Aglet

Aglet (pronounced ag-lit)

(1) A tag or sheath at the end of a lace used for tying, as of a shoelace and made usually of plastic or metal; can be protective, decorative or both.

(2) A tip, originally of metal and often decorative, on a ribbon or cord that makes lacing two parts of a garment or garments together easier, as in corset lacings, "points" (lacing hose or trousers to jacket or doublet) or sleeves to a bodice (archaic sixteenth & seventeenth century use).  The aglet is still a part of dress uniforms in some militaries.

(3) An ornament worn on clothing, consisting of a metal tag on a fringe, or a small metallic plate or spangle; any ornamental pendant.

1400–1450: From the Late Middle English aglet, aglett & agglot from the Old French aguillete & Middle French aiguillette (a small needle), diminutive of aguille, the construct being aiguille (needle) + -ette (-et).  Root was the Late Latin acucula, an extended form (via diminutive suffix, but not of necessity an implication of smallness) of the Latin acus (a needle) from the primitive Indo-European root ak- (be sharp, rise (out) to a point, pierce).  Related were the Italian agucchia, the Portuguese agulha & the Spanish aguja (needle).  The alternative spellings aiguillette, aiglet & aygulet are used by some manufacturers.  Aglet is a noun; the noun plural is aglets. 

Lindsay Lohan Lightweight Leisure Breathable Running Shoes are available.  All use plastic aglets on the laces.

An aglet was sometimes known also as a catkin (spike of a flowering tree or shrub (especially a willow or birch) after fruiting, a 1570s derivation from Dutch katteken (flowering stem of willow, birch, hazel etc) which translates literally as "little cat or kitten”, diminutive of katte (cat).  The botanical connection to felines was because of the stems soft, furry appearance which had a resemblance to the lengthier kinds of a kitten’s tail.  It was cognate with the German Kätzchen and the Modern Dutch katje.  The ends attached to shoelaces were sometimes called catkins because of a similar visual connection.  Most of the earliest aglets probably were metal, glass or stone plastic hundreds of years away, although some were doubtless made from with fabric threads or thin strips of leather.  There’s more evidence of the metal ones in the archeological record because the survival rate of the hard materials is so much higher.  Known formally by cobblers as rabri threas igh somewere metalalso aiglet, (metal tag of a lace), they were created to prevent the fraying of boot-laces, making it easier to thread through the eyelet-holes, but later, certainly by the mid-fifteenth century and perhaps earlier, ornamental form had emerged for both men and women.

Variations on the theme.

The aglets may not first have been used for boot laces but rather as an alternative to buttons to fasten clothing.  Placed at the end of a ribbon, in addition to preventing fraying and permitting easier threading, their weight would have helpful when needing to find the end of the ribbon.  In ancient Rome, there would certainly have been a class divide in the aglet business, the poor folk probably using simple stones while those of the rich might have been fashioned from expensive metals, such as brass or silver.  Today, most aglets are made from a thin, stiff plastic and are used on more than just shoe-laces, cords, drawstrings and belts among the items with the handy terminations which can be functional, decorative or both.  Although there are a handful of fashion houses in Europe which still handcraft such things, most aglets are today applied by machines, the ones for shoes wrapping a plastic tape around the end of the lace, then using heat or chemicals to melt the plastic onto the shoelace and bond the plastic to itself.  Polyester laces can be crimped and heated so that an aglet is formed at the end out of the lace itself, the advantage being it’s less prone to falling off.

Aglets are available in various metals including stainless steel, titanium, aluminum, silver and gold.  The tiny size and defined shape of the device doesn’t lend much scope to designers seeking a decorative flourish beyond variations in color but bullets seem popular.

Phallus themed aglets exist but they seem not to be available for laces, instead being aglets in the other sense of the word: as ornamental pendant to be hung from the neck or attached to clothing.  The tradition of these reaches past antiquity and into pre-history, many societies known to have used fertility symbols.

Ri Sol-ju (b circa 1987) is the wife of DPRK Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) and she has sometimes appeared on state occasions wearing an aglet in the shape of the DPRK’s Hwasong-16 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM, left & right).  Analysts suggest her choice is jewellery is a layered political statement: (1) Eschewing a decadently Western display of gold, diamonds or precious stones over her tempting décolletage (centre), the demurely attired First Lady wears something crafted as a simple pendant in silver and (2) She is telling the world Kim Jong-un makes nuclear weapons sexy. 

