Waft

Waft (pronounced wahft)

(1) To carry lightly and smoothly through the air or over water.

(2) To send or convey lightly, as if in flight.

(3) To signal to, summon, or direct by waving (obsolete).

(4) A sound, odor etc, faintly perceived.

(5) A light current or gust of air; a brief, gentle breeze.

(6) In historic admiralty use, a signal flag hoisted or furled to signify various messages depending on where it was flown (archaic).

(7) In historic admiralty use, as "wafter", an armed convoy or escort ship (obsolete), the use later extended to an agent of the Crown with responsibility for protecting specific maritime activities, such as shipping or fishing (obsolete).

(8) In nautical use, a flag used to indicate wind direction (a la the windsocks used at aerodromes) or, with a knot tied in the centre, as a signal (a waif or wheft).

(9) To convey by ship (obsolete).

1535-1545: From the Middle English waften, of uncertain origin. It may have been from the unattested Old English wafettan, from wafian (to wave) or a modified from of the Middle Dutch wachten (to guard, provide for).  Related forms include the German wabern (to waft), the Faroese veiftra (to wave) and the Icelandic váfa (to fluctuate, waver, doubt).  In the obsolete sense of "conveying by ship", the word was a back formation from the late Middle English waughter (armed escort vessel) from the Dutch and Low German wachter (guard; a watchman or convoy vessel) which in some historic documents is confused with waff.  The familiar modern meaning “gently to pass through air or space, to float" was in use by the early eighteenth century and etymologists conclude it was in some way connected with the northern dialect word waff (cause to move to and fro) which dates from the 1510s.  The phrase “waft off” is a polite form of “fuck off” and is expressed non-orally by “a wafting motion with the hands indicating the subject should proceed in the opposite direction”.  Waft & wafting are nouns & verbs, waftage, wafture & wafter are nouns, wafted is a verb and wafty is an adjective; the noun plural is wafts.

How to Waft

Waft, in the practical laboratory work of chemistry and other sciences, is a term used in safety manuals when describing the recommended way to sniff stuff.  Successfully to waft, one uses an open hand with the palm facing the body, moving the hand in a gentle circular motion over or about the substance or gas of interest so as to lift vapours towards the nose.  This permits a lower concentration to be inhaled, especially important with anything dangerous like ammonia, hydrochloric acid etc.

Right & wrong: A student in the chemistry lab wafting correctly (left) and George W Bush (b 1946; US President 2001-2009) inhaling incorrectly (right).  Answering the now ritualized question of whether he'd ever smoked weed, Mr Bush admitted inhaling.

Waftability

It was in 2009 Tom Purves (b 1949; CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars 2008-2010) announced the neologism “waftability” was “the essence of the brand”, the new coining he defined as meaning “calm perfect motion and accelerating quickly without fuss”.  Back then (and it seems now distant history) the CEO was describing the relationship between the appearance of a Rolls-Royce as a static object as something which embodied that definition, revealing the internal name for the “gentle, upswept line of the sill” on the new Ghost model was a “waftline” (actually borrowed from the fashion business), the idea being it created “a powerful, poised stance and makes the car appear to be moving when stationary.”

That was when Rolls-Royce was still in the business of making large-displacement petrol engines sound and behave as if they were electric motors but by 2023 they were ready to announce their first pure electric car, the Spectre.  It had taken a while but the connection with things electric actually predated even the formation of the company in 1904.  Sir Henry Royce (1863–1933) was an engineer was an engineer who designed dynamos, electric crane motors and patented the bayonet-style light bulb fitting while Charles Rolls (1877–1910) drove an electric car as early as 1900 and declared it the almost ideal form of propulsion, observing “The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration, and they should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged. But for now, I do not anticipate that they will be very serviceable – at least for many years to come.”  So it proved.  By 2023 however, the technology was ready and so (more debatably) was the infrastructure and there is nothing better at waftability than something large, luxurious and electric, Rolls-Royce saying in 20230 they will manufacture and sell their last car running on fossil fuel.

The electric Rolls-Royce Spectre.  Instead of the internal combustion V8 & V12 engines which faithfully have served the line sine 1959, the Spectre is powered by two electric motors producing a combined net 577 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque.  There was a time when Rolls-Royce would never have painted their cars purple but the catchment of those with the resources to buy or lease (rent) such things has expanded to include many whose tastes come from different traditions.  It's not the difference between good and poor taste; it's just there are different sophistications.

