Customer

Customer (pronounced kuhs-tuhm-ah)

(1) A habitual patron, regular purchaser, returning client; one who has a custom of buying from a particular business (obsolete in its technical sense).

(2) A patron, a client; one who purchases or receives a product or service from a business or merchant, or intends to do so.

(3) In various slang forms (cool customer, tough customer, ugly customer, customer from hell, dream customer etc), a person, especially one engaging in some sort of interaction with others.

(4) Under the Raj, a native official who exacted customs duties (historic use from British colonial India).

Late 1300s: From the Middle English customere & custommere (one who purchases goods or supplies, one who customarily buys from the same tradesman or guild), from custumer (customs official, toll-gatherer), from the Anglo-French custumer, from the Old French coustumier & costumier (from which modern French gained coutumier (customary, custumal)), from the Medieval Latin noun custumarius (a toll-gatherer, tax-collector), a back-formation from the adjective custumarius (pertaining to custom or customs) from custuma (custom, tax).  The literal translation of the Medieval Latin custumarius was “pertaining to a custom or customs”, a contraction of the Latin consuetudinarius, from consuetudo (habit, usage, practice, tradition).  The generalized sens of “a person with whom one has dealings” emerged in the 1540s while that of “a person to deal with” (then as now usually with some defining adjective: “tough customer”, difficult customer” et al) was in use by the 1580s.  Derived terms are common including customer account, customer base, customer care, customer experience, customer-oriented, customer research, customer resistance, customer service, customer success, customer support, direct-to-customer, customer layer, customer-to-customer, ugly customer, tough customer, difficult customer et al.  Customer is a noun; the noun plural is customers.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) used the word sometimes to mean “prostitute” and in his work was the clear implication that a buyer was as guilty as the seller, the law both unjust a hypocritical, something which in the twentieth century would be rectified in Swedish legislation.

Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well (circa 1602), Act 5, scene 3

LAFEW:  This woman’s an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at pleasure.

KING: This ring was mine. I gave it his first wife.

DIANA: It might be yours or hers for aught I know.

KING (to attendants) Take her away. I do not like her now.  To prison with her, and away with him. Unless thou tell’st me where thou hadst this ring, Thou diest within this hour.

DIANA: I’ll never tell you.

KING: Take her away.

DIANA: I’ll put in bail, my liege.

KING: I think thee now some common customer.

DIANA (to Bertram): By Jove, if ever I knew man, ’twas you.

In Sweden, the law was amended in a way of which Shakespeare might have approved, Chapter 6, Section 11 of the Swedish Penal Code making it an offence to pay for sex, the act of “purchasing sexual services” criminalized, the aim being to reduce the demand for prostitution.  The law provides for fines or a maximum term of imprisonment for one year, depending on the circumstances of the case.  So selling sexual services is not unlawful in Sweden but being a customer is, an inversion of the model for centuries applied in the West.  Individuals who engage in prostitution are not criminalized under Swedish law, which is intended to protect sex workers from legal penalties while targeting the customers, now defined as those who “exploit them”.  The Swedish model aims to reduce prostitution by focusing on the demand side and providing support for those who wish to exit prostitution and as a statement of public policy, the law reform reflected the government’s view prostitution was a form of gender inequality and exploitation.  The effectiveness of the measure has over the years been debated and the customer-focused model of enforcement has not widely been emulated.

The customer is always right

Reliable return customer: Lindsay Lohan in the Chanel Shop, New York City, May 2013.

The much quoted phrase (which in some areas of commerce is treated as a proverb): “the customer is always right” has its origins in retail commerce and is used to encapsulate the value: “service staff should give high priority to customer satisfaction”.  It is of course not always literally true, the point being that even when patently wrong about something, it is the customer who is paying for stuff so they should always be treated as if they are right.  Money being the planet’s true lingua franca, variations exist in many languages, the best known of which is the French le client n'a jamais tort (the customer is never wrong), the slogan of Swiss hotelier César Ritz (1850-1918) whose name lived on in the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, the Ritz and Carlton Hotels in London and the Ritz-Carlton properties dotted around the world.  While not always helpful for staff on the shop floor, it’s an indispensible tool for those basing product manufacturing or distribution decisions on aggregate demand.  To these bean counters, what is means is that if there is great demand for red widgets and very little for yellow widgets, the solution is probably not to commission an advertising campaign for yellow widgets but to increase production of the red, while reducing or even ceasing runs of the yellow.  The customer is “right” in what they want, not in the sense of “right & wrong” but in the sense of their demand being the way to work out what is the “right” thing to produce because it will sell.

Available at Gullwing Motor Cars: Your choice at US$129,500 apiece.

The notion of “the customer is always right” manifests in the market for pre-modern Ferraris (a pre-1974 introduction the accepted cut-off).  While there nothing unusual about differential demand in just about any market sector, dramatically is it illustrated among pre-modern Ferraris with some models commanding prices in multiples of others which may be rarer, faster, more credentialed or have a notionally more inviting specification.  That can happen when two different models are of much the same age and in similar condition but a recent listing by New York-based Gullwing Motor Cars juxtaposed two listings which left no doubt where demand exists.  The two were both from 1972: a 365 GTC/4 and a Dino 246 GT.

