Avoirdupois

Avoirdupois (pronounced av-er-duh-poiz)

(1) As the avoirdupois system, a system of weight measurements.

(2) In informal (and usually jocular) use, excess body weight (mostly US).

(3) Merchandise (usually that sold by weight but also applied generally) (obsolete).

1650s: From the thirteenth century Middle English avoir de pois, aver de peise, haburdy poyse, haburdepays & haburdepeyse, (literally “goods of weight, property of weight”) from the Old French avoir de pois (goods, property, literally “asset of weight”), the construct being avoir (from the earlier aveir, from the Latin habēre (to have) + de (of), from the Latin dē, + pois (from the earlier peis, from the Latin pēnsum (something weighed, weight), from pendere (to weigh, weigh out).  The alternative spelling was the now obsolete averdupois.  Avoirdupois emerged in the 1650s as a misspelling (the French du displacing the original de from Latin) of the Middle English avoir-de-peise, the Norman form of the Old French avoir de pois which was the equivalent of the Medieval Latin averia ponderis), the construct being aveir (property, goods (and a noun use of aveir (have)), from the Classical Latin habere, from the primitive Indo-European root ghabh- (to give or receive) + peis (weight), from the Latin pensum, neuter of pendere (to hang, cause to hang; weigh; pay), from the primitive Indo-European root spen or pen (to draw, stretch, spin).  In the system of weights & measures, the accepted abbreviations are avdp & avoir.  Avoirdupois is a noun; the noun plural is avoirdupoises.

The oldest sense in English is the late thirteenth century “goods sold by weight” and by the late 1400s it had been partially codified as a system of weights based on the pound which contained 16 ounces or 7000 grains (453.59 grams); 100 pounds (US) or 112 pounds (UK) being equal to 1 hundredweight and 20 hundredweights equals 1 ton.  Since circa 1300 it had been the customary system in London and in legislation it was formalized as the UK’s official system in 1856, something which lasted until 1963 (the US mandated it between 1866-1959 although it remains widely used (in the form modified in 1959) to this day).  In England for hundreds of years it was used for all purposes except the measuring of precious metals, gem stones, and medicine but the apothecaries, although they had their own tables of weights & measures needed also to be acquainted with avoirdupois because why they sold their preparations in the apothecaries system, they purchased their raw ingredients in avoirdupois.

Collins English Dictionary: Avoirdupois trend of use.

As a euphemism, avoirdupois is a reputedly more polite way of saying “overweight” and etymologists note the use was historically usually jocular and a popular way to describe the state of one’s self.  At one time it was common for this to be shortened to adipose but it was from a source altogether more blunt, the Latin adeps & adipis meaning “fat” or “grease”.  Adipose found a niche in the international scientific vocabulary and was from the New Latin adipōsus, from the Latin adeps and was probably is some way related to the Umbrian ařepes (offerings of fat) (the “ř” in Umbrian regularly represents an earlier “d”).  The Collins English Dictionary traces word usage and it’s clear avoirdupois has, except for a spike during World War II when much technical documentation was circulated, been in precipitous decline since the early twentieth century, reflecting both the decline in use of it as an informal term and the adoption of the metric system in most of the English-speaking world (even in the US used widely in many sectors).

Lindsay Lohan: Not at all avoirdupois.

Situationism

Situationism (pronounced sich-oo-ey-shuh-niz-uhm)

(1) A fork of Marxist political philosophy, a collection of (often abstract) theories used to build critiques of existing structures.  The overt political project emerged from a mid-twentieth century avant-garde art movement.  

(2) A theory in psychology which holds that personality and behavior is influenced more by external, situational factors than internal traits or motivations.

1955: A compound word: situation + ism.  Situation was from the early fifteenth century Middle English situacioun & situacion (place, position, or location), from Middle French situation, from the Old French situacion, from the Medieval Latin situationem (nominative situatio) (position, situation), the construct being situare (to locate, to place), from situs (a site, a position), thus situate +‎ -ion.  The Latin situs was from the primitive Indo-European root tkei (to settle, dwell, be home).  The meaning "state of affairs" was from 1710, extended specifically by 1803 to mean "a post of employment".  The suffix -ion was from the Middle English -ioun, from the the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  The use in political philosophy technically dates from 1955 (as situation ethics) although its origins can be traced to (at least) the nineteenth-century beginnings of sociology.  It was first seen in applied psychology in 1968 (as situational ethics) with publication of a monograph by Walter Mischel (1930-2018) who in later writings displayed some ambivalence.

