Misspeak

Misspeak (pronounced mis-speek)

(1) To speak, utter, or pronounce incorrectly.

(2) To speak inaccurately, inappropriately, or too hastily.

(3) A euphemism for a lie, usually deployed after one is caught.

1150–1200: The construct was mis- + speak.  Mis was from the Middle English mis-, from the Old English mis-, from the Proto-Germanic missa- (wrongly, badly), from the primitive Indo-European mitto (mutual, reciprocal), from the primitive Indo-European meyth- (to replace, switch, exchange, swap).  It was cognate with the Scots, Dutch, Swedish & Icelandic mis and the German mis & miss.  Related too was the French més- & mé- (mis-), from the Old French mes- (mis-), from the Frankish mis- & missa- (mis-), all from the same Proto-Germanic source.  Speak was from the Middle English speken (to speak), from the Old English specan (to speak), an alteration of the earlier sprecan (to speak), from the Proto-West Germanic sprekan, from the Proto-Germanic sprekaną (to speak, make a sound), from the primitive Indo-European spreg- (to make a sound, utter, speak).  The spelling misspeken was used in the fourteenth century to convey the meaning “say amiss", “to say sinful things” & "speak insultingly (of)”.  From the 1590s, it acquired also the meaning “to pronounce wrongly” and by 1890, to "speak otherwise than according to one's intentions”.  Related also was the Old English missprecan (to grumble; murmur).  The derived forms are misspoke, misspoken & misspeaking.

Speak, misspeak and damned misspeak

Misspeak exists in two senses.  The first is to use mispronounce something or use an incorrect word or phrase.  An example was when Warren Harding (1865-1921; US President 1921-1923), during the 1920 presidential campaign, used “normalcy” instead of “normality”.  The section of the speech with the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative…

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

… so in saying "normalcy" he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the "mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry" but subsequently it had appeared in print as a synonym of normality on several occasions.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious who insist the use in geometry remains the only meaning and all subsequent uses are mistakes.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.  

The other meaning of misspeak is as a euphemism for a lie, usually deployed after one is caught and, for politicians, it’s a handy way technically to admit mendacity without actually having to use the distasteful word "lie".  Crooked Hillary Clinton, after years of fudging, was forced to admit she “misspoke” when claiming that to avoid sniper-fire, she and her entourage “…just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base” when landing at a Bosnian airport in 1996.  She admitted she “misspoke” only after a video was released of her walking down the airplane’s stairs to be greeted by a little girl who presented her with a bouquet of flowers.  Even her admission was constructed with weasel words: “…if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement”.  That seemed to clear things up and the matter is now recorded in the long history of crooked Hillary Clinton's untruthfulness as "snipergate".

Crooked Hillary in the Balkans, 1996.

Fastigiate

Fastigiate (pronounced fa-stij-ee-it or fa-stij-yet)

(1) In zoology, joined together in a tapering adhering group.

(2) In botany, erect and parallel (as in branches) or having such branches; having erect branches, often appearing to form a single column with the stem.

(3) In palynology (the study of pollen grains and other spores, especially those found in archaeological or geological deposits), characterized by a fastigium, a cavity separating the intexine from the sexine near the endoaperture of a colporate pollen grain.

(4) A structure or design rising or tapering to a point (now rare and restricted mostly to technical use in various forms of architecture, including at the micro level).

1655–1665: From the from Medieval Latin fastīgātus (high, lofty; peaked), the construct being the Classical Latin fastīgi(um) (height, highest point, peak) + -ate.  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  Fastigiate is a noun & adjective, fastigiation is a noun and fastigiated is an adjective; the noun plural is fastigiates.

Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, London.

In botany, fastigiated shrubs or trees are those with an upright, columnar growth habit, usually with branches growing almost parallel to the main stem, a shape which makes them popular for use in smaller areas with limited lateral space, such as streetscapes, car-parks, and public recreation areas.  The Royal Arsenal sits on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London and beginning in the seventeenth century, it served as the headquarters of the Office of Ordnance and was until the 1960s a factory site where munitions were manufactured.  For much of that time it was also a research & development (R&D) centre for armor, ammunition & armaments (until in the twentieth century the explosions became too large and the civilian population began to encroach on the surrounding area).  The Ministry of Defence finally moved the last of its operations to other places in 1994 and now the site is in the throes of being re-developed for housing and community use.  Because of the location conveniently close to the city of London, Royal Arsenal has become a desirable residential area and as part of the plan for the open space, 24 English oak trees (Quercus robur (Fastigiata)) were planted in the public square, each up to 30 feet (9 m) in height.  The slender fastigiate form of oak selected is a popular variety among landscape architects who choose it because it provides so much foliage with a very small footprint and it’s ideal for locations where the desire is to retain a high proportion of the available sunlight.  The architects also note that being a former military site, the characteristic upright aspect of the Quercus robur recalls soldiers on parade.