Frame

Frame (pronounced freym)

(1) A (sometimes intricate) border or case for enclosing a picture, mirror etc.

(2) A rigid structure formed of relatively slender pieces, joined so as to surround sizable empty spaces or non-structural panels, and generally used as a major support in building or engineering works, machinery, furniture etc.

(3) A body, especially a human body, with reference to its size or build; the physique of someone (often with a modifier (large frame, slight frame etc).

(4) A structure for admitting or enclosing something (doors, windows etc); other in the plural and used with a plural verb).

(5) In textile production, a machine or part of a machine over which yarn is stretched.

(6) In statistics, an enumeration of a population for the purposes of sampling, especially as the basis of a stratified sample

(7) In telecommunications and data transmission, one cycle of a regularly recurring number of pulses in a pulse train (frame relay etc); in networking, an independent chunk of data sent over a network.

(8) A constitution or structure in general; the system.

(9) In beekeeping, one of the sections of which a beehive is composed, especially one designed to hold a honeycomb

(10) In formal language teaching, a syntactic construction with a gap in it, used for assigning words to syntactic classes by seeing which words may “fill the gap”.

(11) In physical film stock, one of the successive pictures, the concept transferred to digital imagery.

(12) In television, a single traversal by the electron beam of all the scanning lines on a television screen.

(13) In computing, the information or image on a screen or monitor at any one time (dated).

(14) In computing (website design), a self-contained section that functions independently from other parts; by using frames, a website designer can make some areas of a website remain constant while others change according to the choices made by the internet user (an individually scrollable region of a webpage; “collapsible frames” a noted innovation).

(15) In philately, the outer decorated portion of a stamp's image, often repeated on several issues although the inner picture may change; the outer circle of a cancellation mark.

(16) In electronics (film, animation, video games), a division of time on a multimedia timeline.

(17) In bowling, one of the ten divisions of a game; one of the squares on the scorecard, in which the score for a given frame is recorded.

(18) In billiards and related games, the wooden triangle used to set up the balls; the balls when set up by the frame.

(19) In baseball, an inning.

(20) In underworld slang, as “frame-up” or “framed”, to incriminate (an innocent person) on the basis of fabricated evidence.

(21) In law enforcement slang as “in the frame”, being suspected by the authorities of having committed a offence.

(22) In publishing, enclosing lines (usually in the form of a square or rectangle), to set off printed matter in a newspaper, magazine, or the like; a box.

(23) The structural unit that supports the chassis of an automobile (X-Frame, ladder-Frame, perimeter-frame, space-frame et al).

(24) In nautical architecture, any of a number of transverse, rib-like members for supporting and stiffening the shell of each side of a hull; any of a number of longitudinal members running between web frames to support and stiffen the shell plating of a metal hull.

(25) In genetics, as “reading frame”, a way of dividing nucleotide sequences into a set of consecutive triplets.

(26) In mathematics, a complete lattice in which meets distribute over arbitrary joins.

(27) A machine or part of a machine supported by a framework, (drawing frame, spinning frame et al).

(28) In printing, the workbench of a compositor, consisting of a cabinet, cupboards, bins, and drawers, and having flat and sloping work surfaces on top.

(29) In bookbinding, an ornamental border, similar to a picture frame, stamped on the front cover of some books.

(30) One’s thoughts, attitude or opinion (usually as “frame of mind”).

(31) To form or make, as by fitting and uniting parts together; construct.

(32) To contrive, devise, or compose, as a plan, poem, piece of legislation etc.

(33) To conceive or imagine, as an idea.

(34) To provide with or put into a frame (painting, mirror et al).

(35) To give utterance to (typically as “frame an answer” etc).

(36) To form or seem to form (speech) with the lips, as if enunciating carefully (often used in speech therapy and elocution training).

(37) To fashion or shape (often a term used in sculpture).

(38) To shape or adapt to a particular purpose.

(39) To line up visually in a viewfinder or sight.

(40) To direct one's steps (archaic).

(41) To betake oneself; to resort (archaic).

