.

Robe dates from the mid-thirteenth century Middle English robe & robbe and was from the Old French robe, robbe & reube (booty, spoils of war, robe, garment), from the Frankish rouba & rauba (booty, spoils, stolen clothes (literally “things taken”)), from the Old High German roub, from the Proto-Germanic raubō, raubaz & raubą (booty, that which is stripped or carried away), from the primitive Indo-European Hrewp- (to tear away, peel off).  The noun use of robe to refer to garments had entered general use by the late thirteenth century, an adoption of a meaning from the Old French, presumably because fine clothing looted from defeated enemies were among the most prized of the spoils of war.  The Old French robe (and the alternative spellings) had as concurrent meanings both “clothing” & “plunder: as did the Germanic forms including the Old English reaf (plunder, booty, spoil; garment, armor, vestment).  By the late thirteenth century robe had assumed the meaning “a long, loose outer garment reaching almost to the floor, worn by men or women over other dress”, those closest European equivalents being the twelfth century Old French robe (long, loose outer garment) and the Old High German rouba (vestments).  In royal, academic and ecclesiastical circles, the particular style of robes became regulated to denote rank, function or or membership of a religious order and royal courts would include offices like “page of the robes”, “mistress of the robes”, master of the robes etc” although those titles are (to modern eyes) misleading because their responsibilities extended to garments generally and not just robes as they’re now understood.  The metonymic sense of “the robe” for "the legal profession" dates from the 1640s, a reference to the dark robes worn by advocates when appearing in court.  Robe went on productively to be adopted for other purposes including (1) in the US “the skin of a bison (later applied to other slaughtered beasts) used as a cloak or wrap, (2) a short form of wardrobe (especially when built into a wall rather than being stand-alone) and (3) the largest and strongest leaves on a tobacco plant.

Singer Dr Taylor Swift in academic gown after being conferred an honorary doctorate in fine arts from New York University, May 2022.

In formal and vocational use, gown and robe and well understood and there tends not to be overlap except among those unacquainted with such things.  That’s understandable because to the casual observer the things can look much the same and the differences in nomenclature are more to do with tradition than style or cut.  Judges for example ware judicial robes and in the US these are usually black whereas elsewhere in the English-speaking world they can be of quite vivid hues, red and scarlet the most admired.  The US influence however seem pervasive and the trend is now almost universally black, certainly among newly established courts; in the same courts, barristers robes look much the same the term “judicial robe” is exclusive to the bench, the advocates garments variously called “barristers’ robes” “legal robes” or lawyers’ robes”.  Academics however wear gowns and again, the Americans tend to favor black while in the English tradition, all the colors of the rainbow have been seen.  These differ from surgical (also known as hospital or medical gowns) which, compared with just about every other gown, really aren’t gowns at all.  Surgical gowns are made usually in a blue, beige or green pastel color (better to show the blood) and are a kind of inverted dress which is fastened at the back (by an assistant so the wearer’s fingers don’t pick up germs).  In the UK parliament, there were many robes for offices of state and the one worn by the speaker made its way to colonial and dominion parliaments.  They're now rarely worn except on ceremonial occasions and the best known is probably that of the UK’s chancellors of the exchequer although the last one, dating from the late nineteenth century, is said to have “gone missing” while Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010) was chancellor.

New South Wales (Australia) Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges in judicial robes during the pandemic.

It’s in women’s fashion where the distinction between a gown and a dress can become muddied and probably most illustrative is the matter of the “wedding dress” and the “wedding gown”.  Even among couturiers, there’s actually no agreed definition of where one ends and the other begins and it’s very much in the eye of the beholder although the eye of the retailer is doubtless quite an influence, the theory being that the grander the design and the more the fabric, the more plausible is the label “wedding gown” and the higher the price-tag.  These informal (but serviceable) rules of thumb work also for dresses & gowns in general, the distinction more one of semantics and personal preference although in saying that, it’s only at the margins where there can be confusion; a minimalist LBD (little black dress) would never be confused with a gown and the grandest creations recalling those worn at the famous balls held in conjunction with the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) would never be called dresses.

