Epizeuxis

Epizeuxis (pronounced ep-i-zook-sis)

A literary or rhetorical device used as a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated emphatically with the intention of producing some desired effect.

1580–1590: From the Modern Latin epizeuxis, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίζευξις (epízeuxis) (a fastening together, a joining; in rhetoric the repetition (of words), from ἐπιζευγνύναι (epizeugnúnai), the construct being epi- (the epi- prefix was from the Ancient Greek ἐπί (epí) (on top of; in addition to (in a special use in chemistry), it denotes an epimeric (of or pertaining to an epimer (any diastereoisomer that has the opposite configuration at only one of the stereogenic centres) form)).+ zeûxis (the yoking (of oxen)); a joining) a verbal noun from ζευγνύναι (zeugnúnai) (to yoke, to join).  Epizeuxis is a noun; the noun plural is epizeuxes.

In speeches and in debate (that term often used generously when they’re involved), politicians use epizeuxis essentially because they’ve been taught to follow what works in advertising: use simple words and phrases (preferably a TWS (three word phrase)), endlessly repeated in a manner of delivery something like a school teacher uses with the less bright children.  There’s seems a tendency among the more cynical commentators to suggest the less sincere a politician is, the more they’re inclined to be epizeuxistic and while that’s impressionistic, cases like Sir Tony Blair (b 1953; UK prime-minister 1997-2007 (education, education, education)) and Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013 (jobs, jobs, jobs)) do come to mind.  Still, in the hands of a master rhetorician, an epizeuxis, especially if unexpected, can be effective.

Lyndon Johnson (left) & Sam Rayburn (right), Washington DC, 1954.  The few left in the modern Democratic Party with any sense of history recall with some nostalgia the Johnson-Rayburn congressional era when, at its peak, the Democrats held majorities of 64-36 in the Senate and 263-174 in the House of Representatives.

In the 1964 US presidential election Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) faced the Republican nominee Barry Goldwater (1909–1998), the contest dubbed by some as “a crook versus a kook”.  Only days before the poll, LBJ turned up at Cresent City’s Jung Hotel in New Orleans to deliver a campaign speech which he began conventionally enough, telling the audience of 1500 Louisiana democrat faithful he would enforce the new civil rights law, guaranteeing every American free access to all public accommodations, which had passed with Senate support from “…two thirds of the Democrats and three-fourths of the Republicans.”  Years later, he would note the applause “…was less than overwhelming.”  He then paused before telling them of the words spoken to him by an old, dying Texas senator who had told house speaker Sam Rayburn (1882–1961) he wished he was well enough because “I would like to go back down there and make them one more Democratic speech.  I have one in me.  Poor old state, they haven’t heard a real Democratic speech in 30 years. All they ever hear at election time is Nigra, Nigra, Nigra.”

Even south of the Mason-Dixon Line, in 1964 for a president to utter the “N-word” (albeit in the form of a “polite southernism”) was startling and the reports in the press spoke of “...a collective gasp in the room” before the Southern audience gave the Southern president “…a five-minute standing ovation.”  It should though be remembered that in his massive biography (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, four of five volumes (1982-2012) thus far published), Robert Caro (b 1935) did note the conversion to racial equality came late in his life, his earlier uses of “Nigra, Nigra, Nigra” having a harsher edge.  Still, LBJ did achieve much to advance civil rights in the US and had the war in Vietnam not consumed his presidency, he would now be remembered differently although it was the reaction to his domestic policies which triggered the birth and growth of the “New Right” and the neo-liberal economic order which staged history’s greatest corporate takeover (ie most of the planet).  Political scientists have written much on the roots and evolution of the “New Left” but there remains a tendency to focus on the Reagan-Thatcher era (Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) & Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) as a kind of sudden “revolution” rather than something which really began in the wake of Goldwater’s massive defeat in 1964.

In rhetoric & literary use, the devices related to epizeuxis includes “anaphora, “diacope”, “contrastive reduplication” while in song writing and poetry there’s also “incremental repetition” (where a line is repeated with slight variations to advance the narrative or argument) and “refrain” (where a phrase or line repeated regularly, usually at the end of a stanza or verse.  Epizeuxis (known also as palilogia) involves the immediate repetition of words or phrases without any intervening words and often reinforced with, if written, an exclamation mark or if spoken, some sort of gesture.  As a device to convey vehemence, it works by emphasizing some point by (1) repetition & (2) delivery in quick succession.  It’s not the most refined of devices and in literature is best used with some infrequency because the power of its novelty fades fast although if deployed for comic effect, it can be used more often.  Joseph Conrad’s (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, 1857–1924) use of “The horror, the horror!” in Heart of Darkness (1899) is a classic example of the effect but as endlessly used in advertising, it’s often just intrusive.

Anaphora (from the Ancient Greek ἀναφορά (carrying back)) is the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive sentences or clauses.  Borrowing from poetry and often the chorus passages from various forms of music, it creates emphasis and rhythm.  It was a favourite of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” from Richard II (1595) illustrates how he used anaphora to make language flow.  The companion term is epistrophe (or epiphora), the repeating of words at a clauses' end.  The combination of anaphora and epistrophe results in symploce.