For Rolls-Royce, the engineering and financial challenges aside, the obstacles are few because, unlike an operation like Ferrari which for decades has based part of its mystique on the noise its engines make at full-cry, it has always put a premium of silence and smoothness.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) said it was the howl of the V12 Packard engines (which he dubbed “the song of 12”) he heard on the race tracks which convinced him to make the V12 the signature configuration for the cars which would bear his name but for Charles Rolls the most influential sound was its absence.  In 1904, he had the opportunity to ride in Columbia Electric car and, knowing what so many of his customers craved, was most impressed, noting: “They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged.”  So, in 120-odd years not much has changed.  Ferrari are doubtlessly hoping the hydrogen refueling infrastructure develops at a similarly helpful rate, the exhaust note from exploding hydrogen able to be as intoxicating as that of burning hydrocarbons.

The waftline in fashion

Helena Bonham Carter (b 1966) in a Dolce & Gabbana waftline polka dot dress, British Academy Television Awards, London, June 2021.  Students of design should note the presence of "skirt-holding loops".

"Wafting" or "waftline" clothing (known also as "swishy skirts") are those voluminous creations made from lightweight, flowing fabrics which are cut to permit them gracefully to move, the material making a "swishing" sound (usually more imagined than real) when the wearer wafts by.  Characterized by their fluidity and movement, on the right figure (a term which is "fat-shaming" no matter how it's spun) they impart a sense of elegance and femininity while still offering designers some potential for playfulness.  Although the style can be applied to short skirts (although this does increase the danger of "wardrobe malfunctions), the classic waftlines tend to be at least knee or calf-length and because there's so much surface area, it's easier to use prints like big, dramatic florals and large-scale geometric shapes.  The anthesis of the pencil skirt, the fabrics most suited to the waftline include taffeta, chiffon, silk and the lighter cottons but any synthetic which drapes well and "wafts around" can be used.

Lindsay Lohan, who likes to waft, in waftline dresses.  

Wafting East of Suez

A classic wafting garment is the thawb most associated with Arab men of the Gulf region but also (with some variations) worn more widely.  Known regionally as the kandurah, kandoora, gandurah or dishdashah, it’s a long-sleeved, ankle-length robe which is enveloping but loose.  The word thawb is from the Arabic ثَوْب (literally “dress” (in the sense of “garment”)) although in the colonial era it was romanized as thobe, thob or thaub, TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia; 1888–1935), often photographed wearing one (he used thawb), sometimes also with a zebun atop, a type of ankle-length sleeved-cloak, cut like a western bathrobe and unlike a thawb, often in a dark fabric.  Usually a thawb is bound loosely at the waist, using anything from a plain cord to a decorative belt depending on the taste and status of the wearer, functional attachments for carrying weapons (and in recent years cell phones) sometimes attached.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) (left) with the UAE's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Nahayan, Abu Dhabi  January 2011.  The crown prince is wearing a classic white thrab & keffiyeh, the latter secured with a black egel.  Crooked Hillary is in one of her signature pantsuits in Prussian blue.

The wafting quality of a thawb makes it a functional garment to wear in a hot climate like that of the Arabian Peninsula and studies of its thermodynamic and related properties have been undertaken, the findings concluding there are a number of factors which contribute to its utility:  (1) The material is usually a lightweight and breathable fabric such as linen or cotton which permits the circulation of air, facilitating the evaporation of sweat and consequent cooling of the body.  (2) Thawbs are traditionally white or light-hued, colors which reflect sunlight, unlike darker shades which tend to absorb and retain heat.  (3) By design, the robe is loose-fitting, encouraging ventilation and minimising direct contact between fabric & skin, reducing the thermodynamic effect known as “heat-soak”.  (4) The thawb covers most of the body’s surface area (including the arms and legs), almost negating direct exposure to the sun, preventing sunburn and reducing the risk of heat-related illnesses. (5) The thawb is part of a system, the inner layer which provides insulation against searing daytime temperatures but deserts can be cold places too, thus the addition of layers such as the zebun which protects from the cold.

Yasser Arafat, United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), 13 November, 1974.  Not many speeches delivered to the UN General Assembly are remembered; the one given by Yasser Arafat is one of the few to become famous without a shoe being removed.