(42) To prepare, attempt, give promise, or manage to do something (archaic).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English verb framen, fremen or fremmen (to prepare; to construct, build, strengthen, refresh, perform, execute, profit, avail), from the Old English framiae, fremian, fremman or framian (to avail, profit), from the Proto-West Germanic frammjan, from the Proto-Germanic framjaną (to perform, promote), from the primitive Indo-European promo- (front, forward) and cognate with the Low German framen (to commit, effect), the Danish fremme (to promote, further, perform), the Swedish främja (to promote, encourage, foster), the Icelandic fremja (to commit), the Old Frisian framia (to carry out), the Old Norse frama (to further) and the Old High German (gi)framōn (to do); the Middle English was derived from the verb.  Derived forms such as deframe, misframe, reframe, subframem unframe, beframe, enframe, full-frame, inframe, outframe, well-framed etc are created as needed.  Frame, framer & framableness are nouns, framed & framing are verbs, framable & frameable are adjectives, frameless is an adjective and framably is an adverb; the noun plural is frames.

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

In Middle English, the sense of the verb evolved from the mid-thirteenth century “make ready” to “prepare timber for building” by the late 1300s and the meaning “compose, devise” was in use by at least the 1540s. The criminal slang (“framed”; a “frame up” etc) made familiar in popular fiction all revolved around the idea of corrupt or unscrupulous police fabricating evidence to “blame an innocent person” seems not to have been in use until the 1920s (although the dubious policing practices would have had a longer history) and all forms are thought to have been a development of the earlier sense of “plot in secret”, noted since the turn of the twentieth century, that possibly and evolution from the meaning “fabricate a story with evil intent”, first attested early in the sixteenth century.  The use of the noun in the early thirteenth century to mean “profit, benefit, advancement” developed from the earlier sense of “a structure composed according to a plan”, developed from the verb and was influenced by Scandinavian cognates (the Old Norse frami meant “advancement”).

Like its predecessor the 300 SL Gullwing (W198; 1954-1957), the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster (W198; 1957—1963) was built on a tubular space-frame.

The use in engineering “sustaining parts of a structure fitted together” emerged circa 1400 while the general sense of “an enclosing border” of any kind came some two centuries later.  Surprisingly, the familiar form of a “border or case for a picture or pane of glass” seems to have come into use only in the mid-seventeenth century while the use “human body” (ie large frame, slight frame etc) was in use by the 1590s.  Of bicycles it was used from 1871 and of motor cars by 1900 although the early use referred often to what would now be understood as sub-frames, structures which attached to the chassis to support drive-train components, coach-work etc.  The meaning “separate picture in a series from a film” dates from 1960 and was purely descriptive because the individual “frames” on film-stock resembled framed photographs attached in a continuous roll.  The idea of a frame being a “specific state” was in use in the 1660s, the “particular state” (in the sense of “one’s frame of mind”) appears in the medical literature in the 1710s.  The “frame of reference” was coined for use in mechanics and graphing in 1897; the figurative sense coming into use by at least 1924.  As an adjective, frame was in use in architecture & construction by the late eighteenth century.  The A-Frame (a type of framework shaped like the capital letter "A") was an established standard by the 1890s and a vogue for buildings in this shape was noted in the 1930s.

Faster and smaller: By 1964 the IBM 360 mainframe (left) had outgrown its cabinet (the original “main frame”) and had colonized whole rooms.  By 2022, the IBM z16 mainframe (right) was sufficiently compact to return to a cabinet.  

In computing, the word “frame” was used in a variety of ways.  The mainframe (central processor of a computer system) was first described as such in 1964, the construct being main +‎ frame and the reference simply was to the fact the core components were stored in a cabinet which had the largest frame in the room, other, small cabinets being connected with wires and cables.  Mainframes were the original “big machines” in commercial computing and still exist; incomparably good for some purposes, less satisfactory for others.  Frame Relay also still exists as a standardized wide-area network (WAN) technology although it’s importance in the industry has declined since its heyday during the last two decades of the twentieth century.  A packet-switching protocol used for transmitting data across a network, Frame Relay operates at the data link layer of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model, which is the second layer in the seven-layer model.  In a Frame Relay network, data is divided into frames, which are then transmitted between network devices (such as routers), over a shared communication medium and it was this latter aspect which accounted for its widespread adoption: unlike traditional circuit-switching networks (in which a dedicated physical circuit is established for the duration of a communication session), Frame Relay allows multiple logical connections to share the same physical resources so for all but the largest organizations, the potential for cost-saving was considerable.  Importantly too, integral to the protocol’s design was the use of packet switching (which means data is transmitted in variable-sized packets (ie frames) allowing the optimal use of available network bandwidth.  Frame Relay had the advantage also of not adding layers of complexity to the network architecture, relying on the underlying physical layer for error detection and correction rather than including error recovery mechanisms (a la a protocol like X.25 which operate at the network layer).  All of this made Frame Relay scalable and adaptable to various network topologies, making it an attractive “bolt-on” for system administrators and accountants alike.  However, while it still exists in some relatively undemanding niches, the roll-out of the infrastructure required to support internet traffic mean it has substantially been supplanted by newer technologies such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).