Foliage of the liriodendron tulipifera Fastigiata (the common names including Upright Tulip Tree, Tulip Poplar & Whitewood) (left) and Lindsay Lohan in a floral maxi dress, London, 2016 (right).  Flower arrangers like fastigiated (upright) blooms because they can be interlaced into constructions to produce a three dimensional effect without the need for any underlying framework.  Clothing designers use fastigiates less than they do the big, open blooms like roses or carnations because when used in isolation, it’s easier with the latter to produce a more dramatic effect.  Lindsay Lohan has often worn floral fabrics but seldom were they fastigiates, the maxi dress in which she was photographed in London in 2016 a rare showing.  Upon publication however, most comment was about the fake tan and the fabric was neglected.

The cable-stayed Uddevalla Bridge crossing Sunninge sound near Uddevalla, Bohuslän, Sweden (left).  Pylons are inherently fastigitated structures and the two which support the roadway in a semi-fan arrangement are each 489 feet (149 m) high.  The Stonehenge-like structure in Windsor, Brisbane, Australia (right) is a part of the freeway architecture, the uprights essentially decorative but are said to play a part in sound reduction.

GM-X Stiletto (1964, left), GM Runabout (1964, centre) and Pontiac Grand Am (1973, right).  The Grand Am pictured is a factory one-off which was fitted with the 455 cubic inch (7.5 litre) Super Duty (SD) Pontiac V8.  The prototype used the original 310 horsepower version of the 455 SD which was declared unlawful by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because the manufacturer blatantly cheated during the certification process.  Consequently, during its two seasons of availability (1973-1974), the 455 SD offered in Pontiac’s Firebird and Trans Am was rated at a compliant 290 hp with plans to offer it in the Grand Am and GTO cancelled, the two prototypes scrapped.

Historically, fastigiated was used to describe a structure or design rising or tapering to a point.  It still occasionally appears in the context of architecture but now it seems a fixture only in the technical journals of those discussing the very big (cosmology) or the very small (anything microscopic or smaller still).  The sharp-central point was a feature of a number of automobiles before governments started passing safety laws in the post-war years but General Motors (GM) which had during the 1950s built many bizarre (some frankly absurd) “show cars” with a prominent point couldn’t resist the motif and at the New York World's Fair in 1964 displayed the Runabout and the GM-X Stiletto.  The Runabout was genuinely thoughtful, a 3-wheeled “city car” with a front wheel which could turn 180^o, enabling a tight turning circle and an ease of parking which was astonishing by the standards of the era.  The tail-end contained two detachable shopping trolleys with wheels which folded-away when they were stored as an integral part of the rear compartment; remarkably, the little machine had space for two adults and three children.  Reflecting the spirit of the age, GM’s promotional material noted it was an ideal design for women shopping at the still quite novel supermarkets but that men could use it too because easily it would accommodate a set of golf clubs.  The fastigiated nose made a final appearance (although they’re seen still on racing cars) on the 1973 Pontiac Grand Am but it was lawful only because it was made from a closed-cell urethane foam, bonded to a steel frame, a clever (if for years troublesome to manufacture) design introduced on the 1968 GTO and called “Endura”.  The attraction of Endura was that at the time it convinced the regulators it was harmless to others, thus the survival of the sharp point for a few more years.

Guy

Guy (pronounced gahy)

(1) In informal use, historically, a man or boy; a fellow.

(2) In modern informal use, in the plural, people (especially if younger), regardless of their sex (although if the group referenced is mixed, it can be used exclusively of males (ie a term such as “guys & girls”).

(3) In historic UK Slang, a grotesquely dressed person; ) A person of eccentric appearance or dress.

(4) A grotesque, deliberately crude effigy of Guy Fawkes, made usually of old clothes stuffed with straw or rags, paraded through the streets and that is burnt on top of a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day (5 November; the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot); now mostly UK use and often with an initial capita).

(5) A male given name, from a Germanic word meaning “woods” and used mostly in France or Francophone countries (in the French pronounced gahy); the use as a surname began as a patronymic.

(6) A rope, cable, or appliance used to guide and steady an object (widely used in nautical matters but also of radio transmission masts etc) being hoisted or lowered, or to secure anything likely to shift its position.  It’s often use as “guy wire”, “guy rope” etc.

(7) A guide; a leader or conductor (obsolete).

(8) To guide, steady, or anchor with a guy wire (or rope, cable etc) or guys.

(9) To jeer at or make fun of; to ridicule with wit or innuendo.

(10) In live theatre, to play in a comedic manner.

(11) As “give the guy to” a mostly UK slang form meaning “to escape from (someone): or “give (someone) the slip”.

(12) In international standards (ISO 3166-1) as the translingual GUY, the alpha-3 country code for Guyana. (GY the alpha-2).