The companion garment is the keffiyeh (or kufiyyeh or cheffiyeh), from the Arabic: كُوفِيَّة (kūfiyya (literally “coif”)) and again, because of tribal and linguistic diversity, it’s known also as the shemagh (شُمَاغ) (šumāḡ), ghutrah (غُترَة) or hattah (حَطَّة).  It is a headdress in the form of a square or rectangular scarf and except for those worn for formal or ceremonial purposes, is almost always made from cotton because these are the lightest and coolest to wear and the generous surface area allows it almost fully to envelope the face, protecting the lips and nose from dust, sand and sunburn.  To secure a keffiyeh in place (deserts can be windy too), it’s worn with an egel (عِقَال) (ʿiqāl) (or egal, agal or aqal).  An Egel is a cord which can be a simple, single strand in black or an elaborate and colourful multi-threaded construction; made traditionally from goat hair, synthetic fibres are now often used.  The keffiyeh attracted wider attention in 2024 when it came to be used as a political symbol, worn by demonstrators in Western cities protesting against Israel’s conduct of military operations in the Gaza strip.  The use as a political symbol is not new, old Yasser Arafat (Abu Ammar, 1929–2004; chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 1969-2004) used to arrange with photographers who wanted a picture for them to use the angle at which his keffiyeh would fall across his right shoulder in the shape of a map of Palestine (with 1947 boundaries).

Bandwagon

Bandwagon (pronounced band-wag-uhn)

(1) A wagon, historically large and often ornately decorated, used to transport the members of a band or musical troop while performing for events such as circus parades or political rallies.

(2) Figuratively, a party, cause, movement, fashion, trend etc, that by its mass appeal or strength readily attracts many followers.

1849 (although some sources cite 1855): An Americanism, the construct being band + wagon.  Band (in the context of a musical troop) was from the Middle English band, from the Old French bande, from the Old Occitan banda (regiment of troops), which may have been from the Frankish bend, from the Proto-Germanic bandiz, from the primitive Indo-European bhend (to tie; bond, band).  The Modern German spelling is Bande (band).  Wagon was from the Middle Dutch wagen, from the Old Dutch wagan, from the proto West Germanic wagn, from the Proto-Germanic wagnaz (wagon), from the primitive Indo-European woghnos (wagon, primitive carriage), from wegh (to transport).  The form is also related to the Modern English way & weigh.  Bandwagon in its literal or figurative sense is not directly related to wagon’s sense of “a woman of loose virtue” (the idea being she is being “ridden” in the sense of being “mounted for sexual purposes”, the same idea as the disparaging “town bike”) although, once a reputation as “a bit of a wagon” is known, some presumably would be inspired to “jump on the bandwagon.  The alternative spelling is band-wagon and it would be a useful distinction if the hyphenated form is used of the actual wagon while the unhyphenated is for figurative purposes.  Bandwagon, bandwagonist, bandwagonism, bandwagoning & bandwagoner are nouns; the noun plural is bandwagons.  Bandwagon has been used as a non-standard verb and the adjective bandwagonish is non-standard.

In sociology, the “bandwagon effect” describes the phenomenon of people often doing or believing what they think many other people do or believe.  There can be a sound evolutionary basis for this and it is often observed in the animal behavior described as “safety in numbers” which describes beasts clustering when a predator is hunting; while the predator may be guaranteed a kill, each individual has a higher chance of survival if in a group than if isolated and thus a more attractive target.  The idea is also known as “herd behavior”, “herd instinct” & “herd mentality” and used especially in economics, explaining some trends (buying & selling) in equity markets and notably, crypto-currencies.  Terms like “herd behaviour” are often used disparagingly but there is a certain internal logic, illustrated by Joseph Heller (1923-1999) in Catch-22 (1961):

“We won’t lose. We’ve got more men, more money and more material. There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me. Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and having fun. Let somebody else get killed.”
“But suppose everybody on our side felt that way.”
“Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way.  Wouldn’t I?”

The usual expression is “climb (or jump, hop, get) on the bandwagon”, describing the tendency for people to follow others in joining, supporting or buying something as its popularity rises.  The companion phrase is “hype train” although some bandwagons become more personalized. The “Trump Train” used to describe the way the early successes enjoyed in 2016 by Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) in the process to seek the Republican Party’s nomination for that year’s presidential election assumed its own momentum, gathering speed and numbers of passengers (train-like) as it went.

Armada Cornet Band of Michigan in Band Wagon with instruments (1878).

The original band wagons (initially never hyphenized) were large, open, horse drawn carriages used essentially as mobile stages, carrying musicians who would play as they moved, typically in a circus procession or as part of the spectacle of entertainment which was a part of nineteenth century elections in the US.  The band wagons themselves became campaign posters, painted in the colors associated with a candidate and thus emblematic of the party, which would explain why Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) in 1899 explained “being on the bandwagon” as meaning “…attaching oneself to anything that looks likely to succeed.”

