Ostentation

Ostentation (pronounced os-ten-tey-shuhn or os-ten-tey-tuhn)

(1) Pretentious or conspicuous show, as of wealth or importance; display intended to impress others or invite admiration or applause.

(2) The act of showing or exhibiting; a display for some purpose (archaic).

(3) A collective noun for a number of peacocks.

1425–1475:  From the late Middle English ostentacioun (ambitious display, pretentious show, display intended to evoke admiration or attract attention), from the mid-fourteenth century Middle French ostentation, from the Old French ostentacion, from the Classical Latin ostentātiōnem (nominative ostentātiō) (showing, exhibition, vain display), past participle of ostentāre (to present, display or exhibit), the construct being ostentat(ionem) + ion.  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The adjective ostentatious in the sense of “characterized by display or show from vanity or pride” was in use by the turn of the eighteenth century while the more familiar meaning “showy, gaudy, intended for vain display” emerged probably within a decade.  In sixteenth & seventeenth century English there were the now extinct forms ostentative, ostentive & ostentous while the adverb ostentatiously and the noun ostentatiousness both appear in texts from the 1650s.  Ostentation & ostentatiousness are nouns, ostentatious is an adjective and ostentatiously is an adverb; the noun plural is ostentations.  The adjective unostentatious is almost always used as a compliment.

The origins of the meaning of the adjectives ostensive & ostensible (neither directly associated with ostentation’s sense of “showy, flamboyant etc”) lie in the now archaic meaning of ostentation as “an act of showing or exhibiting; a display for some purpose”.  Ostensive (apparently true, but not necessarily; clearly demonstrative) was from the French ostensif, from the Medieval Latin ostensivus.  Ostensible (apparent, evident; meant for open display; appearing as such; being such in appearance; professed, supposed (rather than demonstrably true or real)) was from the French ostensible, the construct being the Latin ostens(us), the past participle of ostendō (show) + -ible.  The suffix –ible was from the Middle English, from the Old French, from the Latin –ibilis (the alternative forms were –bilis & -abilis.  An adjectival suffix, now usually in a passive sense, it was used to form adjectives meaning "able to be", "relevant or suitable to, in accordance with", or expressing capacity or worthiness in a passive sense.  The suffix -able is used in the same sense and is pronounced the same and –ible is generally not productive in English, most words ending in -ible being those borrowed from Latin, or Old & Middle French; -able much more productive although examples like collectible do exist.  The other form in the Medieval Latin was ostensibilis.

An ostentation of peacocks.

The collective noun for peacocks (male), peahens (female) & peachicks (the offspring) is “pride”, “ostentation” or “muster”.  All these can also be used of just the peacocks but the popular convention seem to be to use “ostentation”, the reason being it so suits the extravagant, colorful plumage.  The females have feathers which blend in with the surroundings, making them less conspicuous, a differentiation which may strike a chord with feminists.

Recently, the reasons for the difference were explained in a helpful piece which was obviously authoritative because it was written by Ms Emily Peacock.  According to Darwinian theory, the large, heavy assembly of tail feathers must confer some evolutionary advantage and in the case of the peacock the colourful array’s purpose must be compelling because zoologists have in the wild noted cases where the train has grown to the extent the weight impedes movement, thereby making the unfortunate bird “vulnerable to predators.”  Ms Peacock explained evolution happened this way because of a particular instance of Darwin’s theory of natural selection: “survival of the sexiest”, the peahen selecting “beautiful males for mating”.  While it’s true the spreading of the tail does create a large surface area with the illusion of large penetrating eyes which can deter potential predators (such as snakes or large wild cats), it’s the appeal to peahens which matters most, the “…more extravagant the fan, the more likely a male will find a mate” and thus continue his gene line.  At the biological level, the point is that rather than being shallow creatures attracted merely to the attractiveness of the display, the peahen uses the peacock's tail feathers as a marker of health and virality, choosing the male with the most obviously strong genes because it means her offspring will be more likely to survive.  

A peacock being ostentatious; a peahen playing hard to get.

The feathers with their array of exotic colors also attract people and as well as their use in fashion (real and stylized), for millennia they have been symbols of wealth and power.  The Peacock Throne (a jewelled creation on which early seventeenth century craftsmen toiled for some six years) was the seat of the emperors of the Mughal Empire in India although the term gained its modern notoriety because of the later association with the Shahs of Persia (Iran after 1935), the object looted by invading Persians in 1739.  Although always popularly known as the “Peacock Throne” because of the prominent use of depictions of the birds in the renderings, there were various official names for the throne, all quite prosaic by comparison.  The appeal continued in modern times, the NBC (National Broadcasting Company) broadcasting network in the US adopting the peacock’s fan for the corporate logo when in 1956 television transmission began in color.  Still used today, the colors allude to the spectrum used in TV broadcasts rather than the bird’s more elegant mix.

Faux ostentation: Lindsay Lohan in fur.  Given that on none of these fur-trimmed outings did Tash Peterson, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) activists or other angry vegans appear from the darkness flinging blood and screaming accusations of murder, it may be assumed she was wearing faux fur.

