Synod

Synod (pronounced sin-uhd)

(1) An assembly of ecclesiastics or other church delegates (particularly of a diocese), convoked pursuant to the law of the church, for the discussion and decision of ecclesiastical affairs (in various denominations such gatherings sometimes described as ecclesiastical councils or).

(2) An assembly or council having civil authority; a legislative body and used (sometimes loosely) of any council of any institution (in this context also used disparagingly of secular institutions thought becoming too rigid in thought or process.

(3) An (often geographical) administrative division or district in the structures of some churches, either the entire denomination or a mid-level division such as a “middle judicatory” or “district”); use of the word “synod” differs between and sometimes within denominations.

(4) In astronomy, a conjunction of two or more of the heavenly bodies.

1350–1400: From the Middle English synod (ecclesiastical council), from the Late Latin synodus, From the Ancient Greek σύνοδος (súnodos or sýnodos) (assembly, meeting; a coming together, a conjunction of planets), the construct being the English syn-(from the Ancient Greek σύν (sún) (with, in company with, together with) + ὁδός ((h)odós) (traveling, journeying; a manner or system (of doing, speaking, etc.); a way, road, path (the word of uncertain origin).  The term סַנְהֶדְרִין‎ (sunédrion) exists in the Hebrew Talmudic literature and was used in a similar way and the early twelfth century Middle English form was sinoth.  Synod was used in the Presbyterian Church between 1953-1922 in the traditional sense of “an assembly of ministers and other elders” when the term was changed to “General Council”, an act of modernization apparently provoked by the word “synod” beings so associated with the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England.  In the schismatic world of the Medieval Church, just as there were from time to time, “antipopes” (from the Medieval Latin antipāpa), there were also antisynods, convened as meetings of his supporters.  Synod and synodicon are nouns, synodic is an adjective, synodal is a noun & adjective, the noun plural is synods.

The adjective synodal (of or relating to a synod) was a mid-fifteenth century creation from the Late Latin synodalis.  As a noun, a synodal was (1) a constitution made in a provincial or diocesan synod which was subject to review by a central body or (2) a tribute in money formerly paid to the bishop or archdeacon (at the time of his Easter visitation), by every parish priest (now made to the ecclesiastical commissioners and in later versions of canon law referred to as a "procuration").  The adjective synodic dates from the 1630s and was from the Latin synodicus, from the Ancient Greek συνοδικός (sunodikós) (of or related to an assembly or meeting); the form used in the late sixteenth century was synodical.  When used of the conjunction of two or more of the heavenly bodies (the moon and the planets) described by the astronomers of Antiquity, the phenomenon may be called a “synodical revolution” and the time in which it occurs a “synodical month”. Despite sounding suspiciously modern, a synodicon is not associated with on-line video gaming.  The noun synodicon was from the Latin, from the Ancient Greek συνοδικόν (sunodikón) and was a substantivisation of συνοδικός (sunodikós) (synodical).  Institutionalized in modern Italianate Ecclesiastical Latin, it describes a document from a church synod or synods, especially the official records of proceedings.  A subsynod (sometimes as sub-synod) is either (1) an assembly of officials which meets prior to a synod proper to make administrative arrangements, formalize an agenda etc or (2) a kind of sub-committee of a synod which is created for some purpose such as allowing a technical matter to be discussed by experts before being referred to the full assembly of the synod for deliberation.

The noun synodality (the plural synodalities) is used in Christianity to refer (sometimes perhaps optimistically) to the “quality or style of a synod; the fraternal collaboration and discernment as typified in a synod”.  The origin of the word synod (the Ancient Greek συν (together) + ὁδός (journey) hints at the hopefully fraternal collaboration and discernment that such gatherings of ecclesiastical worthies are intended to be, the expression of this the essence of synodality.  The notion of synodality is a part of the mystique of the Roman Catholic Church because it’s said to denote the essence of the church’s mission, something explained by the Holy See's International Theological Commission (ITC) which states that synodality encapsulates “the specific modus vivendi et operandi (way of living & method of operation) of the Church, the People of God, which reveals and gives substance to her being as communion when all her members journey together, gather in assembly and take an active part in her evangelizing mission”.

The ITC is an organization of the Roman Curia which advises the magisterium of the church, most notably the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF, the old Holy Office which many still refer to by its original name: The Inquisition).  The IDF was a creation of the re-structuring in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965) and formerly was established in 1969 as a kind of internal think tank which might present a kinder face to the world than the rather austere Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the CDF (as the DDF was then known)).  That was an approach not unknown (for good & bad) in secular politics and while over the years there have been those who claimed the relationship between the ITC and the CDF was the sort of “creative tension” needed to ensure debates over matters of ethics and procedure stayed dynamic, others have seen the tension but little creativity.  For students of structuralism, it’s of interest the prefect of the DDF is ex officio the president of the ITC, an arrangement carried over in June 2022 when Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013), as a part of a range of reforms to the curia, announced the name change from CDF to DDF.