Wagon porn: Band Wagon, wheels (43 & 55-inch); body dark green with gold scrolling on body & seats; gearing Naples yellow, ornamented with ultramarine blue & gold stripes; trimming dark green goatskin.  The Carriage Monthly, December 1881.

The terms “bandwagoner” & “bandwagon fan” are used to describe those who support or participate in something only because it is popular or successful.  The most frequent use is as a derogatory term to refer to those who discover an allegiance to a sporting team or franchise as they begin to enjoy success, distinguishing them from the “die hard” fan who maintains their supports in bad times as well as good.  The phenomenon is cross-code (football, hockey, basketball etc) and is a specific instance illustrating the adage: “nothing succeeds like success”.

In formal logic, the term “bandwagon fallacy” (argumentum ad populum) is probably better understood by the expressions used in common discourse including “appeal to the masses” or “mob appeal”, all made to sound more palatable in the Latin consensus gentium (agreement of the people).  Essentially, the fallacy is that if a particular view or attitude is held by a majority of the population, it must be “right”, the corollary of course that if something is unpopular, it must be “wrong”; these are the two extremes of the bandwagon fallacy spectrum.  Although used in psychology and political science, the concept is more familiar in commerce and the evidence is on display in all of the advertising material which portrays products as desirable simply on the basis of their alleged popularity.  The blending of all this with the “bandwagon effect” is encapsulated in the more recent portmanteau noun “brandwagon”.

The special use of “bandwagoning” in international relations (IR) was coined by University of Chicago political scientist Quincy Wright (1890–1970) in A Study of War (1942).  Characterized by some also as “accepting the inevitable” or “lying back and trying to enjoy it”, it describes the process in which a state shifts from being an adversary of a stronger state to being in some way aligned, either in a formal alliance or a state of peaceful co-existence.  Implicit in the arrangement is that any benefits which accrue from the relationship, vis-à-vis third parties, will overwhelmingly be gained by the stronger state.  Historically, such relationships often have come into being because domination by the regional or global hegemon is anyway inevitable and it may as well be accepted without the consequences of armed conflict.  In IR, bandwagoning is cumulative in that the more states which decide to align with the strong state, the more which will either follow the lead or seek an alliance with another powerful player.

The idea of juxtaposing someone getting “back on the party bandwagon” with falling “off the wagon” (ie drinking alcohol again) was hard to resist for at least one headline writer who knew click-bait when they saw it.  The phrase “fall off the wagon” originated in the US in the late nineteenth century as “fall off the water wagon (or cart)”, the device referenced the horse-drawn water tanks which were a frequent sight in summer, keeping down the dust on the unpaved roads of the era.  The idea thus was that to be “on the wagon” was to be drinking water rather than strong drink; “fall off the wagon” and you're back on the booze.

Retard

Retard (pronounced ri-tahrd and ree-tahrd (depending on definition))

(1) To make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process etc); hinder or impede (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(2) To be delayed (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(3) a slowing down, diminution, or hindrance, as in a machine (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(4) A contemptuous term of US origin (as a clipping of “mental retardation”) used to refer to a person who is cognitively impaired (now disparaging & offensive slang) (pronounced ree-tahrd).

(5) A person who is stupid, obtuse, or ineffective in some way (now disparaging & offensive slang) (pronounced ree-tahrd).

(6) In the tuning and maintenance of internal combustion engines, an adjustment made in the setting of the distributor so the spark for ignition in each combustion chamber is generated later in the cycle; the opposite procedure is “to advance” (pronounced ri-tahrd).

(7) In physics, as retarded, designating a parameter of an electromagnetic field which is adjusted to account for the finite speed of radiation (pronounced ri-tahr-did).

1480–1490: From the Old French retarder, from the Latin retardāre (to delay, protract), the construct being re- + tardāre (to loiter, to make slow; to be slow), from tardus (slow, sluggish, late, lingering; dull, stupid, slow-witted) (of unknown origin but one etymologist suggests it may have some relationship to the Etruscan), from which English gained tardy (late to arrive; slow in action).  The re- prefix is from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.

Retard is a noun & verb (used with and without object), retardation is a noun, retarded & retardative are adjectives, retarding is a verb and retardingly an adverb.  The (now proscribed except in historic reference) noun plural was retards; retardings remaining acceptable when used in science and engineering.  Words related in meaning in these later contexts include choke off, crimp, decelerate, hamper, handicap, impede, lessen, arrest, baffle, balk, bog, brake, check, choke, clog, dawdle, decrease, defer, delay & detain.