Like many twentieth century politicians who in their youth served in the military during technologically simpler times and then immersed themselves in the history of pre-modern battle, emerging with a Napoleonic attitude to the business, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) disapproved of the trend in military personnel establishments to “bottom-heaviness”, noting the ever-growing volume of (usually) non-combatant mechanics, drivers, dentists and such.  He was especially critical at the numbers on the “Q side” (based on the office of Quartermaster, the officer in charge of barracks, stores, supplies and logistics), the legion of clerks, cooks, storemen and others who functions as the cogs in the modern, mechanised military machine.  Although no technophobe (indeed his enthusiasm for new inventions often caused alarm in the high command), Churchill’s view of an army was still colored by memories of knee-to-knee cavalry charges and rows of battalions advancing with fixed bayonets; he was sceptical of the need for the administrative appendage to comprise sometimes nearly half a unit’s establishment.  In his view, the army needed “more fighting men and fewer typists”, complaining to Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (1883–1963; Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) 1941-1946) that the British army was “like a peacock, all tail and very little bird”.  Alanbrooke, one of the country’s most prominent bird-watchers (the respectable term now “birder” and the hobby “birding”) wasn’t about to let the ornithological slight pass unanswered and responded: “The peacock would be a very poorly balanced bird without its tail.”  Churchill remained unconvinced but, unlike his opponent in Berlin, didn’t interfere in such operational details.

GM’s advertising for the 1958 Buicks.  So taken was Buick with the grille that unusually, it was given a name: The “Fashion-Aire Dynastar Grille” which contained 160 diecast faceted chrome squares.  The aerospace industry was quite an influence on Detroit during this era and B-58 was an allusion to the naming schemes used for US warplanes, the notion of a B-52 for the road at the time an attractive idea for many buyers.

Before sanity (in shape if not always in size) began to prevail in the 1960s, the trend in post-war car design in the US had been one of increasing ostentation and while it was the 1957 Chrysler line which probably deserves the most blame for starting it, it was the huge resources of the General Motors Technical Center (a billion dollar (in 2024 US$ values) venture in the 1950s) which allowed stylists (they weren’t yet called “designers”) to cast themselves adrift from the moorings of reality imposed by restraint and good taste.  To understand what happened in the late 1950s, one has to imagine some of the more bizarre creations stalking the catwalks of London, Paris, Milan & New York not only appearing in high street shops with affordable price tags but people buying them to wear to the grocery store.  The famous tail-lamps recalling bright red bullets fired from the vertiginous fins of the 1959 Cadillac are the best remembered from the era but in fairness they are nicely detailed and a single point of focus on a design which was, by comparison with some, actually not over-embellished.

1958 Buicks: Special convertible (left) and Roadmaster Limited convertible (right).  The side trim on the 1958 Buicks varied according to their place in the model hierarchy (Special, Super, Century & Roadmaster & Roadmaster Limited (Riviera was a body style designation and a badge as such wasn’t used in 1958)).  It seems a sterile debate to discuss which is the more ostentatious.

The award for the most ostentatious range of those years goes to the 1958 Buicks, the most expensive of which were adorned with just about every motif which could be rendered in chrome or stainless steel, curves, angles and lines horizontal & vertical all competing for the eye.  Infamously, GM’s bulbous 1958 bodies were so obviously dated they were replaced after only one season and while the 1959 models were ostentatious in their own way (exuberant rather than baroque), to this day they have many admirers while the 1958 cars are thought by most something between a period piece and a freak show.  In an issue which afflicted the whole industry, the single platform used by the big three (GM, Ford & Chrysler) for most of their models had become very big (the unique ones used for some exclusive lines bigger still) and all had projects in the pipeline to respond to the increasing sales of smaller imports, programmes which ultimately would yield the highly successful “compact” and “intermediate” ranges.  The influence the existence these smaller cars would have on the appearance of the full-sized lines is often underestimated; their reduced size meant the styling tricks which worked at scale couldn’t be replicated so something simpler had to be used.  This produced bodies which were balanced and attractive, influencing the upcoming full-sized lines even before their release and the big cars from 1958-1961 were (almost) the last of their type; baroque didn’t quite die with the coming of 1962 because Chrysler still had old ideas to re-cycle but that was the last gasp.

Buick’s promotional postcard for the 1958 Buick “Wells Fargo”.

There was then, in 1958, no company with a better base on which to build a distinctive promotional vehicle for a TV network and Buick custom-made one for Dale Robertson (1923–2013), the star of NBC's western adventure series Tales of Wells Fargo (1957-1962).  The unique interior features included bucket seats of Danish calfskin with hand-tooled western motif leather inserts (the door panels matching), a then still quite novel centre console, natural calfskin carpeting and flip up door handles while the exterior was in one way (sort of) toned-down, solid walnut panels replacing the three banks of imitation louvers on both sides.  However, to add to the effect, the words “Wells Fargo” appeared on the panels in large chromed letters and to remind everyone of the “western” theme, a longhorn steer's head was superimposed over the standard hood emblem, flipper wheel-covers completing the package.  The highlight though was the armory, (1) a gun rack holding two chrome-plated Winchester lever-action rifles with carved stocks and (2) hand-tooled leather pistol holsters attached to each door, containing a brace of pearl-handled .38 caliber Colt revolvers.  In the America of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961), these handy accessories seem to have attracted no critical comment but then, the dawn of the age of mass shootings was almost a decade away.  Proud of their work, Buick’s PR team toured the country, displaying the car at shows before presenting it to Mr Robertson who drove it for the next three decades-odd.  The car still exists and occasionally appears at collector auctions.

