Felicitous

Felicitous (pronounced fi-lis-i-tuhs)

(1) Characterized by felicity; causing happiness or pleasure.

(2) Well-suited to the occasion (of actions, manners, speech, expression etc); something apt or appropriate in the circumstances.

(3) Possessing a particular aptitude to display a suitable manner or expression; possessing an agreeable style.

(4) In structural linguistics (of a sentence or other fragment), semantically and pragmatically coherent; fitting in the context.

(5) In astrology, a planet or other heavenly body in an influential position.

1720s: The construct was felicit(y) + -ous.  Felicity was from the Middle English felicite (bliss, happiness, joy; delight, pleasure; a source of happiness; good fortune; prosperity; well-being; a heavenly body in an influential position (used in astrology), from the Old French felicité (source of the modern French félicité (bliss, happiness; felicity)), from the Latin fēlīcitātem, the accusative singular of fēlīcitās (fertility, fruitfulness; happiness, felicity; good fortune; success), from fēlix (happy; blessed, fortunate, lucky; fertile, fruitful; prosperous; auspicious, favorable) (ultimately from the primitive Indo-European dheh & dhehy (to nurse, suckle)) + -itās (a variant of -tās (the suffix used to form nouns indicating a state of being)).  The -itas suffix was from the Proto-Italic -itāts & -otāts (-tās added to i-stems or o-stems, later used freely) and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -tehats.  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  There are degrees of felicitousness; the comparative is more felicitous, the superlative most felicitous.  Felicitous is an adjective, felicitousness is a noun and felicitously is an adverb.

In structural linguistics felicitous is a technical term used to indicate a sentence is semantically and pragmatically coherent (in the context of use).  It is not a synonym for “correct” in every situation because a sentence can be grammatical yet not be felicitous, analogous with law where a contract to undertake a murder can be found to be a valid (legal) contract because it conforms to the rules for such things yet be held to be “void for illegality” because the act of murder is unlawful.

In use, "felicitation", (complimentary expression of belief in another's happiness or good fortune), the noun of action from felicitate, is often used in the plural as “please extend my felicitations” although it’s now rare and probably something of an affectation by those for whom Noël Coward’s (1899–1973) drawing room scenes remain models of good manners; it may be the ultimate middle-class phrase.  In English drawing rooms and other places, felicitation was in use by the early eighteenth century.  Some style guides note the occasional error of use in which felicitation is used as a synonym for “congratulations” and caution it should instead be though a companion term.  Like the verb congratulate, congratulation implies one’s feeling of pleasure in another's happiness or good fortune while felicitation refers to an expression of belief the other is fortunate; what felicitations should suggest to the recipient is their pleasure is well deserved and should be enjoyed.  Expressions of both congratulations and felicitations can be sincere or wholly fake and those skilled in the art of such things deliberately can, with exactly the same text, convey either meaning through nuances such as intonation or non-verbal clues.  The guides’ distinction seems helpful (at least at the margins) but not arbiters of English agreed.  One of the most consistently severe of these was Henry Fowler (1858–1933) who in his authoritative A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) included “felicitate” in his list of “formal words” as a merely decorative alternative to “congratulate”, lumping it in with other needlessly ornate forms (adumbrate vs outline; endeavour vs try; desist vs cease (layers can prove those two are distinct); extend vs send; proceed vs go etc).  No fan of “genteelisms” in language, Henry Fowler thought there were few exceptions to his rule that the common or vernacular form is better than the formal.

Intriguingly, etymologists note a single verified use of “felicitously” in the 1530s but it's thought probably an error and the form wasn’t to emerge for more than a century.  The now obsolete verb felicitate (to render happy) was in use in the early seventeenth century, during which it picked up the sense of “to reckon happy”.  It was from the Late felicitatus, past participle of felicitare (to make happy), from felicitas (fruitfulness, happiness), again from fēlix.  The meaning “congratulate, compliment upon a happy event” seems to have emerged in the 1630s and the related forms were the verbs felicitated & felicitating; the rare alternative verb form felicify was documented in the 1690s and by the late nineteenth century this yielded adjective felicific and the companion antonym infelicific, neither now in common use but being shorter, seem more convenient than the alternative adjective infelicitous (unhappy, unlucky), in use by the late 1740s, supplanting the late sixteenth century form infelicious.  In most cases, there will anyway probably be better words to use but infelicific, infelicitously & infelicitousness seem more elegant that the alternatives (nonfelicitous, nonfelicitously & nonfelicitousness and unfelicitous, unfelicitously & unfelicitousness).

Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.  So, all the ngrams reveal only what's in the particular sub-set Google’s grabbers extract from their catchments and that indicates the use of “felicitous” & “infelicitous” was most common in the mid-nineteenth century and although the former seems to have been used more than the latter, no conclusions should be drawn about the changes in the state of human happiness.  One clear finding however is that the double-negative form (that favorite of lawyers, politicians and Foreign Office mandarins) never found favor; if people wished to convey felicitousness they bothered not with “not infelicitous”.

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

The double negative is though handy to add nuance; whatever would be the surface analysis on the combination, “not bad” is understood to mean something different than “good” and it may be that like “I’m not unhappy”, “not infelicitous” can be useful in that it can be used to convey the sense that although one might not be all that happy, one is not despairingly miserable.  Given the nature of the human condition, it’s surprisingly it’s not heard more often.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) and Nikki Haley (b 1972; US ambassador to the United Nations (UN) 2017-2018): Feeling respectively "felicitous" and "not infelicitous" after the South Carolina Republican Primary, February 2024.

Syzygy

Syzygy (pronounced siz-i-jee)

(1) In astronomy (actually borrowed from astrology!), the descriptor for either of the two positions (conjunction or opposition) of a celestial body when sun, earth, and the body lie in a straight line (since applied to the "straight-line configuration" of firstly three and later any number of celestial bodies in a gravitational system.

(2) Any two related things, either alike or opposite (obsolete except for historic references).

(3) In classical prosody, a group or combination of two feet, sometimes restricted to a combination of two feet of different kinds.

(4) In biology (especially zoology), the aggregation in a mass of certain protozoans, especially when occurring before sexual reproduction but can be used also when describing the asexual exchange of genetic material.

(5) In psychology, an archetypal pairing of contra-sexual opposites, symbolizing the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds.

(6) In mathematics, a relation between generators of a module.

(7) In medical pathology, a fusing of some or all of the organs.

(8) In genetics, the pairing of chromosomes in meiosis

1650-1660:  From the Late Latin sȳzygia (conjunction), from the Ancient Greek συζυγία (suzugía) (yoke of animals, pair, union of two, conjunction), from syzygein (to yoke together), the construct being an assimilated form of syn- (together) + zygon (yoke), from the primitive Indo-European root yeug- (to join).  In the Greek, the word produced also zeugnýnai (to yoke together), sometimes simplified in English transcription as synzugon.  In English, syzygy was adopted by astronomy in 1847.  In science there are a number of terms of classification based on syzygy, the most attractive of which is probably Syzygium samarangense (a taxonomic species within the family Myrtaceae (wax apple or Javan rose apple).  

In progress.

Syzygy was one of those words from the once respectable field of astrology later adopted by a number of scientific disciplines (astronomy, genetics, psychiatry, mathematics, zoology) and retained, even after astrology became widely regarded as disreputable.  In mathematics and the physical sciences, it was a handy descriptor of things which became paired or, however briefly, were in alignment although historically the emphasis was on "pair", a syzygy as able to be applied to an identical pair as two diametric opposites.  That permissiveness is now listed by most dictionaries as obsolete but is something to be noted when reading historic texts.

The origin of the application of the word in disciplines like psychiatry and psychology (noted more by its appearance in literary works than professional or academic papers) is thought by some to have been triggered by Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyova (1853–1900) who used syzygy to denote “close union” and applied the concept in a variety of ways which influenced Russian writers not only in the nineteenth century but also those of the symbolist and neo-idealist movements of the later Soviet era and some critics agree Solovyov was at least one of the sources for Fyodor Dostoevsky's (1821–1881) characters Alyosha and Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1880).  Very much in the tradition of   More controversial is the idea his book, The Meaning of Love (1892) (in which syzygy was introduced) is one of the philosophical sources of Leo Tolstoy's (1828-1910) much discussed The Kreutzer Sonata (1889); critics remain divided and opinions are argued with vigour although unusually united was the critical industry built around Carl Jung (1875–1961) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) (particularly the former's theories of the collective unconscious and the balancing of conscious and unconscious elements within an individual's psyche, although this was metaphorical and abstract compared to the use in astronomy and other sciences) which found strands of syzygy in the many themes of the self which so permeates their work.  Given the overarching concepts of (1) the individuation process and (2) the unions of individuals, especially of male and female tending to a totality, even a unity, it’s a word with some appeal to those who seem to value having something with such a range of adaptable meanings to use in works of speculative vagueness.

Listicle

Listicle (pronounced lis-ti-kuhl)

A published article (print or on-line) which differs from a simple list in that the entries are augmented with some additional content (text, links or images).