Pope Francis has made synodality (at least his conception of it) as perhaps the core value he intends to be the legacy of his pontificate and the ITC in 2018 published a paper which made explicit Francis was not modest in his ambitions for that legacy, the ITC’s document stating it was “…precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium” and stressed synodality “…is an essential dimension of the Church”, in the sense that “what the Lord is asking of us is already in some sense present in the very word 'synod’”.  Although presumably the pope and the ITC were more concerned with theology than etymology, tracing a tread which ran from the gathering of Christ’s disciples to the sessions of Vatican II in the 1960s, word nerds would anyway have enjoyed the thoughts:

In ecclesiastical Greek it expresses how the disciples of Jesus were called together as an assembly and in some cases it is a synonym for the ecclesial community. Saint John Chrysostom, for example, writes that the Church is a “name standing for 'walking together’ (σύνοδος)". He explains that the Church is actually the assembly convoked to give God thanks and glory like a choir, a harmonic reality which holds everything together (σύστημα), since, by their reciprocal and ordered relations, those who compose it converge in αγάπη and όμονοία (common mind).

Since the first centuries, the word “synod” has been applied, with a specific meaning, to the ecclesial assemblies convoked on various levels (diocesan, provincial, regional, patriarchal or universal) to discern, by the light of the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit, the doctrinal, liturgical, canonical and pastoral questions that arise as time goes by.

The Greek σύνοδος is translated into Latin as synodus or concilium. Concilium, in its profane use, refers to an assembly convoked by some legitimate authority. Although the roots of “synod” and “council” are different, their meanings converge. In fact, “council” enriches the semantic content of “synod” by its reference to the Hebrew   קָהָל(qahal), the assembly convoked by the Lord, and its translation into Greek as έκκλησία, which, in the New Testament, refers to the eschatological convocation of the People of God in Christ Jesus.

In the Catholic Church the distinction between the use of the words “council” and “synod” is a recent one. In Vatican II they are synonymous, both referring to the council session. A precise distinction was introduced by the Codex Iuris Canonici of the Latin Church (1983), which distinguishes between a particular (plenary or provincial) Council and an ecumenical Council on the one hand, and a Synod of Bishops and a diocesan Synod on the other hand.

5. In the theological, canonical and pastoral literature of recent decades, a neologism has appeared, the noun “synodality”, a correlate of the adjective “synodal”, with both of these deriving from the word “synod”. Thus people speak of synodality as a “constitutive dimension” of the Church or tout court of the “synodal Church”. This linguistic novelty, which needs careful theological clarification, is a sign of something new that has been maturing in the ecclesial consciousness starting from the Magisterium of Vatican II, and from the lived experience of local Churches and the universal Church since the last Council until today.

So for Francis, the word synodality has assumed an importance beyond that with which it has so long been vested in the Catholic Church so the Vatican watchers took note when, under the pope’s imprimatur, it was in October 2021 announced a summit to be conducted over two years was to be known as the Synod on Synodality.  It would have sounded an innocuous thing had it not been for the ITC’s paper three years earlier and it had the inevitable immediate effect among the clergy, the laity and the theologians: sniffing change in the air, some were hopeful and some fearful.  However, the pope, although thought by many a disruptor is also a realist and understands change in his 2000 year old institution will unfold among the generations to come and his immediate ambition seems restricted to tweaking the way the church relates to the rest of the world rather than overturning dogma.  Thus, expectations of welcoming the LGBTQQIAAOP in the church or approving the ordination of women are absurd but there may be changes in the way bishops both interact with their flock and the priests who are closer to that flock.  Just because a change doesn’t happen in the corridors of the Vatican where the curia plot and scheme, doesn’t mean the power structures haven’t changed.  The flock doesn’t mix with the curia; they talk to their parish priest.

Interestingly, for something some fear will be the harbinger of something radical, the Synod on Synodality is structured in the traditional (Vatican II style) modules with un-threatening names like "communion", "mission" & "participation" but however vague may be the indication of the content, few doubt that at the next session the factions will be mapping onto those titles the concerns which have for decades troubled Rome and it’ll be mostly about sex: whether the thousand-year enforcement of clerical celibacy is the underlying cause of the rampant child-sex abuse among its members, the role of women in the power structures and attitudes towards same-sex relationships including marriage.  Those discussions will play out between the factions and there are few with any hope there'll be many minds changed but the tone of the synod will be important and Francis has the advantage of being the absolute monarch in a theocracy; it is Francis who gets to review the synodicon the theologians and the bishops will submit and he will write the final document of the Synod on Synodality.

Working for more synodality in the world: Lindsay Lohan supporting the NOH8 campaign which sought to end California's 2008 voter-approved gay marriage ban (Proposition 8). 

