Irrefragable

Irrefragable (pronounced ih-ref-ruh-guh-buhl)

(1) Not to be disputed or contested (as assertion).

(2) Not able to be denied or refuted; indisputable (as fact).

(3) That which cannot or should not be broken; indestructible (archaic and probably extinct).

(4) Of a person, someone obstinate; stubborn (obsolete except as a literary device).

1525–1535: A learned borrowing from Late Latin irrefrāgābilis (irrefragable) with the English suffix –able appended.  The suffix -able was from the Middle English -able, from the Old French -able, from the Latin -ābilis (capable or worthy of being acted upon), from the primitive Indo-European i-stem forms -dahli- or -dahlom (instrumental suffix); it was used to create adjectives with the sense of “able or fit to be done”.  The construct of irrefrāgābilis was the Latin ir- (a variant of in- (used a prefix meaning “not”)) + refragā(rī) (the present active infinitive of refrāgor (to oppose, resist; to gainsay, thwart)) + -bilis (the suffix used to form adjectives indicating a capacity or worth of being acted upon).  Because of the paucity of documentary evidence, the ultimate source of the Latin refrāgor remains uncertain, but the construct may have been re- (the prefix used in the sense of “again”) + fragor (a breaking, shattering; a crash; din, uproar (from frangō (to break, shatter), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European bhreg- (to break)), formed as an antonym of suffrāgōr, the first-person singular present passive indicative of suffrāgō (to support; to vote for).  The sixteenth century French form was irréfragable, also from the Late Latin.  The meanings related to “indestructible objects” fell from use as early as the mid-seventeenth century while the figurative sense of “someone stubborn or obstinate” endured into the twentieth and, as a literary device, probably still tempts some and for those so tempted, the better style guides help by telling us to stress the second syllable.  The spelling irrefragible is obsolete.  Irrefragable is an adjective, irrefragability & irrefragableness are nouns and irrefragably is an adverb; the noun plural is irrefragabilies.

In English, irrefragable didn’t survive in common use for no better reason than people for whatever reason preferred the alternatives (literal & figurative) including (depending on the context): undeniable, indubitable, unassailable, indisputable, unambiguous, unquestionable, irrefutable, incontestable, immutable and unanswerable.  All those synonyms convey much the same thing for most so usually, the only thing the use of “irrefragable” is likely to engender is bafflement; few people will know what it means.  That can be fun between consenting word-nerds but it otherwise tends just to annoy.  There are structuralists who claim “irrefragable” is (or at least can be) different form a word like “unquestionable” because the former should specifically be associated with logical or argumentative strength while the later can be used in any context without necessarily emphasizing the same rigorous logical support.  So, because the underpinning of the scientific method is the disproving stuff, to say a scientific theory is irrefragable does not mean it cannot be argued against or disproven or that it’s beyond doubt or uncertainty; it means only that it cannot be refuted based on the current evidence.  By contrast, in some schools of theology, many things are unquestionable, not because they can be proved or disproven but because they must be accepted as matters of faith.  In the Roman Catholic Church, this is formalized: If a pope (invoking his infallibility in matters of dogma), declares something to be thus, it is, as a matter of canon law, both irrefragable & unquestionable.  The ancient idea of papal infallibility has been invoked only once since it was codified in the proceedings of the First Vatican Council (Vatican I 1869-1870) but since the early post-war years, pontiffs have found ways to achieve the same effect, John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) & Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) both adept at using what was in effect a personal decree a power available to one who sits at the apex of what is in constitutional terms an absolute theocracy.  Critics have called this phenononom "creeping infallibility" and its intellectual underpinnings own much to the tireless efforts of Benedict XVI while he was head of the Inquisition (by then called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) during the late twentieth century.

Defragable: Defragmentation in action under MS-DOS 6.22.  On a nearly full big drive (say 320 MB) on which defragmentation had been neglected for a while, the process could take literally hours.  True obsessives would add the relevant command to their autoexec.bat to start every day with a defrag, the sequence being: (1) switch on, (2) go and get coffee and (3) hope it was done upon return.

Before installable file systems (IFS) began to gain critical mass in the 1990s, disk defragmenters were something of a fetish among nerds because, at the software level, there were few quicker (a relative term) and cheaper ways to make things run faster.  Fragment was from the late Middle English fragment, from the Latin fragmentum (a fragment, a remnant), the construct being frangō (I break) +‎ -mentum, from the suffix -menta (familiar in collective nouns like armenta (herd, flock)), from the primitive Indo-European -mn̥the.  The tendency of the early file systems to increasing sluggishness was because the File Allocation Table (FAT) was an up-scaled variant of that used on floppy diskettes where the cluster sizes (the segments into which the media was divided) were small and thus less prone to fragmentation.  However, because of the arcane math which dictated how many clusters there could be under the various implementations of FAT, the only way to accommodate the increasing size of hard disk drives (HDD) was to make the clusters larger, the consequence of which was a file of 1 KB or less absorbed all of a 32 KB cluster, something both an inefficient use of space and inherently prone to fragmentation.  What defragmenters did was re-allocate files to make data both as contiguous and un-fragmented as possible.  Modern file systems (HPFS, NTFS et al) still have limits but the numbers are very big and contemporary operating systems now handle defragmentation dynamically.  Although it remains a useful system on USB pen drives and such because of the wide system compatibility and ease of use, it’s doubtful even the more nostalgic nerds have fond memories of FAT on HDDs; a corrupted FAT could be a nightmare.