2000–2005: A portmanteau word, a blend of list + (art)icle.  List (in this context) was from the Middle English lī̆st & lī̆ste (band, stripe; hem, selvage; border, edge, rim; list, specification; barriers enclosing area for jousting, etc), from the Old English līste (hem, edge, strip) or the Old French liste & listre (border; band; strip of paper; list) or the Medieval Latin lista, all from the Proto-West Germanic līstā, from the Proto-Germanic līstǭ (band, strip; hem, selvage; border, edge) which may have been from the primitive Indo-European leys- (to trace, track). It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Lieste (margin, strip, list), the Dutch lijst (picture frame, list), the German Low German Liest (edging, border), the German Leiste (strip, rail, ledge; (heraldry) bar), the Swedish lista (list), the Icelandic lista & listi (list), the Italian lista (list; strip), the Portuguese lista (list), the Spanish lista (list, roll; stripe), the Galician lista (band, strip; list) and the Finnish lista ((informal) list; batten).  Article was from the Middle English article, from the Old French article, from the Latin articulus (a joint, limb, member, part, division, the article in grammar, a point of time), from the Classical Latin artus, from the primitive Indo-European hértus (that which is fit together; juncture, ordering), from the root huer- (to join, fit (together)).  The adoption to describe “pieces of written text” was based on the “joining” function in grammar.  Listicle is a noun; the noun plural is listicles.

That a listicle can be all or substantially made up of text, links or images in any mix is a familiar concept but if the piece is either exclusively or substantially focused on charts (usually in the statistical rather than admiralty sense although an "informational graphic" counts as a “chart” for this purpose), then it can be referred to with the companion term "charticle" (plural charticles), another portmanteau word, a blend of chart + (art)icle.  Charticle is fun but seems an unnecessary word and a needless layer of differentiation; like many modern coinings, it ends up in lists (which can sometimes be listicles) of unusual or rare words with little evidence of actual use; were it not for the on-line world, charticle would likely have died a quick death.

Listicle is really less a description than a slur, an encapsulated critique of “pseudo-journalism”, the accusation being that the structure of a piece is provided by a “paint-by-numbers” approach and is fundamentally a PowerPoint slide (sometimes even the bullet points are included) with annotations (usually images or text) added as desired.  Sometimes, the criticism implies the whole thing is a “cut & paste” job.  It can be a valid objection if the format is inappropriate for the content but not every article needs to be anything like one of Susan Sontag’s (1933—2004) essays and a well-written listicle can present information in a concise and easily digestible format; indeed in many longer form pieces (including academic papers), summary-type appendices (abstracts or executive summaries) often are in the form of a listicle and thire brevity is much appreciated.

Illustrative examples of the three basic types include (1) Harper’s Bazaar's “Eleven of Lindsay Lohan’s Best Style Moments” (just a summary paragraph and captioned photographs), (2) People’s “Lindsay Lohan’s Most Iconic Early Looks” (a summary paragraph and annotated photographs) and (3) The Guardian’s “Ranking of US Presidents” (text only and a listicle disguised as an article, the content of which was so predictable it would have delighted their devoted readers).

So the form of the listicle can be useful.  The objection to them seems to focus on (1) the (allegedly increasingly accelerating) proliferation of the things, (2) that many are “fake journalism” in that they are merely a “padded list”, a PowerPoint slide disguised as prose and (3) many are little more than click-bait used but build the nominal engagement count and drive website traffic.  In some cases, the more strident criticism is of journalism which at first glance seems to be an “article” (in the accepted sense of the word) but if subject to structural analysis (a popular thing to do in media studies classes), it can be reduced to a listicle, even to the point of it being obvious where the bullet points should appear.  This is good sport as a form of attack on newspaper columnists who espouse the “wrong” politics but in cases where word limits are imposed, it’s likely the format is used for utilitarian reasons: it’s just an efficient way to order and impart information.

It’s no longer necessary to read Machiavelli’s (Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, 1469–1527) Il Principe (The Prince; (1532)) because everything is now explained in in listicles.  There are free quotes.

The occasionally discussed matter of whether listicles are “real” journalism is something subjective and really depends on how one defines journalism (another significantly pointless exercise in this context, however vital it may be in a court of law).  The listicle is just another format and a well-written, information-dense listicle will contain journalistic elements, such as research and analysis and can be a more valuable thing than a piece, however conventional which is poorly-written, repetitive, or says very little.  All content should be judged on its merit rather than dismissed because of the form in which it's presented and it’s hard to escape the feeling they arouse such antagonism because they’re so often associated with entertainment and other parts of pop-culture.  There’s also the way listicles disproportionately populate the blogosphere and this one is probably as illustrative as any of the cynical way the format can be used for content creation.

Cavitation

Cavitation (pronounced kav-i-tey-shuhn)

(1) The formation of pits on a surface.