1300–1350: From the Middle English gye, from the Old French guie (a guide (also “a crane, derrick”)), from guier (to guide), from a Germanic source (probably Low German or the Frankish witan (show the way), ultimately from the Proto-Germanic wītaną (know) or witanan (to look after, guard, ascribe to, reproach) and the source also of the German weisen (to show, point out), the Old English witan (to reproach) & wite (fine, penalty) and the Dutch gei brail & geiblok (pulley), from the primitive Indo-European root weid (to see) (although some etymologists maintain it’s not impossible it was from a related word in the North Sea Germanic.  The use to describe a “small rope, chain or wire” emerged in the 1620s in nautical use, replacing the mid-fourteenth century “leader”, from the Old French guie "a guide," also "a crane, derrick," from guier, from Frankish witan "show the way" or a similar Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic witanan "to look after, guard, ascribe to, reproach" (the source also of German weisen (to show, point out), the Old English witan (to reproach) & wite (fine, penalty).  Guy is a noun, proper noun & verb, guyed & guying are verbs; the noun plural is guys (the historic guies has long been listed as non-standard).

Promotional poster for an amateur production of Guys & Dolls (1950), West Genesee High School (Camillus, New York).

The uses referencing Guy Fawkes emerged in the first years of the nineteenth century (most sources cite 1806 or 1806).  The male given name Guy (cognate with the Italian Guido) was from the Old French Gui, a form of the Proto-Germanic Wido, a short form of names beginning with the element witu (wood), from the Proto-Germanic widuz (such as Witold & Widukind).  Guy is used mostly in France or Francophone countries (in the French pronounced gahy) and the use as a surname began as a patronymic.  Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) was an English Roman Catholic who maintained his allegiance to the pope.  He was hanged, drawn and quartered for his role in the Gunpowder Plot (5 November 1605), the more romantic (if misleading) label for which was “the Jesuit Treason” which was an act of attempted regicide against King James VI and I (1566–1625) and King of Scotland as James VI (1567-1625) & King of England and Ireland as James I (1603-1625).  The domestic terrorists (as they would now be called) considered their actions attempted tyrannicide, their object being regime change in England to end the decades of religious discrimination and persecution.  Experts long ago concluded that had the plot been brought to fruition, the 36 barrels of gunpowder placed directly under the debating chamber of the House of Lords would have been more than enough to destroy the building.  In England, the burning of bonfires on the anniversary became a tradition almost immediately after the plot was foiled but it wasn’t until the early nineteenth century it became the practice to burn Guy Fawkes in effigy, the figure constructed usually in a deliberately crude manner using rags and old clothes, stuffed with combustible dry straw.  The tradition became established in many parts of the British Empire but as fireworks became increasingly powerful ordnance, local authorities restricted their sale (for example most Australian jurisdictions have banned the once popular "cracker night") thereby saving many eyes and fingers of children) and beyond the UK, Guy Fawkes day persists only in parts of New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. 

The use of “guy" to describe “a grotesquely or poorly dressed man” began in England in the mid 1830s and came into use in the US about a decade later although there it seems either immediately or within a short time to mean “a man”, rather as “fellow” or “chap” might be used.  GK Chesterton (1874–1936) noted for English audiences that in the US to be called “a regular guy” was “the most graceful of compliments” although that meaning has by now shifted to mean “someone average; unexceptional”.  In mixed company, guys are male while women variously (depending on the region, social class etc) are girls, chicks etc but sometimes, in the plural, guys may not be completely gender-neutral but may refer to people of any gender in certain circumstances and forms (such as “hey guys”).  Indeed, so adaptable is the word that a group of guys may be wholly female.  Nor is guy always the preferred form for men, young generations often preferring “dude” and the companion feminine coining “dudette” is occasionally heard though unusually only when dude is used in the same context.  When used of animals, guy usually refers to either a male or one whose gender is not known; it is rarely if ever used of an animal that is known to be female (the matching term for a female being “gal”) and it’s often used as “little guy”, “big guy” etc.  The form in which the use of guy most annoys the pedants seems to be as “youse guys” which really seems to offend although, under the conventions of English plural constructions, “youse” should be correct.

Lindsay Lohan provides an authoritative ruling of meaning in context: When in a relationship, a “guy” is a man whereas her former special friend Samantha Ronson was not; she was a girl.

In idiomatic use, guy often appears including “… as the next guy” (indicating that one holds typical or mainstream views), “cable guy” (the technician who connects cable TV services to the home (or one who deals with cables in some way though probably not a professional who would usually be called a “cabler”)), “cis-guy” (a male (though this can’t be guaranteed in contemporary use because women may use the form) who uses the gender assigned at birth (ie conventional biological sex) and thus distinct from “trans guy”), one on use, “fall guy” (one who takes the blame for something). “family guy” (a conventional husband & father), “go to guy” (one who by virtue of knowledge, skills etc is the first sought for an opinion etc), “guy friend” (a nuanced term which varies in exactitude but always means some sort of platonic relationship), “nice guys finish last” (in life one needs to be ruthless to succeed), “you should see the other guy” (indicating the injuries one has suffered in a fight are minor compared with those inflicted on the opponent), “wise guy” (not exactly an ironic use but closer to “a smart-ass”).  General value modifiers are appended as needed including “good guy”, “bad guy”, “big guy” (which like “little guy” is often figurative), “nice guy”, “tough guy” etc.  Guy is handy because it’s pretty much neutral and can in most cases be used instead of buster, fella, man, bud, dude, fellow, bro, bloke, chap.  For women it can substitute for girl, woman or the many archaic forms (gal, broad, dame, jane, bird, sheila & chick).  Strangely, in colloquial use, it’s come to be widely used of things and the use is common in IT, among mechanics and others working with distinct bits & pieces.  While not overt, there is something of the anthropomorphic about this because as mechanics and IT techs know, one can have a dozen identical part-numbers which truly are functionally indistinguishable under any objective examination yet in use one or two might exhibit characteristics which will be described in terms used usually of personalities such as "troublesome", "inconsistent" or "un-cooperative".  Some guys are like that.   