Plantar

Plantar (pronounced plan-ter)

In anatomy and zoology, of or relating to the sole of the foot.

1706: From the Latin plantāris (pertaining to the sole of the foot), from planta (sole of the foot) from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root pletə- or plat- (to spread) an extension of the root pele- (flat; to spread).  Related were the Sanskrit prathati (spreads out), the Hittite palhi (broad), the Ancient Greek platys (broad, flat), the Lithuanian platus (broad), the German Fladen (flat cake), the Old Norse flatr (flat), the Old English flet (floor, dwelling) and the Old Irish lethan (broad).  The Latin planta may be analysed as plant +‎ -ar.  The –ar suffix was from Latin -āris (of, pertaining to) and was appended to nouns to create adjectives.  The -aris suffix was a form of -ālis with dissimilation of -l- to -r- after roots containing an l (the alternative forms were -ālis, -ēlis, -īlis & -ūlis); it was used to form adjectives, usually from noun, indicating a relationship or a "pertaining to".  The exact origin of the Latin planta (which in addition to meaning (1) “sole of the foot” could be used in the sense of (2) any vegetable production that serves to propagate the species; a sprout, shoot, twig, sprig, sucker, graft, scion, slip, cutting or (3) a young tree, a shrub that may be transplanted; a set) is uncertain.  It was from either (1) the Proto-Italic plāntā, from the primitive Indo-European pléh-n̥t-eh, from pleh- (flat) or (2) the Proto-Italic plānktā, from the primitive Indo-European pl̥hnk or gteh, from plehk- & plehg- (to strike, fast).  In anatomy, the derived terms include plantar fascia (the thick connective tissue which supports the arch of the foot) and plantar fasciitis (a painful inflammation of the plantar fascia.  The term plantar wart (apparently sometimes initially misunderstood by patients as “planter’s wart”) describes a wart which occurs on the sole of the foot or the toes.  The medical Latin is verruca plantaris.  Plantar is an adjective.

Plantar flexion and dorsiflextion

Lindsay Lohan, plantaflexing.

Plantar flexion refers to the movement of the foot when it is bent at the ankle away from the body, accomplished by flexing muscles in the calf, ankle, and foot.  In normal range of human activity, the range of motion is usually between 20-50^o, a commons example being depressing a car’s accelerator (throttle) pedal. Or even the mere act of walking.  The word “flexion” is used by anatomists and others to describe the movement of many body parts.  The notion of flexing at the knee or elbow is well understood in everyday life and technically, flexion is the decreased angle at a joint between two or more bones.  In the common act of bending the elbow from a straightened position, the angle decreases between the humerus and the radius and ulna of the forearm.  Plantar flexion is defined usually as the decreased angle between the plantar side of the foot and the back of the tibia at the tibiotalar joint (better known as the ankle) and can be visualized as the bending of the sole of the foot down where the toes are moving down and away from the body.  Done deliberately in exaggerated form it can feel unnatural but having one’s toes point downwards is something inherent to human movement, the activities (as well as using a car’s throttle pedal) including bending the foot during walking (propelling the mass of the body forward as it pushes off the ground) and standing on one’s tip toes which reaching for something in a high place.

Lindsay Lohan, dorsiflextion to the left, plantar flexion to the right.

The companion movement is dorsiflexation, an upward bending which, although applied most often to the foot, other body parts such as hands or digits (fingers) can be said to dorsiflex.  Dating from the early nineteenth century, dorsiflexion was a creation which appeared first in the literature of the early-modern science of anatomy.  The construct was dorsi (from the Middle English dorsal or dorsale from the Medieval Latin dorsālis (of or relating to the back)) + flex (from the Latin flexiō (genitive flexiōnis), from flectō (I bend, curve), from the Proto-Italic flektō, of uncertain origin and unknown in other Indo-European cognates) + -ion (the Latin suffix denoting action or condition).  The –ion suffic was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  Dorsiflexion is also a movement associated with the multiple joints.  The definition is of an action in which induces a decreased angle between the dorsal side of the body part and the bone or bones that are proximal to the body.  When one’s wrist is bent and the back of the hand is moving towards the body, that is an act of dorsiflexion and when the toes are pointed up or raised backward toward the body, this is also dorsiflexion so, using the feet as an illustrative example, plantar flexion and dorsiflextion can be understood as opposite movements at the ankle joint (both obviously being associated with flexion). That means the essence of the difference is the location of the foot doing the bending away from the ankle joint: If the toes rise as the ankle bends, it’s dorsiflexion while if the toes tend downwards, it’s a plantar flex.

Lindsay Lohan, plantar flexion to the left, dorsiflextion to the right.

Although the term (plantar flex) and word (dorsiflex) refer to variations of the same movement, the practice has always been to use a compound form only for the latter although the mechanics of the etymology is the same in that plantar flex references the sole of the foot and dorsiflex the back.  Perhaps counter-intuitively, the upper surface of a foot (the dorsal surface) is, to an anatomist, the back, a convention of use more familiar when used as the “back of the hand”.  Anatomists recommend imaging the dorsal fin of the shark as a memory trick, something associated with the “back side of an animal”. Consider a dorsal fin on a shark which is located on the back side of the shark. If the foot was a four-legged animal, the dorsal side would be the top of the foot. Likewise, if the hand was held out straight, the back side of the hand is called the dorsal side.  Interestingly, by convention, despite the obvious etymological connections, dorsiflex is the universal form while plantarflex, although a correct alternative spelling, is rarely seen outside of technical literature.