(2) In fluid dynamics, the rapid formation and collapse of vapor pockets in a flowing liquid in regions of very low pressure (associated especially with devices such as rotating marine propellers or the impellers used in pumps.

(3) Such a pocket formed in a flowing liquid; the formation of cavities in a structure.

(4) In biology, the formation of cavities in an organ (used originally to describe those appearing in lung tissue as a result of consumption (tuberculosis)).

1868: The construct was cavit(y) + -ation.  Cavity was a mid-sixteenth century borrowing from Middle French cavité or the Late Latin cavitās, from the Classical Latin cavus (hollow, excavated, concave), the construct being cav +‎-ity (the nominal suffix).  The suffix -ation was from the Middle English -acioun & -acion, from the Old French acion & -ation, from the Latin -ātiō, an alternative form of -tiō (thus the eventual English form -tion).  It was appended to words to indicate (1) an action or process, (2) the result of an action or process or (3) a state or quality.  Cavitation is a noun, cavitate, cavitated & cavitating are verbs and cavitatory & cavitatory are adjectives; the noun plural is cavitations.

The original use of cavitation dates from 1868 and appeared in the literature of human pathology, describing “the formation of cavities in the body”, especially those appearing in lung tissue as a result of consumption (tuberculosis).  The use in fluid dynamics (particularly pumps and marine engineering) emerged in circa 1895 although oral use may have predated this: the verb cavitate (to form cavities or bubbles (in a fluid)) documented since 1892 so it was either a back-formation from cavitation or the construct was cavit(y) + -ate.  The related verbs were cavitated & cavitating.  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  The noun supercavitation was a creation of plasma physics and described an extreme form of cavitation in which a single bubble of gas forms around an object moving through a liquid, significantly reducing drag.  As observational technology & techniques improved, the form ultracavitation also appeared to describe instances where instances of the phenomenon meant drag tended as close to zero as was possible.

Cavitation is an interesting aspect of fluid dynamics but it’s studied because it’s something which can cause component failure in devices like the pumps used for liquid, fluid & gas which can have catastrophic consequences for both connected equipment and people in the vicinity and beyond.  Such components typically feature robust construction but cavitation is a function of sustained operation (often 24/7) at high speeds and some vulnerable parts may be heavy and the fragmentation at high velocity of a heavy, reciprocating mass is obviously a serious problem.  Technically, it’s the formation of vapour- or gas-filled cavities in a flowing liquid when tensile stress is superimposed on the ambient pressure and one novelty in the science of cavitation was in 2021 noted by researchers in an oncology laboratory.  Using a gassy, explosive bacteria to destroy cancer cells by bombardment, the strikes were observed to produce a brief sonoluminescence (in physics, the emission of short bursts of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound), the cavitation bubbles producing a brief flash of light as they collapsed.

In the specific case of “pump cavitation”, the problem typically occurs when a hydraulic pumps which pumps liquids suffers a partial pressure drop.  What the change in pressure can induce is the formation of air bubbles, leading to cavity creation.  Inside the pump, the pressure shift transforms the liquid into a vapor which is then converted back to liquid by the spinning impellers.  The air bubbles thus are constantly moving inside the housing and as they implode during pressure changes, the surfaces of the impeller are eroded and it’s the creation of these tiny cavities which can accumulate sufficiently to weaken the structure to the point of failure.  The issue particularly affects centrifugal pumps but can occur in submersible devices.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying the effects of fluid dynamics.

Although something identified by engineers in the nineteenth century, the exact nature of cavitation wasn’t fully understood until the application in the 1950s of high-speed photography and the mathematical models developed then were later confirmed as close to exactly correct by computer simulations later in the century.  What was found was two causes of cavitation : (1) Inertial Cavitation in which a shock wave is produced by the collapse of bubble or void present in a liquid and (2) Non-inertial Cavitation which is initiated when a bubble in a fluid undergoes shape alterations due to an acoustic field or some other form of energy input.  Also observed were two behaviors of cavitation: (1) Suction Cavitation induced by high vacuum or low-pressure conditions which reduce the flow of fluid, bubbles forming near the eye of an impeller eye; as these bubbles move towards the pump’s discharge end, they are compressed into liquid, and they will implode against the impeller’s edge and (2) Discharge Cavitation which occurs when the pump’s discharge pressure becomes abnormally high, altering the flow of fluid, leading to internal recirculation, the liquid becoming “stuck” in a pattern between the housing (and the impeller) thereby creating a vacuum which in turn creates the air bubbles which will collapse and cavitate the impeller.

Representation of fluid dynamics under specific resonant conditions.