Mule

Mule (pronounced myule)

(1) The sterile offspring of a female horse and a male donkey; a generalised term for any hybrid between the donkey and the horse.

(2) In informal use, a very stubborn person.

(3) In botany, any sterile hybrid.

(4) As drug mule, slang for a person paid to carry or transport contraband, especially drugs, for a smuggler.

(5) A small locomotive used for pulling rail cars, as in a coal yard or on an industrial site, or for towing, as of ships through canal locks.

(6) As spinning mule, a machine for spinning cotton or other fibers into yarn and winding the yarn on spindles.

(7) A style of open-backed women’s shoe, historically a lounging slipper that covers the toes and instep or only the instep.

(8) In nautical use, a large triangular staysail set between two masts and having its clew set well aft.

(9) In numismatics, a hybrid coin having the obverse of one issue and the reverse of the succeeding issue, or vice versa.

(10) A cocktail in various flavors (Jamaican Mule, Kentucky Mule & Moscow Mule) based respectively on Rum, Bourbon whiskey and Vodka

(11) As mule-deer, a species native to the western United States and so-named because of its large ears.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English mule, from the Anglo-Norman mule and the Old English mūl, both from the Latin mūlus, from the primitive Indo-European mukslós.   Related were the Middle Dutch mūle, the Old French mul (mule, hinny), the Late Latin muscellus (young he-mule), the Old East Slavic мъшкъ (mŭškŭ) (mule), the Phocian Ancient Greek  μυχλός (mukhlós) (he-ass) and the German Maul, Maultier & Maulesel, again derived from Latin.  It’s thought the Latin word was influenced by the Proto-Italic musklo- which is probably (along with the Ancient Greek myklos (pack-mule) and the Albanian mushk (mule)) a loan-word from one of the languages of Asia Minor.  The noun muleteer (mule driver) dates from the 1530s and was from the French muletier, from mulet (mule), a diminutive formation which in French displaced the Old French mul as the word for "mule".  The adjective mulish (possessing the characteristics imputed to the mule) is used of people thought obstinate rather than hard working; the word was in use by 1751 and the  alternative is mulelike (or mule-like), mulesque apparently either never created or not catching on. Mule is a noun & verb, mulishness & muleteer are nouns, mulishly is an adverb and mulish & mulelike are adjectives; the noun plural is mules. 

The mule became a popular pack animal because it was aid to "combine the strength of the horse with the endurance and surefootedness of the ass" and for centuries mules extensively have been bred to select for one characteristic or the other, those working mountainous trails a different beast from those on the plains.  To be zoologically correct, a mule is properly the offspring of a he-ass and a mare; that of a she-ass and a stallion is technically a hinny while a mule born of a horse and a she-ass is a burdon, a late fourteenth century creation based on the Latin burdonem.  Ordinarily, male mules incapable of procreation and commonly the word is applied allusively of hybrids and things of mixed nature.  The phrase "test mule" entered engineering (and later product development generally) in the 1920s to describe devices built for purposes of evaluation and thus expendable, a fate suffered no doubt by many an unfortunate. 

The mule's well-deserved reputation as a stellar beast of burden appears in the odd idiomatic form but it's the other traits which accounts for most popular use and perhaps surprisingly, given "stubborn as a mule" now appears in much greater frequency than "dumb as a mule" .  The meaning “stupid person” was noted by the 1470s, that of someone "obstinate or stubborn” not emerging until the eighteenth century although the latter use has endured and "working like a mule" proved an acceptable replacement when "working like an N-word" became proscribed.  There must have been some grounds for the beast picking up its reputation for obstinacy but there seems no evidence of the origin of that but it must sufficiently have been recognized to gain currency and become a proverbial descriptor of stubbornness.  A soul with such a tendency said to be "mulish"; within the family, Winston Churchill's (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) daughter Sarah (1914-1982) was nicknamed “the mule” (the English upper classes do like nick-names).  It seems likely the phrase "kick like a mule" was born of bitter experience although modern use is almost exclusively figurative, stronger forms of alcoholic drink commonly attracting the label.  It was formalized as the "Moscow Mule" (a cocktail made with vodka, ginger beer, and lime juice) although in the Western intelligence community that term was used also of traitors in the pay of the Soviet Union.  That use was probably modelled on "drug mule", underworld slang for "a smuggler of narcotics" which was noted as early as 1935 and came into general use in the post-war years.  The mule-deer of the western United States picked up the name because of its strikingly large ears.  

The so-named spinning machine dates from 1793 (first known as the "mule jenny" in 1788), the name derived from it being a "hybrid" of Richard Arkwright's (1732–1792) drawing-rollers and the spinning jenny invented by the English carpenter James Hargreaves (circa 1720–1778).  In what seems to have been an imaginative flight of etymological fancy, it was in the eighteenth century suggested the name "mule" was applied because the thing without complaint did so much of the labor which would otherwise have to be undertaken by human hand but there seems no doubt the inspiration was the machine's hybrid origin.  The use to describe the loose slipper worn as footwear was drawn into English in the 1560s from the Old French mule (slipper) from the Latin mulleus calceus (literally “red high-soled shoe”), a shoe worn by Roman patricians and associated with magistrates.  This footwear is unrelated to the long tradition of the Roman Catholic Pope wearing red shoes, the association tracing back to the notion of the blood of Christ falling on his feet as he carried on his back the cross on which he was crucified on Golgotha.  They were made again famous by fashion icon Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) although his successor, Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013), favours plain black.