Planter

Planter (pronounced plahn-tah (U) or plan-ter (non-U))

(1) A person who plants (usually seedlings, shrubs etc).

(2) An implement or machine for planting seeds, seedlings etc in the soil.

(3) The owner or manager of a plantation.

(4) In historical use, during the era of European colonialism, a colonist or new settler.

(5) In historical use, any of the early English or Scottish settlers, given the lands of the dispossessed Irish populace during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).

(6) A decorative container, in a variety of sizes and shapes, used usually for growing flowers or ornamental plants.

(7) In the slang of law enforcement and the criminal class, an individual (from either group) who “plants” incriminating evidence for various purposes.

1350–1400: From the late fourteenth century Middle English plaunter (one who sows seeds), an agent noun from the verb plant, the construct being plant + -er.  Plant was from the Middle English plante, from the Old English plante (young tree or shrub, herb newly planted), from the Latin planta (sprout, shoot, cutting) while the broader sense of “any vegetable life, vegetation generally” was from the Old French plante.  The verb was from the Middle English planten, from the Old English plantian (to plant), from the Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter.  Similar European forms meaning “to plant” included the Dutch planten, the German pflanzen, the Swedish plantera and the Icelandic planta.  The use of “plant” to describe heavy machinery and equipment emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, based on the ideas of something being “planted” in place and immovable (like a planted tree).  As technology evolved, use extended to non-static equipment such as heavy earth moving vehicles but the exact definition now differs between jurisdictions, based variously on purchase price, function etc although the aspect of most practical significance is often the threshold to qualify for certain taxation advantages such as accelerated depreciation.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Planter is a noun; the noun plural is planters.

Planters (with plants) at the main entryway to Lindsay Lohan's house, Venice, Los Angeles, California, 2013.

The figurative sense of “one who introduces, establishes, or sets up” dates from the 1630s, picked up a decade later to refer to “one who owns a plantation, the proprietor of a cultivated estate in West Indies or southern colonies of North America” although in the latter case it was literally the “planting of seeds” for cropping rather than the idea of planting the “seeds of civilization”, a notion which for centuries appealed to the defenders of European colonialism and echoes of this attitude are heard still today.  The mechanical sense of a “tool or machine for planting seeds” is by 1850 dates from the 1850s.  The “planter’s punch” was a cocktail mixed with Jamaican rum, lime juice and sugar cane juice; first mentioned in the late nineteenth century it fulfilled a similar role to the gin & tonic (G&T) under the Raj.  The now familiar use to describe a “pot for growing plants” is a surprisingly late creation, apparently named only in 1959 although such devices obviously had been in use for centuries, such as the “window box” attached to the sills outside windows in which folk grew either something decorative (flowers) or useful (herbs or miniature vegetables).  The form “window box planter” is now used in commerce; something which seems a needless addition.  A church planter (also as churchplanter) describes a missionary, preacher or organization which travels to establish a church in a place where no congregations of the relevant denomination exist.  The tactic is most associated with Evangelical Christianity.  In Cebuano (an Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippines), as a back-formation from planteran, planter is used as a noun to mean “a frame-up; a false incrimination of an innocent person”.  The Cebuano verb planteran was also from the English plant and was used to mean “to arrange fraudulent evidence to falsely implicate someone in the commission of a crime”.  An often un-mentioned aspect in the career of Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940) was his early career as a planter.  Dispatched by his father Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) to establish a sisal plantation on Andros Island in the Bahamas, the younger Neville proved a tough imperial pioneer, toiling for some six years in the Caribbean but the climate was uncooperative and the soil proved no more receptive to Neville's attempts at appeasement than would Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) two generations later.  The sisal project ended in failure with the family fortune suffering a loss equivalent (in 2024 values) to some US$8-9 million.

Bollards, raw and disguised.

Dealing with terrorism is of necessity a reactive business and in Western cities, bollards appeared sometimes within hours of news of the use of motor vehicles somewhere as an instrument of murder, either as a delivery system for explosives or brute-force device to run down pedestrians.  Because of the haste with which the things were deemed needed, it wasn’t uncommon for bollards initially to be nothing but re-purposed concrete blocks (left), often not even painted, the stark functionality of purpose limited to preventing vehicular access which permitting those on foot to pass with minimal disruption.  They’ve since become a fixture in the built environment, often is stylized shapes (centre & right) and urban designers have been inventive, many objects which function as bollards not recognizably bollardesque, being integrated into structures such as city furniture or bus shelters.

Bollards disguised as planters.

Urban planners have however responded and the large-scale planter box, which had for some time been a familiar sight in cityscapes, has proved adaptable, able to be shaped and placed in a way which obviates the need for conventionally shaped bollards.  Where the space is available, even small green spaces can be installed and, with integrated drip-feed irrigation systems, maintenance is low, an additional benefit being the lowering of temperature in the immediate environment, the foliage reducing radiated heat.  One popular feature of the big planter boxes in many cities is that they include built-in benches on which people can sit, something seen in squares, malls and plazas.  Not all support this however.  Retailers think people should be in such places only to shop and giving them somewhere to sit makes them for the time they spend unproductively inert not able to go to shops and spend money.  There’s also the view such things attract an anti-social element who loiter with nefarious intent and there is still a view by some in authority (based apparently on some English case-law from the 1960s) that in public spaces, while people have the right to walk up and down, there’s no right to stay in the one place, sitting or standing.  So, planters with seating presumably are provided on a case-by-case basis: in nice respectable suburbs which are well-policed, planters have comfortable seats in the shade while in low income areas where the police appear only to respond to murders, serious assaults, armed robbery etc, the built environment is designed in such as way that to sit anywhere is either uncomfortable or impossible.