Watercolor of one of the many balls held during the Congress of Vienna.

Despite that, in the narrow technical sense, to a seamstress, all gowns are dresses, but not all dresses are gowns and as late as the early eighteenth century the word "dress" was still not the exclusive province of women’s clothing ensembles.  In recent centuries, the dress has been defined by its modifiers (sun-dress, summer-dress, evening-dress, travelling dress, riding-dress etc) and the modern convention seems to be that if an invitation specifies semi-formal then an evening dress is expected and that might be something thought a gown but not necessarily.  However, when an invitation states that the occasion is formal, women are expected to wear an evening gown.  Classically, that’s understood to be something at once precise yet frivolous, with a tight fitting bodice and a skirt which reaches to the floor and this was once the accepted standard for any red-carpet event of note but the recent trend towards outrageous displays of skin has in the entertainment industry subverted the tradition although the audience is expected still to adhere.

Lindsay Lohan in a diaphanous gown, Met Gala, New York, 2007.

Cooper

Cooper (pronounced koo-per or koop-er)

(1) A person who makes or repairs casks, barrels, etc.

(2) A drink of half stout and half porter (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English couper (craftsman who makes barrels, tubs, and other vessels from wooden staves and metal hoops), which etymologists are convinced would have come from an Old English form but it has proved elusive.  Both the English words are almost certainly related to the Middle Low German kūper, the East Frisian kuperor and Middle Dutch cūper, from the Low German kupe (cask, tub, vat), from the Medieval Latin cūpārius, the construct being cūp(a) (cask or vat) + ārius. (from the The nominative neuter form -arium which, when appended to nouns, formed derivative nouns denoting a “place where things are kept”).

The meaning "craftsman who makes wooden vessels" was originally associated with the word couper, cooper a later construct of coop + er.  Coop is from the Middle English coupe & cupe, from the Old English cȳpe (basket; cask) or possibly the Middle Dutch cûpe (related to the modern Dutch kuip, Saterland Frisian kupe & Middle Low German kûpe), from the Old Saxon kûpa & côpa (cask), related to the Middle Low German kôpe, the Old High German chôfa & chuofa, the Middle High German kuofe, the modern German kufe (feminine form of cask), which most sources trace back to the Classical Latin cūpa & Medieval Latin cōpa (cask) although the OED has cast doubt on this etymology because of the mysterious umlaut in Old English cýpe.  The er agent (noun-formation) suffix is from the Middle English er & ere, from the Old English ere, from the Proto-Germanic ārijaz.  It’s thought a borrowing from the Latin ārius; cognate with the Dutch er and aar, the Low German er, the German er, the Swedish are, the Icelandic ari and the Gothic areis.  Related too are the Ancient Greek ήριος (ḗrios) and Old Church Slavonic арь (arĭ) and although synonymous, actually unrelated is the Old French or & eor (the Anglo-Norman variant is our) which is from the Latin (ā)tor, derived from the primitive Indo-European tōr.

As a surname, the name is attested from the late twelfth century, either from the unattested Old English or a Low German source akin to Middle Dutch cuper , East Frisian kuper, ultimate source the Low German kupe (which became kufe in German), cognate with the Medieval Latin cupa.  A now rare variation is hooper although it remains common as a surname.  Within the profession, a dry cooper makes casks to hold dry goods, a wet cooper those to contain liquids and a white cooper, pails, tubs, and the like for domestic or dairy use.  The surname Cowper is pronounced koo-per or koop-er everywhere except Australia which preserved the fifteenth century spelling but modified the pronunciation to cow-pah.  The Australian federal electorate of Cowper was created in 1900 as one of the original sixty-five divisions and is named after Sir Charles Cowper (1807–1875) who was on five occasions between 1856-1870 the premier of the colony of New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

The Maserati Formula 1 V12, 1956-1957 & 1966-1969

1954 Maserati 250F "short nose".

Remarkably, the three litre Maserati V12 used by Cooper to win Grand Prix races in 1966 & 1967 was an update (developed out of necessity) of a 2.5 litre engine used (once) in 1956.  Maserati’s new straight-six 250F had enjoyed a stunning start to its career, enjoying victories in the first two Grands Prix of the 1954 season but was soon eclipsed by the Lancia D50 and particularly the Mercedes-Benz W196, both with more powerful eight cylinder engines and advanced aerodynamics.