Phenomenology

Phenomenology (pronounced fi-nom-uh-nol-uh-jee)

(1) The study of phenomena.

(2) In philosophy, the system of German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) stressing the description of phenomena; the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view; developed later as existential phenomenology, in the work of Husserl's student, the one-time Nazi, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976).

(3) In the philosophy of science, the science of phenomena as opposed to the science of being.

(4) In architecture, a school of design based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties.

(5) In archaeology, a set of theories based upon understanding cultural landscapes from a sensory perspective.

(6) In physics, a branch which deals with the application of theory to experiments.

(7) In empirical psychology, the study of subjective experiences or the experience itself.

(8) In the study of comparative religions, a field of research concerning the experiential aspect of religion in terms consistent with the orientation of the worshippers.

1764: A compound word phenomen(on) (from the Late Latin phaenomenon (appearance) from the Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon) (thing appearing to view), the neuter present passive participle of φαίνω (phaínō) (I show) + logy.  In English the logy suffix originates with loanwords from the Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned.  Within English, the suffix became productive, forming names of sciences or departments of study and original compositions with no link to Greek or Latin forms were common by the late eighteenth century.  Phenomenology & phenomenologist are nouns phenomenological is an adjective and phenomenologically is an adverb; the noun plural is phenomenologies.

The road to Hegel

Portrait of the philosopher as a young man: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).

Phenomenology was a created philosophical system that was intended to be free of presupposition, the notion being that objects and events should be observed and described from the position of the observer(s) a process supposedly free from claims about any objective reality. Anything not immediately conscious is to be excluded and rather than deductive or empirical methods, there was a reliance on the information gathered by the senses; all scientific or metaphysical knowledge or belief was discarded.  Phenomenology is not an essentially theoretical exercise like idealism which claimed the only thing truly to exist is the mind.  Phenomenology instead takes the position that that can be known is subjective reality, thus the pointlessness of an attempt to seek out some objective reality.  The focus is on the subjective.  That didn’t mean existentialism and phenomenology were the same.  Phenomenology was a toolbox of processes with which to view metaphysics and knowledge; existentialism, ultimately, was about generating the normative ethics to make a worthwhile life.  Phenomenology’s core method was the investigation and description of phenomena as consciously experienced, devoid from any theoretical framework, and, to whatever extent was possible, undertaken without preconceptions and presuppositions.

Lindsay Lohan capturing Hegel's phenomenology of spirit in a T-shirt.

The word, though without quite its modern meaning, seems first to have been used in 1764 by Swiss philosopher and mathematician, Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) in his work Neues Organon, a treatise on logic, the title (New Organon), a nod to The Organon (Ὄργανον in the Ancient Greek meaning “instrument, tool, organ"), the collection of Aristotle's (384-322 BC) six works on logic assembled (circa 40 BC) by a group of disciples known as the Peripatetics.  In the reductionist spirit of logic, Lambert applied the word to his particular exploration of the systemic use of knowledge to differentiate truth falsehood but it wasn’t until the publication in 1807 of Phänomenologie des Geistes (Phenomenology of Spirit) by German philosopher GWF Hegel that lineal paths to the twentieth century phenomenological can be traced.  Hegel was impenetrable even by the standards of German philosophers so the discursive output of the new phenomenologists of the new century seems hardly surprising.  As many students discovered, one can find one's way to Hegel but it's hard to find one's way back.

Occidental & Oriental

Occidental (pronounced ok-si-den-tl)

(1) Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Occident or its natives and inhabitants (usually initial capital letter).

(2) A literary or formal word for Western.

(3) A native or inhabitant of the Occident (usually initial capital letter).

(4) An artificial language, created by Baltic German mathematician Edgar de Wahl (1867-1948), later renamed Interlingue shortly before the publication of Interlingua (1949) (always initial capital).

1350–1400: A Middle English borrowing from the Old French occidental from the Latin occidentālis (western), the construct being occident- + -ālis.  The Latin occidentalis was from occidēns (west), the present active participle of occidō (I fall down; pass away).  Occidental is a noun & adjective, occidentalism, occident & occidentalist are nouns and occidentally is an adverb; the noun plural is occidentals.

Oriental (pronounced awr-ee-en-tl or ohr‐ee-en-tl)

(1) Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Orient, or East; Eastern (usually initial capital letter).

(2) Of the orient, or the eastern region of the world.