Planters with an integrated bench on which people can sit are a feature of the street architecture in Canberra, Australia.  Pictured here are several on Lonsdale Street, Braddon.

However, even when planters offer a comfortable spot on which to rest, dangers lurk, especially if one is at the time tired and emotional or at least a bit squiffy.  Shortly before midnight on 8 February 2024, the honourable Barnaby Joyce MP (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) was observed sprawled on the sidewalk mumbling obscenities into his phone, having fallen from the planter where he’d paused to gather his thoughts.  The planter sits on Lonsdale Street in the Canberra suburb of Braddon, a short distance from a bar popular with politicians.  The Daily Mail published footage of the remarkable scene, the highlight in some ways being the conversation the former deputy prime-minister was having with his wife, the lucky soul who captured the scene reporting the uttering of “dead fucking cunt” (the phrase a not infrequently ejaculated part of idiomatic Australian English).

Vikki Campion (b 1985) and Barnaby Joyce (b 1967) on their wedding day, 11 November 2023.  In a nice touch, the couple's two children were able to witness the ceremony.

In answer to enquiries from the Daily Mail (past masters at identifying those “tired and emotional”), Mr Joyce’s wife confirmed she was the interlocutor and her husband was referring not to her as a “dead fucking cunt” but was “…calling himself one.”  “He likes to self flagellate” she added.  She further observed it was disappointing that rather than offering assistance to someone sprawled on the ground in the dead of night, someone would instead film the scene but the witness confirmed Mr Joyce seemed “relaxed & happy”, in no obvious distress and conducting his phone call calmly, using the wide vocabulary which has helped make him a politician of such renown.  Responding later to an enquiry from the Daily Mail, Mr Joyce admitted the incident was “very embarrassing” and that had he known “…someone was there with a camera, I would have got up quicker.”  Explaining the event, he told the newspaper: “I was walking back to my accommodation after parliament rose at 10 pm.  While on the phone I sat on the edge of a planter box, fell over, kept talking on the phone, and very animatedly was referring to myself for having fallen over.  I got up and walked home.”  Commendably, Mr Joyce seems to have made no attempt to blame the planter box for what happened but a Murdoch outlet did report that "...privately he was telling friends he was taking medication you cannot drink alcohol with and that was the cause of the incident".  Left unexplored by Sky News was whether that implied (1) knowing that, he hadn't taken any alcohol that day and the episode was induced by a reaction to the medicine or (2) he had taken a quantity of alcohol and the episode was induced by the combination of strong drink and the pharmaceuticals.  He later clarified things, confirming the latter, after which he announced he was "giving up alcohol for Lent".

The honourable Barnaby Joyce MP, Lonsdale Street, Canberra ACT, February 2024.

The morning after the night before, the planter box's 15 minutes of fame was marked in an appropriately ephemeral way, a chalk outline added where the recumbent Mr Joyce continued his phone call.

Mr Joyce should be given the benefit of the doubt.  Perhaps recalling Lyndon Johnson’s (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) observation of Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977) as someone “so dumb he can’t fart and walk at the same time” (sanitized by the press for publication as “chew gum and walk at the same time”), Mr Joyce may have thought it wise to sit on the planter while making his call.  Unfortunately, when one is tired and emotional, the challenge of using one’s phone, even if one sits a planter, can be too much and one topples to the ground, a salutatory lesson for all phone users.  

Dr Rudd sitting in a pew during the ecumenical church service marking the start of the parliamentary year, Canberra, February, 2008.

Among serious & cynical observers of politics (the adjectival tautology acknowledged), the consensus seems to be this latest incident in Mr Joyce's eventful life will prove beneficial and he'll likely increase his majority at the next election, the rationale for that being politicians tend to benefit from being seen as “authentic” and few things seem more authentically Australian than going to a bar, spending a few hours giving it a nudge, then falling off a planter box on the way home.  People can identify with that in a way something like the essay discussing "faith in politics" and the example set by anti-Nazi preacher Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) which Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013) published in The Monthly (October 2006), just doesn't "cut through".  The essay was politely received as “earnest”, “thoughtful” and “worthy”, few apparently prepared to risk retribution by pointing out it was also derivative, taking 5000-odd words to say what had many times over the years already been said (which, in fairness, can be said of many works).  Still, it was shorter than might have been expected so there was that.  The sanctimony in the text would have surprised nobody but it was only after he was defenestrated by his colleagues that some, musing on the the policies his government implemented, decided to point out the hypocrisy of him asserting Christianity “must always take the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed” and that politicians should uphold “the values of decency, fairness and compassion that are still etched deep into our national soul”.  Mr Joyce's many and varied sins are (mostly) well documented and “ordinary Australians” (as politicians like to call us) seem still willing to extend to him the Christian virtue of forgiveness.  Of Dr Rudd, they probably prefer to try to forget.