A diacope (from the Ancient Greek diakopḗ (cut in two) involves the repetition of words or phrases with a few intervening words, the emphasis achieved by a “sandwiching” (a special class of interpolation in structural linguistics) the repeated elements.  Again, Shakespeare provides perhaps the most famous example in English in having the Danish prince say “To be or not to be” (Hamlet (circa 1600) and a classically simple example is Ian Fleming’s (1908–1964)”Bond, James Bond”.  In linguistics there are three classes of diacope: (1) Vocative Diacope in which the repeated words are separated by nouns which directly are addressed (ie the noun must address something, or someone), (2) Elaborative Diacope where an adjective is used between the repeated words to enhance the meaning of the repeated word and (3) The extended diacope where for even more emphasis a word is repeated more than twice.

Lindsay Lohan and her then “girlfriend-girlfriend” Samantha Ronson (b 1977) at the release of her twin Charlotte Ronson's Spring 2009 line, New York Fashion Week, Bryant Park, New York, September 2008.  Among women, the “girlfriend-girlfriend” contrastive reduplication distinguishes “a friend who is female” from “a female lover”, the latter once often known by the euphemism “special friend”. (although author and one-time communist Jessica Mitford (1917-1996) liked "you-know-what-bian" which never caught on)  In this context “girlfriend” is exemplified by the gang of four in the HBO television series Sex and the City (1998–2004), based on Candace Bushnell’s (b 1958) compilation (the book Sex and the City (1996)) of columns (1994-1996) under the same title written for the New York Observer.  The same thing could be achieved by the adoption of the convention of using “girl friend” for friends and “girlfriend” for lovers (as men use the word) but that really works only in writing or with the addition of visual clues.

Contrastive reduplication (CR to the practitioners who treat the analysis as “phrasal focus movement (PFM)” although in the way of academic life it’s also called “identical constituent compounding” (ICC), “lexical cloning (LC)” “contrastive focus reduplication” (CFR) or “double construction” (DC), all grouped under the rubric of “syntactic reduplication” (SR)) is a widely practiced phenomenon of conversational speech in which a word or larger constituent is reduplicated to single out a default or prototypical meaning, one of the duplicates receiving or imparting the contrastive (focal) stress.  Sometimes used in conjunction with “air quotes”, structurally CR often makes no sense if deconstructed literary but they are widely understood:  “Do you like him or like-like him?” is in no way ambiguous, the first “like” interpreted as the default (dictionary” definition, the “duplicated like” carrying the “loaded” meaning.  In English, the first part of the reduplicant bears contrastive intonational stress.

Rebarbative

Rebarbative (pronounced ree-bahr-buh-tiv)

(1) Causing annoyance, irritation, or aversion; repellent (usually of people but can be applied to concepts or objects such as unpleasing buildings.

(2) Fearsome; forbidding (obsolete).

(3) An object (typically a fabric or other surface) having a coarse or roughly finish (rare and usually a literally device). 

1885: From the French rébarbative, the feminine form of the fourteenth century rébarbatif (disagreeable; repellent; unattractive), from the Middle French rébarber (to oppose; to stand up to;to be unattractive) from the Old French rebarber (to repel (an enemy), to withstand (him) face to face).  The construct was ré- + barbe (beard) + -atif (-ative).  The re- prefix was 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.

Barbe was from the Latin barba (beard), literally “to stand beard to beard against”.  The French suffix -atif was used in to indicate “of, related to, or associated with the thing specified”.  The English equivalent was -ative, the construct of which was -at(e) + -ive.  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 –ive suffix was from the Anglo-Norman -if (feminine -ive), from the Latin -ivus.  Until the fourteenth century, all Middle English loanwords from the Anglo-Norman ended in -if (actif, natif, sensitif, pensif etc) and, under the influence of literary Neolatin, both languages introduced the form -ive.  Those forms that have not been replaced were subsequently changed to end in -y (hasty, from hastif, jolly, from jolif etc).  Like the Latin suffix -io (genitive -ionis), the Latin suffix -ivus is appended to the perfect passive participle to form an adjective of action.  Rebarbative is an adjective, rebarbativeness is a noun and rebarbatively is an adverb.

Although now applied almost always to tiresome people, rebarbative has been applied to buildings (modern architecture offering much scope for use), music (many the compositions of the twentieth century and beyond well deserving the critique) and poetry (again, modernism the culprit).  The French rébarbatif (repellent or disagreeable) was from the Middle French rebarber (to oppose), the construct being re- (in the sense of “again”) + barbe (beard) from the Latin barba (the distant relative of the English “beard” & “barber”) and etymologists say the literal meaning was “to stand beard to beard against”, leading etymologists to conclude the origin of the modern sense lay in the “itchy, irritating quality of a beard”, extended to anything or anyone “irritating or annoying”.  As recently as the 1930s it was also used in the literal sense of the tactile sensation engendered a surface “coarse or roughly finished”, applied to the fabric called “drugget”, from the French droguet, from drogue (cheap), of uncertain origin.  Dating from the sixteenth century, drugget was an inexpensive and coarse woolen cloth, used mainly for clothing.

