Ass & Arse

Arse (pronounced ahrs)

(1) One of many slang terms for the human buttocks (in much of the English-speaking world except the US).

(2) By extension, one of many slang terms applied to the rear or back-end of anything, animal, vegetable or mineral (in much of the English-speaking world except the US).

(3) In Australian slang, effrontery; cheek.

(4) In slang, a stupid, pompous, arrogant, mean or despicable etc person, a use sometimes enlivened as “arsehole” (in much of the English-speaking world except the US).

(5) A person; the self; (reflexively) oneself or one's person, chiefly their body and by extension, one's personal safety, or figuratively one's job, prospects etc (in much of the English-speaking world except the US).

(6) In biochemistry, as ARSE, the abbreviation of arylsulfatase E (an enzyme, deficiencies in which are associated with abnormalities in cartilage and bone development).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English ars, eres & ers, from the Old English ærs & ears, from the Proto-West Germanic ars, from the Proto-Germanic arsaz and cognate with the Old Frisian ers, the Dutch aars, the Old Norse, Middle Low German, Old Saxon & Old High German ars (from which modern German gained Arsch), the Greek órrhos (rump (from orso-, used frequently in compounds)), the Armenian or̄kh and the Hittite arras.  All of the nouns derive ultimately probably from the primitive Indo-European h₃érsos- (backside, buttocks, tail), the source also of the Ancient Greek ourá & orros (tail, rump, base of the spine), the Hittite arrash and the Old Irish err (tail).  In the hierarchy of vulgarity, arse had an interesting history, beginning as something purely descriptive but, because of the association with the buttocks and their functions (with all that that implies), the word soon became a vulgar form, avoided in polite conversation.  That restraint lingered well into the twentieth century but even though things are now more relaxed, a careless use of arse in the wrong time and place, in the wrong company, can still cause offence.  The Latin arse was the vocative masculine singular of arsus, the perfect passive participle of ārdeō which was used with a variety of senses (1) to burn (to be consumed by fire), (2) Of eyes which glow or sparkle, (3) in poetic use, to glisten with a feature, usually with a colour, (4) figuratively, “to burn, be strongly affected with an emotion, (5), figuratively, “to be eager” & (6) figuratively, ardently or fervently to be in love, to burn with lustful or romantic desire.  Arse is a noun & verb; arsing is a verb and arsed is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is arses.

There can have been few words as productive as arse in the construction of slang and idiomatic forms, some of which survived while some died out.  To “hang the arse” (slow, reluctant; tardy) was from the 1630s while the more graphic (and in some cases presumably literal) “arse-winning” referred to income gained from prostitution "money obtained by prostitution" was in Middle English in the late fourteenth century.  The familiar “arse over tit” (to fall down; to fall over) is actually an alternative form of the original “arse over tip” which was first recorded in 1884 although it had probably long been in oral use.  Arseward was a synonym of backward in the fourteenth century while the mysterious arsy-versy (backside foremost) dates from the 1530s and was probably a reduplication of arse, perhaps with suggestions of “going backwards; in reverse”.  Arsehole can of course be literal (referencing the anus) and the late fourteenth century was spelled arce-hoole, an inheritance from the Old English in which the Latin anus was glossed with earsðerl (literally "arse-thrill" with the noun thrill used in its original sense of "hole".  Asshole (a stupid, pompous, arrogant, mean or despicable etc person) is also a frequently used term of abuse.  One long-serving Australian foreign minister, early in his undistinguished term was overheard referring to poor nations as “BACs” (busted arse countries) and while he never apologized, did sit smirking in parliament while the prime-minister assured the house he’d been assured it wouldn’t happen again (presumably the leak rather than the comment).  A smart-arse (a person thought flippant or insolent, usually with a tendency to make snide remarks) should not be confused with an arse-smart (also ars-smart), the herb Persicaria hydropiper (formerly Polygonum hydropiper), named in the early fourteenth century, the construct being arse + smart (in the sense of “pain”).  The herb was also at the time once culrage and since the late eighteenth century has been known as smartweed.  Arse smart was a direct translation of the Old French cul rage, the construct being the Old French cul + rage which some sources suggest is from the Latin rabies (from rabiō (to rage)) but evidence is lacking and the French word may have been a folk etymology.

In German "My ass!" is spelled "Mein Arsch!".

