Riparian

Riparian (pronounced ri-pair-ee-uhn or rahy-pair-ee-uhn)

(1) Of, relating to, or situated or dwelling on the bank of a river or other body of water.

(2) In law, a person who owns land on the bank of a natural watercourse or body of water; denoting or relating to the legal rights of the owner of land on a river bank, such as fishing or irrigation

1849: From the Latin rīpārius (feminine rīpāria, neuter rīpārium) (of the banks of a river) from riparia (shore), later used in reference to the stream flowing between the banks, from ripa ((steep) bank of a river, shore)), probably understood literally as "break" (and indicating the drop off from ground level to the stream bed), or else "that which is cut out by the river", from the primitive Indo-European root rei- (to scratch, tear, cut), source of the Ancient Greek ereipia (ruins) & eripne (slope, precipice), the Old Norse rifa (break, to tear apart), the Danish rift (breach), the Middle High German rif (riverbank, seashore) and the English riven & rift.  Riparian is a noun & adjective and riparianism is a noun; the noun plural is riparian.

For technical reasons etymologists treat the construct as rīpāri(us) +‎ -an rather than rīpār(ius) +‎ -ian although ian was a euphonic variant of –an.  The suffix -an was from the Middle English -an (regularly -ain, -ein & -en), from the Old French –ain & -ein (or before an “i”, -en (used in modern French as –ain & -en (feminine –aine & -enne))), from the Latin -ānus (feminine -āna), used to form adjectives of, belonging or from a noun (and cognate with the Ancient Greek -νος (-nos), preceded by a vowel, from the primitive Indo-European -nós).  It was cognate with the English -en.  In English, it was an adjectival suffix widely appended (most frequently to nouns) and most associated with words of Latin origin; when a word ends in "a", a -n is instead appended.  It can also be used to form agent nouns and historically the male forms were constructed with -an, the females with -(i)enne but increasingly the male formations are treated as gender-neutral.  The suffix -ian was a euphonic variant of –an & -n, from the Middle English -an & -en.

In English law riparian rights and liabilities evolved over centuries, both arising as a consequence of the ownership of land abutting natural water and it matters not whether the water is tidal or non-tidal, all that is critical is that the physical property has some contact with the water course during the day.  The operation of law applied most obviously to the flows which occur naturally by riparian ownership can arise when streams and watercourses are channeled through artificial constructions although different aspects of the law may need to be applied to determine the ownership of the riparian rights.

As a general principle, a riparian owner is entitled access to the water, certainly for what are (in the context of place) ordinary purposes which may be for domestic or agricultural purposes.  This right of access may also include the ability to pass over the foreshore or a river bed to get to the water and even to temporarily moor vessels adjacent to riparian land to load or unload them.  Interestingly, this does not of necessity confer a right permanently to moor a vessel, reflecting the ancient common law position in England that the right of anyone to proceed along the nation’s highways and byways does not always imply a similar right to stay in any one place.

In the case of natural channels, such as streams and rivers, where water flows from one riparian owner’s property to another, the downstream owner is entitled to the flow of water in its natural state, both as to quality and the quantity, a specific expression of a concept in English law known as “natural enjoyment of a right”.  This means the upstream owner may take water or construct a dam but in so doing may not materially interfere with the flow and quality of water enjoyed by the downstream owner.  A special riparian right is the ability to drain land to a watercourse which can impact significantly on downstream rights holders and is thus often subject to separate negotiation.  In the case of natural flows, all downstream owners are obliged to accept the flow of water onto their land.  These well-established principles in English domestic law are used often as the basis for negotiations between nations where rivers cross borders; the results of these discussions can vary between amicable agreement and declarations or war.

There are also riparian liabilities.  Apart from not unduly interfering with the flow of water, riparian owners can be required to accept flooding on their land, even if that is caused by natural obstructions downstream and, again dependent on place, a liability can be imposed on riparian owners to manage the risk of flooding.  Because flood risks in England is managed nationally by statutory authorities such as regional drainage boards, the liabilities can very geographically, the power vested in these organisations to require riparian land to be used for flood management and mitigation.  Where water is artificially channeled, some interplay of different laws may be required to determine ownership of fights and liabilities.  As with just about any property rights, a riparian owner can take actions in court to prevent interference with rights, such as by requiring the removal of an obstruction or to stop an adjoining riparian owner from drawing too much water.

Lindsay Lohan, pondering riparian rights in Georgia Rule (2007).