The Situationist International

SI art: Ralph Rumney (1934-2002), The Change (1957).

Formed in 1957, dissolved in 1972 and eventually more a concept than a movement, the Situationist International (SI) was a trans-European, unstructured collective of artists and political thinkers.  Influenced by the criticism that philosophy had tended increasingly to fail at the moment of its actualization, the SI, although it assumed the inevitability of social revolution, always maintained many (cross-cutting) strands of expectations of the form(s) this might take.  Indeed, just as a world-revolution did not follow the Russian revolutions of 1917, the events of May, 1968 failed to realize the predicted implications; the SI can be said then to have died.  The SI’s discursive output between 1968 and 1972 may be treated either as a lifeless aftermath to an anti-climax or a bunch of bitter intellectuals serving as mourners at their own protracted funeral.

SI art: Constant Niewwenhuys (1920-2005), No Title (1975).

It's wrong to say that when formed the SI had mostly an artistic focus although there was a faction within which certainly preferred the emphasis; indeed, it was the notion of art abstracted from some purpose which was the SI's constant fault-line.  Those most influential in the early days of the SI had been much affected by the physical damage suffered by so many European cities during World War II (1939-1945) and especially the possibilities offered by re-building, thus the interest in concepts like unitary urbanism and psychogeography, essentially a response to the sociological aspects of the re-construction of those cities in the immediate post-war period.  Their work also attracted political theorists, especially those in anti-authoritarian Marxist circles who would come to position themselves as the inheritors of western political liberalism, such as the Lettrist International formed in 1952.  The SI was conceived originally as an even more radical movement which would entirely renounce any connection with high-art and deal instead with the functional business of psychogeography, dissolving rather than exploring the boundaries between life and art.  However, whatever might have been the purity of the founders' intent, the implications of the SI were inherently visual and attracted practitioners from many aspects of art.  Factions formed and any commonality of interest between the utilitarians and the artists proved insufficiently strong to maintain the SI as a unified movement and from formation to extinction, it was always fissiparous.

SI art: Asger Jorn (1914-1973), Letter to my son (1956-1957).

What ultimately coalesced as the core of situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle, an explanation of the mechanism of advanced capitalism’s modern tendency towards expression and mediation of social relations through objects.  It was beyond merely a critique of materialism and used the increasingly layered and complex language of mid-twentieth century Marxist discourse.  The definitive works of the SI were The Society of the Spectacle (1967) by Guy Debord (1931-1994) and The Revolution of Everyday Life (1968) by Raoul Vaneigem (b 1934).  In the riots of 1968, they proved influential, less as entire texts than as sources for phrases, slogans and quotes, widely used on the posters and graffiti which appeared all over French cities during the uprising.  The SI thus proved the primacy of objects in social relations, whether hegemonic or not although the SI generally held that situationism is a meaningless term, a position necessitated by their inherent rejection of ideologies, all of which they dismissed either as useless utopian myths or constructed superstructures existing only to create the social controls required to serve the economic interests of a ruling class.  Much of the history of the SI was one faction rejecting another; indeed, the SI’s transition from artistic to political movement was less organic than disruptive. 

The SI, at least in the more reductionist works, did create some genuinely interesting critiques of the post-war west and some of the early art was, if not exactly new, certainly stark and compelling.  However, it remains hard to identify enough ideas to justify the volume of text produced and phrasing it in what is surely deliberately difficult language does suggest there was an attempt to conceal the poverty and repetition of thought.

SI Propaganda

Geodesic

Geodesic (pronounced jee-uh-des-ik or jee-uh-dee-sik)

(1) In spherical geometry, a segment of a great circle.

(2) In mathematics, a course allowing the parallel-transport of vectors along a course that causes tangent vectors to remain tangent vectors throughout that course (a straight curve, a line that is straight; the shortest line between two points on a specific surface).