Blip

Blip (pronounced blip)

(1) A spot of light on a radar screen indicating the position of a plane, submarine, or other object (also as pip); any similar use on other electronic equipment such as an oscilloscope.

(2) By adoption from the use in radar (and applied very loosely), any small spot of light on a display screen.

(3) In any tracked metric (typically revenue, sales etc), a brief and usually unexpected.

(4) In general use, an aberration, something unexpected and (usually) fleeting (often in the expression “blip on the radar”).

(5) In electronic transmissions (audible signals), a pip or bleep (also both onomatopoeic of short, single-pitch sounds).

(6) By extension, any low level, repetitive sound (rare).

(7) In the slang of software developers, a minor bug or glitch (retrospectively dubbed blips if promptly fixed (or re-labeled as “a feature”)).

(8) A specific data object (individual message or document) in the now defunct Google Wave software framework.

(9) In informal use, to move or proceed in short, irregular movements.

(10) In automotive use, briefly to apply the throttle when downshifting, to permit smoother gear-changing (the origin in the days of pre-synchromesh gearboxes, especially when straight-cut gears were used) and still used in competition to optimize performance but most instances by drivers of road cars are mere affectations (used as noun & verb).

(11) In informal use, abruptly to change a state (light to dark; on to off etc), sometimes implying motion.

(12) In broadcast media (and sometimes used on-line), to replace offensive or controversial words with a tone which renders them inaudible (a synonym of “bleep”, both words used in this contexts as nouns (a bleep) and verbs (to bleep out).  In live radio & TV, a junior producer or assistant was usually the designated “blipper” or “bleeper”.

1894: An onomatopoeic creation of sound symbolism, the speculation being it may have been based on the notion of “blink” (suggesting brevity) with the -p added to bli- as symbolic of an abrupt end, the original idea to capture the experience of a “popping sound”.  The use describing the sight and sound generated by radar equipment was first documented in 1945 but may have been in use earlier, the public dissemination of information about the technology restricted until the end of World War II (1939-1945).  The verbs (blipped & blipping) came into use in 1924 & 1925 respectively while the first documented use of the noun blipper dates from 1966 although “bleeper” appeared some fifteen year earlier and the role was acknowledge as early as the 1930s.  Blip is a noun & verb, blipped & blipping are verbs and blippy, blippier & blippiest are adjectives; the noun plural is blips.

The blipster

One unrelated modern portmanteau noun was blipster, the construct a blend of b(lack) + (h)ipster, used to refer to African-Americans (and presumably certain other peoples of color (PoC)) who have adopted the visual clues of hipster culture.  Whether the numbers of blipsters represent the sort of critical mass usually associated with the recognition of sub-cultures isn’t clear but as in medicine where a novel condition does not need to be widely distributed (something suffered even by a single patient can be defined and named as a syndrome), the coining of blipster could have been inspired by seeing just one individual who conformed to being (1) African American and (2) appearing in some ways to conform to the accepted parameters of hipsterism.  Labeling theory contains reservations about this approach but for etymologists it’s fine although there is always the risk of a gaboso (generalized observation based on single observation).  Predictably, there is debate about what constitutes authentic blipsterism because there are objections by some activists to PoCs either emulating sub-cultures identified as “white” or taking self-defining interest in aspects of that culture (such as those associated with hipsterism).  What seems to be acceptable is a stylistic fusion as long as the fashions are uniquely identifiable as linkable with traditional (ie modern, urban) African-American culture and the cultural content includes only black poets, hip-hop artists etc.

The Blipvert

The construct of blipvert (also historically blip-vert) was blip + vert.  Vert in this context was a clipping of advertisement (from the Middle French advertissement (statement calling attention)), the construct being advertise +‎ -ment.  The -ment suffix was from the Middle English -ment, from the Late Latin -amentum, from -mentum which came via Old French -ment.  It was used to form nouns from verbs, the nouns having the sense of "the action or result of what is denoted by the verb".  The suffix is most often attached to the stem without change, except when the stem ends in -dge, where the -e is sometimes dropped (abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, lodgment et al), with the forms without -e preferred in American English.  The most widely known example of the spelling variation is probably judgment vs judgement.  In modern use, judgement is said to be a "free variation" word where either spelling is considered acceptable as long as use is consistent.  Like enquiry vs inquiry, this can be a handy where a convention of use can be structured to impart great clarity: judgment used when referring to judicial rulings and judgement for all other purposes although the approach is not without disadvantage given one might write of the judgement a judge exercised before delivering their judgment.  To those not aware of the convention, it could look just like a typo.

As both word and abbreviation “vert” has a number of historic meanings.  One form was from the Middle English vert, from Old French vert, from Vulgar Latin virdis (green; young, fresh, lively, youthful) (syncopated from Classical Latin viridis)  In now archaic use it meant (1) green undergrowth or other vegetation growing in a forest, as a potential cover for deer and (2) in feudal law a right granted to fell trees or cut shrubs in a forest.  The surviving use is in heraldry where it describes a shade of green, represented in engraving by diagonal parallel lines 45 degrees counter-clockwise.  As an abbreviation, it's used of vertebrate, vertex & vertical and as a clipping of convertible, used almost exclusively by members of the Chevrolet Corvette cult in the alliterative phrase "Vette vert", a double clipping from (Cor)vette (con)vert(ible).