Most associated with the US, riparianism was a doctrine of property rights, based on the principle that the owners of riparian land (riparians) had the right to remove reasonable amounts of water from the river, but others did not.  Because of the various property of rivers (moving in a sense, static in a sense, abutting land, able by natural action to increase and decrease the size of that land, used also as (often pubic) waterways for transportation etc), riparian rights have frequently been considered by courts and the gradual path has been one of a retreat from the classic position such rights accrued absolutely to the land owner as a property right.  An illustrative example was the decision of the High Court of Australia (HCA) in Commonwealth v Tasmania (HCA 21, (1983) 158 CLR 1) which concerned an attempt by the Commonwealth to prevent the state government of Tasmania building a dam on the Gordon River which would have flooded a large area of wilderness, including part of the Franklin River.  The HCA held the Commonwealth had the power to prevent the construction of the dam, based on its constitutional powers: (1) to regulate interstate trade and commerce and (2) its “external (foreign) affairs” power triggered by an obligation to protect sites declared by the United Nations (UN) to be “World Heritage” (by virtue of the Commonwealth having entered into certain treaties).  Also considered were riparian rights and the court held that riparian rights were not absolute and they could be limited by the public interest.  The reasoning was because the construction of the dam would interfere with the natural flow of the river and the ecology of the area, the court had to consider competing interests and in this case the public interest in preserving the area's natural values outweighed the riparian rights of the Tasmanian Government.  Use of the external affairs power was controversial but so was the expansion of the scope of the public interest in relation to riparian rights because it limited the rights of landowners to use waterways for their own purposes.  It was a case with significant implications for environmental law in Australia and beyond, overseas courts citing the judgment when holding that (public) environmental considerations can outweigh (private) property rights.

Ossuary

Ossuary (pronounced osh-oo-er-ee or os-oo-er-ee)

(1) A structure dedicated to the storage of the bones of the dead.

(2) Any container for the burial of human bones, such as an urn.

(3) By extension, a place for discarded or broken items or (figuratively), of abandoned concepts or ideas. 

1650-1660: From the Late Latin ossuārium (charnel house; receptacle for bones of the dead), a neuter of ossuārius (of or for bones) and variant of ossārium, the construct being oss- (stem of os) (bone (plural ossua)) + -ārius (the adjectival suffix giving the sense “of or related to”).  The Latin os was from the primitive Indo-European ost (bone).  The model for the word was mortuarium, and the alternative form remains ossuarium.  Ossuary and ossuarium are nouns and ossuarius is an adjective; the noun plural is ossuaries.

The Sedlec Ossuary at Starosedlecká, Kutná Hora, in the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic lies about 42 miles (70 km) east of the capital, Prague.  A medieval town, much of the baroque architecture was build between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries from the wealth generated by the adjacent silver mine.  On architectural grounds alone Kutná Hora is worthy of its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site but, in the suburb of Sedlec is the Church of All Saints which probably deserves a separate listing.

Sedlec’s Church of All Saints is better known as the Sedlec Ossuary, the church of bones, said to contain the bones of between some forty and sixty-thousand dead.  Its origins were a mission by the abbot of the Sedlec Cistercian Monastery, sent by the King of Bohemia to Jerusalem.  The abbot returned with an urn of soil from the Golgotha, the place where Jesus Christ was said to be crucified and this earth he spread around the grounds of the church’s cemetery.  As word of the "Holy Soil" became known, from all over Bohemia, people began to ask to be buried at Sedlec’s Church of All Saints.

Such was the demand that by the fifteenth century, skeletal remains had to be exhumed from the cemetery, the town needing to expand and more space needed for the more recently dead.  In what may sound a little shocking (but must have been judged theologically sound), the bones lay stacked in the basement of the church until 1870 when František Rint (1835-circa 1895), a woodcarver and carpenter from the small town of Česká Skalice in northern Bohemia, was employed by the House of Schwarzenberg (the ruling family of the town) to organize and arrange them.  The results of his efforts were spectacular, the carpenter creating intricate sculptures, including several chandeliers and a copy of the Schwarzenberg coat of arms.  The most spectacular of the chandeliers is also technically interesting for anatomists, said to include at least one of every bone in the human body

The elaborate constructions may seem macabre but each is accompanied by religious displays arranged from bone, conveying to visitors the message that the chapel remains a respectful place of worship and indeed, regular masses continue to be held in both the upper and lower chapel.  Musical performances however are staged only within the church proper so what might prove the interesting acoustic properties of all those bones remains unexplored.  The site, opened to tourists early in the century proved popular, almost a quarter-million visiting in the last year before the pandemic and it quickly became the biggest attraction in central Bohemia.  The financial blessing has proved also a curse however, local residents complaining the volume of visitors often overwhelms the operations of what remains a functioning Roman Catholic church and cemetery.  It’s said there are tourists who treat the place as just another theme-park.

Still, such is the importance of the ossuary to the local economy, that the ancient site is often renovated, including some attention to the condition of the bones which sounds strange but it seems human bone is subject to discoloration over time and restoring them to a more brilliant white is thought greatly to enhance the tourists' visual experience.  Even if one’s taste doesn’t extend to the macabre, Kutná Hora remains one of the medieval treasures of Bohemia and within the same Cistercian complex as the ossuary is the Sedlec Cathedral, the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint John the Baptist.  Built between 1290-1320, the cathedral is one of the oldest remaining in the Baroque Gothic style and also enjoys a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list and a short distance from there is a truly secular attraction, the Kutná Hora's Chocolate Museum, a tiny homage to chocolate with exhibits dating from the early nineteenth century.  There are chocolate tasting sessions and private candlelit dinners can be booked.