Mutually rebarbative: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021, left) & crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013, right), second presidential debate, 9 October 2016, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri.  Given recent events, crooked Hillary can now start calling him “crooked Donald”.

Since the 1890s rebarbative has applied now to anyone really annoying, repellent or generally disagreeable, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) listing the earliest known instance of the adjective rebarbatively as dating from 1934.  The state of disagreeability being obviously as spectrum, the comparative is “more rebarbative” and the superlative “most rebarbative”.  It’s not as if English lacks words with which to describe someone as “annoying or objectionable” but the charm of rebarbative is its rarity.  The meaning will however be obscure to many so if an immediate impact is important, the more commonly used synonyms include irritating, annoying, frustrating, disturbing, abrasive, exasperating, irksome, maddening, painful, bothersome, pesky, galling, peeving, carking, riling, rankling, chafing, troublesome, infuriating, disquieting, mischievous, burdensome, displeasing, discomforting, biting, troubling, offensive, importunate, distressing, stressful, upsetting, thorny, enraging, angering, worrisome, trying, jarring, grating & jangling; less heard forms include pestilential, pestiferous, vexatious, vexing, nettlesome, nettling, pestilent, plaguey, plaguy, pesty, distractive, brattish, bratty, spiny & importune.  Bridget Jones in Helen Fielding's (b 1958) Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) liked "vile" which is a wonderful word and one which for some reason is a genuine pleasure to say, the meaning emphasized by lengthening the sound.  Vile was from the Middle English vile, vyle & vyl, from the Anglo-Norman ville, from the Old French vil & vile, from Latin vīlis (cheap, inexpensive; base, vile, mean, worthless, cheap, paltry), from the Proto-Italic weslis, from the primitive Indo-European weslis, a deverbal adjective with passive meaning (which can be bought), from the root of venus (sale).  In Latin the comparative was vīlior and the superlative vīlissimus.

Ever the trendsetter, during one of her appearances in court (Los Angeles, July 2010), Lindsay Lohan illustrated a novel means by which rebarbativeness could be expressed: fingernail art.  However, after paparazzi photographs were published, Ms Lohan tweeted the message was not directed at the judge but was done “as a joke”, adding “It had nothing to do w/court… it’s an airbrush design from a stencil.”  Now we know, but it’s still a good technique.

For those who wish to convey a sense of resigned weariness the best choice is probably "tiresome" but a synonym of rebarbative which does sometimes annoy (though not aggravate) the pedants is "aggravate" which in Modern English has three senses: (1) To make worse or more severe; intensify (as anything evil, disorderly, or troublesome), (2) To annoy; to irritate; to exasperate and (3) In law (as aggravated), a class of criminal offence made more serious by certain circumstances which prevailed during its commission (violence, use of a weapon, committed during hours of darkness etc).  Dating from the 1420s, aggravate was from the late Middle English aggravate (make heavy, burden down), from the Latin aggravātus, past participle of aggravāre (to render more troublesome (literally to make heavy or heavier, add to the weight of)), the construct being ad- (to) + gravare (add to; to make heavy), from gravis (heavy), from the primitive Indo-European root gwere- (heavy).  The earlier English verb was the late fourteenth century aggrege (make heavier or more burdensome; make more oppressive; increase, intensify, from the Old French agreger.  Aggravate is a verb, aggravated & aggravative are adjectives, aggravator is a noun and aggravating a verb.

The literal sense in English (make heavier) has been long obsolete, the modern meanings (1) "to make a bad thing worse" dates from the 1590s while (2) the colloquial sense (to exasperate or annoy) is from 1611.  So, although it has for centuries disturbed the usage mavens, the meaning "to annoy or exasperate” has been in continuous use since the sixteenth century.  There are sources which note the later meaning emerged within twenty years of the first but it’s a highly technical point of definition and the original meaning, “to make worse” did have roots in Classical Latin.  Henry Fowler (1858-1933) in his authoritative A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) was emphatic in saying aggravate has properly only one meaning: “to make (an evil) worse or more serious” and that to “use it in the sense of annoy or exasperate is a vulgarism that should be left to the uneducated.”  Henry Fowler was always a model of clarity.  He was also a realist and acknowledged “usage has beaten the grammarians” and that condemnation of the vulgarism had “become a fetish.  The meaning “to annoy” is now so ubiquitous that it should be thought correct; that’s how the democratic, unregulated English language works.  However, for the fastidious, it may be treated in the same way as the split infinitive, something tolerated in casual but not formal discourse and certainly never in writing.

Sycophancy

Sycophancy (pronounced sik-uh-fuhn-see)

(1) The usually self-seeking, servile flattery or fawning behavior of a sycophant.

(2) The character or conduct of a sycophant.

(3) An informer, a bearer of tales (obsolete).