Pop-art painting of Lindsay Lohan in a mid-eighteenth century frame by Jean Cherin (circa 1734-1785), Paris, France.  This is an intricately carved example of the transitional Louis XV-style gilt double sweep frame, ornamented with shell centres, acanthus fan corners, and a top crested with a ribbon-tied leaf & flower cluster atop a cabochon.

Mojito

Mojito (pronounced moh-hee-toh)

A cocktail of Cuban origin, made with white rum, sugar-cane juice, lime juice, soda-water and mint.

1930–1935: From American-infused Cuban Spanish, perhaps a diminutive of the Spanish mojo (orange sauce or marinade) from mojar (to moisten; make wet) from the (hypothetical) Vulgar Latin molliāre (to soften by soaking), from the Latin molliō (soften), from mollis (soft).  The noun plural is mojitos.  The origin of the name mojito is disputed.  The most popular is that the name relates mojo, a Cuban seasoning made from lime and used to flavour dishes.  The alternative view is it’s a derivative of mojadito ("a little wet" in Spanish), the diminutive of mojado (wet).  Mojito is a noun, the noun plural is Mojitos and by convention, it seems mostly to appear with an initial capital.

Ingredients

Juice of 1 large lime.
1 teaspoon granulated sugar.
Small handful of mint leaves, plus extra sprig to serve.
60ml white rum.
Soda-water to taste.

Method

(1) Muddle lime juice, sugar & mint leaves in small jug, progressively crushing mint.  Pour into tall glass, adding handful of ice.

(2) Using chilled glass, pour over rum, stirring with long-handled spoon.  Top-up with soda water, garnish with mint and serve.

To create a virgin mojito, omit rum.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying ice-cream and (an allegedly virgin) mojito, Monaco 2015.

Where Hemmingway sat: Havana’s La Bodeguita del medio.  The red car pictured on the wall is a 1959 "bat wing" Chevrolet Bel Air convertible, emblematic of the "frozen in time" fleet of US cars which for more than two decades formed the backbone of the island's fleet, Washington's economic embargo meaning the importation of newer machinery was banned.  The survivors (now often re-powered with a variety of engines including diesels) are still used to take tourists sightseeing.

It’s not uncommon for the origin of the names of cocktails to be both obscure and contested.  Before the modern era, something like a cocktail could be uniquely regional, something well known in one part of a city yet unknown in another and around the world, because what seemed an appealing combination of drinks in one place would likely be tried in others, it’s a certainty many cocktails would independently have been “invented” many times.  So it’s impossible to know when, where or by whom a great number were first concocted and the contested history tends to be as much about the names as the recipes.  The Mojito, which has gained a new popularity in the twenty-first century, has a typically murky past and there are a number of stories which claim to document its origin, the best-known of which centres on Havana’s La Bodeguita del medio, a restaurant in which Nobel literature laureate Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) spent many hours, sitting in the bar; Hemmingway lent lavish praise to Bodeguita del medio’s version of the Mojito and he was a fair judge of such things.  The restaurant claims to be the first place on the planet to have served the drink, the recipe coming from African slaves working the Cuban sugar cane fields who created the mix from aguardiente de cana (literally “firewater of the sugar cane”).  In this telling it thus started life as a simply distilled spirit from the cane cuttings and the name Mojito fits this tale, the Spanish mojo meaning “to place a little spell”.  That lacks the documentary evidence etymologists prefer but points are gained for romance.

A brace of Mojitos with environmentally friendly stainless steel straws.  The earliest mixes may have been called El Draque.