It means Francis has immense power to shape things and point them in the desired direction and his contribution to ecclesiology is likely to be very different to the intriguing exercises in abstraction which came from the pen of Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022).  Whether that means it becomes simultaneously possible for the church simultaneously to continue to condemn homosexuality as a sin yet approve priests giving a blessing to those in a same-sex marriage remains to be seen but in many places, it would merely be an acknowledgement of what’s already happening.  Still, those who enjoy the process of such things more than the outcome can be assured there'll be much weeping and gnashing of teeth during the modules and some rending of garments on the way out.

Functionalism

Functionalism (pronounced fuhngk-shuh-nl-iz-uhm)

(1) An early twentieth century movement which advocated design in engineering, architecture, furniture and objects as pure fulfilments of material requirements, the aesthetic effect derived from proportions and finish with decorative effects being excluded or greatly subordinated.  Essentially, the theory that the form of a thing should be determined by its use.

(2) In psychology, a doctrine which emphasizes the adaptive flexibility in mental or behavioral processes.  Essentially, a system of thought based on the premise that all mental processes derive from their usefulness to the organism in adapting to the environment.

(3) In sociology (and usually styled as structural functionalism) a theoretical construct of societies as systems of interdependent parts whose functions contribute to the stability and survival of the system.  Essentially, an analysis that suggests things continue to exist because they perform some useful function.

(4) In anthropology (as biological functionalism), a utilitarian theory which maintains individual survival is the provocation of actions and the importance of social rigidity is negligible.

1914:  A compound word, function + al +‎ ism.  Function was from the Middle French function from the Old French fonction, from the Classical Latin functionem (accusative of functiō) (performance, execution) from functus (perfect participle of fungor) (I perform, I execute, I discharge).  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).  The origin remains uncertain but the Latin is thought likely formed from the Etruscan genitive suffix.  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).  First used in 1914 in the social sciences, it entered use in architectural criticism in 1930.  Functionalism was also a briefly fashionable school of thought in international relations in the early inter-war years and in any context, it’s often used with an initial capital letter.

Sociology: Three of the the discipline's usual suspects

Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was a French sociologist who developed the theory of functionalism from data he collected while exploring links between social integration and suicide; his findings suggesting social institutions should be understood in terms of the contribution their existence makes to society.   In a nod to Hobbes (and even Marx and Freud), Durkheim described man as homo duplex in which all have dual natures, one selfish, the other concerned with shared moral values.

US sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was the dominant theorist in American sociology during the mid-twentieth century whose most important work was The Social System (1951) in which he describes the most elaborate model yet constructed of the ways institutions in society contribute to social order. He was influential but later attracted criticism for his work being too derivative of earlier German models of the two dichotomous sociological types, gemeinschaft & gesellschaft (community and society).

Robert Merton (1910–2003) was an American sociologist, who work saw phrases from academic sociology (such as “self-fulfilling prophecy”) enter popular use.  He suggested in different societies, institutions, however functional may tend to act with some autonomy so that a change in a particular institution may have little or no effect on others.  He noted also that despite the implications of Durkheim’s work, not all social systems necessarily perform a positive function and that some institutions like family or religion aren’t part of all human societies.  Merton claimed his method of analysis meant functionalism could no longer be perceived as ideological.

Structural Functionalism

Structural functionalism was a dominant school of thought in sociology for much of the twentieth century.  It built models of a symbiotic society where the framework was its institutions and its bonding energy the functions they fulfilled, viewing human interaction as producing a complex system of parts, each with a specific function which contributed to the stability and functioning of the whole.  Sometimes appearing unimportant if viewed in isolation, the component parts were understood as interdependence building blocks of social institutions, their function in the structure their role in maintaining social order and stability.  The structural functionalist model asserts every society has certain structures (divided classically into organizations, institutions & norms) which fulfil important functions ensuring the operation of society.  In the language of the discipline, the functions can be manifest (intended and recognized) or latent (unintended and often unrecognized), social stability maximized when these structures and functions are in balance.

Mean Girls (2004): In sociology, functionalism is where it's found.

In the way of academia, the remarkably simple theoretical model of structural functionalism attracted very clever sociologists who published papers by the thousand adding layers of nuanced complexity, mapping onto the every growing models every imaginable social dynamic, some of which (notably power structures, race conflict, social change, feminism and sexual politics) exposed the limitations of the approach.  For that reason, it came to be much criticized, not because the theory’s theoretical framework was fundamentally wrong but because it some contradictions in specific interactions exposed flaws which meant it could never be a global “theory of everything”.  Long unfashionable, its core assumptions continue to underlie (and even underpin according to some) modern orthodoxies in sociology.