1955 Maserati 250F Streamliner.

Maserati responded and, taking note of the all-enveloping "streamliner" bodywork Mercedes-Benz used on the W196s used on the faster circuits, developed a quasi-enveloping shape, the emphasis wholly on reducing drag (downforce would attract the interest of a later generation).  For the slower tracks, there was also an aerodynamic refinement of the open-wheeler, the “long-nose” which proved such a success it would become the definitive 250F.  The more slippery shapes helped but the problem of the power deficit remained, the advanced Mercedes-Benz engine, built with the benefit of experience gained with the wartime aero engines, used fuel-injection and a desmodromic valve-train which permitted sustained high-speed operation.  Maserati’s engineers devoted time to devise a fuel injection system and borrowed an innovation from the roadsters built for the Indianapolis 500, an off-set installation of the engine in the chassis which permitted the driveshaft to be to run beside rather than beneath the driver, lowering the seat and thus improving both aerodynamics and weight-distribution.

1954 Maserati 250F "long nose".

Two grand prix wins in 1956 suggested progress was being made but, although Mercedes-Benz withdrew from racing after 1955, competition from other constructors was growing so Maserati turned its attention to both chassis and engine.  An all-new multi-tubular space-frame chassis was designed, lighter and stronger than its more conventional predecessor, it retained the double wishbone front and De Dion rear suspension and, perhaps surprisingly, the engineers resisted the more efficient and now well-proven disc brakes, the revised drums instead aided by enhanced cooling.  The new engine was not ready for 1956 so the straight-six was again fielded although the off-set layout was discarded.  The new chassis was called Tipo 2.

Maserati 250F Typo 2, Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995), German Grand Prix,  Nürburgring, 1957.

Developed specifically for the Tipo 2 was the V12, its twin camshafts driven by front-mounted gears with the novelty of the Weber carburetors being mounted between the camshafts.  Maintaining a Maserati tradition, a twin spark ignition system was fitted, the 24 spark-plugs fed by two sturdy magnetos, again gear-driven and linked by 24 individual coils.  In many ways the state of 1950s engineering art, the marvelously intricate 2.5 litre V12 produced 320 bhp at what was then a startling 12,000 rpm, an increase of 50 bhp over the 2.5 litre straight six.  With the V12 still being developed, the team started the 1957 season with the 250F Tipo 2 and the straight six.  The faithful six was reliable and proved powerful enough to prevail over the Ferraris and the cars which unexpectedly emerged as the most impressive competition, the British Vanwalls.  The season would be Maserati’s finest, Juan Manuel Fangio winning his fifth world championship (at the age of forty-five) and, had there been a constructors title (not awarded until 1958), Maserati would have taken that trophy too.  The season is remembered also for Fangio’s famous victory in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, in which he broke the lap record ten times in twenty-two laps, the Tipo 2’s straight six clearly good enough.

1956 Maserati 250F Tipo 2 V12.

The success of the straight-six afforded the engineers a wealth of time thoroughly to develop the V12.  After early tests showed the power delivery, although impressive, was too brutal to deliver the flexibility needed in a racing car, attention was devoted to widening the torque curve.  Three Tipo 2 chassis were built for the V12 engine, one ready in time for the final Grand Prix of the year, the symbolically important home event, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.  A redesigned gearbox housing again allowed an off-set mounting which, although improving weight distribution, made the body sit so low on the frame, two bulges had to be formed in the bonnet to clear the carburetor intakes.  It looked fast and it was.  However, in scenes reminiscent of the troubles suffered by the ferociously powerful Auto-Unions and Mercedes-Benz of the pre-war years, the 250F, although fast, suffered high tyre-wear, the rear tyres clearly not able long to endure the abrasive demands of 320 bhp.  Still, it had been an encouraging debut, even if a lubrication problem had prematurely ended the venture.

Lindsay Lohan in Mini Cooper, Mauritius, 2016.

