Ambiguous

Ambiguous (pronounced am-big-yoo-uhs)

(1) Open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal.

(2) In linguistics, of an expression exhibiting constructional homonymity; having two or more structural descriptions.

(3) Of doubtful or uncertain nature; difficult to comprehend, distinguish, or classify.

1528: From the late Middle English ambiguous (of doubtful or uncertain nature, open to various interpretations) Latin ambiguus (moving from side to side, of doubtful or uncertain nature, open to various interpretations), from ambigere (to dispute about (figuratively "to hesitate, waver; be in doubt" and literally “to wander; go about; go around”) the present active infinitive of ambigō from ambi (around) +‎ agō or agere (I drive, move).  The first known citation in English is in the writings of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) in 1528 but most scholars maintain the noun ambiguity had been in use since circa 1400 in the sense of "uncertainty, doubt, indecision, hesitation", from the Old French ambiguite and directly from Latin ambiguitatem (nominative ambiguitas) (double meaning, equivocalness, double sense), the noun of state from ambiguus (having double meaning, doubtful),  The meaning "obscurity in description" emerged in the early fifteenth century.  The adjective unambiguous dated from the 1630s while the noun disambiguation (removal of ambiguity) is documented since 1827.  Ambiguous is an adjective, ambiguate is a verb and ambiguity, ambiguation & ambiguousness are nouns; the most common noun plural is ambiguities. 

Structural ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity & lexical ambiguity

One of the core concepts in structural linguistics is that the meaning of many combination or words (ie a compound, sentence or phrase) is derived not merely from the meanings of the individual words but also from the way in which they’re combined.  It’s a simple idea which academics have managed to make sound complex, calling the process “compositionality” (that meaning is a construct of word meanings plus morphosyntactic structures).  So, because a structure can contribute to meaning, it follows that changing the order of the words can lead to a different meaning even if the same words are used.  When a word, phrase, or sentence has more than one meaning, it is ambiguous and “ambiguous” has a specific meaning in structural linguistics because it doesn’t mean simply that a meaning is vague or unclear: It means two or more distinct meanings are available and this is called structural ambiguity or syntactic ambiguity (as distinct from when a word has more than one distinct meaning which is known as lexical ambiguity.  Sometimes, the intended meaning can be unclear but often context can be used to assist the deconstruction.  When in December 2017, several news outlets reported, “Lindsay Lohan bitten by snake on holiday in Thailand”, few actually believed serpents take holidays and assumed instead grammatical standards had fallen since sub-editors went extinct.

China, the renegade province of Taiwan and strategic ambiguity

Taiwan (aka Formosa) is an island off the coast of China which separated, politically, from the mainland in 1949.  The Chinese government regards Taiwan as “a renegade province”; the island’s administration maintains a position of structural autonomy without actually declaring independence.  Since 1950, the US has maintained a security guarantee for the de facto independence of Taiwan which has been sometimes explicit, sometimes vague, the latter paradigm known as a policy of strategic ambiguity.

The origins of the guarantee lie in the Korean War.  In 1950, Dean Acheson (1893–1971; US secretary of state 1949-1953) delineated the US security perimeter in Asia and included neither Taiwan nor South Korea.  Chinese leader Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong 1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) and Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994), in an interpretation endorsed by their senior partner, Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), concluded Washington would not defend either country.  The DPRK acted first, invading South Korea in June 1950 which shocked the US into assembling a military response under the flag of the UN and, fearing further Communist incursions in Asia, sent the Seventh Fleet to deter any attempt by Peking to invade Taiwan.

In 1954, China probed US policy by shelling some Taiwanese islands in what came to be known as the First Taiwan Strait Crisis; the US responded by entering into defense treaties with both Taiwan and South Korea.  The probing continued, notably with the second crisis in 1958 and in the 1960 presidential campaign, both candidates, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) and John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), pledged to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression.  During the 1960s, in a kind of military choreography, US-China standoffs continued.  By 1972, things had changed.  The US sought China’s assistance, both to extricate themselves from the quagmire of the Vietnam War and to become something of a strategic partner against the USSR, Peking having long split from Moscow.  In a communique issued from Shanghai, Washington affirmed Peking’s “one China” principle that Taiwan is part of China saying it was a matter for China and Taiwan to work out the relationship peacefully. 

The nine dash line.

Despite that, the US-Taiwan Treaty remained but it needed now to be viewed in the context of Richard Nixon's Guam Doctrine, issued in 1969, in which the president noted "…the US would assist in the defense… of allies and friends" but would not "undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world."  For Taiwan, and presumably everyone else, strategic ambiguity thus began.  Seven years after the Shanghai statement, later, the Carter administration recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC, the old Red China), severed formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan and terminated the treaty.  Strategic ambiguity has shrouded Washington’s position on Taiwan ever since.  US presidents have on occasion suggested both something more robust and something less so it appears to remain the position that the US might defend Taiwan were China to invade but it might not.  It would depend on the circumstances.  For seventy-odd years, the US position has been enough to deter China from exercising the military option to restore the renegade province to the motherland but a multi-dimensional chess game will play-out over the next decade in the South China Sea.

Luddite

Luddite (pronounced luhd-ahyt)

(1) A member of any of various bands of workers in England (1811–1816) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment.

(2) Someone opposed or resistant to new technologies or technological change.

