Freelance

Freelance (pronounced free-lans or free-lahns)

(1) A person who works selling work or services by the hour, day, job etc, rather than working on some regular basis for one employer; also as freelancer or free-lancer; self-employed, free agent, unaffiliated.

(2) A person who contends in a cause or in a succession of various causes, as he or she chooses, without personal attachment or allegiance (applied often to politicians who tend to supports several causes or parties without total commitment to any one).

(3) The act of working as a freelancer; used often as a modifier.

(4) Of or relating to freelancing or the work of a freelance.

(5) A mercenary soldier or military adventurer in medieval Europe, often of knightly rank, who offered his services to any state, party, or cause (retrospectively applied).

1820: The construct was free + lance.  Free was from the Middle English free, fre & freo, from the Old English frēo (free), from the Proto-West Germanic frī, from the Proto-Germanic frijaz (beloved, not in bondage), from the primitive Indo-European priHós (dear, beloved), from preyH- (to love, please); from this evolved the related modern English friend.  It was cognate with the West Frisian frij (free), the Dutch vrij (free), the Low German free (free), the German frei (free), the Danish, Swedish & Norwegian fri (free) and the Sanskrit प्रिय (priyá).  The verb is from the Middle English freen & freoȝen, from the Old English frēon, & frēoġan (to free; make free), from the Proto-West Germanic frijōn, from the Proto-Germanic frijōną, from the primitive Indo-European preyH-.  Germanic and Celtic are the only Indo-European language branches in which the primitive Indo-European word with the meaning of "dear, beloved" acquired the additional meaning of "free" in the sense of "not in bondage".  This was an extension of the idea of "characteristic of those who are dear and beloved" (those who were friends and others in the tribe as opposed to the unfree, those of other tribes, slaves etc).  The evolution was comparable with the Latin use of liberi to mean both "free persons" and "children of a family".  Lance was from the Middle English launce, from the Old French lance, from the Latin lancea.  Ultimate root was via the Celtic & Celtiberian, possibly from the primitive Indo-European plehk- (to hit) and related to the Ancient Greek λόγχη (lónkhē).  The hyphenated form (free-lance, free-lancer et al) is a correct alternative but should be used with the usual convention of English use: consistency within a document.  If an alternative hyphenated form is used for one word, it should be used for all where the option exists.

The first know instance is in Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) to describe a medieval mercenary warrior or "free-lance", the meaning lying in the notion of his arms (lance, sword etc) being freely available for hire and not sworn to any lord's services). Scott’s description of them resembles that of the Italian condottieri (a leader or member of a troop of mercenaries).  It became a figurative noun circa 1864, most frequent used when applied to writers & journalists from 1882, the unhyphenated “freelance” attested from 1898.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) listed it as a verb in 1903 and in modern use the word has morphed into an adjective, and an adverb, as well as the familiar derivative noun freelancer.  The sense of politicians who tended to go off on tangents and champion causes unrelated to the party platform they were hired to pursue was known since the late nineteenth century, sometimes with the implication (drawn from Sir Walter Scott’s picture of soldiers for hire by anyone) of mercenary motives.

The emergence of the gig economy doesn’t indicate any great change in the understanding of freelancing, the category of “gig worker” defined more by the method by which they obtain their work.  Gig worker encompasses just about any independent worker, including contingent and freelance workers, the convention of use being that they pickup their hours from a digital platform rather than the historically conventional channels.  Gig workers were understood not to be hired as employees by the company with which they contract to do the job, instead being freelance contractors, each individual task a separate contract.  That idea has been challenged in several jurisdictions with some courts and tribunals finding, in some cases, the nature of the relationship between freelancer and platform and the pattern of work performed being such that, within existing law, a conventional employer-employee relationship exists with all that implies.  This dispute is ongoing in many places and is played-out within the micro political economy.  