1537: From the Latin sȳcophanta (informer, trickster), from the Ancient Greek sykophantia (false accusation, slander; conduct of a sȳcophanta) from συκοφάντης (sykophántēs), the construct being sûkon (fig) + phaínō (I show).  The gesture of "showing the fig" was an “obscene gesture of phallic significance”, made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig and was symbolic of a vagina (sûkon also meant “vulva”), the gesture understood in many cultures in many places.  Technically, it was a way of expressing one’s thoughts without actually speaking an obscenity.  The politicians in Ancient Greece were said not to use this vulgar gesture but urged their followers to deploy it in the taunting of opponents, a tactic familiar to observers of modern politicians who like to delegate the dirty work to others.  It was cognate with Italian sicofante and the Spanish sicofanta and the later Greek form was sykophantia, from sykophantes.  Sycophancy, sycophantism & sycophant are nouns, sycophantize is a verb, sycophantic & sycophantish are adjectives and sycophantishly is an adverb; the noun plural is plural sycophancies (sycophants is more commonly used).

When young, Lindsay Lohan had her troubles and in a 2012 interview blamed them on loneliness, “sycophants and bad influences”, adding “be careful who you surround yourself with”.

As late as the sixteenth century, sycophancy was still used in the now long obsolete sense of “informer, talebearer, slanderer” which was from the French sycophante and directly from Latin sȳcophanta.  Such was the influence of the often fanciful notions of Medieval scholars whose writings were copied with such frequency that by virtue of sheer volume they assume authority that it wasn’t until the twentieth century the old tale that a sycophant was “one who informed the authorities against someone unlawfully exporting figs” was universally discredited.  The general sense of “a parasite; mean, servile flatterer” (especially of those in power) was in use in English by the 1570s.  The phrase “yes-man” (a man who agrees from self-interest or fear with everything put to him by a superior) was first used in 1912, a creation of American English, the male-centric wording indicative of the predominance at the time of men in corporate structures but there's no exclusivity of gender, women too can be “yes-men” although “yes-women” doesn't as easily roll from the tongue and nor does the collective “yes people”.  To even suggest someone is a “yes man” or “yes woman” may be at least a micro aggression so to avoid compounding the offence with another “yes person” is recommended.

The sexy fig.

The modern meaning is that of the "insincere flatterer", the "yes man", the motive presumed usually to be personal gain.  Historians from antiquity suggest the origin of the word lies in agricultural policy, Plutarch (46–circa 120) writing that the source was in laws forbidding the export of figs, and that those who made accusations against others of illegally exporting figs were therefore called sycophants.  Plutarch was citing "Solon's Laws" which included regulations which stipulated also: “(1) trees should not be planted within five feet of a neighbour’s property, except in the case of olives and fig-trees, which were not to be planted within nine feet (for these trees spread out their roots farther than others, and spoil the growth of any others by taking away their nourishment and by giving off hurtful juices), (2) Trenches and pits must be dug as far away from another man’s property as they were deep and (3) no hive of bees was to be placed within three hundred feet of those already established by another man.”  Because the laws permitted only the export of oil, the export of figs was forbidden and the men who informed against those who had done so were therefore called sycophants (fig-shower).

Later, Sir William Blackstone's (1723–1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1770) noted there were laws making it a capital offense to break into a garden and steal figs, and that law was thought so odious that informers were given the name sycophants.   Another variant in the fig jam was that a sycophant was a shaker of trees: before the court, the sycophant's false accusations makes the accused yield up the truth; in the fig grove, sycophant's shaking forces the tree to yield up its fruit.  Certainly, the fig linkage runs strong in the language, the making of false accusations held to be such an insult to the accused it was said to be "showing the fig", an obscene gesture “of phallic significance" and that false charges were often so flimsy as to be worth “not a fig".

Modern historians enjoy the explanations but tend to be dismissive of their veracity though all seem to agree the original sense is of a word used to disparage one who, by the levelling of unjustified accusations, has perverted the legal system beyond a mere abuse of process.  Pervading all is the suggestion the term was thought always at least slightly obscene, the linkage presumably because of the symbolism of the fig in ancient Greek culture in that sense.  The attachment to legal process in Athenian culture, separate from any hint of obscenity, did grow and the net was cast wide, sycophants not only vexatious litigants but also those who issued writs merely to try to induce defendants to make a payment in exchange for dropping the case or third parties otherwise unconnected to the sometime ancient matters before the court, appearing only to seek an undeserved profit.  In time, to accuse a litigant of sycophancy became a serious thing, such was the opprobrium society had come to direct towards the conduct and there are surviving texts written by those defending themselves from the charge.  Athenian law responded, imposing fines on litigants whose matters were found vexatious or which were clearly an abuse of process and there are echoes still of these acts in modern Greek domestic law where, as in France, sycophant is used still in the original sense.    The phenomenon attracted the playwrights too, explored by Aristophanes (circa 446 BC-circa 386 BC) in his satires.

Impact Of Wealth (1563) by Philips Galle (1537–1612) & Hadrianus Junius (1511–1575).