1821: A back-formation from geodesy (a branch of science dealing with the measurement and representation of Earth, its gravitational field and geodynamic phenomena (polar motion, Earth tides, and crustal motion) in three-dimensional, time-varying space and with great (and "down-to-earth" as it were) practical application in surveying.  The adjectives geodesical & geodetic had first appeared in 1818 & 1819 respectively, both from geodetical which had been in use since the early seventeenth century.  All the forms are derive ultimately from the Ancient Greek γεωδαισία (geodaisía) from γῆ (geo) (earth) + δαιεῖν (daiesthai) ("to divide" or "to apportion") and the use in English was most influenced by the French géodésique, dating from 1815.  In general use, the word entered general use after 1953 when it was used of the "geodesic dome" (a structure built according to geodesic principles); despite the earlier use in wartime aircraft construction, the use there was only ever "engineer's slang".    Geodesic is a noun & adjective, geodesicity is a noun, geodesical is an adjective and geodesically is an adverb; the noun plural is geodesics.    The alternative adjectival form geodetic appeared in 1834 but fell from use by mid-century.  

Four-dimensional space-time.

Geodesic describes the curve that locally minimizes the distance between two points on any mathematically defined space, such as a curved manifold; essentially the path is the one of the most minimal curvature so, in non-curved three-dimensional space, the geodesic is a straight line.  Under Albert Einstein's (1879-1955) theory of general relativity (1915), the trajectory of a body with negligible mass on which only gravitational forces are acting (ie a free falling body), defines the geodesic in curved, four-dimensional spacetime.  Dictionaries and style guides seem to prefer “space-time” but scientists (and space nerds) like “spacetime” and because it was one of them who “invented it”, it seems polite to ignore the hyphen.  The term, a calque of the German Raumzeit (the construct in English being (obviously) space + time) first appeared in a paper by German mathematician Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909), published in the Philosophical Review.  The existence of the noun plural "spacetimes" does not imply something to do with the so-called multiverse (in cosmology, a hypothetical model in which simultaneously more than one universe exists) but rather that there are different space-times created in different places at different times.

General relativity fan girl Lindsay Lohan in optical illusion dress from the Autumn-Winter collection of interior designer Matthew Williamson (b 1971), illustrating an object causing the curvature of spacetime, Gift Global Gala, Four Seasons hotel, London, November 2014.  An “optical illusion dress” is one which uses a fabric print or other device to create the effect and differs from an “illusion dress” which is made with skin-tone fabrics placed to emulate the wearer’s own flesh.

In Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity is treated not as a force as had been the historic understanding explained in the writings of Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) but rather as a curvature of spacetime caused by the presence of mass and (thus) energy.  The Sun, being a massive object, causes a (relatively) significant curvature in the surrounding spacetime and the Earth, as it moves through this curved spacetime, follows a path (a geodesic) which manifests as what appears to be an “orbit” around the Sun.  It is this curvature of spacetime that is perceived as the “gravitational pull” of the Sun on the Earth, keeping it in a (relatively) stable and predictable orbit.  Einsteinian physics supplanted Newtonian physics as the structural model of the universe and nothing has since been the same. 

Hull of Vickers R.100 Airship.

Sir Barnes Wallis (1887-1979) was an English engineer, best remembered as the inventor of the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (dubbed the "Dambusters" raid) to attack the Ruhr Valley dams during World War II and the big Tallboy (6 tonnes) and Grand Slam (10 tonnes) deep-penetration "earthquake" bombs.  Wallis had been working on the Admiralty’s R.100 airship when he visited the Blackburn aircraft factory and was surprised to find the primitive wood-and-canvas methods of the Great War era still in use, a notable contrast to the elegant and lightweight aluminum structure of airships.  He was soon recruited by Vickers to apply his knowledge to the new generation of fixed-wing aircraft which would use light alloy construction for the internal structure.  His early experience wasn’t encouraging, the first prototype torpedo bomber, which used light alloy wing spars inspired by the girder structure of R.100, breaking up mid-air during a test-flight.  Returning to the drawing board, Wallis designed a revolutionary structural system; instead of using beams supporting an external aerodynamic skin, he made the structural members form the aerodynamic shape itself.

The geodesic structure in an airframe.

The principle was that the members followed geodesic curves in the surface, the shortest distance between two points in the curved surface although he only ever referred to it in passing as geodetic; it wouldn’t be until later the label came generally to be applied to the concept.  As a piece of engineering, it worked superbly well, having the curves form two helices at right angles to one another, the geodetic members became mutually supporting, rendering the overall framework immensely strong as well as comparatively light.  Revolutionary too was the space efficiency; because the geodetic structure was all in the outer part of the airframe meant that the centre was a large empty space, ready to take payload or fuel and the inherent strength was soon proven.  While conducting the usual wing-loading stress tests to determine the breakage point, the test routine was abandoned because the wings couldn’t be broken by the test rig.