The list of arse-based phrases (some of which began in the US as “ass” slang) is long and perhaps impossible wholly to compile but some of the other more frequently used forms are (1) arseage or pure arse (good and usually undeserved luck), (2) arse licker (sycophancy, also expressed as suck arse or kiss arse), sometime used in conjunction with (3) arse-kicker (stern superior) in the phrase (4) “kisses up, kicks down” which refers to those obsequious towards superior and officious to subordinates, (5) light up someone’s arse (provide encouragement in a strident or violent manner) which Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) used in typically imaginative manner, telling his staff just after the failure of the July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), “It takes a bomb under his arse to make Hitler see reason”, (6) arse about (and arse around) which can mean either “the wrong way around” or “behaving frivolously, wasting time”, (7) half-arsed (something done badly or improperly), (8) fat arse (someone overweight), (9) dumb arse (someone considered not intelligent or an act thought most unwise, (10) cover one's arse (to take such action as one considers necessary to avoid later blame or censure (this one definitely borrowed from the US), (11) to break one’s arse (working hard), (12) arse in a sling (an unfortunate state in one’s personal affairs, especially if the consequence of one’s own mistakes or ill-considered actions, (13) pain in the arse (someone or something troublesome or really annoying (pain in the neck the polite alternative)), (14) kick in the arse (a form of encouragement, a punishment or combination of the two), (15) bet your ass (an expression of certainty), (16) pulled it out of one’s arse (an admission of luck), the companion phrase being (17) can’t just pull it out of one’s arse (introducing a sense of reality to a conversation), (18) stick it up (your) arse (declining an offer, invitation or suggestion) and (19) can't be arsed (can’t be bothered).

Gratuitous objectification: One dozen pictures of Lindsay Lohan’s ass.

Ass (pronounced ass or ahrs)

(1) Ass is a noun and the adjectival form is ass-like (assesque a bit clumsy); the noun plural is asses.  adjective: asinine

(2) Either of two perissodactyl mammals of the horse family (Equidae), Equus asinus (African wild ass) or E. hemionus (Asiatic wild ass).  They are long-eared, slow, placid, sure-footed and easily domesticated, thus long used as a beast of burden.

(3) An alternative spelling of arse (buttocks or anus) and the standard form in the US and much of Canada.

(4) A stupid, foolish, absurdly pompous or stubborn person (although when seeking to suggest stubborn, “mule” was historically the more usual form).

(5) Someone with whom sexual intercourse is desired, contemplated or achieved and in those contexts can be used also to express admiration (nice piece of ass).

Pre-1000:  From the Middle English asse, from the Old English assa, probably a pet name or diminutive form based on a Celtic form such as the Old Irish asan or the Old Welsh asen, from the Latin asinus and akin to the Greek ónos (the donkey-like ass), from a non-Indo-European language of Asia Minor, possibly the Sumerian anše (ass).  The use as an alternative spelling of arse dates from the 1860s in the US and may be related to the increase in the mixing of linguistic traditions during the Civil War.

Arse thus is the British slang word referring to (1) the human or animal posterior, or (2) a stupid person.  Ass is the American equivalent and is used also as the name of the beast of burden so like “check”, in US English there is potential for confusion whereas in British & Commonwealth use, the ass/arse & cheque/check distinction avoids this although, given the differences in definition, ass is less prone than check.  Some style guides and the more helpful dictionaries caution that ass in the US is less acceptable that arse has become in the commonwealth and when speaking of the beast, donkey or mule is often used, even when zoologically dubious.  Still, the word is useful and on Reddit there’s the subreddit AITA ("Am I the asshole), which is the clearing house for enquiries where those involved in disputes can seek views on whether they are in the wrong.

Dick Assman (Assman the Gasman), Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, 1995.

Dick Assman (1934-2016) was a Canadian gas (petrol) station employee who gained his fifteen minutes (actually several months) of fame by virtue of his name which came to the attention of US talk-show host David Letterman (b 1947).  Seeing the comedic potential, Letterman in mid-1995 added a nightly segment called Assman the Gasman which lasted a few weeks but it generated for Mr Assman so much name-recognition, that it led to opportunities such as judging beauty contests.  The names Assman & Assmann are of fourteenth century German origin and are thought variations of Erasmus from the Ancient Greek erasmos (loved).  It was originally a personal name which evolved into a surname as the conventions of family names evolved in the post-feudal period.  Mr Assman enjoyed the celebrity ride but did note the name is correctly pronounced oss-man.

Bismarck class Schlachtschiff (battleship) KMS Tirpitz. 

Vice Admiral Kurt Assmann (1883-1962) had a career at sea before between in 1933 appointed head of the historical section of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine which would later become Oberkommando der Marine (OKL; the naval high command)).  The books he published in the post-war years are a valuable source of facts and a helpful chronology but much of his analysis about political and naval strategy was criticized on both sides of the Iron Curtain.  His nephew was naval Captain Heinz Assmann (1904—1954) who for a time served on the Bismarck-class battleship KMS Tirpitz and was later attached to Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW; the armed forces high command).  His notable contribution to history was being in the conference room on 20 July 1944 when the bomb intended to kill Hitler exploded.  After recovering from his injuries, he returned to his duties at OKW and was attached to the Flensburg staff of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; head of the German Navy 1943-1945, German head of state 1945) when the latter was named in Hitler’s political testament as his successor as head of state, his time in office lasting three weeks.  Captain Assmann subsequently was interviewed by allied investigators who were seeking fully to understand the chain of events of on the day of the July plot.  Between 1953-1954, he served as a member of the Hamburg Parliament.