In the English-speaking world, the meaning shift seems to have happened during the Renaissance, meanings old and new running in parallel until the sense of the "insincere flatterer" came to prevail.  It was an organic linguistic morphing, not something induce by some event or individual, the common thread probably that both behaviors were perceived parasitic and insincere. 

Notable Sycophants in History and Literature

Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) had been an early critic of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) so to redeem himself, spent the rest of his career in fawning devotion, initiating the Heil Hitler salute and insisting on the use of Der Führer (the leader, originally just a party title) as an official title. His letters and diaries are full of groveling praise and his propaganda campaigns created the modern personality cult.  In fairness to Goebbels, his work was inspired and sometimes brilliant and when the fortunes of war turned there was even the hint of criticism (his acute sense of things picking up the difference between a "leadership crisis" and a "leader crisis") but other sycophants in the Third Reich were less impressive.  While Goebbels’ work sparkled, youth leader, Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; party functionary 1931-1945), wrote verse after verse of dreary poetry in praise of Hitler though there’s no suggestion the Führer much troubled himself to read his oeuvre.  At least Goebbels and Schirach stayed loyal to the end (though the latter would recant when on trial for his life in Nuremberg (1945-1946) and avoid the hanging he deserved.  Sycophant number one and head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945; head of the SS 1929-1945), called himself “the truest of the true” and Hitler agreed, often referring to the Reichführer-SS as “der treue Heinrich" (the faithful Heinrich), and, although never part of the inner circle, was much valued for his sycophancy and unconditional obedience.  Himmler though, by 1944 and perhaps earlier, worked out things weren’t going too well and eventually, in negotiating with the enemy and planning ways to ingratiate himself to General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961), delivered the Führer a final stab in the back and the one which seems to have hurt the Führer the most.  By then it was already too late and Hitler has long concluded none of his sycophants were worthy enough to be his successor, deciding Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Deputy Führer 1933-1941) had gone mad and Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945) had lost the sympathy of the German people.  Both judgements were fair enough but his reason for rejecting Himmler made sense only in Hitler's bizarre world view: He thought the Reichführer-SS "unartistic".

Julia Gillard looking at Penny Wong.

Appointed to cabinet by Prime Minister Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013), Australian politician Penny Wong (b 1968) Australian minister for Foreign Affairs since 2022 (and one of the Australian Senate's three "mean girls")) was never reticent in praising Gillard’s fine judgment and feminist solidarity.  That was until she finally worked out things weren’t going too well and so voted to back-stab Gillard and resuscitate the previously knifed Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013).  Modern identity politics helpfully provides Wong with handy cover; any criticism, however justified, she can condemn as misogyny, homophobia or racism.  Centuries before, early in the reign of Caligula (Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, 12–41; Roman emperor 37-41), he fell ill, inspiring one Roman to offer to sacrifice own life if the emperor recovered. This kind, if extravagant, vow was declared publicly, in the hope his show his deep loyalty would elicit some generous award.  Caligula did recover but the sycophant’s tactic backfired; the dutiful emperor decided to accept the chap’s offer and ordered his execution.

Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon, East Room, White House, 22 September 1973.  

There are many who list former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) as among the famous sycophants, a reasonable achievement in Washington DC, a city full of the breed, but it’s probably unfair although, in his fascinating relationship with President Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), he certainly aimed to please.  Kissinger met with Israeli prime-minister Golda Meir (1898–1978; prime-minister of Israel 1969-1974) in 1973 and she asked him to pressure Moscow to allow more Soviet Jews to emigrate to avoid persecution.  Nixon, intent on détente with the USSR, sought to avoid the request. Kissinger, himself Jewish, responded “…the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy and if they put Jews into gas chambers in Russia, it’s not an American concern… maybe it’s a humanitarian concern”.  Not for nothing was Dr Kissinger thought dean of the school of power-realists.

Plácido Domingo (b 1941) in Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813–1901) Otello (1993), a studio recording from Paris noted for its technical perfection.  It featured Cheryl Studer (b 1955) as Desdemona and in Act IV she delivered perhaps the loveliest version of the Willow Song available on disc.

In David Copperfield (1849-1850), Charles Dickens (1812–1870) created one of literature’s most repulsive sycophants, the reptilian Uriah Heep.  Dickens, never one to understate his characters, ensures readers will revile Heep by emphasizing his physical creepiness: cadaverous and lanky, with clammy hands and sleepless eyes.  Trained in being “umble” by his father, Heep is always quick to affirm his lowly station and abase himself.  Chaplain to the Bishop of Barchester, the duplicitous Obadiah Slope in Anthony Trollope’s (1815-1882) Barchester Towers (1857), epitomizes the "lick up-kick down" sycophant,  fawning before the powerful, tyrannical towards subordinates.  For Australians, one of the real pleasures in reading Barchester Towers is imagining Bronwyn Bishop (b 1942; speaker of the Australian House of Representatives 2013-2015) when picturing the bishop’s wife (both deserving the memorable phrase "that ghastly woman").  Nobody however did it better than William Shakespeare (1564–1616) in Othello (1603).  The play is a roll-call of strategies for ingratiation, subversion, and destruction, as Iago corrupts the mind of the noble Othello. No work in English better shows the devastating personal consequences of sycophancy or so starkly renders its intricate ties to other vices for Shakespeare knew the sycophant is capable of every fraud, every hypocrisy, every deceit.