Vickers Wellseley.

The benefits inherent in the concept were soon demonstrated.  Vickers’ first geodesic aircraft, the Wellesley, entered service in 1937 and in 1938, three of them, making use of the massive fuel capacity the structure made possible, flew non-stop from Ismailia in Egypt to Darwin in Australia, setting a new world record distance of 7,158 miles (11,265 km), an absolute record which stood until broken in 1946 by a Boeing B-29 Superfortress; it remains to this day the record for a single-engined aircraft with a piston engine, and also for aircraft flying in formation.  While the Wellesleys were under construction, Wallis designed a larger twin-engined geodetic bomber which became the Vickers Wellington, the mainstay of the RAF’s Bomber Command until 1943 when the new generation of four-engined heavy bombers began to be supplied in in the volume needed to form a strategic force.  Despite that, the Wellington was still used in many roles and remained in production until after the end of hostilities.  Over eleven-thousand were built and it was the only British bomber to be in continuous production throughout the war.

Vickers Wellington fuselage internal detail.

The final aircraft of the type, with a more complex geodetic structure was a four-engined heavy bomber called the Windsor but testing established it didn’t offer significantly better performance than the heavies already in service, and the difficulties which would be caused by trying to replicate the servicing and repair infrastructure was thought too onerous so it never entered production.  Post-war, higher speeds and operating altitudes with the consequent need for pressurised cabins rendered the fabric-covered geodetics obsolete.

Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato (one of 19 in the "Continuation Series", production of which began in 2019) during construction, an aluminium panel being attached to the superleggera frame, Aston Martin Works, Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, England.

There are obvious visual similarities between the classic superleggera method and the geodesic structure used in airframes and some buildings, most famously the “geodesic dome”.  The imperatives of both were strength both aim to create strong and lightweight structures, but they differ in their specific design and application.  As used in airframes, the geodesic structure consisted of a network of intersecting diagonal braces, creating a lattice framework which distributed loads as evenly as possible while providing a high strength-to-weight ratio.  This was of great significance in military airplanes used in combat because it enhanced their ability better to withstand damage better, the stresses distributed across the structure rather than being restricted to a limited area which could create a point-of-failure.  The geodesic framework was based on geometric principles which had been developed over centuries and typically employed hexagons & triangles to render a structure which was both rigid & light.  Superleggera construction differed in that it involves the creation of a lightweight tubular frame, covered with aluminum body panels of a thinness which wouldn’t have been possible with conventional engineering.  The attraction of the superleggera technique was the (relatively) minimalistic framework supported the skin, optimizing weight reduction without compromising strength.  So, structurally, the difference was the geodesic design used a network of intersecting braces to form a lattice, while the superleggera construction used a tubular frame covered with panels.

Lace

Lace (pronounced leys)

(1) A net-like, delicate & ornamental fabric made of threads by hand or machine and formed historically from cotton or silk (modern forms also using synthetics), woven almost always in an open web of symmetrical patterns and figures .

(2) A cord or string for holding or drawing together (shoes, garments, protective coverings etc) as when passed through holes in opposite edges.

(3) An ornamental cord or braid, especially of gold or silver, used to decorate military and other uniforms, hats etc.

(4) A small amount of alcoholic liquor or other substance added to food or drink.

(5) A snare or gin, especially one made of interwoven cords; a net.

(6) In the illicit drug trade, to add a (usually) small quantity of another substance to that being offered for sale (also sometimes deliberately undertaken by users for various purposes).

(7) To fasten, draw together, or compress by or as if by means of a lace.

(8) To pass (a cord, leather strip etc) through holes usually intended for the purpose.

(9) To interlace or intertwine.

(10) For decorative purposes, to adorn or trim with lace.

(11) To lash, beat, or thrash.

(12) To compress the waist of a person by drawing tight the laces of a corset (used descriptively with undergarments like shapewear which don’t use laces).

(13) To mark or streak, as with color.

(14) To be fastened with a lace:

(15) To attack (usually verbally but the term is rarely applied to physical violence), often in the form “laced into”.

(16) As the acronym LACE, Used variously including the liquid air cycle engine (a propulsion engine used in space travel), the Luton Analogue Computing Engine (a computer used by the UK military) and the Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (a research project conducted on the final Apollo Moon mission).