The ass in thought crime

Thou shalt not covet is one of the biblical Ten Commandments (or Decalogue), regarded by most scholars as moral imperatives.  Both Exodus and Deuteronomy describe the commandments as having been spoken by God, inscribed on two stone tablets by the finger of God, and, after Moses shattered the originals, rewritten by God on others.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ass, or anything that belongs to thy neighbor.

Thy neighbor's ass.

It differs from the other nine in that while they’re concerned with the actions of sinners, the prohibition on being a coveter is about a sinner's thoughts and thus, an early description of thoughtcrime (a word coined by George Orwell (1903-1950) for his dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four).  Indeed Matthew (5:21-21, 27-28) anticipates Orwell in saying that it’s not enough merely to obey the commandment “thou shalt not commit adultery” because “…anyone who looks upon a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart”.  Jimmy Carter (b 1924; US President 1977-1981) quoted this in his Playboy interview, a statement of presidential probity neither shared nor always adhered to by all his successors and predecessors.  In that context, it should be remembered there's an (unwritten) eleventh commandment: "Thou shall not get caught".

Concordat

Concordat (pronounced kon-kawr-dat)

(1) An agreement or compact, especially an official one Agreement between things; mutual fitness; harmony.

(2) A formal agreement between two parties, especially between a church and a state.

(3) In Roman Catholic canon law, a pact, treaty or agreement between the Holy See and a secular government regarding the regulation of church matters.  In early use it was sometimes a personal agreement between pope and sovereign.

1610–1620: From the the sixteenth century French conciordat, replacing concordate from the Medieval Latin concordātum (something agreed), a noun use of the Latin concordatum, neuter of concordātus, past participle of concordāre (to be in agreement; to be of one mind), from concors (genitive concordis) (of one mind)  from concors (genitive concordis) (of one mind).  The original definition in Roman Catholic canon law was "an agreement between Church and state on a mutual matter".  Concordat is a noun, the noun plural is concordats and concordatory is an adjective.  Concord dates from 1250-1300, from the Middle English and Old French concorde from the Latin concordia, (harmonious), genitive concordis (of the same mind, literally “hearts together”).  Concordat is a noun and concordant an adjective; the noun plural is concordats.

The Duce, Benito Mussolini (1883–1945; Prime Minister of Italy 1922-1943) and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934; Cardinal Secretary of State 1914-1930) signing the Lateran Concordat in 1929.

The concordat, a formal agreement between the Holy See and a sovereign state, dates from a time when the relationship between the Church and sovereign entities was different than what now exists.  Indeed, the dynamics of the relationships have changed much over the centuries but, at any given moment, concordats have always been practical application of Church-state relations and, like all politics, were an expression of the art of the possible, a concordat not necessarily what a pope wanted, but certainly the best he could at the time manage, the best known tending to be the controversial, notably (1) the treaty of 1801 with Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815), (2) the Lateran Accord agreed in 1929 with Mussolini which created the modern city-state of the Vatican and which was the final step in Italian unification and (3) The Reich Concordat of 1933, the accommodation with Hitler’s Germany which was supposed to resolve the issue of relations which had been unsettled since Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) time but which Berlin repeatedly violated.

La Signature du Concordat aux Tuileries 15 juillet 1801 (The Signing of the Concordat at the Tuileries, 15 July 1801) (1803-1804) by François Pascal Simon Gérard (1770–1837) (titled as Baron Gérard in 1809); the original hangs in the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles.  

At least those violations weren’t wholly unexpected.  Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (1876–1958; Pope Pius XII 1939-1958) had been Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador; 1926-1929) to Berlin and was Cardinal Secretary of State (foreign minister; 1930–1939) when the Reich Concordat was signed and he was under no illusion.  When it was said to him that the Nazis were unlikely to honor the terms, he replied with a smile that was true but that they would probably not violate all its articles “at the same time”.  The sardonic realism would serve the cardinal well in the years ahead when often he would required to choose the lesser of many competing evils.  Some though, for a while, retained hope if not faith.  As late as 1937, Archbishop Conrad Gröber (1872–1948; Archbishop of Freiburg 1932-1948) thought the Reich Concordat proof that “…two powers, totalitarian in their character, can find agreement, if their domains are separate”.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), another cynic though then still a realist, viewed the concordat much as Hermann Göring (1893-1946) would in his trial at Nuremberg describe all the treaties executed by the Nazis: “so much toilet paper”.  Actually an admirer of the Roman Catholic Church which had survived two-thousand years of European rough and tumble, he was resigned to a co-existence but one on his terms, noting the day would come when there would be a reckoning with “those black crows”.

Two of the twentieth century's great survivors, German vice chancellor Franz von Papen (1879-1969) (second from left) and the Holy See's secretary of state Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) (head of the table) meet in the Vatican on 20 July 1933 to sign the Reischskonkordat which some six weeks later was ratified by the Nazi-dominated Reichstag (the German parliament).  The cardinal calculated the Church would gain from the arrangement but had few illusions about the Nazis.  Upon being told the Nazis would probably violate the agreement, he agreed but observed they probably wouldn't violate all of the clauses "at the same time".  Later when being driven through Rome where he saw two men fighting in the street, he remarked to his companion "I imagine they've probably just signed a concordat".