The ossuary vibe: Lindsay Lohan wearing Alexander McQueen skull scarf, 2012.

So entrenched in fashion has the skull been for hundreds of years that not even its use (as the “Death’s Head”) by the Nazi SS (the Schutzstaffel (security squad), 1925-1945, also stylized as ᛋᛋ with Armanen runes) tainted it sufficiently to discourage its appearance on clothes, accessories and jewelry.  Seasonally, the popularity ebbs and flows but skulls are seemingly always at least a niche and the appeal is also cross-cultural, the skull variously a good luck charm and a symbol employed to ward of disease and evil spirits.  In the English-speaking world, the widespread use of the skull symbol seems to have begun in the Elizabethan period (1558-1603) although most acknowledge the practice began in Bohemia and came to England via sea-farers and traders, the original items being skull rings, either carved from a human jawbone or rendered from metal.  An especially popular form was the skull ring with the jawbone disappearing to create the illusion of a finger piercing the wearer's mouth, still a widely used pattern today.  One curious aspect of the appeal is that Satanists and Christians alike have both embraced the iconography, skulls a likely to be seen among Devil worshipers as they are to be in the mix with images of saints and crucifixes.  Of late though, while they haven’t disowned the medieval art, Christianity seems now less keen on skulls.  The Satanists remain committed.

Colossus

Colossus (pronounced kuh-los-us)

(1) A statue of gigantic size.

(2) Anything colossal, gigantic, or very powerful.

(3) The internal name for Google's file system, introduced in 2010 and optimized for use in big-machine databases stored in multiple server clusters.  

1350-1400: From the Middle English, from the Latin colossus (statue larger than life), from the Ancient Greek κολοσσός, (kolossós) (statue or image, origin uncertain but thought most likely from a pre-Hellenic Mediterranean language) and the word was used by Herodotus to describe large Egyptian statues.  The figurative sense "anything of awesome greatness or vastness" is from 1794, taken from the adjective colossal (of extraordinary size, huge, gigantic), in use since 1712 although, colossic in the same sense is noted from circa 1600 and there are instances of colossean in the seventeenth century, both from the French colossal, from colosse, all forms from the Latin colossus from the Greek kolossós. The noun Colosseum dates from the 1560s, replacing the earlier Coliseum, the name in Medieval Latin for the classical Amphitheatrum Flavium (begun circa 70), noun use of the neuter of the adjective colosseus (gigantic), thought perhaps a reference to the big statue of Nero that for so long stood nearby. Colossus is a noun' the noun plural is colossi or colossuses.

The plural of colossus doesn't often come up in conversation but when it does, the choice is between colossi and colossusus, the latter there to be used by anyone who finds unwelcome, for whatever reason, the adoption in English of classical plural forms.  Not all words from Greek with a Latinised ending -us take the same pluralisation and there's no objection either to colossuses or the Latinized colossi; those who object to either probably suffer the condition known as hyper-correctionism and it is a real phenomenon (the squabble about octopuses, octopodes and the charming octopi) and is ongoing.  All that can be recommended is consistency; in a document, either adopt the English plural forms or use the classical form but don't mix.

Vaguely plausible rendering of how The Colossus of Rhodes may have appeared.

The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  It was a very big statue, erected somewhere near the port of the city of Rhodes, the biggest settlement on what is the one of the larger Greek islands of the same name which lies off what is now Turkey’s Aegean coast.  Taking a dozen years to complete, the statue, construction of which began in 292 BC, was erected to honor Elios, the God of the Sun, who brought the inhabitants victory over Demetrius Poliorcetes (Demetrius I of Macedon; “The Besieger" 337–283 BC) who laid siege to Rhodes in 305-304 BC.  It stood for only sixty-odd years, collapsing during a severe earthquake which struck in 226 BC, contemporary reports indicating the structure fractured at both knees before toppling.  Remarkably, the mostly bronze wreckage was left substantially undisturbed for some eight-hundred years, becoming something of a tourist attraction before, in 654, it was salvaged by Arab invaders under the Muslim caliph Mu'awiya I (معاوية بن أبي سفيان‎, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; circa 600–680) who sold it to someone described as “a Jewish merchant from Damascus” who is said to have carted it off on a camel train of almost “a thousand beasts”.

Demetrios the Besieger had a scandalous private life but had a flair for military matters, noted too for innovations in engineering such as the machines and devices built by his armies as siege engines.  However, even the forces he was able at deploy in 305-304 BC weren’t sufficient to defeat the fortifications of Rhodes and eventually, Demetrios was compelled to retreat, abandoning the siege machinery on the island.  To give thanks to the Sun God, the Rhodians granted the commission to build a triumphal statue to Helios to the sculptor Chares of Lindos (Χάρης ὁ Λίνδιος, circa 330 BC-circa 280 BC), a pupil of Lysippos (Λύσιππος; fourth century BC) and, in the dozen years between 304-292 BC, he supervised the construction.