Sir Francis Drake (circa 1540–1596) was a English sailor remembered for his role in defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588 but he was also a pirate (the English preferred the term “privateer”, pirates being “foreigners”), an aspect of his character which appealed to many including Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) who reckoned the decline of England was due to pillaging buccaneers like Drake being replaced by “shopkeepers” (as he would characterize Westminster politicians).  One of Drake's ventures was a plan to take Havana harbor from the Spanish and sack the city of its gold, the holdings there known to be vast but a survey of the place’s formidable defences led him to abandon that idea.  By then however many of his crews were suffering scurvy and dysentery which threatened the continuation of his voyage anywhere so, because Cuba’s native populations were known to have effective remedies for many diseases, Drake sent ashore a landing party to trade this and that for the ingredients for a medicine. The sailors returned with aguarediente de cana (mint leaves mixed with lime juice & the spirit distilled from sugar cane) and the tonic proved efficacious.  As the Admiralty would later understand, it was the lime juice which was most effective (and it would later be supplied on ships to end the problem of scurvy by providing the needed daily dose of vitamin C) but it would have been the spirit which made the potion more palatable to seamen.  A cocktail made with a similar mix was widely served in Cuba in the years after the abortive raid and this may have been the first commercially available Mojito although it didn’t use the name: it was called the El Draque.  It’s thus possible African slaves may not have mixed the first version but they may be responsible for the Mojito moniker, the Spanish mojadito (a little wet) and the Cuban lime-based seasoning mojo the other candidates.  Whatever the source, all agree it was the foundation of the Bacardi company in the mid nineteenth century which started the spread and Hemmingway’s imprimatur from the comfort of Bodeguita del medio’s bar stools was enough for it to begin its rise to the point where the Mojito is among the most popular modern cocktails.

Package

Package (pronounce pak-ij)

(1) A bundle of something, usually of small or medium size, that is packed and wrapped or boxed; parcel.

(2) A container, as a box or case, in which something is or may be packed.

(3) Something conceived of as a (usually) compact unit having particular characteristics.

(4) The packing of goods, freight etc.

(5) A finished product contained in a unit that is suitable for immediate installation and operation, as a power or heating unit.

(6) A group, combination, or series of related parts or elements to be accepted or rejected as a single unit.

(7) A complete program produced for the theater, television, etc or a series of these, sold as a unit.

(8) In computing, a set of programs designed for a specific type of problem in statistics, production control etc, making it unnecessary for a separate program to be written for each problem.

(9) In computing, software distributed with a (sometimes optional) routine which enables a number of components to be installed and configured in the one action, meaning the end-user doesn’t have to be acquainted with pre-requisites, co-requisites etc.

(10) In computing, an alternative name for a “software suite” which provides a structured installation and configuration of what are (historically or nominally) separate programs.

(11) In vulgar slang, the male genitalia.

(12) To make or put into a package.

(13) To design and manufacture a package for (a product or series of related products).

(14) To group or combine (a series of related parts) into a single unit.

(15) To combine the various elements of (a tour, entertainment, etc.) for sale as a unit.

1530s: The original form of the word was in the sense of “the act of packing”, either as the construct of the noun pack + -age or from the cognate Dutch pakkage (baggage).  Pack was from the Middle English pak & pakke, from the Old English pæcca and/or the Middle Dutch pak & packe, both ultimately from the Proto-West Germanic pakkō, from the Proto-Germanic pakkô (bundle, pack).  It was cognate with the Dutch pak (pack), the Low German & German Pack (pack), the Swedish packe (pack) and the Icelandic pakka & pakki (package).  The suffix -age was from the Middle English -age, from the Old French -age, from the Latin -āticum.  Cognates include the French -age, the Italian -aggio, the Portuguese -agem, the Spanish -aje & Romanian -aj.  It was used to form nouns (1) with the sense of collection or appurtenance, (2) indicating a process, action, or a result, (3) of a state or relationship, (4) indicating a place, (5) indicating a charge, toll, or fee, (6) indicating a rate & (7) of a unit of measure.  The familiar modern sense of “a bundle, a parcel, a quantity pressed or packed together” dates from 1722 while that creation of modern commerce, the “package deal” (a transaction agreed to as a whole) emerged in 1952.  As a verb meaning “to bundle up into a pack or package” it was in use by at least 1915 and was a development of the noun.  The noun packaging (act of making into a package or packages) seems to have come into use in 1875.  Derived forms are created as needed (mispackage, subpackage, repackage, unpackage et al). As a modifier, package is now most associated with the “package deal” in its many advertised forms (package holiday, package saver, package tour et al).  Package & packaging are nouns & verbs, packager is a noun, packaged is a verb and packageable is an adjective; the noun plural is packages.