In fluid dynamics, a flow becoming “stuck” is often something to avoid but an aspect of the behavior can be exploited and it was a specific instance of certain “resonant conditions” Chrysler’s engineers exploited in 1959 when designing their Sonoramic induction system.  The idea wasn’t new, the math explained as early as 1863 and in racing cars it had been used for years but what Chrysler did was make it a focal point.  Sonoramic was an implementation of Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) first law of motion, more commonly known as the law of inertia: “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion” and it’s the second part which was exploited.  During the intake cycle of an engine, the fuel-air mix flows through the intake manifold, past the intake valve, and into the cylinder, then the intake valve shuts.  At that point, the law of inertia comes into play: Because the air was in motion, it wants to stay in motion but can’t because the valve is shut so it piles up against the valve with something of a concertina effect.  With one piece of air piling up on the next, the air becomes compressed and this compressed air has to go somewhere so it turns around and flows back through the intake manifold in the form of a pressure wave.  This pressure wave bounces back and forth in the runner and if it arrives back at the intake valve when the valve opens, it’s drawn into the engine.  This bouncing pressure wave of air and the proper arrival time at the intake valve creates a low-pressure form of supercharging but for this to be achieved all variables have to be aligned so the pressure wave arrives at the intake valve at the right time.  This combination of synchronized events is known as the “resonant conditions”.

Representation of cavitation in mechanical gears.

The behavior in pumps is now well understood and both design parameters and maintenance schedules are usually cognizant of cavitation and its potential consequences.  However, instances remain not infrequent, especially when pumps are fitted into systems by non-specialists, the most common causes being (1) low fluid pressure, (2) insufficient internal diameter of suction pipes, (3) excessive distances between a fluid source and a pump’s impeller(s), (4) pumps being run at too high a speed (which may be within a manufacturer’s recommendations but inappropriate for the system in which it’s installed), (5) too many fittings added to a suction pipe and (6) debris intrusion (often a consequence of inadequate filter cleaning & maintenance).  Cavitation is a function of speed and in devices such as slow-speed propellers (such as those in many marine applications), cavitation is not an issue, thus the frequent use of light, efficient, thin blades.

Bonk

Bonk (pronounced bongk)

(1) A bump on the head (usually not severe).

(2) To hit, strike, collide etc; any minor collision or blow.

(3) In slang, a brief intimacy between two people, usually with a suggestion of infidelity; often modified with the adjective quick and only ever used where the act is consensual (less common in North America).

(4) In sports medicine, a condition of sudden, severe fatigue in an endurance sports event, typically induced by glycogen depletion (also in the phrase “hit the wall”).

(5) In snowboarding, to hit something with the front of the board, especially in midair.

(6) In zoology, an animal call resembling "bonk" (such as the call of the pobblebonk (any of various Australian frogs of the genus Limnodynastes)).

1931: A creation of Modern English, the origin remains uncertain but most suspect it was likely imitative of sounds of impact (like bong, bump, bounce or bang) and thus onomatopoetic.  As a slang term for an affaire de coeur, use was first noted in 1975 and has always, depending on context, carried an implication of something illicit or quickly done; purely recreational though always consensual.  The use in sports medicine describing the condition of glycogen depletion references a metaphorical impact as in “hitting the wall”, the first known use in 1952 in endurance sports medicine.  Bonkee, as a descriptor for a "woman of loose virtue", appears to have been a 2014 creation which never caught on which is a shame because there are all sorts of cases where the companion terms "bonker" & "bonkee" might have been handy .  The form "bonkers", referring to the deranged, dated from circa 1957 and was apparently unrelated to the earlier naval slang for “drunk” but alluded rather to what could be the the consequence of a “bonk on the head”.  The third-person singular simple present is bonks, the present participle, bonking and the simple past and past participle, bonked.  Bonk & bonking are nouns & verbs, bonker is a noun, bonky is an adjective, bonked is a verb and bonkers is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bonks.

Bonkers: "Last Call" 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 in "plum crazy" (one of the retro colors which reprised those used by Chrysler in the "psychedelic era" of the late 1960s).  Some 3300 were produced (one of the many batches in Dodges "Last Call" programme), many of which soon were advertised for sale at well above the MRRP (manufacturer's retail price) and many are believed to have been placed in long-term storage.  The yellow plastic fittings were installed to prevent damage during shipping to dealers.  The factory didn't envisage them becoming consumer items so they were described, prosaically, as “splitter guards” but leaving them attached after purchase became a cult and some cars were even retro-fitted, despite dealers cautioning the pieces weren't specifically molded to ensure a perfect fit so dirt and moisture were prone to being trapped in the gaps and this could scuff the paint.  They were referred to also as “damage guards” and “scuff guards” but the more imaginative dubbed them “underwires” and this is believed the first time that term entered the large lexicon of automotive slang.