That’s not to say there haven’t always been theorists who wandered a bit beyond the possible.  After the Reformation, there were those in the Church who held that the Church sits above the state in all things (the “regalist” position), while others (maintaining the “curialist” position) held that although the Church is superior to the state, the Church may grant certain privileges to the state through agreements such as concordats.  In the modern age, the accepted understanding of concordats is that the Church and the various sovereign states are both legal entities able to enter into bilateral agreements.  Concordats are thus no different than other treaties & agreements in that being executed under international law, they are enforceable according to legal principles.  Church and state may in some ways not be co-equal but canon law does recognise the two exist in distinct spheres and is explicit in respecting the bilateral agreements that the Holy See has entered into with other nation-states.  The Code of Canon Law states unambiguously that concordats override any contrary norms in canon law: “The canons of the Code neither abrogate nor derogate from the agreements entered into by the Apostolic See with nations or other political societies. These agreements therefore continue in force exactly as at present, notwithstanding contrary prescripts of this Code.”  This is an unexceptional statement familiar in many constitutional arrangements where two legal systems interact, the need being to define, where conflict may exist, which has precedence and is no more than an application of a legal maxim known to both canon and secular law: pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be honored).  Concordats can both protect and clarify the rights of the Church by precisely defining relationship between the Church and a state, expressed by the Second Vatican Council’s (Vatican II 1962-1965) pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et spes (Joay and Hope) in the statement:

“The Church herself makes use of temporal things insofar as her own mission requires it.  She, for her part, does not place her trust in the privileges offered by civil authority.  She will even give up the exercise of certain rights which have been legitimately acquired, if it becomes clear that their use will cast doubt on the sincerity of her witness or that new ways of life demand new methods.”

In other words, “if you can’t beat them, join them”, or, at least, enter into peaceful co-existence with them, a position in the modern age possible, if not uncontroversial with sovereign and sub-national entities notionally with Catholic majority populations (eg Bavaria 1966, Austria 1969, Italy 1985) but also with countries where Christians exist only as tiny minorities (eg Tunisia 1964, Morocco 1985, Israel 1993).  Nor does a concordat need to be a complete codification, the agreement between the Holy See and Tel Aviv noting that in certain matters, agreement had not been reached and discussions need to continue.  Such “framework” or “stepping-stone” agreements have been in the diplomatic toolkit for centuries but they’re a statement of professed intent and in the decades since there’s been little apparent progress in many of the unresolved matters important to the Holy See regarding physical property in the Holy Land and the “working document” was never ratified by the Israeli parliament (the Knesset).  At least partially filling this diplomatic lacuna was something which has thus far proved a coda to the Holy See’s official recognition in 2012 of the State of Palestine.  In 2015, The Vatican concluded a concordat with “the State of Palestine” (sic), supporting a two-state solution to the conflict between Palestine and Israel “on the basis of the 1967 borders”.  According to Rome, the provisions in the agreement concern technical (ie financial & legal) aspects of the legal status of Catholic facilities and personnel on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  That may be as boringly procedural as it sounds but what’s aroused interest is that the Vatican has refused to publish the text or comment on the details, thus arousing suspicion that the treaty between with the Palestinians might, at least in part, contradict the earlier concordat with Israel.  From Washington to Tel Aviv, many are interested in the small print.

Rome 1929: The Duce reads the Lateran Concordat's small print.

Interestingly, Vatican II struck the term concordat from canon law, apparently in a nod to the Council's declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae (Of the Dignity of the Human Person) which mused on the evolution of a “…different model of relations between the Vatican and various states [which] is still evolving.”  Whatever might have been intended to be the implications of that, it reappeared with the Polish Concordat of 1993 and seems to be here to stay.

Oikophobia

Oikophobia (pronounced oick-oh-foh-bee-uh)

(1) In political science, an aversion to or rejection of one’s own culture, and traditions; a dislike of one's own compatriots.

(2) In psychiatry, one of a number of phobias related to (1) one’s home (either as a building or as place of abode), (2) returning to one’s home or (3) some or all of the contents of one’s home.

From the Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) (house; household; a basic societal unit in Ancient Greece; a household or family line) +‎ -phobia from phóbos (fear).  The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later).  Oikophobia & oikophobe are nouns, oikophobic is a noun and adjective and oikophobically is an adverb; the noun plural is oikophobes.

Roger Scruton in his study.  Although a staunch conservative tied to earlier traditions, even The Guardian granted a deservedly generous obituary.