(3) In geography, belonging to a geographical division comprising southern Asia and the Malay Archipelago as far as and including the Philippines, Borneo, and Java (initial capital letter).  (In pre-modern geography, pertaining to the regions east of the Mediterranean, beyond the Roman Empire or the early Christian world).  Oriental is a noun & adjective, orientalism, orient & orientalist are nouns and orientally is an adverb; the noun plural is orientals (often correctly used with initial capital).

(4) In jewelry, designating various gems that are varieties of corundum: Oriental aquamarine; Oriental ruby (usually initial capital letter).

(5) Designating certain natural saltwater pearls found especially in Asia.

(6) Of a pearl or other precious stone: having a superior lustre.

(7) A breed of slender muscular cat with large ears, long legs, and a long tail.

(8) A native or inhabitant of the Orient (usually initial capital letter).

(9) In astronomy and astrology), pertaining to the eastern part of the sky; happening before sunrise.

(10) Designating various types of aromatic tobacco grown in Turkey and the Balkans (post-nineteenth century use).

(11) A lily cultivar of a widely varied group, with strong scent.

(12) In any context, eastern or of the eastern part (obsolete except as a literary or poetic device).

1350–1400: Middle English from the Middle French $ Anglo-Latin oriental from the Latin orientālis (eastern), from oriēns (rising (of the sun)), present active participle of orior (I rise), the construct being orient- (east, the east) –ālis.  The suffix –ālis was added to a noun or numeral to form an adjective of relationship; it was from the primitive Indo-European -li-, which later dissimilated into an early version of –aris, perhaps connected to hzel- (to grow).  The neuter form was –āle.

Edward Said

Controversial even in the post-colonial milieu of the time, Edward Said’s (1935-2003) Orientalism (1979) was a critique of a particular construct of the historic Western treatment of things eastern.  It dealt with not only academic orientalists but also seminal figures of western social science such as Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920) whose writings emphasized fundamental differences between East and West.  It’s regarded still, by some, as a dangerous book, blamed for the schism in the field of modern Middle Eastern studies which coalesced into the polarized factions of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and its newer rival, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).  The stylistic patchwork Said adopted perhaps made criticism inevitable.  Within a scholarly framework, the author laid bare his outage at the reductionist objectification of the Western tradition in its treatment of the other, his words construed as political and polemic.

Even the book's covers attracted comment and varied according to the market in which it was sold although, unlike some controversial titles, it was apparently never necessary anywhere to offer it in a plain, brown wrapper. 

Detractors and admirers alike all were aware of the significance of Orientalism and it’s regarded still as “one of the most influential scholarly books published in English in the last half-century”, even by some who documented its flaws.  The book was one of those rare texts in historiography which stirred up a stormy debate in and beyond academia, the idea of authors in the West having a skewed and condescending view towards the East finding a sympathetic audience.  So incendiary was the reaction that not only was the book controversial but so was the nature of the reaction although, despite the claims of some, the pattern of the responses appeared not to align with the ethnicity or religious orientation of the scholars and intellectuals but with their attitude to history and the modern and post-modern philosophical ideas (deconstruction, truth as illusion, intellectual hegemony et al).

In a sense, it was Said himself who created the structure for the criticism which would follow because he defined Orientalism in three ways: (1) the academic profession, (2) the world view and (3) a mode of hegemony.  The first was the most readily understood, an academic Orientalist was anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient, whether they be an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, philologist or literary critic.  That did not imply the world view of Orientalists was monolithic but Said did contend that their views were almost invariably dictated by a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the “the Orient” and “the Occident” (ie between Eastern & Western culture) and this applied also to poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists and economists, their position a direct inheritance from the ideas spread by European imperial administrators, travellers and explorers; whether in simple or elaborate form, the theorists, novelists and poets all worked within the same framework of “difference”.  Finally, Said defined Orientalism by the actual political and colonial relations constructed in “the West” epistemologically, based on the earlier definitions; it was this construct with which the West conducted itself with the Orient.  Perhaps predictably, the academics appeared more upset at what they perceived as Said’s attack on the accuracy of their research and their intellectual impartiality than what was done with what he claim they created, even if unknowingly. 

One concept he introduced was the notion of “the distinction between the latent and manifest orientalism”, the latent being a general unconscious certainty the Orient was the way it has been described by the practitioners while the manifest was the supremacy of American imperialism as practiced since in the post-war years they assumed the hegemony in things east of Suez from the British and French: “The distinction I am making is really between an almost unconscious (and certainly an untouchable) positivity, which I shall call latent Orientalism, and the various stated views about Oriental society, languages, literatures, history, sociology, and so forth, which I shall call manifest Orientalism”.  The idea of the latent and manifest wasn’t wholly new but was one which later would be picked up and developed in critical race theory (CRT).

An occidental in the orient: Long-time resident Lindsay Lohan creating a photo opportunity with the Dubai Police, thanking them and the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their ongoing support during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.