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

Designed by Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951), the Mercedes-Benz T80 was built between 1937-1939 to lay siege to the world land speed record (LSR) but with the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), the attempt was never made.  It was a single-purpose machine designed to achieve maximum terminal velocity and for that reason, the T80 was an exercise in pure functionalism; not one nut or bolt was used other than for the purpose of ensuring its top speed would be as high as possible.  Cognizant of the existing record, the initial goal was 550 km/h (342 mph) but as others in the late 1930s raised the mark, so were Professor Porsche’s ambitions and when the final specification was set in 1939, the target was 650 km/h (404 mph) (not 750 km/h (466 mph) as is sometimes quoted).  Configured with six wheels, the T80 would have used a supercharged, fuel-injected, 44.5 litre (2716 cubic inch) Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 aero-engine, an enlarged version of the DB 601 which powered a number of Messerschmitts and other warplanes.  Intended for use in bombers, the T80’s engine was actually the third DB 603 prototype and was initially tuned to generate some 2237 kW (3000 horsepower) on an exotic cocktail of methyl alcohol (63%), benzene (16%), ethanol (12%), acetone (4.4%), nitrobenzene (2.2%), avgas (2%), and ether (0.4%) with MW (methanol-water) injection for charge cooling and as an anti-detonant.  This was more than twice the output of the Hurricanes, Spitfires and Messerschmitts which in 1940 fought the Battle of Britain but Porsche’s calculations suggested 2,574 kW (3,500 hp) would be needed to touch the 650 km/h target and the DB 603 would have been re-tuned to achieve this as an “emergency war rating”.

1939 Mercedes-Benz T80, Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.

Some 8 metres (26 feet) in length with two of the three axles providing drive, the weight when fuelled and crewed was some 2600 kg (2.9 short tons) while the measured coefficient of drag (CD) was reported at 0.18, an impressive figure for such a thing as late as the 1990s and it would have been lower still, had wind-tunnel testing not revealed the need to add two small “winglets” to provide sufficient down-force to ensure the shape didn’t at speed assume the characteristics of an aeroplane and "try to take off" and notably, when in 1964 the Bluebird-Proteus CN7 set the flying mile record at 403.1 mph (648.7 km/h), it was the first LSR machine to include “ground effect” technology to reduce lift.  Fundamentally, the aerodynamics are thought sound although there would be the usual vulnerability to cross-winds, the cause of several deaths in such attempts and the surface conditions of what was a temporarily closed public road would also have been critical; whether the tyre technology of the time would have been adequate under such conditions will never be known.  Had the T80 been run on the long, flat straights of the salt flats in the US (Bonneville) or Australia (Lake Eyre), the prospects of success would have been better but for propaganda purposes (always a theme for the Nazis) the LSR runs had to be on German soil.

Bluebird-Proteus CN7, Lake Eyre, Australia, 1964.

The plan was for the attempt to be staged in January 1940 during what the regime dubbed RekordWoche (Record Week) on a section of the Berlin-Halle-Leipzig autobahn (now part of the A9), closed for the occasion.  The legend is that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) himself choose the nickname Schwarzer Vogel (Black Bird) but that too may have been propaganda.  The design was all done in the era of slide rules and although some computer work has been applied to emulating the event, there’s no consensus on whether the T80 really would have hit 650 km/h and set the world land speed record (LSR).  As it was, it wasn't until November 1965 that the 650 km/h mark was reached by a machine powered by four fuel injected Chrysler 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) hemi V8s.  On the Bonneville Salt Flats, it recorded a two-way average of 658.526 km/h (409.277 mph).

Functionalist architecture: Bauhaus School building, Dessau (1925-1926).

Anniversary

 Anniversary (pronounced an-uh-vur-suh-ree)

(1) The yearly recurrence of the date of a past event.

(2) The celebration or commemoration of such a date.

(3) Returning or recurring each year; annual.

1200–1250: From the Middle English anniversarie from the Anglo-French and Medieval Latin anniversāria (anniversary (day)) & anniversārius (recurring yearly), the construct being anni (combining form of annus year) + vers(us) (turned), past participle of vertere (vert (turn) + tus (past participle suffix) + ārius or ary.  In Latin, the word was used especially of the day of a person's death but as first an adjective and later a noun, came to be used in Church Latin as anniversaria (dies) in reference to saints' days.  An Old English word for anniversary (as a noun) was mynddæg which translates literally as "mind-day".  Anniversary & anniversarian are nouns and anniversarily is an (archaic) adverb; the noun plural is anniversaries (the Latin anniversaria occasionally seen).

One of pop culture's more celebrated anniversaries is Mean Girls Day on 3 October, the origin of which is that it's the only date mentioned in the 2004 film although it has no specific relevance and could have been any date which fitted in with the weather.  Besides Mean Girls Day, other notable anniversaries on 3 October include: In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was renamed Jugoslavija (Yugoslavia).  In 1932, the Kingdom of Iraq was granted independence by the UK.  In 1935, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) invaded Ethiopia (the Second Italo-Abyssinian War); it was Europe’s last old-style colonial adventure and one which even then looked anachronistic.  In 1952, the UK tested its first A-Bomb, becoming the third nuclear power; H-Bombs would soon follow.  In 1990, the GDR (the German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany) was dissolved and absorbed by the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany), marking the formal origin of the modern, unified German state, celebrated by most as German Unity Day and noted by others (then and now) with some regret.