(3) Of or relating to the Luddites

1805–1815: Said to be named after a Mr Ned Ludd, a Leicestershire worker who in the late eighteenth century, a fit of rage destroyed mechanical knitting machines he believed were threatening his livelihood by displacing him from his job.  There is doubt (1) whether there was an actual mill worker called Ned Ludd and (2) whether the famous act of industrial sabotage really happened in the circumstances described.  The origin of the name Ludd can be traced to the ancient Anglo-Saxon tribes of the British Isles and was occupational, used by those employed as pages or servants, the Old English Ladde a term which described a household servant.  That’s generally accepted among genealogists but there are sources which note that in the Old English and Scotch, the word lade meant “a canal or duct for water” and that Ludd evolved as a geographical name, used to describe one who worked near or lived on the banks of a waterway.  It’s entirely possible the two forms evolved separately and while the name was probably in use earlier, the first traces of it in the parish records of England appear circa 1100 variously as Ladda, Ladde, le Ladd, Ludd & Ludde.  Variations in spelling were common and it wasn’t until the late Middle English that a widespread standardization can be said to have begun and because elements of Greek, the various flavours of Latin, French and Germanic languages mixed with the native tongues of the British Isles, the influences were many, the differences in pronunciation accounting for at least some of the variations.  Related to what would become the lineage of Ludd included Ladd, Ladde, Laddey, Ladds, Lade, Ladey, Laddy and others.  The -ite suffix was from the French -ite, from the Old French, from the Latin -ītēs, from the Ancient Greek -ῑ́της (-ī́tēs).  It had a wide application including (1) the formation of nouns denoting the followers or adherents of a individual, doctrine or movement etc, (2) the formation of nouns denoting descendants of a certain historic (real or mythical) figure (widely used of biblical identities), (3) the formations of demonyms, (4) in geology the formation of nouns denoting rocks or minerals, (5) in archeology, the formation of nouns denoting fossil organisms, (6) in biology & pathology to form nouns denoting segments or components of the body or an organ of the body, (7) in industry & commerce to form nouns denoting the product of a specified process or manufactured product & (8) in chemistry to form names of certain chemical compounds (historically especially salts or esters of acids with names with the suffix –ous).  Luddite & Ludditism are nouns; the noun plural is Luddites.

The Luddites were a social movement of textile workers in England during the early nineteenth century who protested against the introduction into factories of machinery, their concern being their jobs would be lost and they and their families would face destitution because they would be forced into manual labor at a very low rate of pay.  Real though the movement was, there is no documentary evidence to support the suggestion a Mr Ned Ludd was a real figure associated with the Luddites and the English parish records of the era are comprehensive and regarded as accurate.  Historians have trawled through the ledgers covering the relevant decades and have been unable to verify that a Mr Ned Ludd was ever employed in the factories.  The consensus is that the identity of Ned Ludd was a construct with which the cause of the workers could be identified although whether the name emerged organically from the movement or was created by a writer as a narrative device is unknown.

Lindsay Lohan with sledge-hammer demonstrating a Luddite technique by attacking Volvo.  This wasn’t an industrial protest and was actually an event staged to protest about the cancellation of a television show.  Actually, a sledge-hammer or some other suitable tool may have been what the Luddites used for their sabotage.  English picked up sabotage from the French saboter (deliberately to damage, wreck or botch), used originally to refer to the tactic used in industrial disputes by workers wearing the wooden shoes called sabots who disrupted production in various ways.  The persistent myth is that the origin of the term lies in the practice of workers throwing the wooden sabots into factory machinery to interrupt production but the tale appears apocryphal, one account even suggesting sabot-clad workers were simply considered less productive than others who had switched to leather shoes, roughly equating the term sabotage with inefficiency.

Even the extent to which weavers (and other factory workers) actually sabotaged machines in the manner of the legendary of Ned Ludd is unclear and while it clear from the reports of the time there were instances of sabotage, it does appear they were sporadic and opportunistic acts and certainly not part of a planned movement, much less a revolutionary one.  However, the term has endured to be applied broadly to encompass anyone who opposes new technology or social change and it’s now rarely used with any hit the recipient is contemplating violent resistance.  In this sense, the term is often used in a pejorative way to describe individuals or groups who are seen as reactionary or obstructionist.  Ludditism can exist even at high technological levels, some users accustomed to the familiarity of certain apps or operating systems resistant to change, usually on the basis that the change offers no benefits and sometimes even brings disadvantages.

Concatenate

Concatenate (pronounced kon-kat-on-ate)

(1) In biology, joined together, as if in a chain.

(2) In general use, to link things together; unite in a series or chain.

(3) In computing, the joining together of two or more objects stored in different places; most familiar as the spreadsheet command(s) invoked to join cells.

(4) In formal language, as string concatenation, the operation of joining character strings end-to-end.