By contrast, a contingent worker is employed by a different company (usually a staffing agency or recruiter, often known as labour hire companies) than the one for which they’ll actually be performing the task.  The agency acts as the intermediary between the worker and the company, finding the jobs and the workers, billing the client and paying the contingent workers.  Contractors are different again and can be freelancers or contingent workers, the distinction being that they are deployed usually for fixed terms of longer duration than a gig.  There’s no precise definition but while a gig might last only minutes, a contract typically is measured in weeks or more.  The "freelance" status may be misleading in that there have been some known to to work exclusively for one entity (which might be an agent or other third-party) and for this reason and that they certainly weren't formally on the payroll.  In most cases though the freelancers can be thought of as proto-gig economy workers in that from an industrial relations viewpoint they were independent contractors even if in some cases their entire income might come from the one entity (indeed, some had signed contracts of exclusivity on some negotiated basis).     

Former Australian senator Cory Bernardi and animal welfare

Freelancing: Former Australian Senator Cory Bernardi (b 1969; senator for South Australia 2006-2020) is a member of the Roman Catholic laity noted for leaving the Liberal Party in 2017 to form his own party, the Australian Conservatives.  Such creations, drawn often from the extremes of mainstream parties (of the left, right or single-issue operations) are usually short lived, the political inertia and structural advantages the incumbents create for each other being hard to topple; it’s tough even to sustain co-existence.  So it proved for the Australian Conservatives, Bernardi in 2019 announcing he was dissolving and consequently deregistering the party.  Electoral support had proved not only elusive but barely detectable although the senator claimed to be happy with the project’s outcomes, noting the Liberal-National Coalition's upset victory in 2019 was proof "common sense" had returned to national politics which was "all we, as Australian Conservatives, have ever sought to do”.  Rarely has spin been so spun.   

Bernardi’s most publicised contribution to political discourse happened in 2012 when he suggested allowing same-sex marriage would lead to “legalised polygamy and bestiality”.  "The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society - or any other type of relationship" the senator was quoted as saying.  "There are even some creepy people out there... [who] say it is OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals.  Will that be a future step? In the future will we say, 'These two creatures love each other and maybe they should be able to be joined in a union'.  "I think that these things are the next step."

His views attracted scant support from his colleagues, even several who opposed marriage equality distancing themselves from Bernardi’s view it was the thin end of the homosexual wedge, a step on a slippery slope of depravity descending to the violation of beasts of the field.  The backlash compelled Bernardi’s resignation as parliamentary secretary to the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2013-2015).  In accepting the resignation, Mr Abbott described the comments as "ill-disciplined", adding they were “…views I don't share...” and “I think it's pretty clear that if you want to freelance, you can do so on the backbench."

From the backbench, the freelancer released a short statement saying he had resigned "in the interests of the Coalition", one of his thoughts with which few disagreed.  Sadly, even from organisations like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) he never received any credit for his efforts to protect goats and other hapless creatures from the predations of packs of crazed gay marriage advocates.  Despite that, the former senator found his natural home working as one of the right-wing fanatics at Rupert Murdoch's Sky News where his thoughts are imparted to an appreciative audience which believes the ills of this world are the consequence of conspiracies by the Freemasons, the Jews, the Jesuits and the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or.  His viewers agree with everything he says.

The paparazzi are the classic freelancers.

Hood

Hood (pronounced hood)

(1) A soft or flexible covering for the head and neck, either separate or attached to a cloak, coat and similar garments.

(2) Something resembling or suggestive of such a covering (especially in shape) and used in botany to describe certain petals or sepals.

(3) In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence, the (usually) hinged, movable part of an automobile body covering the engine (the bonnet in the UK and most of the old British Empire).  Despite geographical spread, the phrase “under the hood” is now close to universal, referring to (1) the engine of an automobile & (2) by extension, the inner workings or technical aspects of anything (a computer’s specifications etc).

(4) In the UK and most of the old British Empire, the roof of a carriage or automobile, able to be lowered or removed (ie on a convertible, cabriolet, roadster, drophead coupé (DHC) et al).  In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence such things tend variously to be called soft-tops or convertible tops.

(5) A metal cover or canopy for a stove, fitted usually with a ventilation system (a flue or extractor fan).

(6) In falconry, a cover for the entire head of a hawk or other bird, used when not in pursuit of game.