In literature, probably the best known is Bloomsday, a reference to 16 June, a day (in 1904) in the life of Leopold Bloom, the protagonist in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce (1882–1941).  Although Bloomsday is centred usually on gatherings featuring readings from the book, the events also often commemorate other aspects of the author's life and are sometimes integrated with academic conferences or literary festivals.  Political and military anniversaries are often marked and can be celebrated even if the original was a defeat; it's all about the context of history and some have been misused by those with their own agendas to pursue.  Almost always, these events have a specific date but sometimes the day cannot be mentioned because of "political sensitivities".

In the early evening of 3 June 1989, in the culmination of some three weeks of mainly student-led protests directed at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), martial law was declared and armed troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were assigned to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square where the protests were centred.  What followed a few hours later on 4 June has come variously to be known as the “Tiananmen Square Incident” or “Tiananmen Square Massacre” (the CCP preferring “June Fourth Incident”, the same convention of use the Japanese government adopted in the 1930s when speaking of some of their conduct in China) and although there’s broad consensus about what happened when the soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons (sometimes from tanks and other armored vehicles), the extent remains contested with estimates of the death toll ranging from low-three to high-four figures.  There were at least several hundred thousand protesters in Tiananmen Square at the time of the incident so all estimates are plausible but the photographic evidence from the time is so fragmentary that verification has never been possible.

The traditional annual flowerbed in Tiananmen Square which is part of a "national celebration day" (officially the National Day of the People's Republic of China), marking the foundation of the republic on 3 October 1949.

Such is the sensitivity within the CCP that its impressive digital surveillance of the population has reacted quickly to attempts to circumvent attempts to evade the proscription of references such as “4 June”, “June 4”, “fourth of June” etc.  Because the filters are inherently text & character based this was historically usually just a matter of updating the database of “suspect terms”, done usually in reaction to emerging patterns of use but also sometimes anticipated.  Attempts on Chinese social media to evade the censor’s eye included (1) using fragments of some more obscure foreign languages, (2) using emojis which possess some degree of ambiguity, (3) using Pinyin (the Romanization of Chinese characters), (4) using coded phrases or metaphors to allude to the event, some of which may be understood only within a sub-set of users and (5) the use of numeric references such as “65-1”, “63+1” or “May 35^th”.

Little of this digital subterfuge proved much of an obstacle to the CCP surveillance machine and the regime’s enthusiastic embrace of AI (artificial intelligence) meant that even embedding messaging in imagery or music with no direct mention or even reference to the event or the date can now easily be assessed.  Western analysts note however there’s little to suggest the CCP has an especially large task in countering on-line discussion of the “June Fourth Incident”, other than in places like Hong Kong where malcontents and trouble-makers are known still to exist.  The CCP allows well-behaved Chinese citizen (ie those with a good “social credit” score) to holiday in the West and probably assumes (presumably correctly) that they spend their time taking selfies in front of the Eiffel Town or Trevi Fountain rather than sitting in darkened hotel rooms using the novelty of Google to search for “Tiananmen Square Massacre”.  Indeed, Western political scientists suspect there’s wide knowledge among the population about there being a massacre on 4 June (although not the detail) and for the CCP this is a desirable thing for Chinese citizens to keep in the back of their minds.  Like “something nasty in the woodshed” it’s there to be avoided and not discussed.

Some names for anniversaries      

1        Annual
2        Biennial
3        Triennial
4        Quadrennial
5        Quinquennial
6        Sexennial
7        Septennial
8        Octennial
9        Novennial
10      Decennial
11      Undecennial
12      Duodecennial
13      Tredecennial
14      Quattuordecennial
15      Quindecennial
20      Vigintennial or Vicennial
25      Quadranscentennial
40      Quadragennial
50      Semicentennial or Quinquagenary
60      Sexagennial 
65      Sexagenary
70      Septuagennial
100    Centennial or Centenary
125    Quasquicentennial
150    Sesquicentennial
175    Dodransbicentennial
200    Bicentennial
250    Sestercentennial
300    Tercentenary or Tricentenary
350    Sesquarcentennial
400    Quadricentennial
500    Quincentenary
600    Sexcentenary
700    Septcentennial
800    Octocentenary
900    Nonacentennial
1000  Millennial
1500  Sesquimillennial
2000  Bimillennial

Sandbag

Sandbag (pronounced sand-bag)

(1) A bag filled with sand, used in water-proofing, fortification, as ballast etc.

(2) Such a bag used as a weapon.

(3) Violently to set upon or attack from or as if from ambush (archaic).

(4) To coerce or intimidate, to make threats (archaic).

(5) Sometimes by metaphor, by virtue of added weight, to reduce performance in competitive sport; a form of cheating.

(6) To conceal or misrepresent one's true position, potential, or intent in order to gain an advantage.

(7) In commerce, to obstruct an unwelcome takeover bid by prolonging talks in the hope an acceptable bidder will appear.