1175–1225: From the Middle English noun lace, laace, laz & las (cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk etc), from the Old French laz & las (a net, noose, string, cord, tie, ribbon, or snare), from the Vulgar Latin lacium & laceum, from the Classical Latin laqueum from laqueus (a noose or snare).  The Latin was the source also of the Italian laccio, the Spanish lazo and the English lasso, a trapping and hunting term, probably from the Italic base laq- (to ensnare) and thus comparable with the Latin lacere (to entice).  The verb was from the Middle English lasen & lacen, from the Old & Middle French lacer, lacier, lasser & lachier (which endures in Modern French as lacer), from the Latin laqueāre (to enclose in a noose, to trap).  Derived forms have been coined as required including enlace, lace-up, lacemaker, laceman, self-lacing, unlace, re-laced & well-laced although de-laced seems to be exclusive to the IT industry where it has a specific application in video displays (interlaced, non-interlaced and all that).  Lace is a noun & verb; lacer is a noun, lacing is a verb, lacelike & lacy are adjectives and laced is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is laces.

Vulcan Surprising Venus and Mars in Bed before an Assembly of the Gods (1679), oil on canvas by Johann Heiss (1640-1704).

The metal net weaved by the god Vulcan was in renaissance art called “Vulcan’s lace”, reflecting the general use to describe snares, fish nets etc and vividly it was described in both the Odyssey (the Greek text from the eighth or seventh century BC attributed to Homer) and Ovid's (the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) Metamorphoses (Transformations; 8 AD).  The god Helios had happened upon the gods Venus and Mars in a passionate, adulterous liaison and he rushed to inform god Vulcan of his wife's faithlessness.  Enraged, Vulcan forged a net of bronze so fine it was invisible to the naked eye and carefully he place the lace over Venus’ bed so he could entrap the lustful pair at their next tryst.  It didn’t take long and thus ensnared, Vulcan called upon all of the other Olympians to witness the scene, the cuckolded Vulcan making his case before his peers.

Train of lace wedding gown.

Because of the method of construction, the word lace evolved by the turn of the fourteenth century to describe “a net, noose or snare”, simultaneously with it coming to mean “a piece of cord used to draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing”, a concept which survives in the modern shoelace although in Middle English it was used most frequently in the sense of “a cord or thread used particularly to bind or tie”.  It was used of fishing lines and (especially poetically) of the hangman’s rope and noose, the struts and beams used in architecture, and in the sixteenth century “death's lace” was the icy grip said to envelop the dying while “love’s lace” was the romantic feeling said to cloak youth enchanted with each other.  By the 1540s, improved technology meant increased production of “ornamental cords & braids” which influenced the meaning “fabric of fine threads in a patterned ornamental open net” becoming the predominant use of the English word and the trend continued because by the late nineteenth century a review of catalogues revealed dozens of varieties of commercially available lace.  Noted first in 1928 was an interesting use as an adjective of “lace-curtain” as a piece of class snobbery; it meant “middle class” or “lower-class with middle-class pretensions”) although it was often used in US cities of Irish-Americans, so it may also be thought both an ethnic and anti-Catholic slur.

Casting a practiced eye: Lindsay Lohan assessing a lace-up boot.

The verb developed from the noun and emerged so closely most etymologists consider it a concurrent form, the original sense being “fasten clothing etc with laces and ties”, a direct adoption of the sense of the Old French lacier “entwine, interlace, fasten with laces, lace on; entrap, ensnare” developed from the noun las or laz (net, noose, string, cord).  From the early fourteenth century it was oral shorthand meaning “tighten (a garment) by pulling its laces” and by at least the late sixteenth century (though probably earlier) it conveyed the idea of “adorning with lace”, applied both to furniture and fashion.  The meaning “to intermix (one’s coffee etc.) with a dash of liquor (typically brandy or whisky)” emerged in the 1670s, a product doubtlessly of the spike in popularity of coffee houses.  That sense was originally used also of sugar (from the notion of “to ornament or trim something with lace” while the meaning “beat, lash, mark with the lash” dates from the 1590s, the idea being the pattern of streaks left by the lash; from the early nineteenth century this idea was extended also to verbal assaults (usually as “laced into).  With his punctilious attention to such things, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) noted “laced mutton” was “an old word for a whore”.  The most enduring use is probably the shoelace (also as shoe-lace although the old form “shoe string” seems to be extinct). The “length of lace used to draw together and fasten the sides of a shoe via eyelets”, the noun dating from the 1640s.  Also extinct is another older word for the thong or lace of a shoe or boot: the Middle English sho-thong which was from the Old English scoh-þwang.