That the critics found faults in both Said’s historiography and theoretical inconsistencies in his framework clearly pleased them but appeared to do little to affect the impact of Orientalism, something probably at least partly attributable to his deconstruction of the Western filter through which things eastern were viewed being built with the tools provided by some of the cult favourites in late twentieth century Western philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) (representation and the thing-in-itself), Michel Foucault (1926–1984) (discourse, power, knowledge, episteme and truth regimes), Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) (cultural hegemony) and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) (deconstruction).  Said was a subtle thinker but to try to synthesize something from applying the thoughts of that lot would of necessity need some intellectual brutishness just to make it fit and it’s not surprising there were those who faulted him for occupying “…theoretical positions which are mutually contradictory”.  Still, if anything the effect of that was stimulative and Orientalism was one of those books which people read and found it confirmed their own views about the West or the West’s critics.  It’s doubtful Orientalism changed many minds and there were flaws which the critics were right to identify but regardless of how ultimately it will be remembered as an academic text, it remains a literary classic.

Pandemonium

Pandemonium (pronounced pan-duh-moh-nee-uhm)

(1) Wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.

(2) A place or scene of riotous uproar or utter chaos.

(3) Satan’s palace at the centre of Hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

(4) Following Milton, the abode of all the demons (often with initial capital letter).

1667: In John Milton’s (1608-1674) epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667-1674), Pandæmonium was the name of the palace in the centre of hell, "the high capital of Satan and all his peers”.  Milton coined the word as a construct of the Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân) (all; every (and equivalent to the English pan-)) + the Late Latin daemonium (evil spirit, demon), from the Ancient Greek δαιμόνιον (daimónion) (a diminutive form of δαίμων (daímōn) (“little deity”, “little spirit”, “little angel” or (as Christians interpreted it) “little daemon”, later modernized as “demon”).  Depending on one’s didactic or literary purpose, Pandæmonium may thus be translated variously as “All Demons” or, following Milton, as Pandemoneios (Παν-δαιμον-ειον) (the place of all demons).  The transferred sense of “a place of uproar” dates from 1779 while the general use meaning “wild, lawless confusion” has been in use since 1865.  The alternative spellings are pandaemonium & pandæmonium, the latter still in literary use.  Pandemonium is a noun, pandemoniacal, pandemonious, pandemonic & pandemonian are adjectives, pandemoniac is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is either pandemoniums or pandemonia.

There are special, technical uses of “pandemonium”.  In physics, a pandemonium describes a problem that leads to inaccurate results from high-resolution gamma ray detectors in cases of beta decay when the decay product has a large Q value because the decay product has too many possible energy excitation levels with too much variation in the amount of energy emitted by different levels.  Those who understand that doubtlessly visualize the phenomenon while the rest of us probably need something like a cartoon.  In cognitive science, a pandemonium is a conception of visual object recognition in the brain as a hierarchical system of detection and association by a metaphorical set of "demons" sending signals to each other.  No cartoons required.

Some who have inspired fandemonium: The anyway statuesque Taylor Swift, adding to the effect in 6 inch (150 mm) heels (2016, right), the mean girls of Mean Girls (2004, centre) and the more diminutive Lady Gaga (2023, right).

By way of portmanteau nouns, pandemonium has been an element in (1) pandemonium (panda + (pande)–monium) (the furor induced by the reaction of people to the sight of pandas) and (2) fandemonium (fan + -(pan)demonium) (in pop-culture, the furor caused by or involving fans).  In the matter fandemonium, Lady Gaga (b 1986) called her fans “little monsters” while devotees of the Taylor Swift (b 1989) cult are known as “Swifties” (apparently always with an initial capital).

Paradise Lost

Written in the epic tradition of starting in medias res (in the midst of things), John Milton’s Paradise Lost was published originally as a poem of some ten-thousand lines in ten books (1667) before the second edition (1674) was re-organized into twelve volumes, possibly a nod to the Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) whose epic work the Aeneid (circa 30-19 BC) was thus assembled.  The poem is an account of the biblical tale of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam & Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden and was structured in two narrative threads, one following Satan, the other about Adam and Eve, a depiction of the tragedy of human existence which can be transformed only by a pure will for redemption.  The second edition is easier to read because it includes chapter summaries.

Milton coined the name for the capital of Hell, “the High Capital, of Satan and his Peers”, built by the fallen angels at the suggestion of Mammon and it appears at the end of Book I of Paradise Lost (1667), noted as having been designed by the architect Mulciber (In Ancient Rome, Mulciber was another name for the Roman god Vulcan), the designer of palaces in Heaven before his fall.  Book II begins with the debate among the Stygian Council (known also as the Infernal Council and the grand gathering of the demons of the Inferno; apparently something like a Tory Party conference but with better catering) in the council-chamber of Pandæmonium.  In an example of free-market efficiency, the demons built the structure in little more than an hour though by far it surpassed in grandeur all human palaces and, being made from solid gold, it never tarnished.  Interestingly, it was Tardis-like, being both small yet with a vast and spacious hall which thronged with swarms of shape-shifting demons, a quality which may account for the spatial ambiguity in the account of the dimensions.

The Shepherd’s Dream (1793), from Paradise Lost, oil on canvas by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).