Vette vert: 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible which sold at auction in 2013 at Mecum Dallas for US$3,424,000, a bit short of the L88 coupé which the next year realized US$3,850,000 at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale; that remains the record price paid for a Corvette at auction.  The L88 used a 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 with a single four barrel carburetor, tuned to produce between 540-560 (gross) horsepower although for official purposes it was rated at 430, slightly less than the advertised output of the L71 427 which, with three two barrel carburettors was the most powerful version recommended for “street” use.  The L88 was essentially a race-ready power-plant, civilized only to the extent cars which used it could be registered for road use but, demanding high-octane fuel available only in a limited number of locations and not offered with creature comforts like air-conditioning, it really was meant only for race tracks or drag strips.  For technical reasons, L71 buyers couldn’t order air-conditioning either but were at least allowed to have a radio, something the noise generated by the L88 would anyway have rendered mostly redundant.

When humans emulated CGI: Max Headroom, 1986, background by Amiga 1000.

A blipvert is a very brief advertisement (a duration of one second or less now the accepted definition although originally they could three times as long).  The concept first attracted widespread attention in the 1980s when it was an element in the popular television show Max Headroom, a production interesting for a number of reasons as well as introducing “blipvert” to a wide audience.  In Max Headroom, blipverts were understood as high-intensity television commercials which differed from the familiar form in that instead of being 20, 30 or 60 seconds long, they lasted but three, the line being they were a cynical device to discourage viewers from switching channels (“channel surfing” not then a term in general use).  The character Max Headroom (actually an actor made up to emulate something rendered with CGI (computer generated imagery)) was said to be pure software which had attained (or retained from the downloaded “copy” of the mind taken from a man killed after running into a “Max Headroom” warning sign in a car park) some form of consciousness and had decided to remain active within the television station’s computer network.  In this, the TV show followed a popular trope from science fiction, one which now underpins many of the warnings (not all by conspiracy theorists) about the implications of AI (artificial intelligence).  Although a creation of prosthetics rather than anything digital, the technique was made convincing by using a background generated on an Amiga 1000 (1985), a modest machine by today’s standards but a revelation at the time because not only was the graphics handling much better than on many more expensive workstations but even by 1990, despite what IBM and Microsoft were telling us, running multi-tasking software was a better experience on any Amiga than trying it on a PS/2 running OS/2.

On television, the stand-alone blipvert never became a mainstream advertising form because (1) it was difficult, (2) as devices to stimulate demand in most cases they appeared not to work and (3) the networks anyway discouraged it but the idea was immensely influential as an element in longer advertisements and found another home in the emerging genre of the music video, the technique perfected by the early 1990s; it was these uses which saw the accepted duration reduced from three seconds to one.  To the MTV generation (and their descendents on YouTube and TikTok), three seconds became a long time and prolonged exposure to the technique presumably improved the ability of those viewers to interpret such messages although that may have been as the cost of reducing the attention span.  Both those propositions are substantially unproven although it does seem clear the “video content generations” do have a greater ability to decode and interpret imagery which is separate for any explanatory text.  That is of course stating the obvious; someone who reads much tends to become better at interpreting words than those who read little.  Still, the blipvert has survived, the advertising industry finding them especially effective if used as a “trigger” to reference a memory created by something earlier presented in some form and those who find them distasteful because they’re so often loud and brash just don’t get it; that’s the best way they’re effective.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell (b 1943)) being re-sensitised (blipvert by blipvert) in Stanley Kubrick's (1928-1999) file adaptation of A Clockwork Orange (1971).

The concept of the blipvert is sometimes attributed to US science fiction (SF) writer Joe Haldeman (b 1943) who described something close to the technique in his novel Mindbridge (1976) and it’s clearly (albeit in longer form) used in the deprogramming sessions in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962) but use predates both books.  In 1948, encouraged by their success in countering the Partito Comunista d'Italia (PCd'I; the Communist Party of Italy) in elections in the new Italian republic (the success achieved with a mix of bribery, propaganda, disinformation and some of the other tricks of electoral interference to which US politicians now so object when aimed at US polls), the newly formed US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) turned their attentions to France where the perception of threat was even greater because the infiltration of the press, trade unions, universities, the military and many other organs of state was rife.  The US was well-placed to run effective propaganda campaigns because, uniquely in devastated, impoverished Europe, it could distribute the cubic money required to buy advertising space & airtime, employ cooperative journalists, trade union leaders & professors and even supply scarce commodities like newsprint and ink.  To try to avoid accusations of anything nefarious (and such suggestions were loud, frequent and often not without foundation) much of the activity was conducted as part of Marshall Plan Aid, the post-war recovery scheme with which the US revived post-war European economies with an injection of (what would in 2024 US$ terms) be something like US$182 billion.  As well as extensively publicizing the benefits of non-communist life compared with the lot of those behind the iron curtain, the CIA published books and other pieces by defectors from the Soviet Union.  One novelty of what quickly became an Anglo-American psychological operation (the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE) having honed successful techniques during wartime) was the use of 2-3 second blipverts spliced into film material supplied under the Marshall Plan.  The British were well aware the French were especially protective of what appeared in cinemas and would react unfavourably to blatant propaganda while they might treat something similar in print with little more than a superior, cynical smile.