The Demon 170 was released as part of Dodge’s “Last Call” programme which marked the end of the corporation's run of high-performance V8s for passenger cars, a tradition dating from 1950 when the first 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) "Firepower" (soon to be fetishized as "Hemi") V8 debuted.  Offered in a bewildering array of configurations in a process which was something like Nellie Melba's (1861-1931) "farewell" tours, the SRT Demon 170 was reckoned the most bonkers of a generally bonkers lot.  Rated at 1,025 hp (764 kW), the factory claimed it could accelerate from 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 1.66 seconds with an elapsed time in the standing ¼ mile (402 metres for those who insist) of 8.91 seconds (terminal speed 151 mph (243 km/h)), setting the mark as the worlds quickest ever standard production car, a reasonable achievement for something weighing 4275 lbs (1939 kg).  By world standards it was also very cheap and on the basis of cost-breakdown vs performance, there was nothing like it on the planet.  In British (and other English-speaking regions although rare in the US) use, "bonkers" can and often is used in an entirely non-pejorative way to suggest something or someone verging on the irrational but in some way astonishing, admirable or inspiring.  Road cars with 600+ horsepower V8 & V12 engines are of course bonkers but we'll miss them when they're gone and it would seem the end is nigh.  Greta Thunberg (b 2003) has expressed no regret at the looming extinction of this species.  

Bonking Boris

Hand-turned fish bonkers on sale in Jaffray, a village in the south-western Canadian province of British Columbia (left) and the front page of The Sun (7 September 2018; right), a tabloid which rarely avoids an alluringly attractive alliterative alternative.  

The noun bonker describes (1) a short, blunt hardwood club used by fisherpersons efficiently to dispatch (ie bonking them dead) just-caught fish or (2) according to the Murdoch tabloid The Sun, the adulterous Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022).  A bonk by Boris or the club and a not wholly dissimilar outcome ensues; a one-time employer called bonking Boris "ineffably duplicitous" and the estranged (now former) Mrs Johnson presumably agreed.  At the time, the former prime minister had "a bit of previous" in extra-marital bonking and when this one was announced, it was with an alliterative flourish not seen since the headline “BORIS BACKS BREXIT”.  His resignation from Theresa May's (Lady May, b 1956; UK prime-minister 2016-2019) government was unrelated to bonking (as far as is known) and came, in July 2018, three days after a cabinet meeting at Chequers (the prime-minister's country house), where agreement was reached on Mrs May’s Brexit strategy, a document compromised by the need to make a nonsensical impossibility look like good policy.  That can be done but it requires rare skill to be in 10 Downing Street and it's been some time since that could be said. 

Freed by his resignation from the burdens of the Foreign Office, bonking Boris was clearly unconcerned at rumors his opponents in the party were assembling a dossier of some 4,000 words detailing his cheating ways, fondness for cocaine & failings of character and turned his attention to a campaign for the Tory leadership.  As wonderfully unpredictable as the politics of the time were fluid, nobody was quite sure whether he’d go into the inevitable election or second referendum as "leave" or "remain"; it would depend on this and that.  In the end, he remained a leaver and things worked out well, his election victory meaning that for one, brief, shining moment, the three world leaders with the best hair all had their own nuclear weapons at the same time.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025; left), Boris Johnson (centre) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea)) since 2011; right).

Some hairstyles are more amenable than others to a quick post-bonk fix.  Kim Jong-un's cut is probably quite good and would bounce back from a bonk with little more than a run-through with the fingers although he may have in his entourage an army general as "designated carrier of the comb".  Donald Trump however would likely need both tools and product for a post-bonk fix, ideally performed by an expert hairdresser.  Mr Trump usually appears well-fixed unless disturbed by breezes higher than 2 on the Beaufort scale and all but the most perfunctory bonks probably are equal to at least 4 on the scale so it would have been interesting to see if Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Gregory, b 1979) lived up to her (stage) name although Mr Trump has denied that bonk ever happened.  Ms Daniels' testimony did include a mention of giving him a bonk on the butt with a rolled-up magazine (one with his picture on the cover!) and that at least had a ring of truth.  Mr Johnson's hair so often looks post-bonk that either his conquests are more frequent even than has been rumored or he orders a JBF with every cut.  One UK publication suggested exactly that, hinting his instruction was "not one hair in place".  That has the advantage for Mr Johnson in that it's a style essentially the same pre-bonk, mid-bonk and post-bonk and thus pricelessly ambiguous in that merely by looking at him, one couldn't tell if he was going to or coming from a bonk although, one assumes, whichever it was, a bonk would never be far from his mind.  Whatever the criticisms of Mr Johnson's premiership (and there were a few), it's to his eternal credit that in his resignation honours list Ms Kelly Jo Dodge (for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser) was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for “parliamentary service”.  Over those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Mr Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style known colloquially in her profession as the JBF.  Few honours have been so well deserved and more illustrious decorations have been pinned on many who have done less for the nation.