The political sense where oikophobia (literally the antonym of xenophobia (hatred, fear or strong antipathy towards strangers or foreigners)) dates only from 2004 when it was used by English philosopher Roger Scruton (1944-2020) as part of the culture wars which swirl still around the critiques and defenses of Western civilization, the Enlightenment and the implications of post-modernism.  Scruton’s slim volume England and the Need for Nations (2004, Civitas, 64 pp ISBN-10-1903386497) argued that empirically, based on the last two-hundred years odd, it was the nation state which best created the conditions necessary for peace, prosperity, and the defense of human rights.  There are obviously not a few examples of nation states which have proven not to be exemplars of the values Scruton values but his agreement was essentially structural: Where there have been attempts to replace the nation-state with some kind of transnational political order, such things have tended to descend to totalitarian dictatorships like the old Soviet Union or evolve into bloated unaccountable bureaucracies like the post Maastricht European Union (EU).  It surprised nobody that enthusiastically he supported the UK’s exit (Brexit) from the EU:

 “I believe we are on the brink of decisions that could prove disastrous for Europe and for the world and that we have only a few years in which to take stock of our inheritance and to reassume it.  Now more than ever do those lines from Goethe’s Faust ring true for us: "Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen" (What you have inherited from your forefathers, earn it, that you might own it).  We in the nation states of Europe need to earn again the sovereignty that previous generations so laboriously shaped from the inheritance of Christianity, imperial government and Roman law. Earning it, we will own it, and owning it, we will be at peace within our borders.”

Portrait of Theodor Herzl (circa 1890), oil on canvas by Leopold Pilichowski (1869-1933), Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London.

Scruton of course rejected the notion he was in any way xenophobic but did reference that as oikophobia’s antonym when he described the latter as a “…need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably ours” and ominously implicit in his critique was the observation it was a cultural malaise which tended to befalls civilizations in the days of decline before their fall.  Plenty have documented the mechanisms by which the faith in Western civilization was undermined, their phrases famous landmarks in the development of post-modernism including “cultural relativism”, “march through the institutions” & “deconstructionism” et al.  However, in a political context the idea of oikophobia wasn’t then entirely new, the idea of the “self-hating Jew” documented in 1896 by Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) in his book 1896 book The Jewish State.  Regarded as “the father of modern political Zionism”, Herzl denounced those who opposed his model of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling them “disguised anti-Semites of Jewish origin”.  Essentially, Herzl saw being Jewish as not only compulsory for Jews but defined the only “true” Judaism as his Zionist vision but despite that, among European Jews, especially the educated and assimilated, Zionism was by no means universally supported and both sides weaponized their vocabularies.  In 1930, German Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing (1872–1933) published Juedischer Selbsthass (Jewish Self-Hatred) and from then onwards the “self-hating Jew” came to be slung at those (often intellectuals) opposed to Zionism.  In 1933, Lessing (who had fled to Czechoslovakia) was murdered at the instigation of the Nazis.  In the post war years “self-hating Jew” has come to be used by Israeli politicians against any Jew who opposes their policies, often with as little basis as “fascist” came to be deployed in post-Franco Spain.

Before it was picked up in political science and purloined for the culture wars, oikophobia had been a technical term in psychiatry to refer to a patient’s aversion to a home environment, or an abnormal fear (phobia) of being in their own home, the companion terms being (1) ecophobia (fear of a home environment) the construct being eco- (from the French eco-, from the Latin oeco, from the Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) (house, household) + -phobia & (2) nostophobia (a fear of, or aversion to, returning to one's home), the construct being the Ancient Greek νόστος (nóstos) (a return home) +‎ -phobia.  It was the idea of the “unwillingness to return home” that was later absorbed by the deconstructionists and other post-modernists in the sense of “an aversion to the past, the antithesis of nostalgia” because in their assault on Western society, it was the political and social relics they attacked, condemning them as symbols (indeed tools) of oppression and mechanisms by which the power elite maintained their hegemony.  Thus, Western legal & theological traditions and the artistic & literary canon were just one of many constructs and, because of their oppressive history, needed to be overthrown.

In psychiatry, oikophobia, ecophobia & nostophobia cold also be used of patients exhibiting the symptoms of phobia relating to all or some of the contents of a house: electrical appliances, the plumbing, the cupboards, the furniture, the light fittings etc.  So specific were some of these cases (an there were some not unjustified such as a fear of certain allergy-inducing substances such as chemicals) that the profession added domatophobia (a specific fear of a house as opposed to its contents), the construct being domato- (from the Middle French domestique, from the Latin domesticus, from domus (house, home) + -phobia.  In the years after World War II (1939—1945), the word domatophobia came to be used by journalists to described what was emerging as a mass phenomenon: women attracted to careers outside the home, this explained by (usually male) journalists as “a fear of or aversion to housework”, presumably their proper role.

Lord

Lord (pronounced lawrd)

(1) In historic use, the master of the servants of a household; the master of a feudal manor (obsolete).

(2) A person who has authority, control, or power over others; a master or chief (now used only informally).

(3) A person who exercises authority from property rights; an owner of land, houses etc (a concept which persists in British & (some) Commonwealth land law in the title of Lord Paramount; in historical use, a feudal tenant holding his manor directly of the monarch.

(4) Informally, a person who is a leader or has great influence in a chosen profession; a magnate of a trade or profession (tobacco lords, press lords etc).

(5) In medieval Europe, a feudal superior, especially the master of a manor.

(6) In the UK peerage, a courtesy title granted to the sons of senior peers.

(7) The Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal comprising the UK's House of Lords (always plural).