The mule the clog and the slide

Lindsay Lohan in Alexander Wang Amelia mules, Mykonos, June 2019.  Note the low heel, an example of how the term “mule" is used now by manufacturers to describe just about anything with some degree of openness in the heel.

Mules, by definition are backless but may be sling-backs and can have open or closed toes.  There are many who would classify these as sandals and some manufacturers agree.  In this context "mule" was from the Ancient Roman mulleus calceus a red (or reddish-purple) shoe popular with upper-class Romans and worn as a symbol of office by the three highest magistrates although the scant historical evidence does suggest the Roman footwear looked more like modern clogs than mules and logically, one would expect footwear with thicker, tougher soles would at the time have been preferred for use outdoors.  High-heeled mules became a popular indoor style during the 1700s, influenced by the pattern, a backless overshoe of the sixteenth century, although, by early in the twentieth, mules were often derided as the "dress-wear" of the "better class of prostitutes" and it wasn’t until Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) adopted the mule in the 1950s they again assumed some respectability.  By the 1990s, mules were among the most popular of shoes.

Chanel Mesh & Grosgrain Mule in black with 3.3 inch (85mm) heel @ US$800, Chanel part-number: G37505 Y55290 94305.

The descriptors mules, clogs and slides are sometimes used interchangeably.  The typical clog is a closed-toed wooden (or other) soled shoe with a heel no more than a couple of inches high.  Clogs are backless (although there are clog boots).  Mules, by comparison, traditionally had a higher heel although the strictness applied to that definition has weakened the emphasis seemingly now on the backlessness although there standards too are loose, slingback mules common.  The term slide derives from being applied to designs permitting the foot to slide in and may thus apply to both mules and clogs rather than being a distinct style.

Swish

Swish (pronounced swish)

(1) Something smart or stylish (mostly UK & Commonwealth use and said historically to be most applied to things with shiny surfaces such as leather); sophisticated; fashionable; (figuratively) smooth.

(2) To move with or make a sibilant sound, as a slender rod cutting sharply through the air or as small waves washing on the shore.

(3) To rustle (especially of flowing fabrics, on the model of the sound made by moving silk).

(4) To move or behave in an exaggerated manner (often described as “effeminate” or “mincing”).

(5) To flourish, whisk, etc with a swishing movement or sound.

(6) To bring, take, cut, etc with such a movement or sound.

(7) To flog or whip (now rare).

(8) A movement (and sometimes (though not necessarily) the sound) of liquid flowing inside a container.

(9) In mathematics (as swish function), a mathematical activation function in data analysis.

(10) A stock or rod used for flogging or the stroke of such a device (now rare).

(11) A contemptuous term used to refer to an effeminate gay man (regarded as an offensive slur and now rare).

(12) A form of table tennis (ping-pong) able to be played both by people who are blind or vision impaired and by those who are sighted.

(13) A building material used mainly in West Africa and composed originally of mortar and mud or laterite; of late it has been made with a xix of earth & cement.

(14) In basketball, a successful shot that does not touch the rim or backboard.

(15) In slang (in and outside prisons), an alcoholic drink made (1) by fermenting whatever ingredients are available or (2) adding small quantities of water to “empty” bottles to obtain whatever alcohol content remains.

(16) As an interjection, a hissing or whistling sound, imitative or suggestive of something travelling quickly through the air.

1756: Of imitative origin, an onomatopoeia covering a range of sounds.  The intransitive verb in the sense of “move with a swish or flourish or with a sound like swish” was the first form, the transitive verb, used in the sense of “cause to swish” (hence “flourish, brandish”) in use by 1799.  Etymologists conclude it was almost certainly imitative of the sound made by something brushing against or through something else (the “rustle” of silk the classic example).  The most attractive derived form is probably the adjective swishity (characteristic of swish or swishing).  The swish noun emerged in the 1820s (as in “with a swish”) was expressive of the sound of something moving through the air, a development from the verb.  The use as a slur directed at “a particularly effeminate homosexual” was a creation of 1930s US slang, based presumably the idea of the stereotypical “mincing motion”.  The slang use meaning “to flog or last” (the noun swish later adapted to describe the whip) was in use by at least 1856 and despite citations, there little to suggest the origin was in the Royal Navy, that institution already having a rich lexicon of slang related to flogging.  Although the British Army formerly abolished flogging in 1881, it the navy it was only ever “suspended” although it's said no sentences have been imposed since 1879.  In idiomatic use, the noun swish-swash is now used to describe “a repeated swishing action or sound, going back and forth”.  An obsolete meaning, dating from the 1540s was “a weak, wishy-washy drink” although it’s documented that by the 1580s, a swish-swash was a “violent or swaggering person”.  From the connection to the weak drink came the use of swish to describe “an alcoholic beverage obtained by filling an (empty) cask from a distillery with water to leech out the residual liquor”.  Swish is a noun, verb & adjective, swisher is a noun & adjective, swishing is a noun & verb, swishness & swishiness are nouns, swished is a verb, swishest & swishity are adjectives and swishingly is an adverb; the noun plural is swishes.