(7) On academic gowns, judicial robes etc, an ornamental ruffle or fold on the back of the shoulders (in ecclesiastical garments, and in cults such as the Freemasons, also used as a mark of one’s place in the hierarchy).

(8) In nautical use, as hooding ends, one of the endmost planks (or, one of the ends of the planks) in a ship’s bottom at bow or stern which fits into the stem and sternpost rabbets.  When fitted into a rabbet, these resemble a hood (covering).

(9) In zoology, a crest or band of color on the head of certain birds and other animals (such as the fold of skin on the head of a cobra, that covers or appears to cover the head or some similar part).

(10) In anatomy (the human hand), over the extensor digitorum, an expansion of the extensor tendon over the metacarpophalangeal joint (the extensor hood (dorsal hood or lateral hood).

(11) In colloquial use in palaeontology, the osseous or cartilaginous marginal extension behind the back of many dinosaurs (also known as the “frill”).

(12) As the suffix –hood, a native English suffix denoting state, condition, character, nature, etc, or a body of persons of a particular character or class, formerly used in the formation of nouns: childhood; likelihood; knighthood; priesthood and of lad appended as required (Twitterhood, Instahood etc, subsets of Twitterverse & Instaverse respectively).

(13) In slang, a clipping of hoodlum.

(14) In slang, a clipping of neighborhood, especially an urban neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socioeconomic status (a part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and adopted also by LatinX) although use in these communities does now transcend economic status.

(15) To furnish with or fit a hood; to cover with or as if with a hood.

(16) In medieval armor, a range of protective cloakings or coverings

Pre 900: From the Middle English hode, hod, hude, hudde & hoode (hoodes apparently the most common plural), from the Old English hōd, from the Proto-Germanic hōdaz, (related to the Old High German huot (hat), the Middle Dutch hoet and the Latin cassis helmet) and cognate with the Saterland Frisian Houd, the Old Frisian hōde, the West Frisian & Dutch hoed, the Proto-Iranian xawdaH (hat), the German Low German Hood and the German Hut (hat).  The Old English hād was cognate with German –heit and was a special use used to convey qualities such as order, quality, rank (the sense surviving academic, judicial & ecclesiastical garments).  The ultimate source is uncertain but most etymologists seem to support the primitive Indo-European kad & kadh (to cover).  Hood is modified as required (chemical hood, clitoral hood, un-hood, de-hood, fume hood, hood-shy, hood unit, hoodwink, range hood, riding hood etc) and something thought hood-shaped is sometimes described as cuculliform.  Hood is a noun & verb, hooded & hooding are verbs, hoodless hoodesque & hoodlike are adjectives; the noun plural is hoods.

Hooded: Lindsay Lohan in hoodie, JFK Airport, New York City, NYC April 2013. The bag is a Goyard Saint Louis Tote (coated canvas in black).

Hood as clipping of hoodlum (gangster, thug, criminal etc) dates from the late 1920s and would influence the later use of “hoodie” as a slur to refer to those wearing the garment of the same name, the inference being it was worn with nefarious intent (concealing identity, hiding from CCTV etc.  Hood as a clipping of neighborhood (originally especially an urban (inner-city) neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socio-economic status) dates from circa 1965 and became part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and was adopted also by LatinX) although use in all communities does now transcend economic status.  It was an alternative to ghetto (a word with a very different tradition) and encapsulated both the negative (crime, violence, poverty) & positive (group identity, sense of community) aspects of the low-income inner city experience.  Although a part of AAVE, it never formed part of Ebonics because its meaning was obvious and, to an extent, integrated into general US vernacular English.  The phrase “all good in the hood” is an example of the use of the clipping.

Blu-Ray & DVD package art for Red Riding Hood (2006).  In US use, "alternate" seems to have been accepted as a synonym for "alternative".  Few seem to mind.