One mid-century critique was Milton's God (1965) by Sir William Empson (1906–1984), among the earliest published examples of the techniques of literary deconstructionism being applied to poetic text.   Milton noted his work was a way of “…justifying the ways of God to men” and Empson deconstructed those means, mapping them onto a framework of theological paradox.  While Milton’s God had a mixed reception, it was briefly influential as an early post-modern text although one of the problems inherent in deconstruction is it tempts others to reconstruct and there was a critic who deduced Empson had claimed “the poet felt an active hatred for the God of Christianity.”  That was a challenging notion given the book for so long sat on shelves next to the King James Bible (KJV 1611) and it seemed Epson’s subconscious was being probed.  Although in Milton’s God there was the observation Milton’s social judgment had told him that the Heaven he was imagining before the fall of the angels was already a horrible place, “against his overall intention”, it seems a quite a leap from that to a hatred of the God of the New Testament.

Empson explained what needed better to be understood (because, as he put it, modern Christianity has gone to extreme lengths “to hush it up”) was the moral character of God had become very hard to defend and that this was widely known by the time John Calvin (1509–1564) and Martin Luther (1483–1546) had trod the path of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).  Milton was struggling to defend God, noting that in the De doctrina Christiana (On Christian Teaching (397-426)), Aquinas himself had written there were many who believed God caused evil, practically making God the Devil and Milton would assert the relevant Bible texts must not be interpreted literally.  Milton certainly presents God at his worst but the Almighty is a agreeable figure by Book III although it remains clear his path for man will long and painful with many casualties but the poet's theme remained that there would be awful consequences if “the widespread hatred of God could no longer be contained” and this Empson understood.

Sidewinder

Sidewinder (pronounced syde-whine-der)

(1) A North American rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes), also known as the horned rattlesnake and sidewinder rattlesnake, a venomous pit viper species belonging to the genus Crotalus (rattlesnakes) and found in the desert regions of the south-western United States and north-western Mexico. 

(2) An air-to-air missiles of US design.

(3) In nautical use, a type of middle-distance deep-sea trawler widely used during the 1960s and 1970s.

(4) In slang, a person thought untrustworthy and dangerous.

(5) In the slang of hand-to-hand combat, a heavy swinging blow from the side which disables an adversary (now rare).

(6) In the slang of baseball, a pitcher who throws sidearm.

(7) In the slang of certain photographers, a certain aspect used to photograph certain models in certain dresses or tops.

1875: A creation of US English to describe the small horned rattlesnake found in the south-west near the border with Mexico, the construct being the adjective side + the agent noun of wind, so called in reference to its "peculiar lateral progressive motion".  The first known use was in an 1875 US Army report detailing the zoology of the western US.  Dating from 1888, there are also references to the snake as the "sidewiper".  Side was from the Middle English side, from the Old English sīde (side, flank), from the Proto-Germanic sīdǭ (side, flank, edge, shore), from the primitive Indo-European sēy- (to send, throw, drop, sow, deposit).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Siede (side), the West Frisian side (side), the Dutch zijde & zij (side), the German Low German Sied (side), the German Seite (side), the Danish & Norwegian side (side) and the Swedish sida (side).  As an adjective (as in sidewinder) it's used to mean (1) being on the left or right, or toward the left or right; lateral & (2) indirect; oblique; incidental.  The construct of winder was wind + -er and was from the Middle English wynder, from the Middle English wynd & wind, from the Old English wind (wind), from the Proto-West Germanic wind, from the Proto-Germanic windaz, from the primitive Indo-European hwéhtos (wind), from hwéhts (wind), from the present participle of hweh- (to blow).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Sidewinder is a noun; the noun plural is sidewinders.

A sidewinder taking lunch (left) and sidewinding (right).

The snake’s common name, sidewinder, alludes to its unusual form of locomotion, which is thought to give it traction on windblown desert sand, but this peculiar specialization is used on any substrate over which the sidewinder rapidly can move. As its body progresses over loose sand, it forms a letter J-shaped impression, with the tip of the hook pointing in the direction of travel.  The species is nocturnal during hot months and diurnal during the cooler times of its activity period, which typically extends from November to March (though often longer in the southern part of its range, subject to seasonal variation).

The AIM-9x Sidewinder and the Vympel K-13

AIM-9x Sidewinder Air-to Air missile being launched.

The AIM-9x Sidewinder is a short-range air-to-air missile developed by the US Navy which entered service in 1956.  One of the most widely used missiles, it equips both western and (notionally) non-aligned air forces as well as (indirectly), the many nations which use the Soviet-era Vympel K-13, a reverse-engineered clone.  More than 110,000 Sidewinders have been produced and it’s considered outstanding value for money, being one of the less expensive weapons of its type.  Aside from cost, it owes its longevity to a simple, easy-to-upgrade design, long shelf life, robustness and famously high reliability; the US military say it’s possible the Sidewinder will remain in service until late this century, the one basic design might thus endure over one-hundred years.  One of the early mass-produced guided missiles, the Sidewinder name was selected in 1950 because the venomous snake uses infrared sensory organs to hunt warm-blooded prey.  The Sidewinder was first developed by the US Navy (USN) and later adopted by the US Air Force (USAF), both branches still using what is essentially the same design, the critical components of which are (1) an infrared homing guidance section, (2) an active optical target detector, (3) a high-explosive warhead and (4) rocket propulsion.  The attraction of infrared units is their low-cost, ease of maintenance and the ability to be used day and night.  According to the 2021 fiscal year Department of Defense (DoD) budget, AIM-9x Sidewinders are costed at around US$430,000 for Navy use & US$472,000 for the Air Force, the difference accounted for by the cost of the mounting system which attaches to and aircraft’s hard-points.  The DoD’s numbers are not necessarily accurate but the comparative values are probably at least indicative.