The general sense of “delayed; delayed in development, hindered; impeded” dates from the seventeenth century and in the nineteenth was absorbed into the early technical language of psychology (having mental retardation; mentally deficient or underdeveloped) as a clipping of “mentally retarded”.  Later it was part of the formalized system of classification of intelligence, a retard defined as having an IQ below 70.  From the jargon of the profession it was picked up in twentieth century US colloquial use to describe (1) those then defined as mentally retarded, (2) those thought stupid and (3) a derogatory term to be applied as wished.  From the 1980s it came to be regarded as offensive, use disapproved of in polite society.

President John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) addressing the thirteenth annual convention luncheon of the National Association for Retarded Children (NARC). Mayflower Hotel, Washington DC, 24 October 1963.

The names used by the NARC are interesting in that it wasn’t until the 1990s that the word “retard” was removed.  The organization was called the National Association for Retarded Children (1953-1973), the National Association for Retarded Citizens (1973-1981) & the Association for Retarded Citizens of the United States (1981-1992) before assuming the name Arc of the United States in 1992.  While hardly illustrative of the euphemism treadmill familiar elsewhere, it does hint at the difficulties changes in the social acceptability of words can cause institutions with a corporate history or identity vested in a brand name.  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), formed in 1909, retained the name even after “colored people” had been declared an unacceptable form and replaced by “people of color”, because the brand NAACP was thought too valuable to alter.  However, acronyms and abbreviations can continue even if divorced from their historic connections.  The oil company British Petroleum, in filings with the various regulatory agencies with which it deals, explained that it now positions itself as “an energy company” and expected to remain trading as BP, even if the day came when it no longer dealt with fossil fuels or petro-chemicals.

Retard is an interesting example of a word in English, the use of which is socially proscribed in one historical context (human intelligence) but still acceptable in other adaptations (engineering & physics).  In this it differs from other words which began as something uncontroversial and perhaps merely descriptive but which, for associative reasons, became “loaded terms” and socially (and even legislatively) proscribed, including, the other “n-word” (negro) which as late as the 1960s was socially respectable but now, even for historic purposes (such as the description of the specific stream of music once called the “negro spiritual” or the “negro league” in baseball) should probably be replaced with an uncontroversial substitute unless use is deemed essential by virtue of the context of use.  The conventions of use may yet evolve to the point reached with the original n-word word whereby it can in certain circumstances be acceptable for it to appear in print but which may never be spoken (unless by (at least some) persons of color).       

In less globalized times, the loading could be geographically (and thus circumstantially) specific; as late as the early 1980s, the television network in Australia which held the broadcast rights to international cricket could include in their televised promotions for a series involving teams from the West Indies, Pakistan & Australia a jingle with the phrase “the Windies, the Pakis, the Aussies”.  Although all three were ostensibly affectionate diminutives of the country names and thus neutral, linguistic equivalents, “Paki” in the United Kingdom had by the 1960s come to be regarded as an offensive, ethnic slur referencing either (1) an actual Pakistani, (2) a person of Pakistani descent, (3) anyone whose origins were perceived to be South Asian or even (4) any person of color (Africans, Arabs etc).  Actually, structural linguistic equivalency is never of necessity any sort of guide to what a word has come to denote, “Chinaman” thought pejorative while “Englishman” is not.

Definitely not a word for the twenty-first century unless one is a mechanic.  

Paki acquired the offensive connotations in the 1960s from a pattern of use in the UK, reinforced by the Fleet Street (and regional) tabloids which used the word to refer to subjects of former colonies, with no attempt to disguise that it was being done in a derogatory and racist manner.  Use persists in certain sections of the community although the popular press has been forced to adopt an uncharacteristic subtlety when making their point about people of color.  Interestingly, like some other disparaging slurs (n-word, slut), there has been noted a trend of reclamation, an adoption by second and third-generation youth of Pakistani extraction to claim exclusive use of the term, excluding all outsiders, even Indians, Bangladeshis and others at whom it was originally and offensively directed.

No such phenomenon appears to have happened with “retard”, presumably because it was not a word which (in the context of human intelligence or behavior) never had any history of enjoying a neutrality of meaning, either by definition or inference always being in the negative.  Despite that, when the medical profession introduced retard, retarded & retardation to their system of classifications, genuinely it was an attempt to de-stigmatize those once labeled idiots, imbeciles & morons, the early twentieth century classifications being:

Idiots: Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that or a normal child of about two years.

Imbeciles: Those whose development is higher than that of an idiot, but whose intelligence does not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years.

Morons: Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years.