The verb hood in the sense of “to put a hood” & “to furnish with a hood” on dates from circa 1400 while although hooded & hooding aren’t attested until decades later, it’s possible the use emerged at much the same time.  The Old English hod was typically "a soft covering for the head" which extended usually over the back of the neck but only in some cases did it (permanently or ad-hoc) attach to some other garment.  The modern spelling emerged early in the fifteenth century and indicated a “long vowel” although that pronunciation is long extinct.  The word was picked up in medicine, botany & zoology in the seventeenth century while the use to describe the “foldable or removable covers on a carriage which protects the occupants from the elements” was documented since 1826 and that was used in a similar context by the manufacturers of prams and baby-carriages by at least 1866.  The meaning “hinged cover for an automobile engine” was in use in the US by 1905 while across the Atlantic, the British stuck to “bonnet”.  The fairy tale (some read it as a cautionary tale) Little Red Riding Hood (1729) was a translation of Charles Perrault's (1628-1703) Petit Chaperon Rouge which appeared in his book Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales from Past Times (1697)).

The suffix -hood (a word-forming element meaning “state or condition of being”) was an evolution of the Old English -had (condition, quality, position) which was used to construct forms such as cildhad (childhood), preosthad (priesthood) & werhad (manhood); it was cognate with German –heit & -keit, the Dutch -heid, the Old Frisian & Old Saxon -hed, all from the Proto-Germanic haidus (manner, quality (literally “bright appearance”, from the primitive Indo-European skai & kai- (bright, shining) which was cognate with the Sanskrit ketu (brightness, appearance).  It was originally a free-standing word but in Modern English survives only in this suffix.

HMS Hood in March 1924.  The last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy, it was 860 feet (262 metres) in length, displaced 47,000 tons and had a main armament of eight 15 inch (380 mm) guns.

HMS Hood (1918-1941) was a Royal Navy battlecruiser named after Admiral Samuel Hood, first Viscount (1724–1816), one of five admirals the family would provide.  Although the Battle of Jutland (1916) had exposed the inherent limitations of the battlecruiser concept and the particular flaws in the British designs, the building of the Hood anyway continued and the revisions made in the light of the Jutland experience in some way exacerbated the ship’s problems; weight was added without fully affording the additional protection required.  The Admiralty was aware of this and of the four battlecruisers of her class planned, Hood was the only one completed as the Navy embarked on a re-design but the naval disarmament agreed between the major powers in the aftermath of World War I (1914-1918) meant none were built (indeed no navy would launch a new battlecruiser until the 1980s and even then the notion was thought strange) and for almost two decades Hood remained the largest warship in the world.

Naval architecture, fire control ballistics and aviation had however moved on in those years and although the biggest warship afloat (the “Mighty Hood” in the public imagination), Hood was outmoded but as late as the early 1930s this mattered little because the prospect of war between the big powers seemed not only remote but absurd.  Hood is still thought one of the most elegant warships ever and it spent those years touring the empire and other foreign ports, her fine lines and apparent might impressing many although the Admiralty was well aware the days of Pax Britannica were over.  Much comment has been made about the design flaw which resulted in the Hood sinking in minutes after a shell from the German battleship Bismarck, fired from a range of some ten miles (16,000 m), penetrated the deck (some modern analysts contest this because of technical details relating to the angle of fire available to the German gunners), causing the magazine to explode, essentially splitting the hull in two.  In fairness to the Kriegsmarine (the German navy), it was a good shot but at that range, it was also lucky, that essential element in many a battle.

In structural linguistics, the term “Americanisms” is used to describe several sub-sets of innovations in English attributed to those (and their descendents) who settled in North America.  They include (1) spellings (color vs colour), most of which make more sense than the originals, (2) simplification of use (check used for cheque as well as its other meanings), (3) coinings (sockdolager (decisive blow or remark), a nineteenth century American original of contested origin) and (4) alternatives (suspenders vs braces).  Hood was one word where used differed in the US.  In the UK, the hood was the (traditionally leather but latterly a variety of fabrics) folding top which began life on horse-drawn carriages and later migrated to cars which eventually were, inter alia, called cabriolets, drophead coupés or roadsters.  In the US the same coachwork was used but there the folding tops came to be called “soft tops”, one reason being the hood was the (usually) hinged panel which covered the engine.  In the UK, that was called a bonnet (from the Middle English bonet, from the Middle French bonet (which endures as the Modern French bonnet), from the Old French bonet (material from which hats are made), from the Frankish bunni (that which is bound), from the Proto-Germanic bundiją (bundle), from the primitive Indo-European bend- (to tie).  The origins of the use of bonnet and hood as engine coverings were essentially the same: the words were in the nineteenth century both used on both sides of the Atlantic to describe cowls or coverings which protected machinery from the elements, impacts etc (the idea based on the familiar garments) and it was only chance that one use prevailed in one place and one in the other.  There were other differences too: what the British called the boot the Americans said was the trunk which on the early automobiles, like many of the stage coaches they replaced, indeed it was.