Unfortunately, there would not for a decade be another chance to run the V12 in a Grand Prix.  Financially challenged, Maserati retired from international racing at the end of the 1957 season, the remaining 250Fs sold to privateers either with the straight six or as a rolling chassis.  How competitive a fully-developed Tipo 2 V12 might have been in 1958 will never be known but the credentials were there and, against the dominant Ferraris and Vanwalls, it would have been an interesting contest, the 1958 season the end of an era, the last year either the drivers’ or constructors’ championships would be won using front-engined cars.  On paper, the Maserati V12 was the most powerful engine fielded during Formula One’s 2.5 litre era.

Cooper-Maserati T81, Guy Ligier (1930–2015), Belgium Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps, 1967.

Although it did see some use in sports-car racing, the V12’s most (briefly) illustrious second life came when, in 1965, a doubling of engine displacement to three litres was announced for the next Formula One season.   This created a scramble for competitive engines and with renewed interest in the moth-balled V12, Maserati dusted-off the cobwebs.  Cooper adopted it and enjoyed early success with the advantage of being the first team running cars with a full three litres, the reliability of the old V12 adding another edge over others still shaking down their initially fragile new engines.

Cooper-Maserati T81b, Pedro Rodríguez (1940–1971),  German Grand Prix, Nürburgring, 1967.

Soon however, Cooper were running a decade-old design against much newer competition and the antiquity began to tell.  Although some updating had been done, early experiments with six and even a remarkable twelve carburettors quickly abandoned for the even by then de rigueur fuel injection, in that decade, several generations of engineering had passed and the V12 was looking pre-historic.  Unable to change anything fundamental, Maserati bolted on what it could, including 18-valve cylinder heads that added weight and complexity, but did little to narrow the widening gap.  Rumors of 24-valve heads and even three spark-plugs per cylinder never came to fruition but the did prompt some wry comments questioning the efficiency of Maserati's combustion chamber design if that many fires needed to be lit.  Maserati withdrew from Formula One during the 1968 season and Cooper soon followed.

Thinspo

Thinspo (pronounced thin-spoh)

Material created, curated or used (almost exclusively in distributed digital form) to inspire thinness or weight loss; a sub-set of the pro-ana community which exists to support those who have chosen to anorexia nervosa as a lifestyle.

2005–2010: The short form of thinspiration, the construct being thin +‎ (in)spiration.  Thin was from the Middle English thinne, thünne & thenne, from the Old English þynne, from the Proto-West Germanic þunnī, from the Proto-Germanic þunnuz (thin) (and related to þanjaną (to stretch, spread out)), from the primitive Indo-European ténhus (thin), from ten- (to stretch).  It was cognate with the German dünn, the Dutch dun, the West Frisian tin, the Icelandic þunnur, the Danish tynd, the Swedish tunn, the Latin tenuis, the Irish tanaí, the Welsh tenau, the Latvian tievs, the Sanskrit तनु (tanú) (thin) and the Persian تنگ‎ (tang) (narrow). A doublet of tenuis, it was related also to tenuous.  Inspiration was from the Middle English inspiracioun, from the Old French inspiration, from the Late Latin īnspīrātiōnem (nominative īnspīrātiō), from the Classical Latin īnspīrātus (past participle of inspīrō).  It displaced the native Old English onbryrdnes (literally “in-pricked-ness”).  Thinspo inspired others forms such as fitspo (encouraging fitness) and blondespo (advocating being blonde) and between thinspo and fitspo, critics noted some overlap, suspecting that in at least some cases the later identity is assumed as an attempt at disguise.  Thinspo is a noun; the noun plural is thinspos.

Thinspo's idealized bone definition.