In being granted a gong Ms Dodge fared better than another parliamentary hairdresser.  Between 1950-1956, the speaker of the Australian House of Representatives (the lower house) was Archie Cameron (1895–1956) and in some aspects his ways seemed almost un-Australian: he didn’t drink, smoke, swear or gamble.  Not approving of anything to do with the turf, he ordered the removal from the wall of the Parliament House barber’s salon a print of racehorse Phar Lap (1926–1932, the thoroughbred which won the 1930 Melbourne Cup) and later served notice on the barber to quit the building, Cameron suspecting (on hard & fast grounds) he was a SP (starting price) bookie.  Before state-run T.A.B.s (Totalisator Agency Board) were in the 1960s established to regulate such activities, SP bookies were a popular (and convenient) way to undertake off course betting and, like Phar Lap, they were born in New Zealand, the first operating there in 1949.

While in some ways not stereotypically Australian, other parts of his character made Cameron a quintessential of the type.  Once, when displeased by one member’s conduct on the floor of the house, he demanded he bow to the chair and apologize.  Not satisfied with the response, he told the transgressor he needed to bow lower and when asked how low was required, replied: “How low can you go?”  As speaker he exercised great power over what went on in the building and insisted on dress standards being maintained although he didn’t adhere to his own rules, on hot days often wandering the corridors in shorts and a singlet; the parliamentary cleaning staff were said to resent the habit, fearing that visitors might mistake him for a cleaner and “damage their prestige”.

Official portrait of Speaker Cameron in the traditional horsehair wig and robes of office.  The wig was the one Dr HV Evatt (1894–1965; leader of opposition 1951-1960) had worn while a judge (1930-1940) of the High Court of Australia (HCA) and Cameron wasn’t best pleased about that but it had been presented to the parliament and no other was available so Cameron “contented himself by reflecting that ‘it was time some straight thinking was done under this wig’.”

Upon election in 1949, the prime-minister (Sir Robert Menzies (1894–1978; prime-minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966) apparently shuddered at the thought of a “loose cannon” like Cameron in cabinet or on the backbench so appointed him speaker, despite being warned by the respected Frank Clifton Green (1890–1974; clerk of the House of Representatives (Australia) 1937-1955) that Cameron’s habit of being “…so consistently wrong with such complete conviction that he was right” made him “the worst possible choice” for the role.”  On hearing of his nomination, old Ben Chifley (1885–1951; prime minister of Australia 1945-1949) predicted “He’ll either be the best speaker ever or the worst”, concluding a few months later: “I think he’s turned out to be the bloody worst.”  Once installed, he made himself a fixture and one not easily dislodged.  Although it was in the Westminster system common for speaker to resign if a house voted a dissent from one of their rulings, Cameron suffered five successful motions of dissent against his rulings, one of them moved by the prime-minister himself.  As one member later recounted: “He just shrugged his shoulders and carried on.  He couldn’t care less whether the house supported him or not.  Archie liked being speaker and intended to keep the job.”  Keep it he did, dying in office in 1956.  Green summed him up as “…a queer mixture of generosity, prejudice and irresponsibility” and many noted the parliament became a more placid place after he quit the world.

Dame Jilly Cooper (1937–2025), in the 1980s, in fishnets.

Bonkbuster is a literary genre first defined in the late 1980s as meaning “novels with more emphasis on the sex than the romance and enjoying (ore expecting” best-seller status and like likelihood of adaptation in some form for the screen”.  The construct was bonk + (block)buster, the latter element used to describe highly successful book, films, albums etc.  In the literary genre Dame Jilly was the UK’s most accomplished author, something she attributed, at least in part to her “diligent research on the topic”.  Her novels were churning fantasies of smouldering glances, polo ponies, country houses and corporate back-stabbing, always with an undercurrent of infidelity, often in the green and pleasant land of the English countryside.  Before in 1975 she turned to fiction (albeit with much content drawn from he own active life), she’d spent years as a newspaper columnist where she’s offer practical advice to the modern women such as: “If you amuse a man in bed, he's not likely to bother about the mountain of dust underneath it.”  Although she always, accurately, described herself as “upper-middle class”, her novels tended up rather than down the class system and were studded with titles, money and privilege but the turn of phrase she’d honed within the tight word limits imposed on columnists never deserted her, a protagonist in one novel observing: “I don’t expect fidelity from my husbands, but I demand it from my lovers.”