Unhinged: Not all hoods were hinged.  In 1969, some Plymouth Road Runners (left) and Dodge Super Bees (right) could be ordered with a lightweight, fibreglass hood held in place by four locking pins.  Known as the "lift-off hood", it need two conveniently to remove the thing so it wasn't the most practical option Detroit ever offered but to the target market, it was very cool.

Portico

Portico (pronounced pawr-ti-koh or pohr-ti-koh)

(1) In architecture, a covered (but not enclosed) entrance to a building, the structure consisting of a roof supported by columns or piers, usually attached to the building as a porch.

(2) The Stoic philosophy, named after the public porch on the agora of Athens where Zeno taught (now obscure and used only in the history or teaching of academic philosophy).

1595–1605: An Italian borrowing from the Latin porticus (gate; entrance), the construct being porta + -icus.  Porta is from the primitive Indo-European root per- (to pass through or over), probably as a feminine nominalization of pr-tó- (passed through; crossed) and related to the Ancient Greek πόρος (póros) (means of passage).  The –icus suffix is from the i-stem + -cus, occurring in some original cases and later used freely.  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek -ικός (-ikós), the Proto-Germanic –igaz, the Old High German and Old English -ig, the Gothic -𐌴𐌹𐌲𐍃 (-eigs) and the Proto-Slavic –ьcь.  The Slavic form fossilized into a nominal agent suffix, but probably originally also served adjectival functions.  The Latin porticus was a doublet of porche and both plural forms, porticoes & porticos, are acceptable.

Portico at front entrance of the Port Office building, Edward Street, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The architect was Francis Drummond Greville Stanley (1839—1897) who completed the design between 1875-1877 while appointed Queensland Government Architect.

First widely used as a formalised style in Ancient Greece, a portico is a porch which provides cover over the entrance to a building.  Until recently, historians of architecture insisted on a portico being a structure supported by columns or pillars but without walls, variations of the theme usually called colonnades or ante rooms.  Now, the more general term "porch" seems often extended to what used to be a portico.

Drayton Hall, Charleston, South Carolina.

Drayton Hall, a fine example of Palladian architecture, is thought to have been completed in the early 1750s.  On the west façade, it features an unusual, recessed, double projecting portico, one striking aspect of which is the twinned staircases.  Symmetrically paired staircases leading up to porticos were a common feature in antebellum architecture but it’s rare to see them attached at right angles, the style of the plantation era tending to favour sweeping curves.

Villa Cornaro, Venice.

Drayton Hall’s double-layer portico is said to be the first of its kind in North America and influenced by similar constructions in Italy by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) who lent his name to this style.  His Villa Cornaro, a country estate in Piombino Dese, near Venice, he designed in 1551-1552, leaving an interesting discussion of the building in the second volume of I quattro libri dell'architettura (The Four Books on Architecture (1570)).

Lindsay Lohan approaching the portico of the "London house" in Parent Trap (1998).   The house is 23 Egerton Terrace, Knightsbridge London, SW3 although in the film it's labelled Number 7.

Truculent

Truculent (pronounced truhk-yuh-luhnt or troo-kyuh-luhnt)

(1) Defiantly aggressive, sullen, or obstreperous; aggressively hostile; belligerent; fiercely argumentative; eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict.

(2) Brutally harsh; vitriolic; scathing,

(4) Savage, fierce (archaic).

1530–1540: From the Middle French, from the Latin truculentus, the construct being truc- (stem of trux (genitive trucis) (fierce; wild; savage; pitiless) + -ulentus (the adjectival suffix (and familiar as the related –ulent).  Although the ultimate source is uncertain, it may be from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root tere- (cross over, pass through; overcome).  Truculent is an adjective, truculence & truculency are nouns and truculently is an adverb

Narcissus Truculent, commonly known as the truculent daffodil.