1580-1590: A compound of the nouns sand + bag.  Sand was from the Middle English sand, from the Old English sand, from the Proto-Germanic samdaz.  In other European languages there was the West Frisian sân, Dutch zand, German Sand, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian sand, thought all related to the primitive sámh₂dhos.  Bag was from the Middle English bagge, borrowed from the Old Norse baggi (bag, pack, satchel, bundle), from the primitive bhak and thought related are the Welsh baich (load, bundle) and the Ancient Greek βάσταγμα (bástagma) (load)).  In Latin there was sabulum, and in Ancient Greek ἄμαθος (ámathos) from sem (to pour).  English root is hinted at by The Old English dialectal samel (sand bottom), the Old Irish to-ess-sem (to pour out), the Latin sentina (bilge water), the Lithuanian sémti (to scoop) and the Ancient Greek ἀμάω (amáō) (to gather) & ἄμη (ámē) (water bucket)).  The verb was first noted in 1860 with the simple meaning “provide someone with sandbags".  The meaning "pretend weakness" apparently first used in 1950s motor racing appears not to have been in common use until the 1970s, with most sources linking use to the poker-playing sense of "refrain from raising at the first opportunity in hopes of raising more steeply later", a use first documented in 1940.  The idea of the sandbag as a weapon (used by a sandbagger) dates from 1882 with the resultant “sandbagged” emerging in 1887.

Sandbagging

Lindsay Lohan in Chief Sandbagger tank top.

Sandbagging is a form of cheating, usually in sport but also in commerce.  It involves deliberately under-performing at certain stages to maximise the benefits gained when later performing to full-potential.  The metaphor is based on the notion of being impeded by the extra weight of carrying a sandbag, analogous with the old “lead in the saddle” from horse racing when unscrupulous owners would add to a well-priced mount’s weight if they were betting on a longer-odds starter.  In motor racing, sandbagging described drivers who, in handicapped events, deliberately recorded slow times in qualifying to gain a more advantageous starting position or a less onerous handicap in the event proper.  The authorities responded with penalties or disqualification if race-day performance improved on the qualifying mark by more than a defined measure.  Literal sandbagging proved useful as a stabilizing device in many of the big-engine machines during the (1964-1974) US muscle car era during which some of the things generated close up to five-hundred horsepower, delivered to the road through primitive drive systems with over sixty percent of their weight sitting over the front wheels.  On street, strip and track, two or more bags of sand in the trunk (boot) greatly improved traction and balance.  A specialised need for the bag in the boot is in the stunt car business for those times when there’s a need to have a vehicle fly through the air, landing safely on four wheels at the end of descent.  To do that, object will fly best if its weight-distribution is a close as possible to 50-50 but, most cars being front-heavy, there’s a tendency to nosedive, the traditional fix being sandbags in the boot.  Cement is sometimes used instead of sand and the need for such tricks is diminishing with advances in CGI.

Before sandbagging: A tendency to nosedive.

The CBS comedy TV series The Dukes of Hazzard was aired between 1979-1985.  The show did feature actors and plot lines (analysts have suggested there were either five or six plots and these, with tweaks and variations on the themes, were recycled in all the 147 episodes shot) but for many the most memorable character was the 1969 Dodge Charger.  Introduced as a 1968 model, it replaced its rather slab-sided predecessor which, after an encouraging debut in 1966, had suffered a precipitous drop in sales the next season.  The re-styling for 1968 transformed not only the appearance but also its popularity and sales more than quadrupled even though some of the extravagant interior appointments (the eye-catching electroluminescent instrument lighting and the four bucket seats with a full-length centre console) which two years earlier had attracted such interest were no longer offered.  The sleek new lines however more than made up for the cost-cutting although belying the wind-cheating appearance, the shape wasn’t that aerodynamically efficient, something the corporation would twice seek to rectify in the quest for success on the circuits.  The first attempt was relatively modest and proved inadequate but the second worked so for the one season it was used the sanctioning body outlawed the entire concept.  Known as the first of the "aero cars", it was the most radical a manufacturer had ever attempted.  It still is.

After sandbagging: Perfect weight distribution.

In the course of production, over 300 Dodge Chargers were used in the series, the rate of attrition as one might expect from the number of car-jumping stunts involved.  Early in the show’s life, when 1968-1969 (the 1968 cars were easily modified to appear as next year’s model for filming purposes) Dodge Chargers were just cheap used cars and readily available, the supply-line of replacements wasn’t a significant part of the budget but by the early 1980s, the cars were becoming scarce and increasingly expensive, something at least partly attributable to the impact of the TV series.  There was in the early 1980s also a sudden drop in the cost of gas as the (somewhat misleadingly named) “oil glut” depressed the price of oil and gas-guzzlers like the Chargers, with their satisfying, if rather primitive characteristics, enjoyed a renaissance.  In response, the producers responded with the tricks used in the pre CGI (computer-generated imagery) era, re-using old footage and staging some of the more distant scenes with scale models.  The viewers seemed not to mind.