Digitally generated image of statue of Zeus by Phidias,

Before the Colossus, Rhodes had long been famous for its statues, the contemporary accounts probably as unreliable as any Roman histories but even if Pliny’s count of some three-thousand was an exaggeration, the writing of others do suggest there were doubtlessly a lot, many in stone, some in bronze, but nothing on the scale of the Colossus had even been attempted.  There was a titanic statue, as they’re now known, in Olympus, a chryséléphantine (one made from Gold and ivory) study of Zeus some 13 m (42 feet) high, another of the seven wonders although the sculptor Phidias (Φειδίας, circa 480–430 BC) had avoided the fragility inherent in a standing figure by having Zeus sit in a chair.  He had also built a chryshephantine statue of the goddess Athena but that stood but 9m (30 feet) high; by any standards, the titanic Colossus was truly colossal.

Logo of Lindsay Lohan's Rhodes Beach House.

Beach Structurally, the build was executed along the well-understood engineering principles of the age, the base of white marble first installed to which were affixed the feet and ankles, an iron and stone framework gradually formed as scaffolding and structure proceeded in unison upwards.  To permit the workers to reach the highest levels, an earth ramp was built because the heights involved meant a free-standing system of scaffolding would lack the needed stability; when the work was complete, the earth ramp was demolished and the soil carted off.  While the superstructure was built, workers cast the outer skin in bronze using plates, the metal formed with copper melted in large ovens, to which iron, making 10-20% of the mix, was added.  Then the mouton metal mixture was moved in large ladles to be distributed in clay molds, flat structures used to form sheets varying in thickness according to need. Once cast, the rough edges were ground away and the plates polished before they were transported to the building site where they were hammered to the desired shape to be attached to the iron structure,  The thickest and heaviest plates were those rendered for the feet and ankles, complex in the shape of their curves and needing more mass to afford greater stability.  Thus for a dozen years, the thin bronze skin was added to the growing body of stone, each plate fixed to the iron frame and then to the neighboring plate.  Once finished, it was polished to reflect the rays of the Sun so it would shine as intensely as possible, better to honor Helios. 

How engineers would today build a 122 m (400 feet) high Colossus using modern techniques of structural engineering.  An interesting exercise although the Greek exchequer may have other fiscal priorities.

From the laying of the first stone to its toppling, building its destruction lies a time span of but sixty-seven years but the Colossus ranks as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world with Great Pyramid of Giza which still stands after almost five-thousand.  Such was the scale of the Colossus that the ruins still impressed, “…even lying on the ground, it is a marvel" wrote Pliny the Elder (24-79) who noted few men could wrap their arms around the fallen thumb and each finger alone would have stood taller than most other statues.  The earthquake which so damaged the city 226 BC broke the Colossus at its narrowest and thus weakest points, the knees, and given the mass which existed above, there was no chance it could survive.  Although it would be centuries before the list of the seven wonders would exist as the codified canon now familiar, the stature was already famous and the an offer to the pay the cost of restoration was extended by Ptolemy III Euergetes (Πτολεμαῖος Εὐεργέτης, Ptolemy the Benefactor; circa 280–222 BC) of Egypt.  However, an oracle was consulted and their judgement forbade any re-construction so the offer was declined.  Details of the oracle’s pronouncement are lost but it’s speculated the conclusion may have been the earthquake was the act of a wrathful Helios and the ruins should be left where they fell, lest anger again be aroused.  There is no otherwise compelling explanation to account for why so much valuable bronze wouldn’t for centuries be recycled.

A (fanciful) engraving of the Colossus of Rhodes (circa 1540) by Martin Heemskerck (1498-1574).

The exact location remains uncertain but the notion the Colossus straddled the entrance to Rhodes harbor with ships passing between its legs was a figment of medieval imagination, a thing famously vivid.  Given its method of construction, such a thing would have collapsed under its own weight even before it was complete and, had it stood over the water, not only would construction have been challenging but when it fell, it would have blocked the entrance to the Mandraki harbor.  Despite that, in the early 1980s when a large piece of rubble was discovered in the water, there were still romantics who hoped this might vindicate the medieval theory.  There’s little doubt the story of a 60m (200 feet) tall Colossus straddling the entrance to the harbor was the work of opportunist poets and artists, the engineers and architects of the time sufficiently acquainted with physics and metallurgy to have assured all of the impossibility of their vision yet it seems long to have captured the medieval imagination.  Despite all that, it still influenced many even at the dawn of modernity, being one of the inspirations for the Statue of Liberty but that was designed in a way to ensure greater strength and stability, the weight distribution and the dimensions of the base entirely different.  There’s no doubt the statue stood somewhere in the proximity of Rhodes harbor but archaeological excavations have thus far revealed nothing, not unsurprising given the footprint of a vertical structure is much less than a temple or other building, and the urbanization of Rhodes over two millennia mean the site may long ago have been built-over.  The Colossus though would have shared one noted characteristic with the Statue of Liberty: When copper rubs on iron, it creates electricity, especially in a costal environment with salty air.  Like Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes made its own electricity.