(8) In the UK, the ceremonial title of certain officials (used with some other title, name, or the like) such as Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice etc.

(9) As “my Lord Bishop”, the polite title of a bishop (obsolete).

(10) In the peerage of the UK, the title informally substituted for baron, viscount, earl or marquis.

(11) The Supreme Being; God; Jehovah (initial capital letter).

(12) The Savior, Jesus Christ (initial capital letter).

(13) In astrology, a planet having dominating influence.

(14) Slang for a husband considered as head of the household (archaic except in the facetious phrase lord and master although use persists in some fundamentalist sects).

(15) In UK slang, a hunchback (obsolete).

(16) In Australian slang sixpence (the five cent piece) (obsolete).

1300s: From the fourteenth century Middle English lord and lorde, from the thirteenth century lourde and other variants which dropped the intervocalic consonant of the earlier lowerd, louerd, loverd, laford & lhoaverd, all derived from the Old English hlāford, from hlāfweard, the construct being hlāf (bread) + weard (keeper, guardian).  The term was already being applied broadly prior to the literary development of Old English and was influenced by its common use to translate Latin dominus.  The equivalent Scots form laird (lord), preserved a separate vowel development (which was the influence of the northern (Scottish & Middle English lard & laverd)), like the Old English compound hlāf-ǣta (servant (literally “bread-eater”)) and the modern English lady, from the Old English hlǣfdīġe (bread-kneader).  The Old English hlaford was a contraction of earlier hlafweard (literally "one who guards the loaves), the construct being from hlaf (bread, loaf) + weard (keeper, guardian), from the primitive Indo-European root wer- (perceive, watch out for).  The Middle English word laford entered Icelandic, where it survives as lávarður.  The modern monosyllabic form emerged in the fourteenth century and was used as an interjection from late in the century, the Lord's Prayer dating from the 1540s and although the Old English hlaford (master of a household, ruler, superior) also used to describe God (translating the Latin Dominus), the Old English drihten was much more common.

Warts & all: Portrait of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658; Lord Protector of the Commonwealth 1653-1658) (1650), oil on canvas by Samuel Cooper (1609-1672).

The meaning "an owner of land, houses etc” dates from circa 1300, originally in the sense of “a landlord”.  As “my lord”, it was by 1540 (in England) the usual polite form when addressing a nobleman under the rank of a duke and a bishop" as was an interjection from the late fourteenth century.  As a general term of convenience used for the "peers of England" (especially those represented in parliaments), the use emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.  The Lord's Prayer was from the 1540s and the phrase "Year of our Lord" (ie AD, (translating the Latin anno domini) came into use from the late fourteenth century.  The expressions conveying a state of ignorance (Lord knows” & “Lord only knows” (both often appended with who, what, why etc)) seem first to have been recorded in 1711 although in oral use there may be a long tradition.  The phrase “drinks like a lord”, was from the 1620s, presumably an either allusion to the cost of strong drink or the habits of the gentry.

The verb lord dates from circa 1300 in the sense of "to exercise lordship, rule as a lord" and was directly from the noun, the intransitive meaning "to play the lord, domineer" emerging late in the fourteenth century, the phrase “to lord it over” first recorded in the 1570.  The interjection lordy was first noted in 1832 in imitation of African-American vernacular and was an extended form of the noun.  The noun lordling (puny or contemptible lord) was a late term of disparagement and is long obsolete.  An ancient calling, the noun warlord was coined only in 1856 and was usually considered a translation of the German Kriegsherr or the Chinese junfa.  The early fourteenth century adjective lordly originally had the sense of "haughty, imperious; of or pertaining to lords, noble” and was used as an adverb to convey “despotically” but by the 1530s was used to demote “magnificent, on a grand scale, fit for a lord”.  Lordship was from circa 1300 and was a direct translation of the Old English hlafordscipe (authority, rule, dominion (translating the Latin dominatio) and in common law developed as part of the system of land title.  As a form of address to nobles, judges etc, use emerged and was gradually formalized from the late fifteenth century.  The noun landlord (owner of a tenement, one who rents land or property to a tenant) dates from the early fifteenth century and by then Lord had been a surname for over a hundred years, best known now from the London cricket ground.  The Scottish laird (landed proprietor or hereditary estate-holder) emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, having been used a surname since the thirteenth, both forms a Scottish and northern England dialectal variant of lord.  Lord is a noun, proper noun, verb & interjection, lorded is a verb, lording is a noun & verb, lordy is an interjection and lordly is an adjective & adverb; the noun plural is lords.

Keith Miller (1919-2004), fourth Victory Test, Lord’s, August 1945.