Mr Dutton in one of his happier moments.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

In politics, the word sycophantic seems surprising rare, probably because punchier forms like “arse-kisser”, “arse-licker”, “brown noser”, “suck-up”, “lap-dog”, “flunky” & “lackey” are preferred, at least behind closed doors because all these would probably be ruled “unparliamentary”.  Of course it’s behind closed doors the more amusing stuff happens, the internecine party squabbles and factional battles more intense and pursued with more passion than the often confected sturm und drang between actual opponents.  Still words like “obsequious” and “sycophantic” have the advantage they can be used on the floor or parliament and in May 2024, in the Australian House of Representatives, sycophantic made a rare appearance when Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) spoke: “Why did this weak and incompetent prime minister [Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022)] put his close and sycophantic relationship with Jacinda Ardern ahead of the safety of Australians?”

The context of Mr Dutton’s waspish attack was the matter of Ministerial Directive 99 (MD-99) of 23 March 2023, issued by Andrew Giles (b 1973; Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs since 2022), an instruction to his department which required the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the AAT, a statutory authority soon to be replaced by the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) & Administrative Review Council (ARC)) to consider the cases of non-citizens facing deportation pursuant to section 501 (as revised in 2014) of the Migration Act (1958) by applying a number of criteria including “Strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia”.  Previously, the law required mandatory visa cancellations for any non-citizens sentenced to jail for twelve months or more, or those convicted of a child sex offence.  The way MD-99 was applied by the tribunal resulted in a number of serious offenders not being deported, some of whom subsequently re-offended, one currently awaiting trial for murder.

Two Fabians: Jacinda Ardern and Anthony Albanese, press conference, Sydney, July 2022.  It has been confirmed the man taking the photograph is not Mr Dutton.

The origin of MD-99 was in a dinner in July 2022 between Mr Albanese and Jacinda Ardern (b 1980; Prime Minister of New Zealand 2017-2023).  The matter of criminals who hadn’t lived in New Zealand for decades, sometimes having left as infants, had been a matter of concern to successive New Zealand Governments but until 2023 no Australian government had been prepared to alter the policy.  However, Ms Ardern was at the time something of a political pin-up of the left and a role model to social democrats around the planet and their admiration for her progressive policies and general “wokeness” at least verged on the sycophantic.  Mr Albanese and Mr Giles are both members of the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) Socialist Left (or Progressive Left) faction, a label which means less than once it did and shouldn’t be taken too literally but the tribal aspect of the factionalism is as strong as ever.

The idea of dozens (literally) of violent criminals being released into the community whereas prior to MD-99 they would have been deported created a furore and not even the usual suspects felt it wise to leap to a defence of the policy.  Following the manual, Mr Giles for a few toughed it out with the usual obfuscation but seldom has the tactic sounded so unconvincing.  He was defended (at least to the extent of not being sacked) by the prime minister which really he was compelled to do because it would have been his instruction to Mr Giles which resulted in MD-99.  Mr Albanese also stuck to the manual, having the department trawl the archives so he could quote instances of criminals being released into the community a decade-odd earlier when Mr Dutton was immigration minister.  Unlike the Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), there was no International Military Tribunal (IMT) to deny use of the tu quoque defense.

Andrew Giles, House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia, May 2024.

However, after a few days it became obvious deniability was never going to become plausible and the issue couldn’t be spun out of the media cycle.  Mr Albanese announced MD-99 would be dumped, replaced by the overriding direction that “…community safety must be considered the top priority in deciding whether to allow someone to remain in Australia”.  Mr Giles said the new direction would “…ensure the protection of the community outweighs any other consideration", adding this had always been the government's “highest priority”.  Neither Mr Albanese nor Mr Giles have commented on the tone of their discussions behind closed doors and it’s assumed an account is unlikely to appear in any memoir either may write.

Emend & Amend

Emend (pronounced ih-mend)

(1) To edit or change a text by means of by critical editing.

(2) To free from faults or errors; to correct.

1375–1425: From the late Middle English emend, from the Middle French emender, from the Latin Latin ēmendāre (to correct), the construct being ē- (in the sense of “out”) + mend(um) (fault) + -āre (the infinitive suffix).  The adjective emendable (capable of being emended, corrigible) was from the Latin emendabilis (the comparative more emendable, the superlative most emendable).  Emendation was from the Middle English emendatioun, from the Latin emendationem (nominative ēmendātiō) (a correction, improvement), a noun of action from past-participle stem of emendare (to free from fault) and is the only form of emend to have survived to see occasional use in the twenty-first century, specialists finding three niches: (1) The act of altering for the better, or correcting what is erroneous or faulty; correction; improvement, (2) an alteration by editorial criticism, as of a text so as to give a better reading; removal of errors or corruptions from a document and (3), in zoology & taxonomy, an intentional change in the spelling of a scientific name (something usually proscribed).  The verb emend emerged probably simultaneously with the noun, the original sense being “remove faults from, alter for the better”.  Emend is a verb, emendation is a noun, emending & emended are verbs (historically emended was used as an adjective) and emendable is an adjective (eˈmendable the historic alternative spelling); the noun plural is emendations.  The derived forms included nonemendable, unemendable, unemended (all rare and historically rarely hyphenated).