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1911–2005; Premier of Queensland 1968-1987) (left), Russ Hinze (1919–1991; Minister for this and that in Queensland state government, 1974-1988) (centre) & Bob Hawke (1929–2019; Prime Minister of Australia 1983-1991) (right).  Russ Hinze was a politician who served in the state parliament of Queensland, Australia between 1966-1988.  He held many portfolios, often simultaneously, one of which was minister for roads.  In honor of his impressive girth, he was dubbed The Colossus of Roads.

Wartime photograph of Colossus.

Colossus was the name of the world’s first electronic device which truly could be described a computer (being programmable, electronic and digital although the instructions were effected by switches, not stored programs).  It was built by the British in 1943 to break German military codes and was one of the mechanisms which provided the allies with the ultra decrypts, the importance of which to the war effort was of critical significance or merely helpful depending on the historian consulted.  During the war, twelve of the machines were assembled (which functioned independently; clusters and farms then an engineer's dream) but two didn't become functional until after the end of hostilities.  Colossus and the whole code-breaking operation remained a well-kept secret until the mid-1970s and the revelation induced some re-assessment of the strategic and tactical acuity of a number of political and military leaders, many of their decisions once through based on intuition or brilliance now understood as merely the use of good intelligence (ie "reading the enemy's mail").

Route

Route (pronounce rout or root)

(1) A course, way, or road for passage or travel; the choice of roads or a path taken to reach a destination,

(2) A customary or regular line of passage or travel, sometimes formally so-named.

(3) A specific itinerary, round, or number of stops regularly visited by a person in the performance of their work or duty (bus route, paper route, mountaineering route etc).

(4) To set the path of something or someone.

(5) To send or forward by a particular course or road.

(6) In clinical medicine, the means by which a drug or agent is administered or enters the body (the oral, surface or injectionoral route).

(7) Figuratively, one of multiple methods or approaches to doing something.

(8) In Sino-historiography, one of the major provinces of imperial China from the Later Jin to the Song, corresponding to the Tang and early Yuan circuits.

(9) In computing (networking), an entry in a router table instructing a router how to relay the data packets received (and as a transitive verb, to send information through a router).

(10) In computing, to connect two local area networks, thereby forming an internet (now a rare expression though the practice remains common).

(11) In horse racing, a race longer than one mile (1600m) (now rare).

1175–1225: From the Middle English route (a way, a road, space for passage), from the Middle French route, from the Anglo-Norman rute (troop, band) from the Old French rute (road, way, path), from the Vulgar Latin rupta (literally “via a broken established way” (a road opened by force or cut through a forest etc)), the feminine past participle of rumpere (to break; to burst).  Route is a noun, router is a noun & verb and routed & routing are verbs; the noun plural is routes.

The famous US Route 66.

The verb dates from the 1880s and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists the first citation as an 1881 guide for stationmasters on the London & North Western Railway which included the phrase “mark for use on a certain route”.  In the development of the noun, the sense of a “regular course for carrying passengers or freight (first used in the postal system) emerged in the late eighteenth century, and was an extension of the fifteenth century "customary path for the driving of animal stock and herds; something later applied to sales, collections, delivery of newspapers, bread etc and the pronunciation rout was apparently universal since the early nineteenth century.  The meaning “direct an electrical signal, phone call etc over a particular defined circuit or to a particular location" has existed since 1948 and is now most familiar in computer networking.  Computer networking engineers also picked-up “re-route” (direct packets of data to another route), a direct borrowing from the postal system where a “re-route” was an instruction physically to re-direct mail from one address to another.  The word “routine” was related to route (presumably from the notion of something like a postman’s route which was unchanged from year to year) as was “rut” which originally described the track in (an unpaved) road left by a wheel and etymologists speculate this may have begun as a variant of route.  The figurative sense of rut (a dull, unchanging and habitual course or life) emerged in the mid nineteenth century based on the idea that once the wheel of a cart become “stuck in a rut”, it’s difficult (and demands much energy) to change direction (ie to “get out of the rut”).

An unfortunate choice of route: In 2012, Lindsay Lohan, travelling on the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, California, was involved in a crash between her (rented) Porsche 911 (997) Carrera S and an eighteen wheeler truck.  As one would suspect in such an unequal contest, the Porsche was badly damaged.

In postal systems, railways, computing and other fields in which objects (real or weightless) must be moved, specialized forms have been created as needed including misroute, misrouting, misrouted, preroute, prerouted, prerouting, reroute, rerouted & rerouting (hyphenated forms also used) although deroute seems never to have been needed.  The alternative spellings misrouteing, rerooted etc also existed.  Route was one of many words used to describe some sort or road including avenue, course, direction, itinerary, journey, line, passage, road, track, trail, way, transmit, beat, beeline, byway, circuit, detour, digression, divergence & meandering although routes tend to be longer and made of many roads joined together.  In idiomatic use, “to go the route” is to see something difficult or challenging through to completion.

Funded by the Lockwood Charitable Foundation, London's Red Route Café (24 Lower Clapton Road E5) is located at the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) Springboard Hackney learning centre.  In 2012, while in London for a theatrical engagement, Lindsay Lohan added her support, tweeting "Volunteer and be of service.  Come help us at #RedRouteCafé".  Apparently, while in the city, Ms Lohan helped in promotional activities for the Red Route Café, contributing to a community radio show and planning events.