The original meaning was “cruel or savage” in the specific sense of “barbarous, ferocious, fierce”.  By the early seventeenth century the emphasis on “deadly & destructive” gave way to “defiant, uncompromising, belligerent, inflexible, stubborn, unyielding and eager to argue or start a conflict” and it’s likely the shift happened as the use transferred from descriptions of soldiers to more general discourse; it was thus an elaborated type of figurative use.  The noun truculence dates from 1727 and was from the Latin truculentia (savageness, cruelty), from truculentus.  The earlier noun truculency was in use as early as the 1560s.  The comparative is “more truculent” and the superlative “most truculent”, both forms able to be used either of one or between two or more: “Mr Trump seemed more truculent than usual” & “Mr Trump was at his most truculent” instances of one form and Mr Trump proved more truculent than Mr Romney” the other.  However, despite the labelling habits of some, truculence does not imply motive, merely conduct.  The use of truculent by some implies there’s resentment but there’s no etymological or other historical basis for that; truculence is a way of behaving, not the reason for the behavior.  An imaginative meteorologist might speak of “a truculent hurricane” but there’s no implication the weather system feels mistreated and is thus lashing out; it’s just an especially violent storm.  Nor does “truculent” of necessity imply something violent or raucous and there are many who gain their effectiveness in debate from their “quiet truculence”, a description often used of the English writer PC Wren (1875–1941), the author of Beau Geste (1924).  Wren’s “quiet truculence” was less to do with what was in his books than his unwavering insistence the tales of his life of adventure in the French Foreign Legion were all true, despite the complete absence of any documentary evidence.

Words often used (sometimes too loosely especially given the shifting sense since the seventeenth century) as synonyms include abusive, aggressive, antagonistic, bad-tempered, barbarous, bellicose, browbeating, brutal, bullying, caustic, combative, contentious, contumelious, cowing, cross, defiant, ferocious, fierce, frightening, harsh, hostile, inhuman, inhumane, intimidating, invective, mean, militant, mordacious, mordant, obstreperous, opprobrious, ornery, pugnacious, quarrelsome, rude, savage, scathing, scrappy, scurrilous, sharp, sullen, terrifying, terrorizing, trenchant, violent, vituperative & vituperous.  It may be a comment on the human character there are rather fewer antonyms but they include cooperative, gentle, mild, tame, polite, correct & nice (which has itself quite a history of meanings).

A truculent Lindsay Lohan discussing industrial relations with her assistant.

All things considered, truculent would seem an admirable name for a warship but only twice has the Royal Navy agreed.  HMS Truculent (1916) was a Yarrow Later M-class destroyer which had an unremarkable war record, the highlight of which was a footnote as one of the three destroyers escorting the monitors used in the famous Zeebrugge Raid of 23 April 1918 which was an early-morning attempt to block the Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge by scuttling obsolete ships in the canal entrance and using others packed with explosives to destroy port infrastructure.  Only partially successful, the bloody and audacious raid is remembered for the phrase "Eleven VCs before breakfast", an allusion to the decorations awarded (11 x VCs (Victoria Cross), 21 x DSOs (Distinguished Service Order) and 29 x DSCs (Distinguished Service Crosses)).  The second HMS Truculent (P315) was a T-class submarine, launched in 1942, which sunk nine ships during World War II (1939-1945).  It’s remembered now for lending its name to the “Truculent Light”.  On 12 January 1950, while travelling at night on the surface in the Thames Estuary, she collided with the 643 ton Swedish carrier SS Divina, on passage from Purfleet to Ipswich with a cargo of paraffin and, her hull been severely breached amidships, the submarine sank almost instantly with the loss of 64 men (there were 20 survivors).  As a consequence, regulations were introduced requiring all Royal Navy submarines be fitted with an additional steaming, panoramic white light on the bow.  The “Truculent Lights” ensure that while on the surface, despite being low in the water at in darkness close to invisible, submarines remain visible to other ships.