Retard was used in relation to developmental delay in 1895 and was introduced as an alternative to idiot, moron, and imbecile because at the time it wasn’t derogatory, being a familiar technical term from engineering and mathematics but the associative connection meant that it soon became an frequently heard insult.  Indeed, following the example of the n-word, there is in the United States much lobbying by interested groups socially to construct retard as “the r-word” and render its use just as unacceptable.

US legislation in 2010 required the terms "mental retardation" and" mentally retarded" be removed from federal records and replaced with "intellectual disability" and "individual with an intellectual disability", a change reflected in the publication in 2013 of the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).  The US National Institutes of Health, which took several years to scrub “retarded” and related terms from their archival material, recommend “intellectually and developmentally disabled”, the acronym IDD being one which rolls not easily from the tongue and is therefore less susceptible to entering the vernacular as an insult.  Other organizations focused on specific conditions have also made suggestions but constructions such as “differently-abled” do seem likely to attract derision and be applied as insults, as happened with “special”.

Ignition timing: Advancing and retarding the ignition

Intake, compression, power, exhaust: the four-stroke cycle.

In a four-stroke, internal combustion engine, the ignition timing is measured in degrees of a crankshaft rotation before top dead centre (BTDC).  To ensure the power stroke is at this point achieved, the spark plugs need to fire at the right time and this is achieved by advancing or retarding the timing of the engine.  Advancing the timing means the spark plugs fire earlier in the compression stroke, further from the TDC, meaning the fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber doesn’t burn immediately.  The primary advantage in advancing the timing of ignition is an increase in top-end horsepower at the expense of some low end response.  Retarding the ignition causes the spark plug to fire later in the compression stroke which can reduce engine detonation, which is combustion inside the cylinders after the spark plug fires, commonly referred to as “engine knocking”.  In the early days of emission control systems, retardation was usually part of the process.  In the special (although now quite common) case of engines which use forced aspiration (by turbocharging or supercharging), retarding can be beneficial because it adjusts for the increased pressure, compensating for the denser fuel/air mixtures.

Orphism

Orphism (pronounced awr-fiz-uhm)

(1) The religious or philosophical system of the Orphic school, a religion of Ancient Greece, widespread from the sixth century BC onwards, a blend of pre-Hellenic beliefs including the Thracian cult of Dionysius Zagreus.  The name was derived from the movement supposedly being founded by the mythological prophet Orpheus.

(2) In fine art, a movement of the early twentieth century most associated with French artist of the Parisian school Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) although it was his longer-lived wife Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) who produced a greater volume of work.  The movement is also known as orphic cubism and while not pure abstraction, it differed from Cubism in removing the need to maintain a representational relationship with the subject, the works rather imaginings of a viewer’s imagination.

Early 1800s: The construct was Orph(eus) (from the Greek root Ὀρφεύς) + -ism.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  The term Orphism emerged (with others) in the language of those classical scholars and historians who in the early nineteenth century were categorizing and analyzing various aspects of the less documented movements, religions and schools of thought from Antiquity, especially the Greek, the Roman material having earlier been better studied.  In the historic texts from Antiquity and later, the myths, rituals, and writings attributed to Orpheus or the associated the associated religious practices are discussed or described without the use a single encompassing term.

Homage to Blériot (1914), oil on canvas by Robert Delaunay.

The use to describe the fork of cubism (a description which offends some) was in 1912 co-opted (as orphisme) by French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) (who five years later would also coin “surrealism”), the construct being Orpheus +‎ -ism.  The adjective Orphic (of or related to Orpheus or the doctrines attributed to him) dates from the 1670s, from a Latinized form of the Greek orphikos (pertaining to Orpheus).  The earlier adjective was Orphean, in use at least by the 1590s.  Orphism & orphist are nouns, orphic is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is orphics.  When used of the religion or the art movement as a proper noun, an initial capital should be used (although the practice seem to be to use lower case in the case of the latter).

Singer Flamenco (1916), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay.