1997 Toyota Century V12.  Cars sold on the Japanese domestic market (JDM) are famous for frequently being adorned with what are known as Japanese car seat doilies.  While most are mass produced from modern synthetics and appear in things like taxis, some used in up-market cars are genuine hand-made lace.  Interestingly, while Toyota created the Lexus brand because of the perceived “prestige deficit” suffered by the Toyota name in overseas markets, for decades the Century (sold only in the JDM) has been supplied to the Imperial household.

Lindsay Lohan in lace top, 2004.

The adjective lace-up dates (adj.) from 1831 and was originally a cobblers’ description of boots, directly from the verbal phrase “lace up”; in the mid-twentieth century it was re-purposed in the form “laced-up” to imply someone was “repressed, overly conservative and restricted in their attitudes” the notion being of someone (a woman of course” who never “loosened her stays” with all that implies, the significance being the use emerged decades after corsets had ceased to be worn, the suggestion being a throwback to what were imagined to be Victorian (nineteenth century) attitudes towards personal morality.  This adaptation of lace wasn’t entirely new.  The early fifteenth century adjective “strait-laced” referenced stays or bodices “made close and tight” which was originally purely descriptive but soon came to be adopted figuratively to suggest someone “over-precise, prudish, strict in manners or morals”.  The adjective lacy (which differs from lace-like in that the former references extent, the latter resemblance) and dates from 1804; it’s wholly unrelated to the given name Lacey (which although technically gender-neutral is now conferred predominately on girls and was of Old French origin meaning “from Lacy (or Lassy)” and was originally the surname of French noblemen, the De Lasi, from the Normandy region; it reached the British Isles during the Norman conquest (1066).  The trade of laceman (one who deals in laces) was known since the 1660s while the necklace (“a flexible ornament worn round the neck”) was first so described in the 1580s although such things had been worn by both men & women for thousands of years.  A gruesome use emerged in Apartheid era South Africa during the 1980s where “necklacing” was a form of extrajudicial summary execution which involved drenching a car tyre in a mixture of oil and petrol (or pure diesel) and forcing it around a victim's chest and arms, then setting it alight.  Although never officially condoned by the African National Congress (ANC), it was widely used in black townships as a form of public execution of black Africans suspected of collaborating with the white minority government.  Victims were said to have been “necklaced” and the practice spread elsewhere in Africa, to South Asia and the Caribbean.

Real Housemom’s Irish Coffee Royale

Ingredients

2 oz brandy or cognac
2 oz Irish cream
4 oz brewed coffee (served strong)
Granulated sugar crystals (optional and nor recommended)

Instructions

Warm brandy and Irish cream in small saucepan over low heat, then combine with coffee.  A small amount of sugar can be added but there is sweetness in the Irish cream and the sugar tends to detract from the taste.  The difference between an Irish coffee and a coffee royale is that the former is laced with Irish Whiskey, the latter with brandy or cognac.

Charybdis & Scylla

Charybdis (pronounced kuh-rib-dis)

(1) A dangerous whirlpool in the Strait of Messina off the north-east coast of Sicily, lying opposite Scylla.  The modern name is Galofalo (or Garofalo).

(2) In classical mythology, a daughter of Gaea and Poseidon, a ship-devouring monster mentioned in Homer and later identified with the whirlpool Charybdis; A personification of the above whirlpool as a female monster.

(3) In casual use, any dangerous whirlpool.

From antiquity: A Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Χάρυβδις (Kharybdis or Khárubdis) of unknown origin. 

Scylla (pronounced sil-uh)

(1) A rock in the Strait of Messina off the southern coast of Italy.  The modern name is Scilla.  

(2) In classical mythology, a sea nymph who was transformed into a sea monster; later identified with the rock Scylla; a personification of the rock as a ravenous monster.

(3) A mud crab, mangrove crab of the taxonomic genus within the family Portunidae.

(4) In astronomy, the main belt asteroid 155 Scylla.

(5) In Greek mythology a princess, daughter of King Nisos of Megara, who fell in love with King Minos and betrayed her city to him.

From antiquity: A Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Σκύλλα (Skúlla) of unknown origin although there’s speculation it may be related to the Ancient Greek skyllein (to tear).