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

The blipvert is sometimes grouped with subliminal advertising and that’s convenient but they’re different both in practice and definitionally and the rule of thumb can be expressed as (1) if it can (briefly) be seen it’s a blipvert and (2) if it can’t be seen it’s subliminal.  No doubt media studies academics (of which there seem now to be many) could punch holes in that and cite a dozen or more exceptions but as a definition it at least hints in the right direction.  What subliminal advertising involves is the presentation of understandable information (which can be images, sound or text) at a level below the conscious awareness of the viewer, the idea being (unlike the confrontational blipvert) to bypass conscious perception.  The extent to which subliminal messaging is an effective way to influence consumer behaviour is debated (as is the notion of whether it’s manipulative and unethical) but the continued use of the technique in political campaigns does suggest that in that specialized field of consumer behaviour, there must be many convinced of the efficacy.  Certainly it appears to work although the less subtle forms are quickly deconstructed and critiqued, such as the sudden adoption in sports, almost as soon as tobacco advertising was banned, of color schemes triggering memories of cigarette packets.

A Marlboro Man lights up.  The "Marlboro 100s" in the gold & white pack were so-named because each stick was 100 mm (4 inch) long.

After some years of prevarication, in 2005 the European Union (EU) banned tobacco advertising “in the print media, on radio and over the internet” at the same prohibiting “tobacco sponsorship of cross-border cultural and sporting events”.  Making unlawful the promotion of a known carcinogen responsible over a lifetime of use for shortening lifespan (on average) by just under a decade sounds now uncontroversial but at the time it had been bitterly contested by industry.  Of interest to some was that despite the introduction of the laws being known for some two years, only couple of months earlier, Ferrari had signed a fifteen year, billion dollar sponsorship deal with Philip Morris, best known for their Marlboro cigarette and “Marlboro Man” advertising campaign which featured a variety of men photographed in outdoor settings, five of whom ultimately died of smoking-related diseases.

Variations on a theme of red & white.  Ferrari Formula One cars: F2007 (2007) in Marlboro livery (left), F10 (2010) with "bar code" (centre) and F14 (2014) in post bar-code scheme.

Ferrari’s lawyers took their fine-toothed legal combs to the problem and came up with a way to outsmart the eurocrats.  The Formula One (F1) cars Scuderia Ferrari ran began to appear in what had become the traditional red & white livery (the same combination used on Marlboro’s signature packets) but in the space where once had been displayed the Marlboro logo, there was instead a stylized “bar code”.  In response to a number of accusations (including many by those in the medical community) that the team was guilty of “backdoor advertising” of cigarettes, in 2008 a statement on the company website said it was “baffled”:

"Today and in recent weeks, articles have been published relating to the partnership contract between Scuderia Ferrari and Philip Morris International, questioning its legality.  These reports are based on two suppositions: that part of the graphics featured on the Formula 1 cars are reminiscent of the Marlboro logo and even that the red colour which is a traditional feature of our cars is a form of tobacco publicity.  Neither of these arguments have any scientific basis, as they rely on some alleged studies which have never been published in academic journals. But more importantly, they do not correspond to the truth.  "The so-called barcode is an integral part of the livery of the car and of all images coordinated by the Scuderia, as can be seen from the fact it is modified every year and, occasionally even during the season. Furthermore, if it was a case of advertising branding, Philip Morris would have to own a legal copyright on it.  "The partnership between Ferrari and Philip Morris is now only exploited in certain initiatives, such as factory visits, meetings with the drivers, merchandising products, all carried out fully within the laws of the various countries where these activities take place. There has been no logo or branding on the race cars since 2007, even in countries where local laws would still have permitted it.  The premise that simply looking at a red Ferrari can be a more effective means of publicity than a cigarette advertisement seems incredible: how should one assess the choice made by other Formula 1 teams to race a car with a predominantly red livery or to link the image of a driver to a sports car of the same colour? Maybe these companies also want to advertise smoking!  It should be pointed out that red has been the recognised colour for Italian racing cars since the very beginning of motor sport, at the start of the twentieth century: if there is an immediate association to be made, it is with our company rather than with our partner.”

When red & white was just the way Scuderia Ferrari painted their race cars: The lovely, delicate lines of the 1961 Ferrari Typo 156 (“sharknose”), built for Formula One's “voiturette” (1.5 litre) era (1961-1965), Richie Ginther (1930–1989), XXIII Grosser Preis von Deutschland (German Grand Prix), Nürburgring Nordschleife, August 1961.

The suggestion was of course that this was subliminal marketing (actually unlawful in the EU since the late 1950s) the mechanics being that Ferrari knew this would attract controversy and the story was that at speed, when the bar code was blurred, it resembled the Marlboro logo; racing cars do go fast but no evidence was ever produced to demonstrate the phenomenon happened in real world conditions, either when viewed at the tracks or in televised coverage.  It was possible using software to create a blurred version of the shape and there was a vague resemblance to the logo but that wasn’t the point, as a piece of subliminal marketing it worked because viewers had been told the bar code would in certain circumstances transform into a logo and even though it never did, the job was done because Marlboro was on the mind of many and doubtlessly more often than ever during the years when the logo actually appeared.  So, job done and done well, midway in the 2010 season, Ferrari dropped the “bar code”, issuing a press release: “By this we want to put an end to this ridiculous story and concentrate on more important things than on such groundless allegations.”