Perfect weight distribution: Jessica Simpson (b 1980) in promotional shot for The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), said to be among the worst films ever made.  The viewers seemed not to mind.

Joe Biden, sandbagged in Colorado.

In June 2023, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) told reporters he'd "been sandbagged" after tripping over “a sandbag” after handing out diplomas on a stage at the US Air Force (USAF) Academy’s Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  The footage of the event was all from one camera angle and on that no sandbag was evident but some quickly observed even if there wasn’t really a sandbag, the president clearly believes there was one and under some theories of cognition, that means the same thing.  The eighty year old president was quickly picked up by an air force officer and two members of the Secret Service, the White House later issuing a statement saying he was “fine after the fall” and USAF sources confirmed “two small black sandbags were used to support the teleprompter”.

Joe Biden has suffered repeated difficulties in trying to board Air Force One using the red-carpeted stairs, once infamously tripping over three times during one ascent (left).  He now uses the "baby stairs" in the nose.  Note the Secret Service officer at the bottom of the stairs: he is the "designated catcher".

So sandbags have been added to the checklist his Secret Service detail goes through before he’s allowed to make any public appearances.  Apparently surfaces on which the president will walk (or stumble or shuffle depending on the time of day) have to be as free from obstacles and obstructions as is possible and not be at all slippery.  A roll-up mat is now part of the inventory carried in the presidential motorcade, un-rolled whenever surfaces appear “potentially challenging”.  Anything other than sitting down is obvious fraught with danger and it’s not clear if he’ll again be allowed to ride a bike after tumbling to the ground when his feet somehow got “tangled in the pedals”.  His difficulties with stairs have been well documented and it’s of note he now uses only a rarely used forward exit when boarding or alighting from Air Force One.  Even that doesn’t guarantee he won’t trip up but from these stairs it’s a shorter fall to the tarmac so there’s that.

Fasces

Fasces (pronounced fas-eez)

(1) In ancient Rome, one or more bundles of rods (historically wooden sticks) containing an axe with its blade protruding, borne before Roman magistrates as an emblem of official power.

(2) In modern Italy, a bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting, used as the symbol of Fascism (sometimes used imitatively in other places).

1590–1600: From the Latin fasces (bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting), the plural of fascis (bundle or pack of wood), from the Proto-Italic faski- (bundle) possibly from the primitive Indo-European bhasko- (band, bundle), (the source also of the Middle Irish basc (neckband), the Welsh baich (load, burden) and possibly the Old English bæst (inner bark of the linden tree)).  In Ancient Rome, the bundle (the “fascio littorio”) was carried by a functionary before a lictor (a senior Roman magistrate) as a symbol of the judiciary’s power over life and limb (the sticks symbolized the use of corporal punishment (by whipping or thrashing with sticks) while the axe-head represented capital jurisdiction (execution by beheading)).  From this specific symbolism, in Latin the word came to be used figuratively of “high office, supreme power”.  Fasces is a noun (usually used with a singular verb); the noun plural is fascis but fasces is used as both a singular & plural.  For this reason, some in the field of structural linguistics suggest fascis remains Latin while (and thus a foreign word) fasces has been borrowed by English (and is thus assimilated).

The Italian term fascismo (a fascist dictatorship; fascism) was from fascio (bundle of sticks) and ultimately from the Latin fasces.  The name was picked up by the political organizations in Italy known as fasci (originally created along the lines of guilds or syndicates, the structures surviving for some time even as some evolved into “conventional” political parties).  Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) recollections of events were not wholly reliable but there are contemporary documents which support his account that he co-founded Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria (Fasces of Revolutionary Action), the organisation publishing the Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista (the Revolutionary Internationalist Action League) in October 1914.  As far as is known, the future Duce’s embryonic movement was the first use of the terminology the world would come to know as “fascism”, the organizational structure of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party) first discussed in 1919 and codified in 1919 when the party was registered.

Surviving art from Ancient Rome confirms the fascio littorio was represented both  with the head of the axe protruding from the centre of the bundled rods of the fasces and through a gape in the sides (left) but in Fascist Italy (1922-1943), the official images issued by the state used almost exclusively the latter arrangement (right).   