Between Scylla and Charybdis

The proverbial Latin incidit in scyllam cupiens vitare charybdim (he runs into Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis) describes a choice between two unpalatable alternatives; those situations where one must choose the lesser of two evils.  In English, the sentiment is expressed also as as being caught “between the devil and the deep blue sea” or “between a rock and a hard place".  Charybdis was the child of Gaea and Poseidon.  Born a nymph who served her father, after displeasing Zeus, she was cursed and became a much-feared sea monster residing in the Strait of Messina.  As a nymph, Charybdis was responsible for flooding dry land in her father’s kingdom so is credited the world over with the ebb and flow of the daily tides but this all changed when she drew the ire of mighty Zeus and although there are two stories of how she came to be cursed, both end the same.  In the first, Charybdis became overzealous and started to flood too much land.  Angered by this, Zeus trapped and transformed her, forcing her to live at the Strait of Messina on the side closest to Italy.  In the second account, she was stealing and eating sheep belonging to Heracles, which he had stolen from Geryon in his tenth labor. That Charybdis had stolen what Heracles had rightfully kidnapped enraged Zeus, and he punished her.

So, she ended up transformed and imprisoned at the Strait of Messina.  Trapped either in a cave or under the rock on which a huge fig tree grew, she was required to continue her duties, but only three times daily for ebb, and three for flow.  Because of this symmetry of action, a huge whirlpool formed in the strait, creating a danger to all who attempted to pass, a danger is compounded by there being on the Sicilian side of the strait, the monster Scylla, who would snatch sailors from ships that cruised too near her perch.  The most famous descriptions of Charybdis are in the tales of the journeys of Odysseus.  Odysseus knew the dangers posed by Charybdis and Scylla and asked Circe for a way safely to pass between them.  She said there was no truly safe passage, but that were he to sail closer to Scylla, he would lose only a few men, while in sailing close to Charybdis, he would lose his crew, his ship, and his life.  Odysseus did as advised, losing six men but saving his ship.  On his journey back, having wrecked his ship and lost all his crew, Odysseus again encountered Charybdis though now it was just him and a few salvaged fragments of his ship he had lashed into a raft.  This time, she was sucking the seas downward and Odysseus survived only by clinging to a limb of the fig tree on her rock but his raft was drawn into her abyss.  For hours he hung to the tree, waiting for Charybdis to relent, hoping to regain his raft which, sure enough, returned to the surface intact.  He recovered it, with his hands, paddled quickly away before.

Odysseus facing the choice between Scylla and Charybdis (circa 1795), oil on canvas by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825)

The myths of Antiquity suggest several goddesses as mother of Scylla.  In the Odyssey, the mother is an obscure sea goddess named Crataeis though later scholars proposed Crataeis was another name for Ceto, a primordial sea goddess, or Hecate, the triple-bodied goddess of magic and passageways.  A fourth candidate is Lamia, a monstrous shape-shifter and infamous man-eater.  He father was either Phorcys, a primordial sea god, or an obscure character named Titon.  Scylla when young was a ravishing nymph, living among the sea nymphs who wrought havoc in the hearts of young Greek men. She had milky skin, hair like silk, and was hauntingly beautiful; men fell in love with her in an instant but beauty doomed her.  She loved to bathe in the pools by the sea side, combing her long hair with the nymphs’ combs and gossiping with them about those she had evaded.  The nymphs tried to warn Scylla men became enraged when spurned but the young maiden remained light-hearted and careless, sunning herself nude on the beaches and luxuriating in the tide pools.

One day, a sea god name Glaucus caught sight of the lovely nymph and captivated, he approached her but on her dainty feet she fled.  Grumpy Glaucus complained of this rejection to Circe, a sea witch and brewer of potions.  Little did Glaucus know that Circe longed for him and when she heard of his desire for Scylla, was so angered, secretly she crept to Scylla’s favorite pool which she poisoned with a terrible potion.  When the poor nymph returned to bathe, her legs were twisted into yapping dogs, and she felt a burning pain as six monstrous heads sprouted from her back.  When Glaucus saw her again, he was horrified and heartbroken, abandoning Scylla to her fate and cursing Circe for her act of jealous evil.