It’s a simple, five letter, one syllable word but around the world it supports two distinct pronunciations (rout & rout), both of which for centuries co-existed in British English but during the 1800s, rout faded and then vanished (Scotland the last hold-out and interestingly in the cities rather than the highlands) from the British Isles.  In North American it persisted and to this day, as both noun and verb, both can be heard.  One definite exception to the general pattern of use is the pronunciation of the noun router ((1) one who arranges or schedules routes or (2) in computer networking, a device (hardware or software) that forwards data packets between computer networks).  Many languages simply adopted the name and usual pronunciation from US use and in most of the world it’s thus root-ha or rou-ter.  However, in Australia & New Zealand, the word “root” evolved also a slang term for sexual intercourse which of course begat rooter in that sense so the pronunciations root-ha or rou-ter became exclusive to that use (and there’s some evidence the slang has somewhat spread in the south Pacific islands).  In those markets, the computer routers are pronounced rout-ah, something which sometimes initially baffles visiting engineers.

Rooted: The Evil Dead (1981).

The most illustrative example of the slang term root (Australia & New Zealand) in action is the famous tree root scene from the horror movie The Evil Dead (1981).  After that, the producers had nowhere to go and the sequels were increasingly comedic and such is the cult following of the original that interest remains and Evil Dead Rise is scheduled for release in April 2023.

Huawei AR3260-100E-AC Series Enterprise Router.

Said to have been prompted by fears the equipment might be configured in such a way that it enabled spying by the Chinese government (ie the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)), a number of nations have either banned or restricted use of Chinese-made Huawei routers and other telecommunications equipment.  The countries imposing a complete or partial ban of the Huawei equipment in big-machine infrastructure included the "five eyes" countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia & New Zealand) and Japan.  Thus far, a number of EU nations (including Spain, France & Germany) have not issued an outright ban but have imposed restrictions and tightened security measures in networks in which they're installed.  This is either because they believe still that a robust security model can be mapped onto the concept of a "core & edges" model of network infrastructure or they've accepted Huawei's (TikTok-like) assurance they would decline any request from the CCP to provide information.  In Beijing, the Spanish, French and German files may already have been moved to the "Useful Idiots" filing cabinet.

Pugilist

Pugilist (pronounced pyoo-juh-list)

A person who fights with their fists; a boxer, amateur or professional.

1789: From the Latin pugil (boxer, fist-fighter) related to pugnus (a fist), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European roots peuk- (to prick) & pewǵ- (to prick, to punch) and from the Latin root, English picked up the slang term for the journeyman boxer (pug).  Pugil as a descriptor for a boxer was first noted in English in the 1640s but faded from use although in 1962 the pugil stick was introduced by US military as a substitute for rifles in bayonet drills.  Related forms include the noun pugnacity (the act or characteristic of being aggressive or combative), from the Latin pugnacitas, from pugnāx (combative, fond of fighting) and the adjective pugnacious (naturally aggressive or hostile; combative; belligerent; bellicose), from the Latin, a derivative of pugnāx, from pugnō (I fight), from pugnus (a fist).  Pugilist & pugilism are nouns, pugilistic is an adjective and pugilistically and adverb; the noun plural is pugilists.

The heavyweights

Three heavyweights dominated the perception of the sport in the second-half of the twentieth century, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali & Mike Tyson.

Sonny Liston (circa 1932-1970).

Sonny Liston was a thug, something no disqualification for success in the  heavyweight ranks and he’d been undisputed world champion for half a decade when first he fought Muhammad Ali.  Ali was a rank outsider rated by the bookies between 7-8:1 yet beat Liston.  To this day it’s not known if there's any truth in the rumors of Liston’s heavy drinking the night before the bout or throwing the fight for money.  Some find the first-round knock-out of Liston in the return match proof of a conspiracy while claim it suggests Ali was the better fighter and Liston’s best years were over although when he died in 1970, even if no longer quite the formidable fighter of his younger years, he was still a world-rated boxer.

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016).

While understandable, it's unfortunate the popular focus on Muhammad Ali’s flair for publicity, prose and politics has drawn attention from just how good a boxer he was.  Ali was fast, technically almost perfect and possessed a physique close to at least equal in height and reach of most of his opponents although his most under-rated trait was the ability to absorb blows yet remain an attacking force late in matches.  In a career interrupted by bans and suspension, Ali fought in the heavyweight division’s golden age, the finest group of the mid-late century, of whom Ali was "the greatest", not because he was indisputably the best ever heavyweight (among the experts there are various top-ten list though he's in them all) but because he influenced his sport and wider culture like no other.

Mike Tyson (b 1966).

The younger Mike Tyson was ferocious and intimidating and he scared men.  Although not tall by the standards of his profession, he was famous for the power and speed of his punch and it’s really easy to believe there’s no one who could have beaten Tyson the younger.  Boxing analysts tend to disagree, being split on the likely result of Liston v Tyson, largely because of Tyson’s technical flaws but almost as one in finding Ali would have beaten Tyson.  Tyson had a difficult, troubled youth and has admitted that had it not been for boxing, things would likely have worked out worse but had his career been better managed, such was his potential, much more could have been achieved.