The companion term ribspro (the short form of ribspiration (known also as bonespo)) is a particular genre within thinspo.  Whereas thinspo material can be long or short-form text, diagrams or images, rinspro is almost exclusively visual, the text limited to perhaps a few admiring or encouraging words and as the names suggest, the focus is on ribcages or other bones proximately highlighted against taut skin.  Backbones, ribs, clavicles and hipbones seem the most favored, presumably because they tend to provide the most definitional contrast but there’s also the suspicion that the particular aesthetic construct of the thinspo community finds there the most attractive, unlike a knee or elbow which, however boney, seems not to be thought photogenic.  Another genre (a kind of applied thinspo) within the community is meanspo (the short form of mean inspiration), from the “tough love” or “cruel to be kind” school of weight loss and this school of thought advocates issuing critical and insulting comments to those considered “insufficiently thin enough”, the rationale being this will convince them to reduce intake, exercise more, purge and thus lose weight.  The thinspo ecosystem has also proliferated thematic variations such as “vegan thinspo” although that to some extent was opportunistic give that the most extreme of the thinspo operatives had long since banished animal products, regarding recommendations like “lean mean” or “chicken strips” as just so much fat.

Like much in the pro-ana community, the thinspo sites exist on a spectrum, those thought innocuous left to continue while any judged to be encouraging eating disorders subject to being shutdown although the efforts undertaken by (and sometimes imposed on) the platforms is a Sisyphean battle, the content shifting as required.  It’s also organic in that thinspo, like all that’s curated by the pro-ana community, is just another function supply-demand curve; the supply of pro-ana content at least to some extent a product of demand and, like much that is on-line, some of the material is blatantly fake, something most obviously detected in the dubious before & after photos which appear with frequent duplication.  Whether there were statistically significant differences in the nature of the content of thinspo and fitspo sites attracted academic interest and there were studies, the results differing in detail (and demonstrating widely divergent results depending on the platform analyzed which was thought to be a reflection more of the degree of success a platform achieved in enforcing its policies than any difference in the collective user profile) but displaying the same general trends: Thinspo sites portrayed body parts with more than twice the frequency of fitspo and posts highlighting bony body features and references to mental illness were overwhelmingly almost specific to thinspo.  Interestingly, the differences between fitspo & thinspo relating to sexually suggestive images, appearance comparison and messages encouraging restrictive eating were not statistically significant, the divergences being striking but almost wholly correlated with the platform on which they were posted.  The more extreme of the forks such as self harm (cutters etc) appeared almost exclusively on thinspo.

Thinspo Rules

Lindsay Lohan during thinspo pin-up phase, 2005.

(1) Never eat something just because you want to finish it.  Eat only enough to stop the worst of the hunger pangs and don’t eat until sated; those extra bites add up.

(2) Don’t let emotions take over and eat only if hungry.  Stop yourself once you start eating if you know it’s for the wrong reasons.

(3) If you catch yourself in a binge, stop the moment you realize.  Don’t forgive yourself for screwing up; it will only permit you to screw up again.

(4) Every calorie counts.  Review every recipe and remove as many calories as possible.  Where possible, choose the diet or low cal version and drink water (soda water is fine), black tea or black coffee instead of other beverages.  Avoid zero-cal sweeteners (1) because they’re a chemical cocktail and (2) on thinspo goal is to completely cure the body’s natural sugar addiction. 

(5) Don’t feel guilt about wasting food.  The undesirability on environmental grounds is noted but the sooner you change yourself, the better.  Set a goal always not to eat everything you’re served and gradually increase this quantity.  Before long, you’ll be throwing away food without barely a thought.

(6) Eat slowly, savoring each bite.

(7) Drink water during meals, as much as you can manage.   This curbs hunger, is filling, aids in digestion and maintains hydration which has many benefits.  Water has zero calories and can be taken as ice.

(8) Chew your food more, taking at least one 1 full breathe after every bite.  It can vary according to what’s being eater but as a guide, chew 30 times for each mouthful. This not only assists digestion but slows the pace of eating, reducing consumption.

(9) Cut food into smaller pieces which slows eating, can make you you’re eating more and it will makes other people think you ate more, something which can be important.

 (10) Associate unhealthy food with something else: ice cream with saturated fat, bread with carbs, juice with sugar etc.  Concrete visual examples are also helpful: cake as fat sitting in your thighs, chips as a permanent lining in the stomach etc..

(11) Learn from other people eating because while there are individual variations, overall, the patterns should be consistent.  Watch skinny people and apply their principles to your own diet; watch fat people with disgust and revulsion, avoiding what they do.