Swishy Ping-Pong

Swish is a form of ping-pong which permits people who are blind or vision impaired to compete with the sighted on close to equal terms; the preferred description of Swish is Vision Impaired Table Tennis.  Played at both a recreational and competitive level, the idea is similar to mainstream ping-pong except that rather than the ball having to be hit over the net, it must travel along the table’s surface with the “net” set at a certain height to ensure players with various degrees of sight don’t enjoy an advantage over the blind.  Like “blind cricket”, the ball has a bell inside to make it audible and is roughly the size of a tennis ball, made of plastic with holes in it to amplify the sound.  The bats are rectangular with a handle (something like a cricket bat in miniature) with one of the long edges positioned flat against the table.  Like ping-pong, the game can be played either as singles or doubles with a variety of rules in competition ranging from single games to matches of up to eleven.  Some competitions exist for “mixed” teams (sighted and not) and there are "handicap" events in which the sighed competitors wear masks, rendering them completely blind.

The swishy skirt

Lindsay Lohan in three dresses illustrating the possibilities offered by the swishy skirt: thigh high (mini, left), calf length (midi, centre) and ankle length (maxi, right).

The movement of a swishy skirt tends to exaggerate the perception of the volume of fabric used and this can convey the impression of something intricately constructed and while elaborate underpinnings are possible, most are simply an A-line skirt, made with vertical seams, a waistband and hem, the ensemble typically secured with a zipper.  The design does however offer wide scope, not only in terms of length (swishiness increasing the more the hemline approaches the ankles) but the bulk of fabric used makes the style highly suited to the provision of pockets, a feature designers often avoid including in women’s clothing because if actually used, they can spoil the line.  In a swishy skirt, the pockets can be both larger and located lower (in the “swish zone”), meaning that unless really stuffed with stuff, the very presence of a pocket can often be imperceptible.  Designers however caution that pockets do need to be done with some precision; they need to be sufficiently deep and wide to accommodate the hand with the weight of anything put in the pocket to be borne by the waistband and not the more fragile.  As a general principle the pockets should be folded toward the front of the skirt although, anyone tempted to try the more challenging asymmetric pocket might prefer to make it a feature and reverse the geometry.  However it’s done, what matters is that any weight introduced into a pocket should not distort the silhouette.  A signature trick used in the making of swishy skirts is the “Hong Kong Finished waistband” (KHFW).  The KHFW is achieved by sewing a piece of fabric around the raw edge of another, the advantages being the edge does not then need to be turned under for a finish, the trick in the technique used by dressmakers being the use of bias tape or a seam binding product to wrap the raw edges of the seam allowances before pressing open the seams.  The KHFW is used on a wide variety of garments but it’s often the technique of choice with swishy skirts because it removes a layer from what is the bulkiest part of the construction.

How swishy is done:  The basic A-Line pattern (left) and a swishy skirt with pockets (right).

Artifice

Artifice (pronounced ahr-tuh-fis)

(1) A clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device or expedient; wile.

(2) Trickery; guile; a crafty but underhanded deception.

(3) Cunning; ingenuity; inventiveness; a trick played out as an ingenious, but artful, ruse.

(4) A skilful or artful contrivance or expedient.

(5) A strategic manoeuvre that uses some clever means to avoid detection or capture; a tactical move to gain advantage.

(6) To construct by means of technical skill or some specialised art (cited by many sources as archaic but still used and useful in this sense).

1525–1535: From the Middle English in the sense of “workmanship, the making of something by craft or skill”, from the fourteenth century Middle French artifice (skill, cunning), from the Old French from the Latin artificium (art, craft, skill, talent, craftsmanship; profession, trade, an employment) from artifex (genitive artificis) (artist, actor; craftsman, master (of a craft or trade); mastermind, schemer; one possessed of a specific skill), the construct being ars- (art; skill) + -fex (from facere (to make; to do)), from the primitive Indo-European root dhe (to set; to put).  As a suffix in Latin, -fex was used to represent a maker or producer.  Synonyms include subterfuge, deception, deceit and duplicity but there’s also an array of associative words such as gimmick, contrivance, duplicity, inventiveness, dodge, manoeuvre, play, scam, savvy, stratagem, machination, ploy, subterfuge, ruse, racket, tactic, expedient, device, wile and gambit.  The original meanings survive but have tended to have receded in use compared with the sense of “crafty; a device; trickery” which emerged in the 1650s.  Artifice is a noun & verb, artificer is a noun and artificing & artificed are verbs; the noun plural is artifices.

Some artifice involved: Pamela Anderson (b 1967), mostly real.

The adjective artificial dates from the late fourteenth century in the sense of “something not natural or spontaneous”, from the Old French artificial, from the Latin artificialis “of or belonging to art”, again from artificium.  The adverb artificially (by art or human skill and contrivance) dates from the early fifteenth century while the noun artificiality (appearance of art; insincerity) emerged in the 1760s, the earlier form was artificialness, documented in the 1590s; the Middle English artificy survived until the early fifteenth century.  In English, the earliest use seems to be the phrase “artificial day” (that part of the day from sunrise to sunset (as opposed to the “natural” days 24 hours)).   The early fifteenth century idea of something artificial being something The meaning “made by man, contrived by human skill and labor” was the basis of the morphing in the 1700s to “anything made in imitation of, or as a substitute for, what is natural, whether real (light, tears) or not (teeth, flowers).  The third sense (these all still running in parallel) of “full of affectation, insincere” was in use by the 1590s, the subtlety different “fictitious, assumed, not genuine” by the 1640s.  So the use depends on context: when people no peak of artificial intelligence, the implication is of “a machine which can emulate and improve upon human thought processes” and not “fake intelligence” which means something else, although, given some of the dubious results which have been provided by the early implementations of generative AI, it’s clear some fake intelligence has been produced.

The Artifice.