In Greek mythology, Orpheus was the son of Oeager and his mother was usually asid to be the Muse Calliope although in some tales it was Polhymnia or Menippe, daughter of Thamyris.  This was how things were in the days before copyright.  What is a constant in the myths is that Orpheus was of Thracian origin and lived in a region bordering Olympus.  The most famous tale of Orpheus is of his love for his wife, the nymph Eurydice, struck dead when she stepped on the serpent which bit her.  Heartbroken, Orpheus descended to the underworld to beg the gods to restore her to life.  Playing the lyre (for which he was credited with adding two strings to match the nine Muses), he so charmed the monsters of Hades they agreed to restore her to Earth but imposed one condition: Orpheus must walk back to the light with Eurydice following and must not look back until they had left the underworld.  The pair had almost reached to gates to Earth when a terrible doubt struck Orpheus and he had to turn to make sure Eurydice was there.  As soon as she fell into his glance, she died.  Orpheus tried to return to again rescue her but his entry was barred.  Inconsolable, he lived again in the human world but was killed by the women of Thrace who resented his fidelity to Eurydice, her precious memory more to him than the flesh & blood of their earthly charms.  The alternative history is darker.  Whatever happened in the underworld, after returning, Orpheus invented pederasty and his lover was Calais, the son of Boreas.  According to this tale, young men would meet at Orpheus’s house, leaving their weapons outside where they were taken by women angered at being neglected; together they took their revenge by killing an decapitating Orpheus, his head and lyre cast into the ocean.  They drifted to the shores of Lesbos where the women accorded the remains funerary honors, accounting for why the island produces so many fine lyric poets.

Lindsay Lohan imagined with an orphic influence.

Despite this perhaps unpromising history, it was Orpheus who lent his name to the religious movement and school of philosophy.  So many of the details are lost to history that often it’s described as a “mysterious cult” but it was long-lasting and is regarded as the last truly Greek religion although modern scholars don’t doubt the foreign influences in its origin.  It was the tales of Orpheus using music to seduce the gods of the underworld that the critic and poet Guillaume Apollinaire recalled when in 19123 he first came upon Robert Delaunay’s canvases of swirling, colorful shapes, recalling in technique the works of the cubists yet unlike them, in mostly non-representational form.  The Orphists of Antiquity had believed it had been the art of music which had opened up one otherwise-inaccessible underworld and Apollinaire co-opted the name to describe the process (that does seem to be drawing a long bow) by which modern artists were borrowed elements from music and science to inject powerful sensation into painting.  One can argue with aspects of that but doubtlessly there was a contribution to the evolution of abstract art.

La Tour Eiffel (1911), oil on canvas by Robert Delaunay.

Orphic art is distinctive even now and must at the time have been striking, characterized by shapes rendered in color, often in spheres and other geometric forms, curves especially prominent.  Compositionally, the technique was to assemble these shapes in a way to encourage a viewer to sense a vibrating, lyrical harmony and Apollinaire regarded the pieces as essentially musical although he claimed their power was such they transcended any single art form.  The critic in him was also a structuralist who anticipated later writing by stating Orphism was “pure art” that had no need for any semblance of identifiable imagery; it was instead, “the pictorializing of light.”  Those last pre-war years were certainly a time of ferment in art and for more than a decade the cubists had been re-imagining and re-packaging space and perception.  Orphism might not be a fork of Cubism but the influence seem undeniable, the schools sharing the same interest in breaking down solid objects and challenging the traditional conceptions of space, volume, angle and even time.  What was most novel about orphism was the intrusion of those vivid, colors which could jar or sooth: color as a language of lyricism.

Rythme-couleur 1076 (1939), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay.

Delaunay genuinely was interested in the actual process of vision. While the point of Cubism was what people saw and what they thought about it, he focused on how the eye sees and what the brain does with the information to turn it into movement or music; his interest was the optical structure of vision and he never forgot the eye was an out-growth of the brain.  After all, once imagery is deconstructed, there is only color and light passing to the brain through the retina and from this information comes the instinctive or learned constructs of shape, texture, depth & time; something four dimensional from a two dimensional object.  That can of course be a quality of any painting but what Orphism attempted to do was add the fifth dimension of lyricism.  Sonia Delaunay outlived her husband by many decades and lived to see the influences of orphism incorporated into the orthodoxy of design, fashion and commercial art of all types, fields in which she would practice almost to her last days.  In that sense it was a success although that very absorption led some of the sterner (and usually more conservative) critics to claim it was a cul-de-sac, melting away to invisibility whereas movements like Cubism, Surrealism and even pop-art left motifs which endure to this day.  That seems a harsh and particularly reductive reductionism but it is possible to write a convincing history of twentieth century art without mentioning Orphism, whereas to ignore other movements which in their time created the same sort of stir would leave obvious gaps.  Perhaps it was a victim of the forces of its era and like vorticism, after World War I (1914-1918), it wasn’t what people wanted to see.

Cacoethes

Cacoethes (pronounced kak-oh-ee-theez)

(1) An uncontrollable urge or irresistible desire, especially something harmful or ill-advised.

(2) In medicine, a bad quality or disposition in a disease; a malignant tumor or ulcer (obsolete).