The wreck of HMS Truculent being salvaged.  All Royal Navy submarines have since “the Truculent Incident” been fitted with a 360^o white navigation light on the bow, known as the “Truculent Light”.

There have been no Truculents launched since but other "aggressive names" have over the centuries been used or proposed including 5 x HMS Vindictive (the last launched in (1918), 6 x HMS Arrogant (1896; a planned aircraft carrier was cancelled in 1945), 1 x HMS HMS Aggressor (1801; a planned aircraft carrier was cancelled in 1945), 1 x HMS Antagonist (a planned submarine cancelled in 1945), 8 x HMS Bruiser class (1947), eight x HMS Savage class  (1942), 1 x HMS Violent (1917) and 7 x HMS Warspite (1991; Warspite scheduled to be the third of the planned Dreadnought-class ballistic missile submarines) and 9 x HMS Terror class (1916).  Anticipating a later truculent spirit however there was, uniquely, an HMS Trump (P333), one of the 53 of the third group of the T class.  She was launched in 1944 and for most of her life was attached to the Australia-based 4th Submarine Squadron (although remaining always on the Royal Navy's list).  HMS Trump was one of her class which remained in service after the war and based in Australia, was re-fitted to provide the enhanced underwater performance needed for the anti-submarine force to counter the growing threat from the Soviet navy.  The last Royal Navy submarine posted to be stationed Australian Waters, she was struck from the active list in 1969 and scrapped in 1971.  HMS Trump notwithstanding, the naming trend in recent decades has been less truculent and it can’t be long before the launching of HMS Diversity, HMS Equity and HMS Inclusion (the three ships of the DEI class which won't be armed but will be heavily armored and very welcoming environments where sailors are encouraged to talk about their feelings).

Unrequited

Unrequited (pronounced uhn-ri-kwahy-tid)

(1) Of love, not returned or reciprocated.

(2) Not avenged or retaliated.

(3) Not repaid or satisfied.

1535–1545: The construct was un- + the past participle of requit (ie +-ed).  The un- prefix was from the Middle English un-, from the Old English un-, from the Proto-West Germanic un-, from the Proto-Germanic un-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥-.  It was cognate with the Scots un- & on-, the North Frisian ün-, the Saterland Frisian uun-, the West Frisian ûn- &  on-, the Dutch on-, the Low German un- & on-, the German un-, the Danish u-, the Swedish o-, the Norwegian u- and the Icelandic ó-.  It was (distantly) related to the Latin in- and the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), source of the English a-, the Modern Greek α- (a-) and the Sanskrit अ- (a-).  The verb requite dates from circa 1400 in the sense of "repay" (for good or ill), the construct being re- (back) + the Middle English quite (clear, pay up), an early variant of the verb quit preserved in this word.  The –ed suffix was from the Middle English –ede & -eden, from the Old English –ode & -odon (weak past ending), from the Proto-Germanic -ōd- & -ōdēdun.  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -ede (-ed) (first person singular past indicative ending), the Swedish -ade (-ed) and the Icelandic -aði.  The suffix was used to form past tenses of (regular) verbs. In linguistics, it remains used for the base form of any past form.  Unrequited is an adjective.  In English, from the 1540s, the earliest reference of the Middle English requiten (to repay), from Old French requiter, is to love affairs.

Probably few were as suited to the calling of suffering as Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) so in taking Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-2008) as a husband, she made a good career move.

When you give someone your whole heart and he doesn't want it, you cannot take it back. It's gone forever.  Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963).

Path's only novel, The Bell Jar was first published in the UK under the pen-name "Victoria Lucas" and is usually described as "semi-autobiographical", names of people & places changed to protect the innocent and the guilty, a literary genre known as a Roman à clef (from the French and literally "novel with a key"), the notion of the "key" being that certain knowledge allows a reader to "unlock" the truth, a instance of "reading between the lines" and the technique has widely been used for reasons both personal and legal.  Within a month of publication, Plath would take her own life and it wasn't until 1967 The Bell Jar was re-released under her name.  Dr Heather Clark's (b 1974) recent biography of Plath (Red Comet (2021)) was outstanding.