DVD Package deal.

The concept of the "package deal" is to sell two or more items at a list price which is less than the total nominal value.  It's used for a variety of purposes, often to use a popular product to shift surplus copies of one less successful.  It's a popular concept but does need to be done with care.  In 2014, Apple did a deal with the Irish rock band U2 which for many iTunes users had the consequence of an unrequested downloading to their devices the band's latest album.  Many people take pop music very seriously and were apparently offended by the notion of an unwanted album by a boomer band being forced upon them.  Apple haven't since repeated the packaging experience.

Detroit, the option lists and the packages

1967 Chevrolet Impala SS 327.

When in the late 1950s computers migrated from the universities and defense industries to commerce, among the early adopters were the US car manufacturers; they found intriguing the notion that with a computerized system in place, each vehicle could be built to a customer’s individual order.  This had of course for decades been done by low-volume manufacturers catering to the upper class but the administrative and logistical challenges of doing it at scale on a rapidly moving production line had precluded the approach for the mass-market.  Computerization changed that and what happened was: (1) a customer visited a dealer and ticked what they wanted from what suddenly became a long and expanding options list, (2) the dealer forwarded the list (on paper) to the manufacturers central production office (CPO) where, (3) a data entry operator typed the information into a machine which stored it on a punch card which (4) subsequently produced (on paper) a “build sheet” which went to the assembly line foreman who ensured his workers produced each car in accordance with its build sheet.

Option list for 1967 full-size Chevrolet range (Biscayne, Bel Air, Impala & Caprice).

The system actually worked and within its parameters was efficient but accountants were not impressed by the complexity and while they acknowledged a system with dozens of options per model could be done, they said it shouldn’t be done because it would be more profitable to assemble often-ordered combinations of options into a bundle which could be sold as a package.  What this meant was production runs would become more efficient because thousands of identically configured cars could be made, reducing the chance of error and avoiding the need for each line to be supplied with optional parts not included in the set specification.  The other attraction was that people would end up paying for things they might not have wanted, simply because the “package” was the only way to get the stuff really desired.  The classic examples was the various “executive” packages which included power-steering, automatic transmission and air-conditioning and some packages proved so popular they were sometimes further commoditized by becoming a stand-alone model such as Chevrolet’s Caprice which had in 1965 begun life as a bundle of “luxury” items (packaged as Regular Production Option (RPO) Z18 for the Impala) before the next year becoming a separate model designation which wasn’t finally retired until 2017.  Under the pressure of (1) packaging and (2) increasing levels of standard equipment, the option lists shrunk in the 1970s and were soon trimmed to a handful of items, most of them fitted by dealers rather than installed by the factory.     

Care packages

Care packages were originally a private initiative of US based charities which organized the assembly of items (with an emphasis on food-stuffs with a long shelf-life which didn’t demand refrigeration) which could be shipped to Europe to aid the civilian population, many of who were malnourished in the aftermath of the war.  Initial discussions focused on post-war planning were held in 1944 and CARE was formed late the next year, the first shipment of packages beginning in the second quarter of 1946, one of the early sources of supply the large stockpile of Army ration-packs which were produced for the amphibious invasion of the Japanese mainland but never used because the conflict was ended by the use of atomic bombs.  What CARE shipped was an example of the use of the adjective pre-packaged (packaged at the site of production), a form which is documented from 1944 although the date is coincidental to the formation of CARE.  The name was originally an acronym: Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, but in 1959, reflecting what for some time had been the reality of CARE’s operations, it was changed to Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere.  In 1993 it was again changed to Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, cognizant both of what would now be called “political optics” and the organization’s now international structure.

North Korean Freedom Coalition care package price list.