Amend (pronounced uh-mend)

(1) To alter, modify, rephrase, or add to or subtract from (a motion, bill, constitution etc) by a formal procedure or device.

(2) To change something for the better; improve

(3) In the sense of “to amend one's ways”, to grow or become better by “reforming” one’s character or behavior oneself.

(4) In the sense of “to make amends”, an act of righting a wrong; compensation.

(5) To remove or correct faults in something; to rectify defects or in some way improve.

(6) To heal (someone sick); to cure (a disease etc) (obsolete).

(7) To be healed, to be cured, to recover (from an illness) (obsolete).

1175–1225: From the Middle English amenden (to free from faults, rectify), from the twelfth century Old French amender (correct, set right, make better, improve), from the Latin ēmendō (free from faults), the construct being ex- (from, out of) + mendum (fault), from ēmendāre (to correct), the construct being ē- (out of, from) + mend(a) (blemish) + -āre (the infinitive suffix).  The primitive Indo-European mend (physical defect, fault) was the source also of the Sanskrit minda (physical blemish), the Old Irish mennar (stain, blemish), the Welsh mann (sign, mark) and the Hittite mant- (something harming).  The parallel development of the words spelled with an initial “a” & “e” was not usual in English but happened also in Italian and Provençal and Italian.  The meaning “to add to legislation” (ostensibly to improve or correct) appears first in British parliamentary records in 1777.  The noun amendment (betterment, improvement) was in use by the late thirteenth century of persons to suggest their “correction or reformation”; it was from the Old French amendement (rectification, correction; advancement, improvement), from amender (to amend) and in the 1600s the use expanded to the law including “correction of error in a legal process” and later “alteration of a writ or bill to remove fault”.  The noun amends in the sense of “recompense, compensation for loss or injury” was a collective singular, from the Old French amendes “fine, penalty, reparation, compensation”, the plural of amende (reparation) from amender (to amend) and use began in the early 1300s.  The adjective amendable (capable of correction or repair) dates from the 1580s while the injunction “unamendable” came into use (often with an exclamation mark) in the early twentieth century, presumably as a punchier version of “not to be amended”.  Amend is a noun & verb, amender (aˈmender the historic alternative spelling), amendability, amendment & amendation are nouns, amending is a verb, amended is a verb & adjective, amendable (aˈmendable the historic alternative spelling) & amendful are adjectives; the common noun plural is amendments.  The derived forms included nonamendable, unamendable, reamend  & unamended (all except unamended now rare and sometimes hyphenated).

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

There is sometimes a quality of randomness in the way English evolves.  Amend & emend both once meant “to improve by correcting or by freeing from error” but amend is now a general term which can mean “correct (errors in content, spelling, punctuation, grammar” or “make a change” (which may have no substantive effect).  Emend however specifically refers to a conjectural correction of error in a manuscript or proof copy; it’s thus now a technical term from publishing describing the correction of a text in the process of editing or preparing for publication and at least implies improvement in the sense of greater accuracy.  There have however been a number of instances where “emendations” have been controversial, often in the transcription from original log or diary entries written contemporaneously to printed form for purposes of record or public consumption.  Examples include the sanitized version of the “Chronicle” (the so-called “Speer Chronik” or “Office Journal”), the diary of departmental activities undertaken under Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) and the “War Diary” of Field Marshal Douglas Haig (Earl Haig, 1861–1928; commander-in-chief of British Army forces on the Western Front 1915-1918).  So synonyms like change, augment, alter, enhance, modify, rectify, revise, remedy, better, ameliorate & correct can all be used of amend but only forms like correct, rectify or remedy really convey the modern sense of emend.

Tincture

Tincture (pronounced tingk-cher)

(1) In pharmacology, a solution of alcohol or of alcohol and water, containing animal, vegetable, or chemical drugs (an alcohol solution of a non-volatile medicine (obsolete)).

(2) A slight infusion, as of some element or quality; the dipping of something into a liquid to gain to color.

(3) A trace; a smack or smattering; tinge.

(4) In heraldry, any of the colors, metals, or furs used for the fields, charges etc, of an escutcheon or achievement of arms.

(5) A pigment or other substance that colours or dyes; specifically, a pigment used as a cosmetic (obsolete).

(6) To impart a tint or color to; tinge.

(7) To imbue or infuse with something.

(8) A slight flavour, aroma, or trace

(9) In medicine as "tincture of steel", an alcoholic solution of the chloride of iron (obsolete).