(12) Decide beforehand how much you are going to eat and never eat more.  If cooking, cook only one serving, so you can’t eat anymore.  The idea model is to have no food in the house and each day but only what you’re that day allowed.  It can be difficult at first but it can be done and if stuck to, it’s a foolproof diet.

(13) Always remind yourself of your goals and rewards.  Keep track of daily nutrient and food goals (some use diet minder journal or cronometers but the best method is whatever works for you).  Weigh yourself twice a day (before morning coffee and just before going to bed), the goal being always to see a lower number than previous weigh-in.  If you have achieved a target weight and operate in a variation of +/- 100g, that is acceptable.

(14) Don’t eat 2½ hours before bed.

(15) You’ll sometimes eat with friends or family so you may need to develop techniques surreptitiously to dispose of food.  You’ll get good at knowing where to sit so one hand can always been unseen and a good trick is to wear clothes with big pockets you can line with plastic bags.

Formalism

Formalism (pronounced fawr-muh-liz-uhm)

(1) Strict adherence to, or observance of, prescribed or traditional forms, as in music, poetry and art.

(2) In religion, a strong attachment to external forms and observances.

(3) In philosophy (ethics), a doctrine that acts are in themselves right or wrong regardless of consequences.

(4) In mathematics (formal logic), a doctrine that mathematics, including the logic used in proofs, can be based on the formal manipulation of symbols without regard to their meaning (the mathematical or logical structure of a scientific argument as distinguished from its subject matter; the theory a statement has no meaning but that its symbols, regarded as physical objects, exhibit a structure that has useful applications).

(5) A scrupulous or excessive adherence to outward form at the expense of inner reality or content

(6) In Marxist criticism, scrupulous or excessive adherence to artistic technique at the expense of social values etc; also a view adopted by some non-Marxist critical theorists).

(7) In performance art, theatre a deliberately stylized mode of production.

(8) In both structural engineering and computer science, the notation, and its structure, in (or by) which information is expressed.

1830–1840: The construct was formal + -ism.  Formal was from the Middle English formel, from the Old French formel, from the Latin formalis, from forma (form) of unknown origin but possibly from the Etruscan morma, from the Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ) (shape, fashion, appearance, outward form, contour, figure), dissimilated as formīca and possibly formīdō.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek –ismos & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, often through the Latin –ismus & -isma, though sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Greek.  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form action nouns from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Although actual use of the word formalism dates only from its adoption (1830s) in critical discourse, disputes related to the matter can be found in texts since antiquity in fields as diverse as agriculture, literature and theology.  Formalism is a noun, formalist is a noun & adjective, formalistic is an adjective and formalistically is an adverb; the usual noun plural is formalists.

Comrade Stalin, Comrade Shostakovich and Formalism

Comrade Stalin (1878–1953; leader of the USSR, 1924-1953) didn’t invent the regime’s criticism of formalism but certainly made it famous after comrade Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was denounced in the Soviet newspaper Pravda (Truth) in January 1936, after the Moscow performance of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.  Stalin didn’t like music he couldn’t whistle and the complex strains of Shostakovich’s opera, sometimes meandering, sometimes strident, certainly didn’t permit that; he labeled the composition формализм (formalism), "chaos instead of music", a self-indulgence of technique by a composer interested only in the admiration of other composers, an audience of no value in the school of Soviet realism.  It’s believed the Pravda article may have been written by Stalin himself and he used the word "formalism" in the sense it was understood English; formality being the observance of forms, formalism the disposition to make adherence to them an obsession.  To Stalin, the formal rules of composition were but a means to an end and the only legitimate end was socialist realism; anything other than that "an attack on the people".  Lest it be thought the defeat of fascism in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) might have mellowed his views in such matters, Stalin at the 1948 party congress made sure the point was hammered home in the Communist Party's brutish way:  

"Comrades, while realistic music is written by the People's composers, formalistic music is written by composers who are against the People.  Comrades, one must ask why it is that realistic music is always written by composers of the People? The People's composers write realistic music simply due to the fact that being by nature realists right to their very core, they simply cannot help writing music that is realistic, while those anti-People composers, being by nature unrepentant formalists, cannot help... cannot help... cannot help writing music that is formalistic."