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) receives insufficient credit for inventing the modern emo and there are more strands of her in them than there are of the brooding German romantics who tend to be more acknowledged.  Were they here today, Cathy and Heathcliff would be in their darkened bedrooms, on their phones, friending and un-friending each other.

You loved me-then what right had you to leave me? What right-answer me-for the poor fancy you felt for Linton?  Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.  Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847).

Her only novel, Wuthering Heights was first published under the ambiguous pen name "Ellis Bell", a hint at the attitudes of many in the literary establishment (and not a few publishers) towards women writers.  Tellingly, critics at the time were often not kind and while the power of the text was noted, for most it seems to have been too raw to be thought "respectable" fiction and it's latter day reputation as one of the classics of English literature evolved only in the twentieth century under the influence of modernist writing and proto-feminism.  Wuthering Heights is one of those books best read when young because if too long delayed, the historic moment may have passed.  That said, there have probably been some young ladies who read it while at their most impressionable and never quite recovered.

There are many portraits of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) but all are of at least dubious provenance and although there is a contemporary reference to a painting or drawing existing during his lifetime, it's thought all known images were probably created after his death.

If asked to distil from Shakespeare’s works the two most frequent themes, one might suggest "low skulduggery" and "unrequited love" though that’s something which might be said of many literary traditions.  In unrequited love Shakespeare saw comedic potential as well as tragedy because it’s as present in Much Ado About Nothing (1598) & All’s Well that Ends Well (1602) as it is in Romeo & Juliet (1594) where youthful agonies are laid bare.  Sometimes there’s overlap between the tragic and the comic: Malvolio’s desire for the affections Olivia in Twelfth Night (1602) are played for laughs although there’s something cruel about the way things end.  In Cymbeline (1609), it’s a tangle with a flavour of a modern TV talk show, Cloten besotted with Imogen, his mother’s husband’s daughter (ie his step-sister).  Queen Katharine (Catherine of Aragon) in Henry VIII (1613) was the first of the king’s many wives and was both abandoned and bewildered why her love was unrequited but Henry had his own agenda and was in some was perhaps closer to Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597) where it’s really an unrequited lust.  Low skulduggery and unrequited love are both explored in Othello (1603), Roderigo’s longing for Desdemona rendering him vulnerable to manipulation by the evil Iago who harbours his own desires.  In Measure for Measure (1603) there’s a reward for Mariana enduring “five years” of unrequited love for “thou cruel Angelo” who cancelled their engagement because he dowery wasn’t enough: “Her promised proportions / Came short of composition”.  Angelo however is outwitted and Mariana gets her man.  In that case, for her at least, all was well that ends well.  So in Shakespeare there is plenty of unrequited love but he seems to have found the Norse and other Germanic myths emotionally over-wrought and was more pragmatic:

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1594)

The Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) in the 814 line Remedia Amoris ("Love's Remedy", circa 2 AD) offered a cure for pining youth suffering the pangs of unrequited love.  His solutions included travel, teetotalism, gardening and, without any apparent sense of irony, the avoidance of love poets.

Lindsay Lohan, Something That I Never Had from Speak (2004).

Do you see me?

Do you feel me like I feel you?

Call your number

I cannot get through

You don't hear me

And I don't understand

When I reach out

Well, I don't find your hand

 

Were they wasted words?

And did they mean a thing

And all that precious time

But I still feel so in-between

 

Someday, I just keep pretending

That you'll stay

Dreaming of a different ending

I wanna hold on

But it hurts so bad

And I can't keep something that I never had

 

Well, I keep tellin' myself

Things can turn around with time

And if I wait it out

You could always change your mind

Like a fairytale

Where it works out in the end

Can I close my eyes?

Have you lying here again

Lindsay Lohan's Something That I Never Had was a tale of the agony of unrequited love.  She should have read from Part XIII of Ovid's Remedia Amoris:

Remembering reopens love, the wound’s newly re-opened:
trifling errors damage the weak-minded.
Consider how, if you touch ashes that are almost dead
with sulphur, they revive, and a tall flame comes from nothing.
So, if you don’t avoid whatever reawakens love,
the flames will light again that once were quenched.