1560s: From cacoēthes, a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek κακοήθης (kakoēthēs) (ill-habit, wickedness, itch for doing (something)), from κακός (kakós) (bad) from the primitive Indo-European root kakka- (to defecate) + ἦθος (ēthē- & êthos) (disposition; character, moral nature).  Related forms include the Modern English ethos & ethics.  The Ancient Greek kakóēthes was a neuter (used as noun) of kakoḗthēs (malignant), literally “of bad character; of evil disposition”.  Perhaps as a consequence of the operation of certain spell-check programs, the word is sometimes confused with cacoethics (bad ethics or morals; bad habits), the construct being caco- +‎ ethics.  Caco- (in the sense of "bad" or "defective" and well illustrated by words such as cacography (bad handwriting; poor penmanship, incorrect spelling), kakistocracy (a form of government in which the worst persons are in power), cacophony (a harsh discordance of sound; dissonance) or caconym (an incorrect name for something)) was from the Ancient Greek κακός (kakós) (bad) and ethics (used in the sense or "morality"; "right & wrong") was from the Middle English etik, from the Middle French ethique, from the Late Latin ethica, from the Ancient Greek ἠθική (ēthikḗ), from ἠθικός (ēthikós) (of or for morals, moral, expressing character), from ἦθος (êthos) (disposition; character, moral nature).  The preferred modern spelling is cacoethes but cacoëthesor is used by some classists.  Cacoethes (or cacoëthes) is a noun, cacoethical & cacoethic are adjectives and cacoethically is an adverb; the noun plural is cacoethe.

The consequences of cacoethetic conduct.  Lindsay Lohan under arrest, Los Angeles, October 2011.

The phrase insanabile scribendi cacoethes is the most quoted fragment from the passage “Tenet insanabile multos scribendi cacoethes et aegro in corde senescit” (literally “An inveterate and incurable itch for writing besets many, and grows old in their sick hearts many are afflicted by an incurable desire to write” although it’s more often cited as something more manageable like “many are afflicted by an incurable desire to write” which appears in the Seventh Satire by Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis, a Roman poet of the late first and early second century AD).  In political discourse, the phrase is used of those with “an urge to write dangerous words”, penning the texts which upset the rich and powerful.  It’s thus been said of figures such as Socrates (circa 470–399 BC (although he spoke rather than wrote), Machiavelli (1469–1527), Luther (1483–1546), Voltaire (1694–1778) and might be extended to any number of dissidents and ratbags of the modern age, not all of who suffered for their craft under totalitarian rule.  The example of Julian Assange (b 1971) lends a new layer of meaning to the idea.

Assange claims to be an editor (which is some sense he is), an activist (which none dispute) and a journalist (which is contested) and although the celebrated US case against him is on grounds which don’t hang on any of these descriptions being accepted, there is a long tradition of people being pursued by governments for words they didn’t necessarily write.  Printers and publishers have been jailed (or worse) for making possible the dissemination of the writing of others (one notorious case in Germany involving a printer’s assistant, the illiteracy of whom was conceded even by the prosecutor) and English biblical scholar William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536) was convicted of heresy, executed by strangulation and then burnt at the stake for the subversive act of publishing Bibles in vernacular English.  Well Tyndale knew the risks but he was afflicted by an incurable desire to translate the word of God.

What Assange does through the vehicle of Wikileaks is different from what has been done by political dissidents or religious dissenters (heretics usually the preferred term) and aligns more with the decision by former military analyst Dr Daniel Ellsberg (1931–2023) in 1971 to leak to the press what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers (officially titled Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force) a top-secret report of some 7,000 pages detailing the political & military aspects of the US involvement in Vietnam between 1945-1967 (eventually de-classified and made public in 2011).  Ellsberg obtained copies of the documents by spending late nights with the Pentagon’s Xerox machines (photocopiers), a long, boring, repetitive task; by the time in 2010 a low-level US Army analyst on deployment in Iraq could obtain the material Wikileaks published, all that was needed was the necessary access and a USB flash drive.  Conceptually, the two processes are about the same but whether the two men can be said to have similar motivations (their insanabile scribendi cacoethes) has become the subject of debate.  Ultimately, the US Supreme Court ruled publication of the Pentagon Papers was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution (freedom of speech) and Ellsberg, although guilty as sin under the espionage counts with which he was charged, walked free because of the many outrageous acts by the administration of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) which saw the case collapse.  Julian Assange awaits an appeal hearing in London which will decide whether he can be extradited to face espionage charges in the US.  Should he face trial, the special circumstances which prevailed during the Ellsberg hearings won't exist to help and darkly his lawyers are hinting he may take hemlock with Socrates.