Comrade Stalin signing death warrants.

In the Soviet Union, producing or performing stuff hated by Stalin was not good career move.  Shostakovich completed his Fourth Symphony in C minor, Opus 43, in May 1936 and, even after the attack in Pravda, planned to stage its premiere in Leningrad December but found the orchestra unwilling to risk incurring the Kremlin’s wrath and almost as soon as rehearsals began, the orchestra's management cancelled the performance, issuing a statement saying comrade Shostakovich had withdrawn the work.  Actual responsibility for the decision remains unclear but it was certainly in accord with the views of the Kremlin and not until 1961, almost a decade on from Stalin’s death, was it performed.

Comrade Shostakovich at his dacha.

Shostakovich became a realist, his response to denunciation the melodic Fifth Symphony in D minor, Opus 47.  Premiered in November 1937 in Leningrad, it was a resounding triumph, attracting a standing ovation that lasted more than thirty minutes.  The following January, just before its first performance in Moscow, an article, under the composer’s name, appeared in the local newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva in which he described the Fifth Symphony as "…a Soviet artist's creative response to justified criticism."  Whether Shostakovich actually wrote the piece isn’t known but there’s never been any doubt it’d never have been published without Stalin’s approval and the success of the Fifth Symphony re-personed Shostakovich.  Whatever it lacked in glasnost (openness), it made up for in perestroika (restructuring) and the party engineered his rehabilitation as carefully as it had his fall a couple of years earlier, anxious to show how those bowing its demands could be rewarded as easily and fully as dissidents could be punished.

Awful

Awful (pronounced aw-fuhl)

(1) Extremely bad; unpleasant; ugly.

(2) Inspiring fear; dreadful; terrible.

(3) Solemnly impressive; inspiring awe; full of awe; reverential (obsolete).

(4) Extremely dangerous, risky, injurious, etc.

(5) Very; extremely.

1250-1300: From the Middle English agheful, awfull, auful aueful & aȝefull (worthy of respect or fear, striking with awe; causing dread), the construct of all based on the idea of awe +‎ -ful (aghe the earlier form of awe), the same model as the Old English eġeful & eġefull (terrifying; awful).  Etymologists treat the emergence in the early nineteenth century (1809) of the meaning “very bad” as a weakening of the original sense but it can be regarded as a fork and thus a parallel path in the same way as the sense of "excessively; very great" which is documented since 1818.  Interestingly, there’s evidence from the late sixteenth century that was spasmodic use of awful that was more a variation of the original, meaning “profoundly reverential, full of awe” (awe in this case a thing more of reverence than fear and trepidation).  The spellings awfull, aweful & awefull are all obsolete although some dictionaries list awfull as archaic, a fine distinction of relevance only to lexicographers.  Awful is an adjective & (in colloquial US use, mostly south of the Mason-Dixon Line) an adverb, awfully is an adverb, awfuller & awfullest are adjectives, awfulize is a verb and awfulization & awfulness are nouns; in slang the non-standard noun plural “awfuls” is used in the same sense as the disparaging “ghastlies”.

The adverb awfully (which would later assume a life of its own) around the turn of the fourteenth century meant "so as to inspire reverence" by the end of the 1300s had come also to mean "dreadfully, so as to strike one with awe (in the sense of “fear & dread”) and this was by the 1830s picked up as a simple intensifier meaning "very, exceedingly", Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) noting with his usual weary disapproval that awfully’s “downward path” was such that it was now nothing but a synonym of “very”.  That seems harsh given “awfully” would seem able to convey a nuance and even Henry Fowler conceded that in Ancient Greek the equivalent word αἰνόςως (ainósōs) was used to mean both (1) “horribly, dreadfully, terribly” & (2) “very, extremely, exceptionally” but despite his reverence for all things Hellenic, he didn’t relent.