1425-1475: From the late Middle English (as a past participle) from the Late Latin concatēnātus, from the perfect passive participle stem of concatēnāre (to link together), the construct being con- (com-) (with, together) + catenare, from catēnō (chain, bind) or catēna (chain) + -ātus (from the Proto-Italic -ātos, from the primitive Indo-European –ehztos and was the suffix used to form adjectives from nouns indicating the possession of a thing or a quality).  Related forms include concatenator & concatenation (nouns), concatenated & concatenating (verbs & adjectives) and concatenative (adjective).  Those who use the undo function on their spreadsheet after concatenating are using the verb deconcatenate and the adjective unconcatenating.  Concatenate the adjective has a longer history than the verb. The adjective first appeared in English in the fifteenth century, the not until the seventeenth.  Catenate, a verb in its own right meaning "to link in a series" also has origins in the 1800s.  Concatenate is a verb & adjective, concatenated, concatenating are verbs and concatenation is a noun; the noun plural is concatenations.

Lotus 123/G running under OS/2 1.2, 1989.

Concatenate is the favorite big word of most accountants, the others preferring avoidance.  For most people not engaged in certain specialised fields, it’s only when using a spreadsheet that the chance exists to use the word concatenate although it’s now often optional, Microsoft in Excel 2016 having added the CONCAT function which does all that CONCATENATE ever did.  The old command remains as a courtesy to those (1) who think the old ways are best or (2) have a stash of macros and add-ins laden with the text but there’s no guarantee both will continue to co-exist in future versions.  Both IBM and Microsoft have often had short and long versions of commands in software.  From the earliest versions of PC-DOS and MS-DOS, there were pairs like copy/cpy and delete/del which behaved identically.

The spreadsheet is regarded as the original “killer app”; the software which suddenly made rational the purchase of a computer for those not before seduced or at least convinced.  The first spreadsheet which really was a viable piece of horizontal-market shrink-wrap was Visicalc which, like the hardware on which it ran now seems limited but, unlike the operating system on which it ran, is conceptually identical and visually, vaguely similar to the latest releases.  Visicalc, launched in 1979 on the Apple II, two years before the IBM PC went on sale, came first but it was the more ambitious Lotus 1-2-3 which gained critical mass, assuming almost from its 1983 debut a market dominance which would last more than a decade.  By 1989, the standard office environment for those running PCs was overwhelmingly the Lotus 123 2.x / WordPerfect 5.x combination, the nerdiest operations perhaps adding the dreaded dBASE III Plus.

Microsoft Windows 3.0, 1990.

In what was one of the early disruptions in the business, things quickly changed.  In 1990, Microsoft Windows 3.0 was introduced, an unstable operating environment bolted on to DOS and soon famous for its UAEs (Unrecoverable Applications Errors), the BSODs (blue screen of death) of the era.  Fragile it may have been but it made the PC usable for real people in a way a command-line based user interface like DOS never did and by the time Windows 3.1 arrived in 1992, the move was on.  Microsoft were ready and Windows 3.1, combined with the updated Excel and Word for Windows sounded the death knell for Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect, both of which were murdered, dBASE more of a suicide as any user of dBASE IV will attest.  The old programs would struggle on, under new ownership, for years, Lotus 1-2-3 lasting until the twenty-first century and a much diminished WordPerfect to this day though neither would ever regain their place in the commercial mainstream.

A concatenation of images of variations in Lindsay Lohan's hair color.

Both failed adequately to react to Windows 3.0, WordPerfect pursuing an evolutionary development of their text-based platform while Lotus followed what turned out to be the right technology but the wrong company.  Almost from the start, Lotus had been besieged by user requests for a way to allow spreadsheets to be bigger and that needed a way for the program to access more memory.  Because of (1) the way DOS was written and (2) the memory address limitations of the early (80x86 & 80x88) hardware, not even all of the 1 MB nominally available could be used and it took not long for spreadsheet users to exhaust what was.  New hardware (80286 & 80386) made more memory available but DOS, really a brutish file-loader, couldn’t see it and the costs of re-equipping with more capable hardware and software combinations were, in the 1980s, high.  There were quick and dirty fixes.  One was a cooperative venture between Lotus, Intel & Microsoft which published an expanded memory specification (LIM EMS), a clever trick allowing access to 4 MB of memory but which brought problems of its own.  Most users continued to create multiple sheets, linking them in a variety of ways, a complexity which was often error prone and, as things grew, increasingly difficult to debug.  It wasn’t just megalomaniacs who longed for everything in one big sheet.

IBM OS/2 2.1, 1993.

Windows 3.0 may not have impressed Lotus but OS/2, Microsoft’s slated long-term replacement for both DOS and Windows certainly did.  Available already with 16 MB of memory, later versions of OS/2 promised 4 GB, a big number then and enough even in 2021 for what most people do with spreadsheets, most of the time.  Lotus nailed 1-2-3’s colors to the OS/2 mast, the first version for the new platform, 123/G (for graphical), released in 1989 and running only on OS/2, did what it claimed and users were soon delighted by the sight (if not the speed) of the spread of their giant sheets.  Unfortunately, users were few because buyers of OS/2 were scarce, their reluctance not helped by Microsoft’s sudden change of operating system direction.  As surprised as everybody else at the massive success of Windows 3.0 and 3.1, Microsoft announced that instead of continuing their co-development of OS/2 with IBM, they were proceeding with Windows as a stand-alone product; existing versions of OS/2 on sale and under development (versions 1 & 2) would be handed back to IBM to pursue while Microsoft would work on their next release which was to have been called OS/2 3.0.  This was the product which would in 1993 be released as Windows NT 3.1. 