Amateur pugilist Lindsay Lohan in pugnacious mode.

Lectern

Lectern (pronounced lek-tern)

(1) A reading desk in a church on which is placed the Bible and from which lessons are read during the church service.

(2) A stand (usually with a slanted top), used to hold a book, papers, speech, manuscript, etc, sometimes adjustable in height to suit the stature of different speakers.

1400s: From the late Middle English lectryn, from the Middle English lectron, lectrone and the early fourteenth century lettorne & letron, from the Middle French letrun, from the Old French leitrun & lettrun, from the Medieval Latin lēctrīnum from the Late Latin lēctrum (lectern), from lectus (from which English gained lecture), the construct being the Classical Latin leg(ere) (to read) (or legō (I read)) + -trum (the instrumental suffix).  The Latin legere (to read (literally "to gather, choose") was from the primitive Indo-European root leg- (to collect, gather) which begat derivatives meaning "to speak” (in the sense of “to pick out words”).  In linguistics, the process by which in the fifteenth century the modern form evolved from the Middle English is called a partial re-Latinization.  Lectern is a noun; the noun plural is lecterns.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (in pantsuits), at the podium, during her acclaimed lecture tour “The significance of the wingspan in birds & airplane design”.

Some words are either confused with lectern or used interchangeably, in one case to the point there may have been a meaning shift.  In English use, a lectern was originally a stand on which was placed an open Bible.  Made usually either from timber or brass (depending on the wealth or status of the church), they were fashioned at an angle which was comfortable for reading and included some sort of ledge or stays at the bottom to prevent the book sliding off.  A pulpit (inter alia "a raised platform in a church, usually partially enclosed to just above waist height)" was where the minister (priest, vicar, preacher etc) stood when delivering the sermon and in many cases, there were lecterns within pulpits.  Pulpit was from the Middle English pulpit, from the Old French pulpite and the Latin pulpitum (platform).  Podium (inter alia "a platform on which to stand; any low platform or dais") was a general term for any raised platform used by one or more persons.  A lectern might be placed upon a podium and in an architectural sense most pulpits appear on a permanent structure which is podium-like although the term is not part of the language of traditional church architecture.  Podium was from the Latin podium, from the Ancient Greek πόδιον (pódion) (base), from the diminutive of πούς (poús) (foot) and was an evolution of podion (foot of a vase).  In formal settings, US use often prefers podium and one of the world's more famous podiums is that used for the White House's press briefings, a place that has proved a launching pad for several subsequent careers in political commentary.  Some press secretaries have handled the role with aplomb and some have been less than successful including Donald Trump's (b 1946; US president 2016-2021) first appointee Sean Spicer (b 1971; White House Press Secretary & Communications Director 2017), whose brief tenure was characterized as "weaponizing the podium", memorably parodied by the Saturday Night Live (SNL) crew.   

Lindsay Lohan at a lectern some might call a rostrum, World Music Awards, 2006.

A dais (inter alia "a raised platform in a room for a high table, a seat of honor, a throne, or other dignified occupancy, such as ancestral statues or a similar platform supporting a lectern or pulpit") is for most practical purposes a podium and thus often effectively a synonym although dais probably tends to be used of structures thought more grand or associated with more important individuals (dead or alive).  There's also a literature detailing support of or objections to the various pronunciations (dey-is, dahy-is & deys-s), most of which are class or education-based.  Dais was from the Middle English deis, from the Anglo-Norman deis, from the Old French deis & dois (from which modern French gained dais), from the Latin discum, accusative singular of discus (discus, disc, quoit; dish) and the Late Latin discum (table), from the Ancient Greek δίσκος (dískos) (discus, disc; tray), from δικεῖν (dikeîn),(to cast, to throw; to strike).  It was cognate with the Italian desco and the Occitan des.

A rostrum (inter alia "a structure used by dignitaries, orchestral conductors etc") is really a lectern with a built in dais.  It's thus an elaborate lectern.  Rostrum was a learned borrowing from the Latin rōstrum (beak, snout), the construct being from rōd(ō) (gnaw) + -trum, from the primitive Indo-European rehd- + -trom.  The early uses were in zoology (beak, snout etc) and naval architecture (eg the prow of a warship), the use in sense of lecterns a back-formation from the name of the Roman Rōstra, the platforms in the Forum from which politicians delivered their speeches (the connection is that the Rōstra were decorated with (and named for) the beaks (prows) of ships famous for being victorious in sea battles.

The ups and downs of politics: Downing Street's prime-ministerial lectern.