Founded in 2009 and based in Sweden, the Artifice is an English-language on-line magazine focusing on popular culture topics such as film, manga, anime, television, comics, on-line gaming and such.  It's a most interesting venture because the model is a platform available to anyone writing in English, submissions vetted by an editorial panel which provides criticism and suggests improvements, those published subsequently invited to contribute to the editorial process.  It's an intriguing collaborative approach, something really practical in the on-line environment and vaguely analogous with open-source software, the difference being Artifice's authors provide their content as a finished product, not something intended for others to modify and distribute though doubtlessly that happens.

The abbreviation AI is now familiar because of the sudden rise in interest in packaged generative artificial intelligence, prompted by the availability of products such as ChatGPT, ClickUp or the still embryonic extensions which bolt a version onto Google’s & Microsoft’s web browsers (Chrome and Bing respectively); Collins Dictionary named “AI” their “word of the Year 2023”, noting the sudden spike of interest in the topic wasn’t reflected in an increase on-line of the use of the words “artificial” or “intelligence” because both in general use and as a search term, “AI” had become ubiquitous.  Artificial intelligence (the science and engineering of making intelligent machines) was coined in 1956 but the abbreviation came into use only in 1971.  Since 1894, within various parts of veterinary science and livestock management, AI had been used to refer to “artificial insemination”, a mechanical form of introducing semen where required.  Most associated with cattle, when some artificiality was introduced to human reproduction, the term “in vitro fertilisation” (IVF) was preferred although it is a very different process in which fertilisation is achieved by combining an egg with sperm in vitro (from the Latin, translated literally as “in the glass”, hence the memorable (if misleading) early phrase “test-tube baby.  Because “in vitro” has become so common in English it’s probably assimilated and thus (in this context) no longer italicized.  In this it’s similar to something like the even more common de facto which, because assimilated for most purposes, is not italicized except when used in the context of legal proceedings, a nod to its status as Latin legal language.

Beware of imitations: Bees can’t be fooled but humans need a guide.

Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) "table talk", his meandering discussions (often monologues) over meals or other informal gatherings were notoriously repetitive and quite a strain for his regular audience to sit through.  Some of the topics were predicable but one subject often mentioned was artificial honey, his interest in the concocted stuff apparently because he was provided with much of the sticky syrup in his rations while serving in the Imperial German Army (1871–1919) during World War I (1914-1918).  His sweet tooth was well-documented and whether or not it was his influence, the substance appeared in the list Ernährungsrichtlinie für die Verbrauchslenkung (Nutrition guidelines for consumption control), published in the March 1939 edition Zeitschrift für Spiritusindustrie (Spirit Industry Magazine), the presence of artificial honey and milk powder indicating the regime's multi-pronged approach to food security (although they also sponsored research on fat made from coal which sounds less tempting).  Of late, artificial honey has become controversial in a number of jurisdictions, not because of concerns about the safety of the product but because it is sometimes represented as “natural honey”.

Fecund & Fertile

Fecund (pronounced fuh-khunt, fee-kuhnd or fek-uhnd)

(1) Producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit, vegetation, etc in abundance; prolific; fruitful.

(2) Figuratively, highly productive or creative intellectually; innovative.

Circa 1525: From the mid-fifteenth century Middle English fecounde from the Middle French fecund, from the Old French fecund & fecont (fruitful), from the Latin fēcundus (fruitful, fertile, productive; rich, abundant (and related to the Latin fētus (offspring) and fēmina (“woman”)), from fe-kwondo-, an adjectival suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root dhei or dhe- (to suck, suckle), other derivatives meaning also “produce” & “yield”.  Fē in this case wasn’t a prefix but a link to fetus whereas -cundus was the adjectival suffix.  It replaced the late Middle English fecounde.  The spelling fecund was one of the “Latinizing” revisions to spelling which was part of the framework of early Modern English, (more or less) standardizing use and replacing the Middle English forms fecond, fecound & fecounde.  The Latin root itself proved fecund; from it came also felare (to suck), femina (woman (literally “she who suckles”)); felix (happy, auspicious, fruitful), fetus (offspring, pregnancy); fenum (hay (which seems literally to have meant “produce”)) and probably filia (daughter) & filius (son), assimilated from felios (originally “a suckling”).  The noun fecundity emerged in the early fifteenth century and was from the Latin fecunditatem (nominative fecunditas) (fruitfulness, fertility), from fecundus (fruitful, fertile).  The old spelling fœcund is obsolete.  Fecund is an adjective and fecundity & fecundation are nouns; the noun plural is fecundities.

In his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted without comment the shift in popular pronunciation but took the opportunity to cite the phrase of a literary critic (not a breed of which he much approved) who compared the words of HG Wells (1866-1946) & Horace Walpole (1717–1797): “The fecund Walpole and the facund Wells”.  The critic, Henry Fowler noted: “fished up the archaic facund for the sake of the play on words”.  Never much impressed by flashy displays of what he called a “pride of knowledge”, his objection here was that there was nothing in the sentence to give readers any idea of the change in meaning caused by the substituted vowel.  Both were from Latin adjectives, fēcundus (prolific) and facundus (elegant).

Fertile (pronounced fur-tl or fur-tahyl (mostly UK RP))

(1) Of land, bearing, producing, or capable of producing vegetation, crops etc, abundantly; prolific.

(2) Of living creatures, bearing or capable of bearing offspring; Capable of growth or development.

(3) Abundantly productive.

(4) Conducive to productiveness.