The origin of Lord's Cricket Ground, in St John's Wood, London has nothing to do with the peerage.  It’s named after its founder, Thomas Lord (1755-1832), the third of three grounds he established between 1787 and 1814.  Lord was approached in 1786 by leading members of the White Conduit Club who wanted a more private venue and offered to underwrite the project so in May 1787, Lord acquired seven acres (28,000 m²) off Dorset Square for his first ground and White Conduit relocated there, soon becoming part of the new Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).  When the lease ended in 1810, Lord secured an eighty-year lease on two fields, the Brick and Great Fields at North Bank, St John's Wood.  The second venue, now referred to as Lord's Middle ground, was built by 1809 but in 1813, Parliament requisitioned the land for Regent's Canal, thereby necessitating a further move.  Lord then moved his ground to the present site, literally rolling up the turf from the old and transplanting it to the new.

Following our Lord and Savior: Lindsay Lohan depicted as a Christ-like figure, draped in a white robe, arms outstretched, crucifixion-style, complete with crown of thorns (a nice touch), Lindsay Lohan, Purple Fashion magazine, Spring-Summer edition, 2010.

The image was one of a series by Terry Richardson (b 1965) and appeared on the cover of the spring-summer 2010 edition of the French magazine Purple Fashion, the photo-shoot featuring clothes by a number of designers including Zac Posen, Alexander McQueen & Emmanuel Ungaro but predictably it was the invocation of our Lord Jesus which attracted most interest.  A spokesman for the French Catholic League was quoted as saying "Not only is the pose inappropriate, the timing is offensive" (the magazine was released on the eve of Lent, the most sacred season in the Christian liturgical calendar).  Although Ms Lohan at the time had not much been associated with penitence and abstinence, not long before she had tweeted that she believed it's "all about karma...what goes around comes around."  In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is an expression which describes the cyclical nature of an individual's thoughts & actions in this and previous lives, something which decides their fate in future existences.  Noting that, The League's spokesman said "If she believes that, then it behooves her to apologize to Christians before it's too late", adding that she is "spiritually homeless" and "would benefit by converting to Christianity."  Ms Lohan did not respond to the comments.

Oiler

Oiler (pronounced oi-ler)

(1) A person or device that which is some way delivers oil.

(2) A worker employed to oil machinery.

(3) Any of several devices, other than pressure devices, for feeding lubricating oil to a bearing.

(4) In oil exploration, a productive well.

(5) An oilcan.

(6) An oilskin garment, especially a coat.

(7) A ship which uses oil as fuel (archaic).

(8) In admiralty slang, an oil tanker used to refuel other vessels.

(9) In admiralty slang, an assistant in the engine room of a ship, senior only to a wiper, mainly responsible for keeping machinery lubricated (archaic).

(10) In the cleaning kits of firearms, a small (typically thumb-sized) metal container of oil, often containing an integral brush.

(11) As an ethnic slur (mostly southern US), a Mexican (sometimes extended to other of Latino appearance.

Circa 1290: The construct was oil + -er.  Oil was from the Middle English olyer, oyller & oyellere (the later alternative spellings included oylle, olie, oli, eoli, eoyle, olige, oyll, uile, oile & oyl.  Oyler was from the Anglo-Norman olie and the Old French oile, from the Latin oleum (olive oil), from the Ancient Greek ἔλαιον (élaion) (olive oil).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  The meaning “an appliance for distributing oil in machines" was in use by 1861 and was adopted by the British Admiralty in 1916 to describe "navy vessels carrying oil for use by other ships"; although such vessels had been in use for some years, the Royal Navy having begun the conversion from coal to oil a decade earlier, by 1911 only the submarine fleet ran exclusive on oil and coal (sometimes sprayed with oil) still fuelled most of the navy’s vessels.

Evolution of the Ford 427 side-oiler

The side valve (usually called “the flathead”, an allusion to the almost flat plate covering the combustion chambers) Ford V8 of 1932 is remembered for its vices as well as the many things which made it one of the great engines of the mid-century.  In the 1930s, those vices could be both forgiven and worked-around but by 1953, it was still in production and outdated (though in overseas production it would continue, in French Simca cars until 1961, in Brazilian Fords until 1964 and remarkably, until 1990 in the Simca Unic Marmon Bocquet military truck.  For 1954, Ford responded to the modern overhead valve (OHV) V8s others had introduced with the debut of two new engines, essentially (by the standards of the time) small and big block versions of the same design.  Known as the Y-Blocks because of the shape of the castings, they were sturdy pieces of machinery and addressed many of the problems identified in the flathead over two decades of production but neither was suited to the evolutionary path the American automobile would follow during the 1950s.

1962 Ford 406 FE V8 with 3 x 2 barrel carburetors.

That path was not one which anyone in Detroit was likely to foresee in the late 1940s when the design work on the Y-Blocks began but by 1954, it was at least competitive with the competition.  However, in 1955, Chevrolet introduced their small-block V8 which was light, compact and free-breathing, not something which could be said of the Y-Blocks and more importantly, the design afforded a potential for development which would play out over decades.  By contrast, the Y-Blocks’ potential in both capacity and power output soon plateaued and Ford was forced to resort to exotic solutions like supercharging, something not practical for low-cost mass-manufacturing.  Ford’s solution was not one new V8 but three.  All released during 1958, the SD (Super Duty, a large, low revving truck engine), the MEL (a big block for what were now very large Lincolns and Mercurys) and the FE (thought at the time a big-block but subsequently listed by pedants as a mid-block because later castings would out-weigh it by so much).  The durable SD would remain in the catalogue until 1980, its demise prompted only by the implications of the second oil-shock in 1979, the sole complaint about it being its prodigious thirst.  The MEL would last a decade, early attempts to use it on the race-tracks abandoned because of the penalty imposed by excessive weight although it did enjoy some success in powerboat racing where it’s capacity to run reliably at full throttle for sustained periods was much admired.