The Times of London published a hexaptych noting the evolution of the prime-ministerial lectern which has become a feature of recent British politics, especially the turnover at the top.  Whether any psychological meanings can be derived from the style of the cabinet maker’s craft is debatable although some did ponder Boris Johnson's (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) dark finish and the twisted nature of that used by Liz Truss (b 1975; UK prime-minister Sep-Oct 2022).  The Times did however note a few things including the modest origins of the concept in the lecterns used by Tony Blair (b 1953; UK prime-minister 1997-2007) and later by Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010).  Then, the lectern was a simple, off-the-shelf item familiar to anyone who has endured PowerPoint presentations and the cables trailing over Downing Street were a reminder of those (now almost forgotten) times when WiFi wasn’t sufficiently robust to be trusted even a few steps from a building.  Also commented upon was that unlike his most recent predecessors who enjoyed their own, custom-made lectern, Rishi Sunak (b 1980; UK prime-minister since 2022) had to use a recycled item borrowed from Downing Street stocks.  That happened because the premiership of Liz Truss was so short and her demise so sudden.  In her photograph, the fallen autumnal leaves behind her seem quite poignant.

Weaponizing the podium: SNL's take on then White House Press Secretary & Communications Director Sean Spicer, 2017.

Zettai ryouiki

Zettai ryouiki (pronounced Zah-thai-rye-ouk-i)

(1) In an anime game (dating from 1995), an asset obtainable which playing which afforded the player something like the “invulnerability” or “unlimited damage” concepts familiar in gaming.

(2) As pop culture slang in women’s fashion (dating from 2014), the area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically the above-the-knee variety) but below the hemline of a mini-skirt, shorts or top.

1995: From the Japanese 絶対領域 (zettai ryōiki) (literally “absolute territory” and used variously in anime gaming (and the surrounding cultural milieu) and pop-culture fashion.  The form of Romanization most common in the West is zettai ryouiki, the alternative spelling zettai ryōiki (ぜったいりょういき).  Zettai ryouiki is a noun.

A often heard phrase in English ie “the (French / Germans / Jews / Koreans etc) have a word for everything”.  It’s not literally true and given the huge size of the English vocabulary it’s probably more true of English than any other.  Nobody is quite sure just how many words there are in English and given the frequency with which words are created and fall from use, there can only ever be estimates.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says there are between 170-200,000 words currently in use but that estimate doesn’t include the most specialized technical and scientific terms or words from regional dialects and other specialized fields.  English of course steals (the polite term among lexicographers is “borrowed”) much from other tongues and were all these and the technical terms and their variants to be included in the count, some have suggested the total might approach a million.  What “the x have a word for everything” implies is a sense of surprise that anyone has a word for a thing or concept which seems variously funny, bizarre or unnecessary.

Sock heights in Japan can all be used with the zettai ryouiki look although the classists insist the genre is restricted to those in over-knee & thigh-high socks.

Zettai ryouiki in the anime tradition.

The term zettai ryouiki began in anime gaming in 1995 with the sense “holy space into which no other can intrude”, much along the same lines as “invulnerability” or “unlimited damage” in other games.  It was obvious transferrable beyond gaming sub-culture and among Japanese youth, entered slang in the context of “one’s own personal space” which others shouldn’t transgress.  Around 2013, the phrase was appropriated to describe the area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically above-the-knee socks) but below the hemline of a miniskirt, shorts or top.  It isn’t certain but the use seems to have been adopted after an advertising agency organized a campaign involving young women, for various commercial purposes, applying temporary tattoos high on their thighs, suggesting they pair the look with dark socks or stockings, the top of the socks and the hem of their mini skirts framing the message.  As a visual device, the intent was to focus on the flesh (and thus the logo) and this the fashionistas replicated although they wanted eyeballs only on their skin.  Within months, the shop Zettai Ryōiki opened in Akihabara, Tokyo, dedicated to long socks and tights.

Zettai ryōiki: Lindsay Lohan exploring the possibilities.  

The original use of zettai ryōiki described only the pairing of a miniskirt with over-knee or thigh-high socks which meant the visible skin area, though not dimensionally specific, existed within narrow parameters.  Conceptually however, the idea eventually encompassed all styles which featured an expanse of skin between the top of the sock and the hem of whatever was worn above although the purists continue to decry the use of shorter socks.  Helpfully, the most uncompromising of the sub-culture provided a mathematical formula in the form of a coefficient which was calculated using (1) the length of the miniskirt, (2) the visible skin and (3) the length of the sock which sits above the knee.  Thus not height-dependent, known as the “golden ratio”, a tolerance of +/- 25% was allowed which permitted slight variations.

Kawai Maid Cafe & Bar Akiba Zettai Ryoiki, 3-1-1 Sotokanda 1F Obayashi Bldg., Chiyoda 101-0021 Tokyo Prefecture.  Japanese futurists predict that when robotics are sufficiently advanced, among the first humanoid bots in Tokyo's bars and cafés will be in the style of the zettai ryoiki girls, adding they'll be dimensionally modeled on the basis of anime, not typical female human frames.  The artistic motif will thus be mannerism rather than realism.

Japanese schoolgirls, long the trend-setters of the nation's fashions, like to pair zettai ryouiki with solid fluffy leg warmers.  So influential are they that this roaming pack, although they've picked up the aesthetic, are not real school girls.  So, beware of imitations: Tokyo, April 2024.