It was a high-risk strategy.  In the early 1990s, IBM was years away from its near-death experiences and was the industry behemoth; having them as a partner was not without difficulties but to make an enemy of them was riskier still.  The potential reward however was compelling.  The revenue stream from Windows would flow wholly to Microsoft and, more conspiratorially, having exclusive control of the operating system and its secrets meant the possibility to tweak its own software offerings so they would run better than the competition.  There is of course no suggestion Microsoft ever did that.  All depended on (1) Windows continuing its sales success and (2) the newer versions maintaining the cost/performance advantage over OS/2 which would prevent IBM’s product gaining critical mass.  That is exactly what happened.

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, 1997.

While OS/2 technically was good and the compatibility issues feared by many never existed to the extent claimed, it simply didn’t offer enough of an advantage over Windows 3.x to justify what would for many be a significant cost in hardware, software and training.  Nor, as the track record with thing like the PCjr demonstrated, were IBM very good at selling stuff unless it was in lots of thousands to big corporations.  Microsoft offered things users were actually interested in, like free fonts whereas IBM fiddled around with exotica like installable file systems (IFS), a concept remote from the lives of most.  Compared with the actually clunky looking Windows 3.x, OS/2 with its IFS, pre-emptive multi-tasking and object-oriented user interface looked like the future of computing and so it was but Windows NT (ex OS/2 3.0) turned out to be a better path.  By the time Windows 95 was released in 1995, Microsoft had won the consumer war and within two years, Windows NT had laid the foundation not only to dominate the desktop in the twenty-first century but to displace Novell and others in the lucrative server market which underpinned the rapidly growing parts of the market, networks (WANs and LANs) and the internet.  In this clash of titans, WordPerfect, dBASE and Lotus were collateral damage.

Incarnadine

Incarnadine (pronounced in-kahr-nuh-dahyn, in-kahr-nuh-din or in-kahr-nuh-deen)

(1) A color classically blood-red but for commercial purposes also described as variations in the range of crimson, flesh-colored, pale pink etc.

(2) To make incarnadine; to tinge or stain with a reddish hue.

(3) In figurative use, bloodstained, bloody

1585–1595: From the Middle French, the feminine of incarnadin (flesh-colored), from the dialectal Italian incarnadino, a variant of incarnatino (carnation; flesh-colored), the construct being incarnat(o) (embodied; made flesh (the sense most familiar in ecclesiastical use in the form “incarnate”, from the Late Latin incarnātus (made flesh, incarnate)) + -ino.  The Italian suffix -ino was from the Latin -īnus, from the primitive Indo-European -iHnos (and comparable with the English -ine).  It was used (1) to form adjectival diminutives, (2) to indicate a profession, (3) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin and (4) to indicate tools or instruments.  Incarnato was from Ecclesiastical Latin and the Late Latin incarnātus (having been made incarnate), the perfect passive participle of incarnō (to become or make incarnate; to make into flesh), the construct being in- (in, inside, within) + carō (flesh, meat; body (and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ker & sker- (to cut off)) + -ō (the suffix used to form regular first-conjugation verbs).  The noun and verb were derived from the adjective and the senses (1) of the blood-red colour of raw flesh, (2) the figurative blood-stained; bloody (most famously as “blood on one’s hands”) and the noun use (blood-red colour of raw flesh) are the legacy of William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) use of the word as a verb in the blood-soaked Macbeth (circa 1606).  In the technical language of the Roman Catholic Church, incardinate has the specific technical meanings (1) to raise someone to the rank of cardinal & (2) to enroll someone as a priest attached to a particular church.  Incarnadine is a noun, verb & adjective and incarnadined & incarnadining are verbs & adjectives; the noun plural is incarnadines.

The Shakespeare effect

William Shakespeare: Macbeth Act 2, Scene 2, 54–60:

[Knocking within] Macbeth:

Whence is that knocking?
How is't with me, when every noise appalls me?
What hands are here? Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

Shakespeare wasn’t actually unusual in his inventive ways with words, English then far from standardized and such “dictionaries” as existed sometimes offering different spellings and conflicting meanings.  Shakespeare probably felt no more entitled than any other writer to kick the language around but because what he wrote is celebrated as a core of the Western literary canon, what he did is both better remembered and granted a certain authority.  His attitude was probably something like the “low-level peaks & pokes” database administrators used to be able to use to solve immediate problems, even if such tricks weren't in the manual.  So, in the early 1600s, “the multitudinous seas incarnadine” would have been novel and what Shakespeare did was make a verb of incarnadine, a sixteenth century adjective meaning "pink", the sense derived from the Latin root carn- ("of flesh" and thus, in its derivatives, "the color of flesh").  “To incarnadine” thus meant turn something pink or light red and in the bard’s vivid imagery Macbeth imagines his bloodied hands turning Neptune's green ocean.  Under the influence of Shakespeare’s text, the verb and adjective have both come to refer to the color of blood itself (a range of crimson tones) rather than to the light red of a blood-stained sea.  This extends to the play as psychological drama, Macbeth coming to realize that no matter what, his guilt can never be washed off, even if the blood can be cleaned from his hands.  Instead, his guilt will poison the world around him for which the wide ocean is a metaphor and already in his hallucinations he sees his hands plucking out his eyes in retribution for the murder of Duncan.

Shakespeare would have approved the verbing: Lindsay Lohan incarnadining her lips, Playboy magazine photo-shoot, 2011.