Lubrication systems: 1964 Ford 427 FE V8 top oiler (left) & Ford 427 FE V8 side oiler (right).

By their bolts they shall be known.  By convention a "four bolter" was one with the four all into the boss while in a "cross bolter" two were in the boss and two into the block.  "Six bolters" (with four in the boss, two in the block) are now common.

Although it would quickly earn a stellar reputation which endures to this day, Ford’s FE V8 engine didn’t enjoy a wholly auspicious start, associated as it was with the ill-fated Edsel (FE really did stand for “Ford-Edsel” despite some post-debacle attempts to suggest “Ford Engine” (the contemporary MEL stood for Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln)).  However, whatever the problems of the Edsel, the use of the FE is some was not one.  Offered initially in several displacements, the most produced in the 1960s would be the 352 & 390 cubic inch (5.8 & 6.5 litre) versions, both of which briefly were offered in high-performance versions until the decision was taken to develop such engines as a separate FE branch, the first fruit of which was the 406 (6.6 litre) which debuted in 1962.  The 406 had performed well on Ford’s test-rigs, its output slightly exceeding the engineers’ projections and when installed in the new, slippery bodies offered that year, proved fast on the track.  The power and speed however came at the cost of reliability and the increasing speeds on the circuits had exposed weaknesses in the bottom-end, the main bearing caps “walking” when the vibrations reached a certain resonance.  The solution was to “cross-bolt” the caps; an addition two securing bolts (installed sideways through the block) per cap augmenting the pairs mounted in the conventional vertical position.  This approach, still widely used to this day, proved successful and was carried over when in 1963 the FE was further enlarged to 425 cubic inches (7.0 litre), Ford labelling the new mill the 427 to align it with the displacement limit used by both NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) and the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation and world sport’s dopiest regulatory body)).  However, greater capacity meant more power, higher speeds and increased heat and the 427 began to also to suffer, the higher internal pressures meaning lubrication to the now cross-bolted main bearings had become marginal.  Ford’s solution was to reverse the priority with which oil was delivered.  The original design (subsequently known as the “top-oiler”) lubricated first the valve-train at the top of the engine, then the main bearings which supported the crankshaft.  The new process reversed this order and the design became known as the side-oiler.

1966 Ford 427 FE V8 side oiler with tunnel-port cylinder heads and Kar-Kraft transaxle, the specification used in the GT40s which recorded a 1-2--3 finish at that year's 24 Le Mans 24 hour classic. 

Introduced in 1965, the side-oiling proved the final solution and the 427 became a paragon of reliability, powering even the Le Mans 24 hour winning GT40s in 1966 & 1967.  Today the 427 is perhaps best remembered as the power-plant in the 427 AC Shelby Cobra (although some of those actually used the rather more tame FE 428) but in those happy days when one could tick a box and have what was essentially a racing engine installed in a road car, it was available also in full-sized machines (the Galaxie), intermediates (the Fairlane) and, at the tail-end of production, a few (by then somewhat toned down) were even put in the Cougar, Mercury’s Mustang-based take on the pony-car.  By then however, the side-oiler’s days were numbered because not only was it noisy, apt to be cantankerous and a bit of an oil-burner, the complex lubrication and cross bolting made it quite expensive to build, added to which the big bore was at close to the limit the FE block could accommodate so during the manufacturing process, even a slight shift in the casting cores meant a scrapped block.  Thus the attraction for most purposes of the 428 with its smaller bore.

Cutaway schematics: The pushrod 427 FE (left) and the 427 SOHC (right).

As supplied ex-factory: Ford 427 SOHC on stand.

The side oiler also provided the basis for one engine which wasn’t quite mythical because quite a few were built but remains mysterious because nobody seems quite sure how many but the consensus is it was somewhere in three figures.  This was the 427 SOHC (single overhead camshaft (the “sock” in the slang of some)) which for all sorts of reasons never made it onto the circuits for which it was intended nor into even one road car, despite the wishes of many.  Popularly known as “the cammer”, even some sixty years on there’s still a mystique surrounding the cammer and if one can’t find an original for sale (one sold at auction in 2021 for US$60,000), from a variety of manufacturers it’s possible still to buy all the bits and pieces needed to build one.

An oiler: To remove what she describes as "crazy mascara", Lindsay Lohan posted on Instagram details of her technique which is to apply organic coconut oil to the whole face, rubbing in well.  Then she uses a damp towel to remove the oil which takes with it the dissolved mascara.  It actually removes most forms of makeup and has the added benefit of leaving the skin clean and soft.