(5) In biology, fertilized, as an egg or ovum; fecundated; capable of developing past the egg stage.

(6) In botany, capable of producing sexual reproductive structures; capable of causing fertilization, as an anther with fully developed pollen; having spore-bearing organs, as a frond.

(7) In physics (of a nuclide) capable of being transmuted into a fissile nuclide by irradiation with neutrons (Uranium 238 and thorium 232 are fertile nuclides); (a substance not itself fissile, but able to be converted into a fissile material by irradiation in a reactor).

(8) Figuratively, of the imagination, energy etc, active, productive, prolific.

1425–1475: From the Late Middle English fertil (bearing or producing abundantly), from the Old French fertile or the Latin fertilis (bearing in abundance, fruitful, productive), from ferō (I bear, carry) and .akin to ferre (to bear), from the primitive Indo-European root bher (to carry (also “to bear children”)).  The verb fertilize dates from the 1640s in the sense of “make fertile” although the use in biology meaning “unite with an egg cell” seems not to have been used until 1859 and use didn’t become widespread for another fifteen years.  The noun fertility emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, from the earlier fertilite, from the Old French fertilité, from the Latin fertilitatem (nominative fertilitas) (fruitfulness, fertility), from fertilis (fruitful, productive).  Dating from the 1660s, the noun fertilizer was initially specific to the technical literature associated with agriculture in the sense of “something that fertilizes (land)”, and was an agent noun from the verb fertilize.  In polite society, fertilizer was adopted as euphemism for “manure” (and certainly “shit”), use documented since 1846.  The noun fertilization is attested since 1857 and was a noun of action from fertilize; it was either a creation of the English-speaking world or a borrowing of the Modern French fertilisation.  The common antonyms are barren, infertile and sterile.  Fertile is an adjective, fertility, fertilisation & fertileness are nouns, fertilize fertilized & fertilizing are verbs.  Technical terms like sub-fertile, non-fertile etc are coined as required.

The term “Fertile Crescent” was coined in 1914 was coined by US-born University of Chicago archaeologist James Breasted (1865-1935); it referred to the strip of fertile land (in the shape of an irregular crescent) described the stretching from present-day Iraq through eastern Turkey and down the Syrian and Israeli coasts.  The significance of the area in human history was it was here more than ten-thousand years ago that settlements began the practice of structured, seasonal agriculture.  The Middle English synonym childing is long obsolete but the more modern term “at risk” (of falling pregnant) survives for certain statistical purposes and was once part of the construct of a “legal fiction” in which the age at which women were presumed to be able to conceive was set as high as 65; advances in medical technology have affected this.

The difference

So often are “fecund” & “fertile” used interchangeably that there may be case to be made that in general use they are practically synonyms.  However, the use is slanted because fertile is a common word and fecund is rare; it’s the use of fertile when, strictly speaking, fecund is correct which is the frequent practice.  Technically, the two have distinct meanings although there is some overlap and agriculture is a fine case-study: Fertile specifically refers to soil rich in nutrients and able to support the growth of plants.  Fecund can refer to soil capable of supporting plant growth but it has the additional layer of describing something capable of producing an abundance of offspring or new growth.  This can refer to animals, humans, bacteria or (figuratively), ideas.  Used interchangeably, expect between specialists who need to differentiate, this linguistic swapping probably doesn’t cause many misunderstandings because the context of conversations will tend to make the meaning clear and for most of use, the distinction between a soil capable of growing plants and one doing so prolifically is tiresomely technical.  Still, as a rule of thumb, fertile can be thought of as meaning “able to support the growth of offspring or produce” while fecund implies “producing either in healthy volumes”.

Ultimate fecundity: Fast breeding

Although there are differences in meaning, fertile and fecund tend to be used interchangeably, especially in agriculture.  As adjectives, the difference is that fecund means highly fertile whereas fertile is the positive side of the fertile/infertile binary; capable of producing crops or offspring.  Fecundity may thus be thought a measure of the extent to which fertility is realised.  In nuclear physics, fertile material is that which, while not itself fissile (ie fissionable by thermal neutrons) is able to be converted into fissile material by irradiation in a reactor.  Three basic fertile materials exist: thorium-232, uranium-234 & uranium-238 and when these materials capture neutrons, respectively they are converted into uranium-233, uranium-235 & fissile plutonium-239.  Artificial isotopes formed in the reactor which can be converted into fissile material by one neutron capture include plutonium-238 and plutonium-240 which convert respectively into plutonium-239 & plutonium-241.

Obviously fertile and recently fecund.  In July 2023 Lindsay Lohan announced the birth of her first child.

Further along the scale are the actinides which demand more than one neutron capture before arriving at an isotope which is both fissile and long-lived enough to capture another neutron and reason fission instead of decaying.  These strings include (1) plutonium-242 to americium-243 to curium-244 to curium-245, (2) uranium-236 to neptunium-237 to plutonium-238 to plutonium-239 and (3) americium-241 to curium-242 to curium-243 (or, more likely, curium-242 decays to plutonium-238, which also requires one additional neutron to reach a fissile nuclide).  Since these require a total of three or four thermal neutrons eventually to fission, and a thermal neutron fission generates typically only two to three neutrons, these nuclides represent a net loss of neutrons although, in a fast reactor, they may require fewer neutrons to achieve fission, as well as producing more neutrons when they do.