However, for whatever reason,  Shakespeare didn’t use the word again although there was no shortage of death and blood in the dozen-odd plays he wrote after Macbeth and in all that he wrote, it’s the only occasion on which the word appears.  Maybe he didn’t like the effect or perhaps his critics were critical but it's surprising it didn't re-appear because his opportunities to seek some alternative to “red”, “crimson” or “scarlet” were not infrequent, some 74 unfortunate souls dying in his plays in the stage-scenes alone with the inherently bloody business of stabbing a popular means of dispatch.  Not surprisingly then, the word “blood” appears in Shakespeare's works 673 times.  The author’s neglect of incarnadine was matched by that of the general population and since the nineteenth century its most usual appearance in text has been in lists of obsolete and antique words and were it not for lexicographers preserving it thus, it might now be regarded as extinct which, for most practical purposes, it otherwise is.

Crooked Hillary Clinton in incarnadine pantsuit, a practical color in that one can wipe the blood from one’s hands without it showing.

Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth a central character responsible for much violence and bloodshed yet one who avoids blood literally ending up on her hands.  It’s Lady Macbeth who goads and manipulates her husband into killing King Duncan so he may seize the throne of Scotland and make her queen.  She even plans the murder, taking part in the plot by making it appear others are responsible.  After the foul deed, Lady Macbeth begins to suffer from her role in the murder, haunted by visions of blood on her hands which she tries to wash off, symbolizing her inability to rid herself of the guilt she feels.

Color contrast ratios of incarnadine against while and black backgrounds.

It is a truly lovely color, a deep rich red less orange than the classic brick, darker than a bright cherry and lighter than a Merlot although those disturbed by such things might see also the color of raw steak and spilled blood.  It has survived as a technical term used in color charts, incarnadine listed as Hex #aa0022 (Color Mixture: Pink and Red & Color Hue/Base color: Red).  In the RGB color code model, Hex #aa0022 Color Code is created after adding 66.67% red color, 0% green color and 13.33% blue color.  Hex #aa0022 Color code in the CMYK color (process color) code model is generated after subtraction of 0% cyan, 100% magenta, 80% yellow and 33% black.  It’s a handy word for the manufacturers because it provides something different for the color charts, other variations of red including blood red, brick red, burgundy, cardinal, carmine, carnation, cerise, cherry, cherry red, Chinese red, cinnabar, claret, crimson, damask, fire brick, fire engine red, flame, flamingo, fuchsia, garnet, geranium, gules, hot pink, incarnadine, Indian red, magenta, ruddle, maroon, misty, mantle, rose, nacarat, oxblood, pillar-box red, pink, flush, Pompeian red, poppy, raspberry, red violet, rose, rouge, ruby, ruddy, salmon, sanguine, scarlet, shocking pink, rust, stammel, strawberry, Turkey red, rubricate, bloody, blooming, Venetian red, vermillion, vinaceous, vinous, violet & wine.

Xenodochial

Xenodochial (pronounced zen-oh-dok-e-al)

Of or about being friendly to strangers.

From the Ancient ξενοδοχή (xenodokhḗ) (strangers' banquet), derived from ξένος (xénos), (guest, stranger, foreigner).  The –al suffix is from the Middle English -al, from the Latin -ālis, or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  The Latin is though formed from the Etruscan genitive suffix -l (as in the Etruscan ati (mother) & atial (mother's)) + the adjectival suffix -is (as in fortis, dēbilis et al).  The suffix was appended to many words, often nouns to create the sense “of or pertaining to”, thereby creating the adjectival form.  It was most commonly added to words of Latin origin and used also to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The adjectival form xenodochial is the most frequently used form, often in the abstract sense of describing a functionally effective structure or a pleasingly ergonomic design.  In general though, all forms allude to being hospitable to strangers which is perhaps why the antonym xenophobic (unfriendly to strangers) seems more widely used.  As xenodocheionology, it’s the study of the lore and history of hotels and hospitality.  The noun xenodochium (the plural forms xenodochia or xenodochiums) was used to describe a room (or separate structure; a guesthouse) in a monastery for the temporary accommodation of guests or pilgrims and was from the Ancient Greek ξενοδοχεῖον (xenodokheîon), (place for strangers, inn) from ξένος (xénos), (guest, stranger, foreigner) + δέχομαι (dékhomai) (receive, accept).  Xenodochial is an adjective, xenodochy is a noun and the related xenophilia is the antonym of xenophobia.

On being turned away from the inn

Neither the year nor the day on which Jesus Christ was born is known, Western Christianity celebrating it on 25 December and the Orthodox on 6 or 7 January.  It made administrative sense to slot the celebration into the existing feast calendar, but the date wasn't universally (more or less) standardized until the sixth century although the historic record can be confusing because of changes to the medieval cadendar.

Bethlehem Inn , circa 24 December, 3 BC.  A member of one of the earliest chapters of the Secret Society of the Les Clef d’Or refuses to let Joseph and Mary check-in because they have no booking confirmation number.  In the Bible, Luke (2:4–7) records this lack of the xenodochial.