The Fascists choose the ancient Roman fascio littorio (a bundle of rods tied around an axe) because (1) the literal suggestion of strength through unity; while a single rod (an individual) is easily broken, a bundle (the collective) is more resilient and resistant to force and (2) the symbolic value which dated from Antiquity of the strong state with the power of life & death over its inhabitants.  The evocation of the memories of the glories of Rome was important to Mussolini who wished to re-fashion Italian national consciousness along the lines of his own self-image: virile, martial and superior.  When he first formed his political movement, Italy had been a unified nation less little more than fifty years and Mussolini, his envious eye long cast at Empire builders like the British and Prussians, despaired that Italians seemed more impressed by the culture of the decadent French for whom “dress-making and cooking have been elevated to the level of art”.  The use by the Nazis of the swastika symbol was a similar attempt at linkage although less convincing; at least the history of the fasces was well documented.  The Nazis claimed the swastika as a symbol of the “Aryan People” which they quite erroneously claimed was a definable racial identity rather than a technical term used by linguistic anthropologists studying the evolution of European languages.  Although there was much overlap in style, racist ideology, fascist movements in different countries tended to localize their symbols and Falange in Spain was one of the few to integrate the fasces although the yoke & arrows of the Falange flags were actually an adoption of a design which had long appeared on the standards of the Spanish royal house.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945 was at least honest in private conversation when he admitted that of human beings that “scientifically, there is only one race” but the propaganda supporting his (ultimately genocidal) racist philosophy was concerned with effect, not facts.  Hitler too, had no wish to too deeply to dig into an inconvenient past.  It annoyed him that Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) went about commissioning archaeological excavations of prehistoric sites which could only “…call the whole world’s attention to the fact we have no past?  It isn’t enough that the Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler is starting to dig up those villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds.  All we prove by that is that we were still throwing stone hatchets and crouching around open fires when Greece and Rome had already reached the highest stage of culture”.  Perhaps with the Duce in mind, he added “The present-day Romans must be having a laugh at these revelations”.

The fascist salute has become so associated with Hitler and Nazism that in recent years some jurisdictions have banned its use, emulating the prohibition which has existed in Germany (the sanction pre-dating unification in 1990) for decades.  Because the salute is the same gesture as that used for purposes ranging from waving to one's mother to hailing a taxi, prosecutions are expected to be initiated only in cases of blatant anti-Semitism or other offensive acts.  The "salute" is so widely used that photographs exist of just about every politician in the act and they're often published; usually it's just a cheap journalistic trick but if carefully juxtaposed with something, it can be effective.     

The Duce’s reverence for the Ancient Rome of popular imagination accounts at least in part also for the Fascist’s adoption of the Roman salute although Mussolini did also object to the shaking of hands on the basis it was “effete, un-Italian and un-hygienic” and as the reduced infection rates of just about everything during the “elbow-bumping” era of the COVID-19 social isolation illustrated, on that last point, he had a point.  Other fascist regimes and movements also adopted the salute, most infamously the Nazis although none were as devoted as Hitler who, quite plausibly, claimed to have spent hours a day for weeks using a spring-loaded “chest expander” he’d obtained by mail-order so he’d strengthen his shoulder muscles sufficiently to enable him to stand, sometimes for a hour or more with his right arm extended as parades of soldiers passed before him.

A much-published image of the Duce, raising his arm in the fascist salute next to the bronze statue of Nerva (Marcus Cocceius Nerva) (30–98; Roman emperor 96-98) in the Roman Forum.

However, historians maintain there’s simply no evidence anything like the fascist salute of the twentieth century was a part of the culture of Ancient Rome, either among the ruling class or any other part of the population.  Whether the adoption as a alleged emulation of Roman ways was an act of cynicism of self-delusion on the part of the Duce isn’t known although he may have been impressed by the presence of the gesture in neo-classical painting, something interesting because it wasn’t a motif in use prior to the eighteenth century.  This “manufacturing” of Antiquity wasn’t even then something new; the revival of interest in Greece and Rome during the Renaissance resulted in much of the material which in the last few hundred years has informed and defined in the popular imagination how the period looked and what life was like.  By the twentieth century, it was this art which was reflected in the props and sets used in the newly accessible medium of film and the salute, like the architecture, was part of the verisimilitude.  Mussolini enjoyed films and to be fair, there were in Italy a number of statutes from the epoch in which generals, emperors, senators and other worthies had a arm raised although historians can find no evidence which suggests the works were a representation of a cultural practice anything like a salute.  Indeed, an analysis of many statues revealed that rather than salutes, many of the raised arms were actually holding things and one of the best known was revealed to have been repaired after the spear once in the hand had been damaged.

Adolf Hitler showing the "long arm" & "short arm" variants of the fascist salute (left) and examples of the long arm & short arm penalty being awarded in rugby union (right).

In fascist use, what evolved was the “long-arm” salute used on formal occasions or for photo opportunities and a “short-arm” variation which was a gesture which referenced the formal salute which was little more than a bending of the elbow and involved the hand rising at a 45^o angle only to the level of the shoulder; in that the relationship of the short to the long can be thought symbiotic.  Amusingly and wholly unrelated to fascism, the concept was re-appropriated in the refereeing of rugby union where a “short-arm” penalty (officially a “free-kick”) is a penalty awarded for a minor infringement of the games many rules.  Whereas a “full-arm” penalty offers the team the choice of kicking for goal, kicking for touch or taking a tap to resume play, a “short-arm” penalty allows a kick at goal, a kick for touch or the option of setting a scrum instead of a lineout.  The referee signals a “short-arm” penalty by raising their arm at an angle of 45^o.

Sometimes, a wave is just a wave.