Fast breeder (fusion) reactors have existed in labs for decades but, because of the need to contain sustainably very high temperatures, the challenge has always been to build something which (1) produces more energy than it consumes and (2) does so indefinitely.  On paper (and physicists admit the design is now so well understood a conceptual diagram can be sketched on a sheet in minutes) the science and engineering works so all that stands in the way is economics.  The lure of the fast breeder reactor is that, theoretically endlessly, one can produce more fissile material than it consumes (they're constructed using fertile material either wrapped around the core or encased in fuel rods).  Because plutonium-238, plutonium-240 and plutonium-242 are fertile, their accumulation is more manageable than that produced in conventional thermal reactors.  On planet Earth, the economics remain un-compelling, practical application of the technology having been thirty years off since the mid-1950s.  One proposal however transcends economics because it solves an otherwise insoluble problem.  If a facility for the manufacture of fissile material for spacecraft nuclear propulsion could be located on a space facility located at a point beyond the gravitational pull of Earth, it would be safe both to transport fertile materials to the facility and there manufacture fissile material which could provide the energy required for space exploration.

Adiaphoron

Adiaphoron (pronounced add-e-ah-for-on or eh-dee-ah-for-on)

(1) A matter of indifference.

(2) In philosophy, a matter held to be morally neutral.

(3) In Christian theology, something neither forbidden nor commanded by scripture and thus neither prescribed nor proscribed in church law.

(4) In Christian theology, the position that adherence to certain religious doctrines, rituals or ceremonies (even if non-standard) are not matters of concerned and may be practices or not, according to local preference.

1630s: From the Latin adjective adiaphoron, an inflection of adiaphoros (indifferent, non-essential, morally neither right nor wrong), neuter of Ancient Greek ἀδιάφορος (adiáphoros) (not different; indifferent), the construct being from a- (used in the sense of “not”) + diaphoros (different).  The Greek ἀδιάφορον (not different or differentiable) was thus the negation of διαφορά (diaphora) (difference).  The noun adiaphoria (a failure to respond to stimulation after a series of previously applied stimuli) is unrelated in meaning, the construct being a- (not) +‎ dia- (through) +‎ -phor (bearer) +‎ -ia (the suffix used to form abstract nouns).  Adiaphoron is a noun & adjective, adiaphorist & adiaphorism are nouns, adiaphorous, adiaphoristic & adiaphoric are adjectives; the noun plural is adiaphora.

In the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks, adiaphorism was an aspect in more than one school of thought.  To the Cynics it was used in the sense of “indifference” to both unfortunate events and the “stuff” which, then as now, functioned as the markers of success in society: power, fame & money.  The ancestor of the anti-materialists of the modern age, Cynicism understandably had more admirers than adherents.  The Stoics were more deterministic, dividing all the concerns of humanity into (1) good, (2) bad and (3) indifferent (adiaphora).  What they listed as good & bad was both predictable and (mostly) uncontroversial, something like a form of utilitarianism but without that creed’s essential component of distributive justice.  The implication, which retains much appeal to modern libertarians, was that for anything to be thought a matter of ethical concern, it needed to be defined as “good” or “bad”, the adiaphora being outside the scope of morality.  Acknowledged or not, this is what all but the most despotic legal and social systems can be reduced to although, being culturally and historically specific, the results can vary greatly.  In Athenian thought, the word also had a technical meaning wholly removed from morality.  To the Pyrrhonists (the most uncompromising of the philosophical sceptics) who essentially discarded all forms of imposed values in favor of defining everything by objective truth alone, the significance of the adiaphora was that these were things which, as a technical point, could not logically be differentiated.

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

In Christianity, the adiaphora are those matters which, while they might be a significant or traditional part of worship either universally or sectionally, are not regarded as essential components of belief but may be practiced where the preference exists.  Within the schismatic world of Christianity, views differ and what is essential doctrinal orthodoxy in some denominations can be mere adiaphora in others.  Historically, the matter of what is and is not adiaphoric has been a matter of dispute and was a significant factor in the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, a movement much concerned with the appropriateness of non-biblical ritual, rites, decorations and “…the other detritus of Popery”.  It took some time to work out but what emerged was a political compromise which defined adiaphora essentially as those traditions “neither commanded nor forbidden in the Word of God”, thus permitting the ongoing observation of the “bells & whistles” of worship which had evolved over centuries and despite the entreaties of the iconoclasts, continued to be clung to by congregations.  The lesson of this compromise to accommodate “harmless regionalisms” was well learned by some later leaders, religious and secular.

Between the Christian denominations, the same thing can variously be dogma, heresy or mere adiaphora and an illustrative example of disagreement lies in the cult of Mary (Mariology to the theologians).  In the Roman Catholic Church, the cult of Mary is based on dogma worked out over centuries: (1) that Mary was a pure virgin, before, during and after giving birth to Christ, (2) that Mary was the “Mother of God”, (3) that Mary, at her conception was preserved immaculate from Original Sin and (4) that at the conclusion of her earthly existence, Mary was assumed, body and soul into heaven (it has never been made explicit whether Mary died on earth although this does seem long to have been theological orthodoxy, the essential point being the physical assumption (from the Latin assūmptiō (taking up)) meant her body did not remain to be corrupted).