Christ was probably born circa 3 BC and being born not in a room in a house but in a stable has become important in Christian symbolism.  The tale though may be muddied.  It’s often recounted how Joseph and Mary, while looking for a place to stay the night, were many times turned away by members of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or, either because the inn was full or without reason.  In the bible, the versions differ, Matthew not mentioning them being turned away from inns, that part appearing only in Luke.  As told by Matthew, Mary and Joseph actually lived in Bethlehem so the birth was thus at home; it was only after returning from taking refuge in Egypt they decided to move to Nazareth in order to be further from Herod.  Luke (2:4–7) says they lived in Nazareth, journeyed to Bethlehem for a census, and were there turned away from inns, being forced to stay in a stable and there the birth happened.  It’s suspected by some Luke added the wrinkle to the story to emphasize the lowly birth of Jesus and revisionist theologians have provided alternative facts.  The Reverend Ian Paul, one-time Dean of Studies at St John’s theological college, reviving what's actually an old theory that Jesus wasn't born in a stable and there'd been no search for a room in an inn.  He lets the Les Clefs d'Or off the hook.

Dr Paul bases his position on a mistaken biblical translation of the Greek word kataluma as “inn” which he suggests, in the original texts, was actually used to describe a reception room in a private dwelling, the same term is used to describe the “upper room” where Jesus and his disciples ate the last supper and kataluma appear in that context in Luke 22:11 and Mark 14:14.  An entirely different word, pandocheion, is used to describe an “inn” or any other place where strangers are welcomed as paying customers.  Even were there an inn in Bethlehem, Paul argues, Joseph and Mary would not have sought to check-in.  For Joseph, the only reason to travel to Bethlehem, where his family lived, was because it was census time and the custom at the time was to stay with relatives, not with strangers or at an inn.  Given that, goes the argument, the kataluma where they stayed would not have been an Inn, but a guest room in the house of family members and the house was likely already full with other relatives there for the census.

The architecture of Palestinian does support the idea, most families living in a single-room house, with a lower compartment for animals to be brought in at night, and either a room at the back for visitors, or space on the roof.  The family living area usually would have straw-filled hollows dug in the ground at which the animals would feed.  Jesus thus was born not in a stable fit only for beasts but on the lower floor of a peasant house, shared with animals certainly but this at the time something not unusual.  It’s not a new interpretation, the Spanish philologist Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas (1523–1600) having published the same thoughts in 1584.  For his troubles he was dragged before the Inquisition, denounced and reprimanded but not tortured, imprisoned or burned at the stake, the court apparently viewing these things as poor scholarship rather than heresy.

Meet & greet: Lindsay Lohan being xenodochial, opening night of the Lohan Nightclub, Athens, Greece, October 2016.

Dr Paul suggests all this is not of interest only to word-nerds and that there is a theological significance.  It’s not that it diminishes the nature of Christ, quite where the Son of God was born seems a minor point compared with the other aspects of his birth; the important message of Christianity is that he was born of ordinary, humble, parents, it adds nothing to try to present them somehow as outcasts rejected from the comforts of society.  The celebration of the Christmas is not that his earthly life began cast out, but in the midst of his family and the visiting relations, the centre of their attentions.  In recent years, some editors have apparently been convinced, dropping all references to inns and using a translation along the lines of “because there was no guest room available for them.”

Scavenge

Scavenge (pronounced skav-inj)

(1) To take or gather (something hopefully usable) from discarded material.

(2) To cleanse of filth, as in cleaning a street (in the UK “scavenger” was once a term for a municipal street sweeper).

(3) In internal combustion engines (1) to expel burnt gases from a cylinder

(4) As “oil scavenger”, a device used to remove excess or unwanted oil from certain areas of various types of engine.

(5) In metallurgy, to purify molten metal by introducing a substance, usually by bubbling a suitable gas through it (the gas may be inert or may react with the impurities).

(6) In democratic politics (in preferential voting systems), to negotiate with other candidates or party machines to obtain preferences (usually on a swap basis).

(7) To act as a scavenger; to search (applied especially to creatures which look for food among the carrion killed by others).

(8) In chemistry, to act as a scavenger (for atoms, molecules, ions, radicals, etc).

(9) In historical UK use, a child employed to pick up loose cotton from the floor in a cotton mill.

1635–45: A back formation from scavenger, from the Middle English scavager, from the Anglo-Norman scawageour (one who had to do with scavage, inspector, tax collector), from the Old Northern French scawage & escauwage (scavenge) and the Old French scavage & escavage, an alteration of escauvinghe (the Medieval Latin forms were scewinga & sceawinga), from the Old Dutch scauwōn (to inspect, to examine, to look at).  The verb scavenge in the 1640s was first a transitive verb in the sense of “cleanse from filth” while the intransitive meaning “search through rubbish for usable food or objects” was in use at least by the 1880s and the idea of “extracting & collecting anything usable from discarded material” dates from 1922.  Scavenge is a verb, scavenged, scavengering & scavenging are verbs & adjectives, scavengeable is an adjective and scavenger & scavengerism are nouns; the noun plural is scavengers.

Lindsay Lohan: Fear of scavengers.