A bandaged Lindsay Lohan waking dazed and confused after a bonk on the head in Falling for Christmas (2022; left) and on the move in Irish Wish (2024).   

In May 2021, Netflix & Lindsay Lohan executed what became a three movie deal, the first (Falling for Christmas) released in the northern winter of 2022, just in time for the season.  She played the protagonist, a pampered heiress who loses her memory after suffering a bonk on the head, waking up to a new life.  The second Netflix release opens in February 2024 and in Irish Wish, the plotline involves her spontaneously wishing for something, subsequently waking up to find the wish granted.  So it’s a variation on the theme of the first (though without the bonk on the head), the twist being in the theme of “be careful what you wish for”.

Bonking Barnaby and the bonk ban

Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018), a student of etymology, was as fond as those at The Sun of alliteration and when writing his memoir (A Bigger Picture (2020)) he included a short chapter entitled "Barnaby and the bonk ban".  As well as the events which lent the text it's title, the chapter was memorable for his inclusion of perhaps the most vivid thumbnail sketch of Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) yet penned:

"Barnaby is a complex, intense, furious personality.  Red-faced, in full flight he gives the impression he's about to explode.  He's highly intelligent, often good-humoured but also has a dark and almost menacing side - not unlike Abbott (Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015)) - that seems to indicate he wrestles with inner troubles and torments."

Mr Turnbull and Mr Joyce in parliament, House of Representatives, Canberra, ACT.

The substantive matter was the revelation in mid-2017 the press had become aware Mr Joyce (a married man with four daughters) was (1) conducting an affair with a member of his staff and (2) the young lady was with child.  Mr Turnbull recorded that when asked, Mr Joyce denied both "rumors", which does sound a lie but, in the narrow, technical sense, may have verged on "the not wholly implausible" on the basis that, as he pointed out in a later television interview, the question of paternity was at the time “...a bit of a grey area”.  Mr Joyce and his mistress later married and now have two children so all's well that end's well (at least for the adulterous couple) and Mr Turnbull didn't so much shut the gate after the horse had bolted as install inter-connecting doors between the stables.  His amendments to the Australian Ministerial Code of Conduct (an accommodating document very much in the spirit of Lord Castlereagh's (1769–1822; UK foreign secretary 1812-1822) critique of the Holy Alliance) banned ministers from bonking their staff which sounds uncontroversial but was silent on them bonking the staff of the minister in the office down the corridor.  So the net effect was probably positive in that staff having affairs with their ministerial boss would (through a rapid inter-departmental transfer), gain experience through cross-exposure to other portfolio areas although there's the obvious moral hazard they might be tempted to conduct trysts just to engineer a transfer in the hope of career advancement.  There are worse reasons for having an affair and a bonk for a new job seems a small price to pay; it's been done before. In a sense, Mr Joyce was a victim because when rugby union (and other codes) player Israel Folau (b 1989) in 2019 posted on social media a list of those God condemns to Hell which included “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters”, while there was strident support for the gay community, despite the mention of “adulterers” and “drunks” being obviously and blatantly an attack on Mr Joyce's character, not a whisper was heard in his defence.

Bonk in progress, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, May 2024.

Bonk in the sense of “a blow to the head” was in May 2024 adapted for use in memes and other publicity tools associated with the protests staged on US university campuses demanding the institutions’ administrators divest from economic and other engagements with Israel and in support of the cause of the Palestinian people for (variously) statehood or freedom from repression.  The scenes were reminiscent of Vietnam War era protests but the emergence of the water-cooler jug as an icon of political dissent was an unexpected moment of levity.  The origin of that was a viral (“bonk, bonk, bonk”) video clip showing an unidentified protester at the California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt bonking a uniformed law-enforcement officer on the helmet with an empty jug (believed to be a capacity of 5 US gallons (19 litres)) of the type which sits atop a water cooler.

Although recalling the similarly alliterative “burn baby, burn” slogan chanted during the Watts race riots in Los Angeles in August 1965, the “bonk, bonk, bonk” was more a symbol of, if not exactly passive resistance, then certainly something short of actual violence although in a legal sense it would have been an instance of both assault and battery as well as other offences.  Around the country, stickers, posters and the inevitable T-shirts appeared within hours with slogans such as “Water Jug, Come and Take It” and “This machine bonks fascists”, a reference to the “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS” message the left-wing US folk singer Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) wrote on his guitars.  Whether the water jug (bonking and not) will endure as a symbol of protest will depend, like many aspects of language, on whether it gains a sustained critical mass of use.

The "bonk, bonk, bonk" viral video.  In the conventional sense, the production values weren't high but that very quality of authenticity accounted for its viral success.