In the intricate interplay of theology and church politics, what really appealed to nineteenth century popes was linked to Gnosticism, the notion of “the dual realms of darkness and light beyond the mere veil of appearances, where reside the Godhead, the Virgin Mary, Michael, and all the angels and the saints, opposed by the powers of the Prince of Darkness and his fallen angels who wander through the world for the ruin of souls” as Leo XIII (1810–1903; pope 1878-1903) wrote in a prayer to be recited at the end of every Mass.  In other words, whatever happens depends on Mary’s intercession with her Christ child “to so curb the power of Satan that war and discord will be vanquished.”  In turn, this depends on Marian revelations sanctioned as authentic by the pope, whose power is thus parallel to Mary’s.  It's something which has been criticized as "opportunistic constructed symbiosis".

Assumption of the Virgin Mary (circa 1637) by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna.

Modern popes, if they hold such a view, no longer dwell on it but it remains church dogma and because it was in the 1950s proclaimed with the only (formal) invocation of papal infallibility since the First Vatican Council (Vatican I; 1869-1870), any change would be something extraordinary.  In some other denominations Mary is more a historical figure than a cult and in the Anglican Church the doctrine of the Assumption ceased to be part of orthodoxy in the sixteenth century; while the Protestant Reformation wasn’t a project of rationalism, it was certainly about simplicity and a rejection of some of the mysticism upon which whole the clerical class depended for their authority.  Despite that, in Anglicanism, the Assumption of Mary seems never to have been proscribed and in the twentieth century it re-appeared in the traditions of the so-called “Anglo-Catholics” who adore the "Romish ways".  For most of the Anglican communion however, it seems to be thought of as adiaphora, one of those details of religious life important to some but which seems neither to add much or threaten anything.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche (pronounced si-nek-duh-kee)

In the study of rhetoric, a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special; a member of the figurative language set, a group which includes metaphors, similes and personification; it describes using part of a whole to represent the whole.

Late 1400s: As a "figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole or vice versa," synecdoche is a late fifteenth century correction of the late fourteenth century synodoches, from the Medieval Latin synodoche, an alteration of the Late Latin synecdochē, from the Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ) (the putting of a whole for a part; an understanding one with another (and literally "a receiving together or jointly" (ekdokhē the root of interpretation)) from synekdekhesthai (supply a thought or word; take with something else, join in receiving).  The construct was syn- (with) + ek (out) + dekhesthai (to receive), related to dokein (seem good) from the primitive Indo-European root dek- (to take, accept).  The construct of the Greek form was σύν (sún) (with) + ἐκ (ek) (out of) + δέχεσθαι (dékhesthai) (to accept), this final element related to δοκέω (dokéō) (to think, suppose, seem).  The alternative spellings syndoche & synechdoche are rare.  Synecdoche, synecdochization & synecdochy are nouns, synecdochic & synecdochical are adjectives, synecdochize is a verb and synecdochically is an adverb; the noun plural is synecdoches.  

Synecdoche vs. Metonymy

It’s one of those places in English where rules or descriptions overlap and it's easy to confuse synecdoche and metonymy because they both use a word or phrase to represent something else (and there are authorities which classify synecdoche as merely a type of metonymy although this appals the more fastidious).  Technically, while a synecdoche takes an element of a word or phrase and uses it to refer to the whole, a metonymy replaces the word or phrase entirely with a related concept.  Synecdoche and metonymy have much in common and there are grey areas: synecdoche refers to parts and wholes of a thing, metonymy to a related term. The intent of synecdoche is usually either (1) to deviate from a literal term in order to spice up everyday language or (2) a form of verbal shorthand.  In the discipline of structural linguistics, it's noted the distinction is between using a part to represent the whole (pars pro toto, from the Latin, the construct being pars (part) + prō (for) + tōtō, the ablative singular of tōtus (whole, entire)) or using the whole to represent a part (totum pro parte , from the Latin, the construct being tōtum (whole) + prō (for) + parte, the ablative singular of pars (part)).

The Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia, USA.  Advances in technology have made the site vulnerable to long-range attacks as early as the 1950s and many critical parts of the military's administration are now located elsewhere.  After construction ended in 1943, for some 80 years the Pentagon was (in terms of floor area) the world's largest office building.  It's place on this architectural pecking order has since been supplanted by the Surat Diamond Bourse in Gujarat, India, opened in 2023.

Forms of Synecdoche

(1) A part to represent a whole: The word "head" can refer to counting cattle or people; hands for people on a specific job or members of a crew etc.

(2) A whole to represent a part: The word "Pentagon", while literally a very big building, often refers to the few decision-making generals who comprise the Joint Chiefs of Staff or more generally, the senior ranks of the US military.  However, the use of "the White House" (a smaller building) operates synecdochically to refer to "the administration" rather than "the president" and while it should be reasonable to assume some interchangeably, under both Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021), it's been not uncommon to hear "the White House" being quoted "clarifying" (ie correcting" something said by the president .    

(3) A synecdoche may use a word or phrase as a class to express more or less than the word or phrase actually means: The USA is often referred to as “America” although this is a term from geography while "USA" is from political geography.  The word "crown" is often used to refer to a monarch or the monarchy as a whole but in some systems (notably the UK and Commonwealth nations which retain the UK's monarch as their head of state) the term "The Crown" is a synecdoche for "executive government".  

(4) Material representing an object: Cutlery and flatware is often (and often erroneously) referred to as "silver" or "silverware" even though there may not be a silver content in the metal although, "silver" being also a term referencing a color, the use is thought acceptable.

(5) A single (acceptable) word to suggest to the listener or reader another (unacceptable) word; commonly used as a linguistic work-around of NSFW (not suitable for work) rules on corporate eMail or other systems: “crock” or “cluster” are examples, pointing respectively to “crock of shit” and “cluster-fuck”.

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