The noun scavenger dates from the 1540s and described originally “a person hired to remove refuse from streets” (a job which would come later to be known as a “street sweeper”, a modification of the late fourteenth century Middle English scavager & scawageour, the title of the employee of London city who originally was charged with collecting tax on goods sold by foreign merchants.  The origin of that title was the Middle English scavage & scauage, from the circa 1400 Anglo-French scawage (toll or duty exacted by a local official on goods offered for sale in one's precinct), from the Old North French escauwage (inspection), from a Germanic source (it was related to the Old High German scouwon and the Old English sceawian (to look at, inspect) and from the same lineage came the modern English “show”.  In the 1590s it came into use in zoology to refer to creatures which look for food among the carrion killed by others.  The game of “scavenger hunt” seems to have gained the name in 1937 and one form of the word which went extinct was scavagery (street-cleaning, removal of filth from streets), noted in 1851.

Oil scavenge systems

In an internal combustion engine, an oil scavenger is a device used to remove excess or unwanted oil from certain areas of the engine, typically from the bottom of the engine's crankcase or oil pan.  The oil scavenger can help to prevent excessive oil pressure or foaming, something to be avoided because in high-performance engines operating under extreme conditions, excessive pressure can collapse pistons, a destructive process.  The core of the system is a scavenge-pump (some even suction mechanisms) which draw the excess oil from the engine and directs it back into the oil pan or an external reservoir.

Internal combustion engine with dry sump and oil scavenging system.

The classic use of oil salvage is in dry sump lubrication systems in which the oil that is supplied by the pressure pump drains off the engine as a frothy, thoroughly-mixed air-oil suspension into a relatively shallow, low-capacity, sump that is often contoured around the rotating crankshaft-assembly.  In this system, there are several scavenge pump stages that pump the aerated oil from the “dry” sump and into the external oil tank that has the dual-assignment of (1) storing the major amount of the engine oil supply and (2) de-aerating the mixture being returned by the scavenge pump(s).  After lubricating the various components, the oil flows into the sump at the bottom of the engine and from here the scavenge stages of the pump retrieves the highly-aerated oil, delivering the mix through a filter and then to a centrifugal and boundary-layer air-oil separation system in the oil tank. The air extracted from the scavenge oil exits the system through the breather and the result is cool, clean oil into the external tank ready for recirculation.

Aircraft turbine engine with oil scavenging system.

Oil salvage systems are especially critical in aviation.  In car engines, used oil is able to drain down into the oil pan, where it can be circulated back through the engine or cooling system but at altitude, gravity or air pressure may not be sufficient for oil to drain on its own and for these reasons aircraft are equipped with scavenge pumps to help pull the used oil out of the engine into a reservoir for cooling, de-aerating, and recirculation.  In hard-to-empty areas that are far from the oil sump (like the rear of the engine) a scavenge pump prevents the pooling of used oil.  The aircraft scavenge pump system does not have its own power source, but operates on a designated line from the main electrical system and on bigger aircraft powered by turbines with large oil capacity, as many as six scavenge pumps may operate in unison.

Niggardly

Niggardly (pronounced nig-erd-lee)

(1) Reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly; sordidly parsimonious.

(2) Mean or ungenerously small or scanty; grudgingly.

(3) In a stingy, miserly, or tight-fisted manner; penurious, miserly, mean, tight.

1520-1530: The construct was nig(g)ard+ly.  Nigard was from the Middle English nigard & nygard (miser), from nig (niggardly person), perhaps of Scandinavian origin (the forms in the Old Norse were derived from hnǫggr (miserly, stingy)) and it may have beem cognate with niggle (miser).  In German there was Knicker (niggard) & knickerig (niggardly).  The –ly suffix is from the Middle English -ly, -li, -lik & -lich, from the Old English -līċ, from the Proto-Germanic -līkaz (having the body or form of), from līką (body) (from whence lich). In form, it was probably influenced by the Old Norse -ligr (-ly) and was cognate with the Dutch -lijk, the German -lich and the Swedish –lig; doublet of -like.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, the adjectives having the sense of "behaving like, or having a nature typical of what is denoted by the noun".  Niggardly is an adjective & adverb, niggardliness is a noun and niggard is a noun, adjective & verb; the noun plural is niggards.

The root is very old, the Middle English nyggard (thought derived from Swedish nygg (from old Norse verb nigla (to fuss about small matters)) noted as early as 325-375 and from the Old English hneaw (stingy).  It was rarely used in some biblical translations (2 Corinthians 9:6 & Isaiah 32:6 for example) but does seem to appear less in recent revisions, presumably out of linguistic sensitivity.  Although etymologically, the sixteenth century niggardly is wholly related to the infamous N-word (which emerged only in the eighteenth), there have been a number of incidents in the United States which have caused controversy because of the phonetic similarity to the racial slur.  Because there are a number of useful synonyms, (parsimonious, mean, greedy, penurious, miserly et al), niggardly is probably best avoided.  Even if used correctly, it can cause problems.

Ye (b 1977, the artist formerly known as Kanye West).

So it's not one of those potentially difficult words like "chink" which is so entrenched it can be used as long as the context makes clear (such as "chink in the armor") it's not being used as a racial slur.  Nor does the idea of adopting the N-Word convention (whereby it can in certain circumstances be spelled "niggardly" in written form but orally it might be spoken as "N-wordy") much appeal because it's so much easier (and uncontroversial) just to use an alternative like "parsimonious" or "cheap".  All in all, it's best avoided, like the infamous N-Word as Lindsay Lohan (in town for Paris Fashion Week) found out in 2015 when she used it in an Instagram post after attending a concert by Ye.  She was quoting from the lyrics of one of his songs but that's obviously not an acceptable thing for a white person to do and, in response to criticism, the post was soon edited.  Interestingly, the bar on that might have been raised a bit as the reactions to some of Ye's recent statements indicate.