After her transformation, Scylla hid in the cliffs overlooking her old tide pool where she took out her rage against men, whose unsought passion she blamed for her fate, attacking their ships as they sailed by.  Rejected by Glaucus, Circe had fallen in love with Odysseus and for some time kept him and his crew imprisoned on her island but when she saw how he longed to return home, she released him and told him how to make his voyage safely. She warned him of the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, telling him to hide below deck as he passed the monster’s cave.  He was thus saved and Scylla devoured only six of his crew.  After she attacked other important voyagers (most notably the Argonauts), the gods grew tired of Scylla’s bloodbath and decided to add her to the twelve labors of Heracles.  Incredibly, the hero managed to slay her by cutting off each of her heads, one by one and, for a while, she served as one of the guardians of the underworld. Then, she was resurrected by her father. Finally, Poseidon took pity on the still sweet-faced monster and transformed her into a giant rock, thereby ending the miserable cycle of bitterness and revenge her life had become.

Sequin

Sequin (pronounced see-kwin)

(1) A small shining disk or spangle used for ornamentation, on clothing, accessories and theatrical costumes (paillette the synonym).

(2) A gold coin (the ducat, known also as the zecchino, zechine or zecchine) minted by many authorities in the Mediterranean region including Venice (1284), Malta (circa 1535) and Turkey (now the Republic of Türkiye) (1478).

1575–1585: From the French sequin, from the Italian zecchino, the construct being zecc(a) (mint, from the Arabic سِكَّة‎ (sikka) (die for striking coins; a coin)) + -ino; a doublet of zecchin.  The Italian suffix -ino was from the Latin -īnus, from the primitive Indo-European -inos and was comparable with the English -ine.  It was a noun-forming suffix used (1) to form diminutives, (2) to indicate a profession, (3) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin & (4) to denote a device, tool or instrument; as an adjective-forming suffix it was used (1) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin & (2) to denote composition, color or other physical qualities.  Sequin & sequining are nouns (although some may use the latter as a verb) and sequined is an adjective; the noun plural is sequins.

Gold zecchino (ducat) minted in Venice between 1676-1684.

It was in 1284 the Venetian Republic began minting the gold ducat.  Prized for their purity, they were a medium of exchange (money) widely used all around the Mediterranean an enjoyed a status not greatly different that the modern US dollar.  Before long the ducat came to be called the zecchino after the name of the Venetian mint (the Zecca) and, reflecting the political nature of the republic, the dies used to stamp the zecchini changed with the rile of each doge (the chief magistrate in the republics of Venice and Genoa, from the Venetian Doxe, from the Latin ducem, accusative of dux (leader, prince).   It was a doublet of duke and dux and the source of the Duce (leader) made infamous by Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943)), something which means the coins easily can be dated.

Ducat (known also as the zecchino, zechine or zecchine), was from the Middle French ducat, from the late Old French ducat, from the Old Italian ducato, from the Medieval Latin ducatus, from the Classical Latin dukatus, from the oblique stem of dux (duke; leader).  The adoption of the name ducat was inspired by the inscription on the reverse of the first coinage: Sit tibi Christe datus quem tu regis iste ducatus (To you, Christ, be given this dukedom which you reign).  In Venice, ducats were minted until the republic was absorbed into Austria under the terms of the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797) but even in the years of decline the ducats maintained their integrity, their fine weight (gold content) always around 986/1000 (3.44 g), something which meant that in addition to being the region’s currency, the predictability of mass meant they were accepted as the standard yardstick for weight comparisons for metals and some other commodities.

Lindsay Lohan in Matthew Williamson sequin dress with marabou feather hem, London, October 2015.

Hinting that conspicuous consumption is nothing new, it became fashionable among well-bred ladies throughout the Mediterranean world to stitch Venetian zecchini and other coins to their clothing and head-dresses.  Variations of the word zecchino (along with the similar Arabic word سِكَّة‎ (sikka)) in time became “sequin” and came to be used to refer to any shiny circular adornment used to decorate clothing and this persisted long after the use of gold coins for this purpose had (by the mid-Renaissance) ceased although, as valid currency, they were still being exchanged and retained as a store of value well into the twentieth century.  In the West, by 1852 publications devoted to fashion were describing sequins as “ornamental discs or spangles” which although no longer attached to clothes, east of Suez the gold coins were still used as necklaces or earrings and often adorned head-dresses.  Today, far removed from the glittering origins of the things, most sequins are cheap, mass-produced in the Far-East, made from plastic, glass or metal and are applied for just about any decorative purpose including clothes, shoes, jewelry, accessories and even home & commercial decor.