Awfully good: Lindsay Lohan at the premiere of Mr & Mrs Smith, Los Angeles, June, 2005.  A kind of elaborated bandage dress with some nice detailing, the dress Lindsay Lohan wore in 2005 attracted much favourable comment, as did the designer's sense of restraint, necklaces and other embellishments eschewed, a sprinkle of freckles presumably thought adornment enough.  A dress like this encapsulates the simple rule: When in doubt, stick to the classics.

The adjective god-awful (also as godawful) had an even more muddled evolution, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in 1878 listing the meaning “impressive” before, a decade later, revising this to “impressively (ie “very”) terrible”, which seems better to reflect the sense in which it seems always to have been applied since being coined as a colloquialism of US English.  In use it’s thought to have been mostly part of oral speech and except in dictionary entries appeared rarely in print prior to the 1920s so the origin is obscure, etymologists pondering that either “God” was used as a simple intensifier or in the sense of the frequent God's awful vengeance, judgment etc, a phrase common in religious literature.

As adjectives, the usual forms of the comparative & superlative are respectively more awful & most awful but dictionaries continue to acknowledge awfuller & awfullest as correct English although most users would probably flag both as “wrong” and their clumsy sound means they’re avoided even by those aware of their status.  The verbs awfulize, awfulizes, awfulizing & awfulized are technical terms in psychotherapy which describe patients reacting dramatically or catastrophically to distressing events, usually in the sense of a disproportionate reaction; the noun form is awfulization.  Perhaps surprisingly, social media users seem not to have picked up “awfulization”; it would seem a handy descriptor of much content.

A sentence like “it was a godawful book and awfully long but awfully well-written” actually makes sense and few would be confused because the various meanings are conveyed by context.  So, despite the tangled history, awful and its derivatives usually present few problems, even the colloquial “something awful” (“awfully; dreadfully; terribly” except in North America (mostly south of the Mason-Dixon Line & among classes so influenced) where it means “very, extremely”) usually able to be decoded: “I was hungry something awful” and “there’s something awful about crooked Hillary Clinton” both unambiguous even if the former sounds strange to those accustomed to “educated speech”, a term much criticized but well-understood.

Awful: Lindsay Lohan at the afterparty for Roberto Cavalli's fashion show, Milan Fashion Week, March 2010.  Although they tend to group-think, fashion critics are not monolithic but none had a good word to say about this outfit, the consensus being: Awful.  A few grudgingly granted a pass to the glittering Roberto Cavalli harem pants but the fur gilet was condemned as if Ms Lohan had with her bare hands skinned a live mink, eating the liver; these days, even faux fur seems grounds for cancellation.  Some, presumably those who picked up a photo from the agencies, called it a stole and at certain angles it resembled one but it really was as gilet.  As a footnote, many did admire the Fendi platform pumps so there was that though nobody seemed to think they redeemed things.

Gilet was from the French gilet (vest, waistcoat), from the regional Italian gileccu (Calabria), gilecco (Genoa), gelecco (Naples) & ggileccu (Sicily), (though the standard Italian gilè was borrowed directly from the French), from the Turkish yelek (jelick; vest, waistcoat, from the Proto-Turkic yẹl (the noun of “wind”) with the final syllable modified to match other styles of garments such as corselet and mantelet.  Historically a gilet was (1) a man’s waistcoat & (2) a woman’s bodice a la the waistcoat or a decorative panel either attached to the bodice or worn separately.  In modern use, a gilet is a sleeveless jacket which can be closed to the neck and is often padded to provide warmth.  Some puffer jackets and garments described as bodywarmers can be classed as gilets.

Stole was from the Old English stole, from the Latin stola, from the Ancient Greek στολή (stolḗ) (stole, garment, equipment).  The original stoles were ecclesiastical vestments and were decorated bands worn on the back of the neck, each end hanging over the chest (reaching sometimes to the ground) and could, inter alia, be an indication of clerical rank, geographical location or membership of an order.  In English and European universities, stoles were also adopted as academic dress, often added to an undergraduate’s gown for a degree conferring ceremony.  In fashion, the stole was a garment in the style of a scarf or muffler and was there always for visual effect and sometimes warmth.  Fur stoles were especially popular until wearing it became socially proscribed and (trigger warning) there were fox stoles which included the beast's entire pelt including the head and the much admired brush (tail).