Adamantine

Adamantine (pronounced ad-uh-man-teen, ad-uh-man-tin or ad-uh-man-tahyn)

(1) Made of adamant, or having the qualities of adamant; incapable of being broken, dissolved, or penetrated.

(2) Utterly unyielding or firm in attitude or opinion.

(3) In informal use, too hard to cut, break or pierce.

(4) Having the luster of a diamond.

1200-1250: From the Middle English adamantine (made of adamant; having the qualities of adamant (hard, unyielding, unbreakable, inflexible)), the vocative masculine singular of adamantinus, from the Ancient Greek adamántinos (hard as adamant), from ἀδάμας (adamas), (genitive ἀδάμαντος (adamantos)) (unbreakable, inflexible and literally “unconquerable, untameable”).  The modern English diamond is from adamas, via the Late Latin diamas and the Old French diamant.  The noun form was used to mean “the hardest material” (a synonym of adamantium).  The most obvious derivative in modern English is adamant.  In classical mythology, adamant was the word used to describe diamond and the meaning was aligned with “metal” to indicate the quality of extreme hardness and, over time, emerged the notion of adamant being used figuratively to allude to attitudes or opinions which were “hard”, the synonyms varying according whether the wish was to convey admiration or disapproval and they included: inflexible, intransigent, uncompromising, inexorable. unbending, firm, unyielding stubborn, obdurate.  Adamantine is a noun & adjective and adamantinely is an adverb; the noun plural is adamantines.

The cuts from the Cullinan Diamond: Cullinan 1 was the largest of the nine stones cut from the rough diamond.  The largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, the Cullinan Diamond was found on 26 January 1905 in South Africa’s Cullinan mine.  The stone weighed 3,106.75 carats (21.91725 oz, 621.35 g).  The Cullinan was cut into nine smaller diamonds, the largest of which is named Cullinan I or Great Star of Africa which, at 530.4 carats (18.7 oz, 106.0 g) is the largest clear cut diamond in the world.

Lindsay Lohan’s engagement ring: The piece was described as a 6-carat cushion-cut diamond set on a classic diamond-accented platinum band.

Harass

Harass (pronounced huh-ras (U) or har-uhs (Non-U))

(1) To disturb or bother persistently; torment, as with troubles or cares; pester.

(2) To intimidate or coerce, as with persistent demands or threats.

(3) To subject another to unwelcome sexual advances.

(4) In military and paramilitary jargon, to trouble by repeated attacks, incursions etc, as in war or hostilities; harry; raid.

1610–1620: From the French harasser (to tire out; to vex), the origin obscure but probably from the Middle French harasser (to harry, harass), a verbal derivative of harace & harache from the Frankish hara (here, from this side) which existed in the Old French as harer (to set a dog upon prey) and of Germanic origin; the Old High German was hera & harēn (to cry out), the Middle Dutch was here.  The alternative, less supported, etymology suggests a derivation from the Old French harier (to harry), related to harace (a basket made of cords) & harasse (a very heavy and large shield).  The now obsolete meaning “to lay waste, to devastate” dates from the 1620s whereas the sense "to vex by repeated attacks" from the French harasser (to tire out, to vex) emerged in the early sixteenth century and the noun harassment (action of harassing; state of being harassed) was first noted in 1753.  Harass, as applied to mind or body, suggesting the infliction of the weariness that comes from the continuance or repetition of trying experiences, so that there is not time for rest, appeared in dictionaries first in 1897.  The distinction of meaning is that to feel harassed doesn’t (necessarily) depend on an identifiable act of harassment by others.  Synonyms, varying by context, include badger, vex, plague, hector, annoy, besiege, harangue, beset, burn, raid, tease, intimidate, pester, torment, persecute, heckle, hassle, hound, maraud, bait, distress, exhaust, strain, vex, foray, worry & devil.  Harass is a noun & verb, harassing is an adjective & noun, harasser & harassment are nouns, harassed & harassable are adjectives and harassingly is an adverb; the noun plural is harasses.

Another class-identifier

Harass was traditionally pronounced in English as har-uhs, with stress on the first syllable but a newer pronunciation, huh-ras, with stress on the second, has become more common in the last half-century, especially in North America.  Although there’s no evidence, the speculation is the newer form emerged because it’s easier to say and there’s much support for the view, the feeling it happened just as kuhn-trov-er-see emerged as more palatable alternative to the traditional and proper kon-truh-vur-see.  Most dictionaries now acknowledge both forms are correct, the cross-cutting cleavages being both trans-Atlantic and generational, the inference generally drawn that the younger version will continue to gain adherents while the traditional form will survive among pedants and as a class-identifier.

Cross-vested harassment complaints: Ms Lohan & Mr LaBella.

In what sounded a very New York City sort of affair, Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) and Christian LaBella (b 1987) in September 2012 each filed harassment complaints with against each other after they were interviewed by police about a squabble in a hotel room, the details of which remain contested and sketchy.  Mr LaBell was a former congressional aide and because no charges could be substantiated, no further was taken, the cross-harassment complaints apparently satisfying honor on both sides.  All's well that ends well.