The rollerons on the fins of the early AIM-9.

Although in production since 1956, the Sidewinder is now a much changed device, product development meaning parts interchangeability between an original and one from the 2020s is limited to the odd screw.  In that, the missile can be compared to something like the Volkswagen Beetle in that while the first in 1938 and the last in 2003 were recognizably related and conceptually the same (rear-mounted air-cooled flat-four engine, rear-wheel drive (RWD), separate chassis etc), the only mechanical carry-overs would be some of the nuts & bolts.  In the 1950s, the technology to permit the Sidewinder's fins to act as self-stabilizer didn't exist.  While it would have been possible to build an electro-mechanical device which could fulfil the function, it would have been prohibitively large and heavy and, when subject to the stresses of launch, anyway too fragile to provide the reliability the military required.  Instead, "rollerons" were fitted to the tips of the fins.  Rotating at 100,000 rpm, these provided gyroscopic stabilization, a solution similar to that adopted by the Germans for their big World War II (1939-1945) ballistic missile (The Aggregat 4 (A4), better known as the V2 (or V-2) (Vergeltungswaffe (Retaliation (ie vengence) Weapon 2)) although being bigger and flying for a greater distance in a more complex trajectory, the V2 was fitted also with controllers on the rocket engine's vanes which compensated dynamically for directional variations.  The issue of directional stability was the most challenging aspect of the V2's development. 

Lindsay Lohan sidewinder shots, 2007.  Where possible, photographers like to take both SFW (suitable for work, left) shots and NSFW (not suitable for work, right) shots so they have product for both market niches.  Paul Smith shot these as part of a sequence at the General Motors Annual Ten Event Fashion Show, Los Angeles, February 2006.

The use of Sidewinders in dog-fights between Chinese and Taiwanese (from the renegade province of Taiwan) pilots during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) was the first use of air-to-air guided missiles in combat and the Vympel K-13 (NATO reporting name: AA-2 (Atoll)) was reverse-engineered (ie pirated) by the Soviet Union, using a Sidewinder launched from a Taiwanese F-86 Sabre during the Crisis which became lodged, unexploded, in the fuselage of a Chinese MiG 17.  The MiG landed safely and although Sino-Soviet relations weren’t at the time ideal, some sort of deal was done between Peking and Moscow which resulted in the missile being delivered to Soviet weapons scientists who deconstructed and replicated it, allowing the Vympel to enter the arsenals of Warsaw Pact nations.  The USSR had something of a tradition of doing this with Western hardware (their Boeing B29 clone legendarily almost identical to Boeing’s original) and the Chinese soon became masters of the technique.  By 1961 the K-13 was in full-scale production and so diligent were the Soviets in their duplication that even the part-numbers stamped on the components were replicated.

In February 2023, the Sidewinder was briefly in the news after one was used by a USAF F-16 fighter to shoot down the balloon which infamously penetrated US airspace.  Depending on whose story one prefers, it was either a weather research device operated by Chinese meteorological authorities or a spy system run by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) to gather data for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  Most observers not in fear of being sent to a re-education camp seem to tend to the latter but for the USAF it wasn’t that important; pilots just like shooting stuff with sidewinders.  Targeted at an altitude around 20,000 feet (6000 m), the balloon was brought down in the vicinity of Lake Huron above over Michigan and was the third such airborne object shot down in a three-day span, all at the time believed to be linked with the CCP.  Once the thing was downed, one of the main interests to those examining the wreckage was to work out how a relatively large object could have evaded the surveillance of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which uses visual contact, radar, and other tracking systems.

1997 Dodge Dakota Sidewinder Concept.

The Dodge Dakota Sidewinder was a one-off concept displayed at 1997’s SEMA Convention in Las Vegas.  It used a 640 hp (477 kW), 490 cubic-inch (8.0 litre) V10 Viper (LA) engine and was said to be capable of 170 mph (274 km/h) although it wasn’t clear whether this was (1) worked out on the back of an envelope, (2) calculated by computer simulation or (3) verified by some intrepid test driver.  Like most of Detroit’s more fanciful creations, it never reached production although Chevrolet later picked up the idea for their retro-styled SSR (Super Sport Roadster) pickup truck (2003-2006) which featured a retractable hard-top and between 2004-2006 Dodge did install the a 505 cubic inch (8.3 litre) version LA V10 in their Ram pick-up truck.  One of the crazier trucks and very much in the tradition of their 1964-1966 D-100 pick-up which used the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Wedge V8, the limited-production V10 SRT-10 is still much in demand in the collector market.