News that Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) had banned Christmas in the DPRK so upset Christian activists that they redoubled their efforts to undermine the regime, advertising a list of “care packages” which could be launched into the Yellow Sea in bottles, the currents carrying them to the shores of the hermit kingdom, good Christian folk encouraged to donate between US$17 (which buys a small, concealable Bible) and US$1500 (a cell phone including roaming charges).  The activists operate from the Washington, DC-based North Korean Freedom Coalition (NKFC) which, in addition to challenging the “godless” Supreme Leader with teachings from Jesus, hopes practical care packages containing items such as shortwave radios and propaganda leaflets will destabilize the Kim dynasty.  The NKFC call the strategy “Operation Truth” and say it's modeled on the Berlin Airlift (1948-1949) which forced the Soviet Union to lift its blockade of West Berlin.  The most obviously practical of the packages contain enough rice to feed a family of four for a week, as well as a Bible on a flash drive and a US$1 bill, a much-sought after item in the DPRK.  In a clever twist which turns post-modernism against itself, the USB flash drives contain some North Korean music but with the lyrics altered from singing the praises of Kim Jong-un to lines worshiping God.  Decadent K-Pop songs are also loaded but the content of those (like the US movies also included) will be carefully checked to ensure nothing un-Christian is shipped.  Those who provided recorded messages included senators Jim Risch and Tim Kaine, & representatives Michael McCaul and Gregory Meeks; as if K-Pop wasn’t bad enough, that does sound like “cruel and unusual punishment”.  The packages are being supported by Fox News, the audience of which hates communists, atheists, Kim Jong-un and Joe Biden.

Moved to tears: The Supreme Leader sobbing when thinking of the lack of fecundity among his women, Pyongyang, December 2023.  

One who may deserve a care package is the Supreme Leader himself who recently was moved to tears as he implored his faithful female subjects to have more babies and raise them to love their country.  Kim Jong-un was filmed daubing is eyes with an immaculately pressed white handkerchief while addressing thousands of women gathered at a national mothers meeting in Pyongyang, the first such assembly in over a decade and one convened amid rising concerns over a fall in the DPRK’s birth rate.  “Stopping the decline in birthrates and providing good child care and education are all our family affairs that we should solve together with our mothers” the Supreme Leader was quoted as saying and with a rumored three children, he’s certainly done his bit.  Kim II went on to remind mothers their “primary revolutionary task” was to drill “socialist virtues” into their offspring and instil loyalty to the ruling party, adding that “…unless a mother becomes a communist, it is impossible for her to bring up her sons and daughters as communists and transform the members of her family into revolutionaries”.  Possibly fearing how they might be led astray by listening either to K-Pop or Senator Tim Kane, he warned the adoring women to be vigilant about any foreign influence on young minds, telling them to send their children to perform hard labour for the state to correct bad behaviour that is not “our style”.  The demographic problem isn’t restricted to the DPRK; in the region, policy-makers in both Japan and the RoK (the Republic of Korea (South Korea)) are also alarmed at the increasingly flaccid trend-line of population growth but for the DPRK, with its reliance on manual labour and military service, things rapidly could deteriorate.

Package deal: With every election of Bill Clinton, voters received a free copy of crooked Hillary.

There were suggestions the dictatorial tears were an indication of the uniqueness of the crisis and while it was true the dynasty had no tradition of lachrymosity, neither Kim Il-sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994) nor Kim Jong-il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1994-2011) ever having been seen crying but Kim Jong-un had shed a public tear in the past: In 2020, he cried as he issued an apology for failing to guide the reclusive country through turbulent economic times at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  So unexpected and unusual were the words of regret that the tears weren’t widely reported but at the military parade held in July 2023 to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War that divided the peninsula, the Supreme Leader proved he could also shed tears of joy, his eyes watering as the big missiles passed under his gaze.

Xmas

Xmas (pronounced kris-muhs (u) or eks-muhs (non-U))

An abbreviation for Christmas which, despite a long history of uncontroversial use, is increasingly labelled offensive by fundamentalist Christians.

1755: The construct was X- (the Greek letter χι (chi)) + Christ (our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ) + mas (Eucharistic service) from the Middle English messe & masse, from the Old English mæsse (the mass, church festival), from the Vulgar Latin messa (Eucharistic service (literally "dismissal”)), from the Late Latin missa (dismissal), the feminine past participle of mittere (to let go, send).  The connection is X being the initial letter in the Ancient Greek word Χριστός (Chrīstos) (Christ) although it’s speculated the physical resemblance between X and the cross on which Christ was crucified may at least have strengthened the association.  It sometimes appears as X-mas but Xtmas is long archaic; the plural is Xmases and there’s also the occasional appearance Xmassy (ie an (X- +) abbreviation of the adjective Christmassy) but it’s non-standard.  As a point of usage, Xmas should be pronounced kris-muhs, eks-muhs both non-U and a misplaced spoken tribute to the written although, it’s permissible if being used in the context of complaining about the use of the spelling Xmas.