(10) A small flaw, an imperfection; a blemish or stain (now rare except as a literary device).

(11) In Christianity, a synonym of baptism (based on the idea of being "dipped into or sprinkled with Holy Water". 

(12) A (small) alcoholic drink (used humorously).

(13) In alchemy, an immaterial substance or spiritual principle which was thought capable of being instilled into physical things; also, the essence or spirit of something; a material essence thought to be capable of extraction from a substance.

(14) In chemistry, the part of a substance thought to be essential, finer, and/or more volatile, which could be extracted in a solution; also, the process of obtaining this.

1350-1400: From the Late Middle English tincture (dye, pigment; colour, hue, tint; process of colouring or dyeing; medicinal ointment or salve (perhaps one discolouring the skin); use of a medicinal tincture; (alchemy) transmutation of base metals into gold; ability to cause such transmutation; substance supposed to cause such transmutation)), the construct being the Latin tīnct(ūra) (act of dyeing) + the Middle English -ure (the suffix indicating an action or a process and the means or result of that action or process).  The construct of tīnctūra was tīnc(tus) (coloured, tinged; dipped in; impregnated with; treated”) + -tūra (the suffix forming action nouns expressing activities or results) while tīnctus was the perfect passive participle of tingō (to colour, dye, tinge; to dip (in), immerse; to impregnate (with); to moisten, wet; to smear), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European teng- (to dip; to soak), (source also of the Old High German dunkon (to soak) and the Greek tengein (to moisten).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek τέγγω (téngō) and from the Latin Modern English has picked up tint, taint and tainture (an obsolete synonym of tincture).  Tincture is a noun & verb, tinct, tincturation, tincturing & tinction are nouns, verbs & adjectives, tinctured is a verb & adjective, tinctorial & tinctorious are adjectives and tinctorially is an adverb; the noun plural is tinctures.  The noun tinctura is listed by most dictionaries as obsolete but it is still in use poetically.

The fifteenth century use by apothecaries to refer to medicinal ointments (the assumption by historians this use was associated particularly with those used to discolor the skin or from being imbued with the essential principles of the substance).  In pre-modern medicine the meaning lingered, the idea of a tincture being a “solution of medicine in a mixture of alcohol” recorded in the professional texts in the 1640s.  In fashion, parchment preparation and then still rare applications such as wallpaper, the word was used to describe a “process of coloring" from early in the fifteenth century.  The verb was derived from the noun and came into use in the 1610s in the sense of “imbue with color”.  Tincturation (preparation of a tincture) was in use by the mid nineteenth century while tinction has been used to mean “preparation for dyeing, coloring matter ready for use” since the 1890s.

Not following the rules: The Lohan family crest.

In heraldry, the “rule of tincture” (described as “a design philosophy”) is the convention “metal should not be put on metal, nor colour on colour”.  There appears to be no historical basis for the emergence of this rule in the early fifteenth century and the favored modern explanation is that imposing it simply made it easier for the craftsmen of the era, it being technically challenging to inlay metals in metals, the practical point being a high wastage rate of expensive materials (the client paying only for the finished product).  However, the rule took hold rather in the manner the strictures in some religions (such as prohibitions on the consumption of shellfish or pig products) began as public health measures in the pre-refrigeration age endured to become orthodox articles of faith.  Centuries later, although the application of the “rule” began to be relaxed, such was the enduring influence that artisans' guilds formally codified a list of “exemptions” from the rule.

Meaning shift

The historic meaning of tincture (a synonym for dye or pigment) is now entirely obsolete; a tincture is now a subtle shade, tint or variation of an original colour or a smattering of another.  It can be applied to any field vaguely analogous such as tastes or aromas and can be used pejoratively to suggest someone’s knowledge of something might be less than advertised.  It has also found a niche is recipes printed in up-market publications as a word to use instead of "hint".

Lindsay Lohan tinctures: copper and auburn variations of red.

The Dendrobates tinctorius “Giant Orange” (the common name the "Dyeing Poison Dart Frog" (based on the early belief natives used brightly colored frogs to dye feathers & fabrics)).  Described by retailers as a “great beginner frog” (the reason for that presumably understood by collectors) and “best kept in pairs”, the RRP (recommended retail price) is US$59.99.

The adjective tinctorious dates from the late eighteenth century and appears first to have been used of colorful plants.  Even in horticulture it has become rare but an echo survives in the Dendrobates Tinctorius, a frog much prized by collectors and photographers for its striking colors and patterns.  Unsurprisingly referred to usually as "tincs" (the standard abbreviation of "tincture") Dendrobates Tinctorius is one of the largest species of poison dart frogs, although in global terms still hardly large, the largest some 2 inches (50 mm) length. They are native to the rainforests of South America and appear in dramatic color combinations including hues of blue, black, yellow and orange.  They can safely be kept by hobbyists because in captivity they're not poisonous, their toxicity in the wild by virtue of their preferred diet of small invertebrates, not consumed in a captive environment.  Prices of adults in the most desired color mixes can exceed US$120.