The seemingly strange connection of the element –mas between a ritual of churches and the Latin root meaning “dismissal” is thought to lie in the concluding words of the service: Ite, missa est (“Go, (the prayer) has been sent" or "Go, it is the dismissal”)).  In Old English use, the Latin was sometimes glossed sendnes (send-ness) and the meaning "musical setting of certain parts of the Roman Catholic and Anglican liturgies” emerged in the 1590s.  Variations of mass are common in European languages including the Dutch mis, German Messe, Danish messe, Swedish mässa & Icelandic messa.

Xmas spirit: Lindsay Lohan, Santa Monica beach, Christmas, 2009.

Xmas was apparently first used in 1755 as a modification of the earlier abbreviation X'temmas, attested from 1551 where X was for Christ, the English letter X being identical in form (but not sound signification) to Greek χι (chi), the first letter of Ancient Greek Χριστός (Chrīstos) (Christ).  Earlier, the convention in English when abbreviating Christmas was to use Xp- or Xr- (corresponding to the "Chr-" in the Greek Χριστος), the spelling Χp̃es mæssa (Christmas) is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (a circa 1100 compilation of documents chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons, the original text dating from late in the reign of Alfred the Great (circa-899, king of the West Saxons from 871-circa 886 of the Anglo-Saxons circa 886-899)) and that was from Cristes mæsse, again with the abbreviation of Cristes provided by the symbol X, an orthographic borrowing from Ancient Greek χι (chi).  Scholars seem generally to agree the first known proto-Xmas appeared in 1021 when an Anglo-Saxon scribe saved some space with the multiple repetitions of Xpmas in a document; parchment was then expensive as the letters on telegrams would a millennium-odd later be.  Just to save space then, the same imperative that would later result in the anti-climatic Y2K bug, computer memory address space briefly the scarce parchment of its time.   

Use Xmas instead of Christmas and go straight to Hell.

Xmas was for centuries an accepted and uncontroversial abbreviation for Christmas, one found in the archives of both the Vatican and Lambeth Palace, for years used especially with technologies like telegrams and telexes which sometimes charged the sender by the letter and the thousand-odd year history of X as a substitute for “Christ” includes the words of men of letters Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), Lord Byron (1788-1824), Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), TS Eliot (1888–1965) and the theologians amateur & professional, CS Lewis (1898–1963) & Karl Barth (1886–1968).  In the twentieth century however, the attitudes of fundamental Christians hardened as the new spirit of intolerance washed around the planet, the trend intensified in recent years by technologies which both amplified extreme views and gave them an unprecedented opportunity of dissemination.  At its core was a concern nominally or established Christian nations were having imposed on them the double threat of chauvinistic multiculturalism and creeping secularization with Xmas (“taking Christ out of Christmas”) a blatant insult to the faithful.  Even before social media however, there had been objections; as early as the 1940s, books of etiquette and style guides from the usual subjects suggested Xmas should be avoided in formal writing and banned absolutely from appearing on Christmas cards.  Telegrams still being a thing, it was acknowledged there was a place for Xmas but that place was mostly in the squalid business of commerce, advertising the place it belonged; elsewhere it was inelegant though hardly an attack on Christendom.  Even those such as Robert Hudson (b 1938) who in Christian Writer's Manual of Style (2004) documented the etymology and acknowledged the ancient history of respectful use, said it should be avoided if possible and never appear in formal writing.  It’s now common for certain factions of Christianity to label the use of Xmas a blasphemy.  Fox News definitely avoid it.

Malcolm X (1925-1965).

The linguistic link between “X” and “Christ” was unrelated to it being the choice of family name by African-American civil rights activist Malcolm X.  Malcolm X was politically the most interesting activist of the era and renounced the family name of his birth because he thought it a legacy of something imposed on his forebears by a slave-owner, “X” used in the sense it’s applied in mathematics to represent an unknown variable, his true family name from Africa which could never be known.  The abandonment of family names was the practice of the Nation of Islam (founded 1930), theologically a distinct branch of the faith with a particular emphasis on an overtly political ideology.  Malcolm X joined the Nation of Islam around 1949 and the teaching of its then leader, Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975), was that their “true names would in future be revealed” although he made more than one explanation of the circumstances in which this would happen.