Some reconditioning required: 1972 Ferrari 356 GTC/4

The 365 GTC/4 was produced for two years between 1971-1972 during which 505 were built.  Although now regarded as a classic of the era, the 365 GTC/4 lives still in the shadow of the illustrious 365 GTB/4 with which, mechanically, it shares much.  The GTB/4 picked up the nickname “Daytona”, an opportunistic association given 1-2-3 finish in the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona involved three entirely different models while the GTC/4 enjoyed only the less complementary recognition of being labeled by some il gobbone (the hunchback) or quello alla banana (the banana one).  It was an unfair slight and under the anyway elegant skin, the GTB/4 & GTC/4 shared much, the engine of the latter differing mainly in lacking the dry-sump lubrication and the use of six twin-choke side-draft Weber carburetors rather than the downdrafts, this permitting a lower bonnet (hood) line.  Revisions to the cylinder heads allowed the V12 to be tuned to deliver torque across a broad rev-range rather than the focus on top-end power which was one of the things which made the GTB/4 so intoxicating.

Criticizing the GTC/4 because it doesn’t quite have the visceral appeal of the GTB/4 seems rather like casually dismissing the model who managed only to be runner-up to Miss Universe.  The two cars anyway, despite sharing a platform, were intended for different purposes, the GTB/4 an outright high performance road car which could, with relatively few modifications, be competitive in racing whereas the GTC/4 was a grand tourer, even offering occasional rear seating for two (short) people.  One footnote in the history of the marque is the GTC/4 was the last Ferrari offered with the lovely Borrani triple-laced wire wheels; some GTB/4s had them fitted by the factory and a few more were added by dealers but the factory advised that with increasing weight, tyres with much superior grip and higher speeds, they were no longer strong enough in extreme conditions and the cast aluminum units should be used if the car was to be run in environments without speed restrictions such as race tracks or certain de-restricted public roads (then seen mostly in West Germany (FRG), Montana & Nevada in the US and Australia's Northern Territory & outback New South Wales (NSW)).  The still stunning GTB/4 was the evolutionary apex of its species; it can't be improved upon but the GTC/4 is no ugly sister and when contemplating quello alla banana, one might reflect on the sexiness of the fruit.

Gullwing’s offering was described as “a highly original unrestored example in Marrone Colorado (Metallic Brown) with a tan leather interior, factory air conditioning, and power windows; showing 48K miles (77K kilometres) on the odometer.  It has been sitting off the road for several years and is not currently running.”  It was certainly highly original and seemed complete but properly should be regarded as a “project” because of the uncertainty about the extent (and thus the cost) of the recommissioning.  At an asking price of US$129,500, it would represent good value only if it was mechanically sound and no unpleasant surprises were found under the body’s lovely curves although, given the market for 365 GTC/4s in good condition, it was a project best taken on by a specialist.

Some assembly required: 1972 Dino 246 GT by Ferrari

The days are gone when the Dino 246 was dismissed as “more of a Fiat than a Ferrari” and even if the factory never put their badge on the things (although plenty subsequently have added one), they are now an accepted part of the range.  The 246 replaced the visually almost similar but slightly smaller and even more jewel-like Dino 206, 152 of which (with an all-aluminium 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) V6 rather than the V12s which had for some years been de rigueur in Ferrari’s road cars) were built between 1967-1969, all with berlinetta (coupé) bodywork.  Mass-produced by comparison, there were 3569 Dino 246s produced between 1969-1974, split between 2,295 246 GTs (coupés) & 1,274 246 GTSs (spyders (targa)).  Fitted with an iron-block 2.4 litre (147 cubic inch) V6, the Dinos were designed deliberately to be cheaper to produce and thus enjoy a wider market appeal, the target those who bought the more expensive Porsche 911s, a car the Dino (mostly) out-performed.  In recent decades, the Dino 246 has been a stellar performer in the collector market, selling typically for three times the price of something like a 365 GTC/4; people drawn to the seductive lines rather than the significantly better fuel consumption.

Most coveted of the 246s are those describe with the rhyming colloquialism “chairs and flares” (C&F to the Ferrari cognoscenti), a reference to a pair of (separately available) options available on later production Dino 246s.  The options were (1) seats with inserts (sometimes in a contrasting color) in the style used on the Daytona & (2) wider Campagnolo Elektron wheels (which the factory only ever referred to by size) which necessitated flared wheel-arches.  At a combined US$795.00 (in 1974), the C&F combination has proved a good investment, now adding significantly to the price of the anyway highly collectable Dino.  Although it's hard to estimate the added value because so many other factors influence calculation, all else being equal, the premium is usually between US$100-200,000 but these things are always relative; in 1974 the C&F option added 5.2% to a Dino GTS's list price and was just under a third the cost of a new small car such as the Chevrolet Vega.  It was a C&F Dino 246 GTS which in 1978 was found buried in a Los Angeles where it had sat for some four years after being secreted away in what turned out to be an unplanned twist to a piece of insurance fraud.  In remarkably good condition (something attributed to its incarceration being during one of California’s many long droughts), it was fully restored.

Not in such good condition is the post-incineration Dino 246 GT (not a C&F) being offered by Gullwing Motor Cars, the asking price the same US$129,500 as for the 365 GTC/4.  Also built in 1972, Gullwing actually describe this one as “a project”, probably one of history’s less necessary announcements.  The company couldn’t resist running the title “Too Hot to Handle” and described the remains as “…an original car that has been completely burnt.  Originally born in Marrone Colorado with beige leather.  It comes with its clear matching title and this car clearly needs complete restoration, but the good news is that it's certainly the cheapest one you will ever find.  The Dino market is hot and shows no signs of cooling. An exciting opportunity to own an iconic 246GT Dino. This deal is on fire!”  It’s still (sort of) metal and boasts the prized “matching numbers” (ie the body, engine & gearbox are all stamped with the serial numbers which match the factory records) so there’s that but whether, even at the stratospheric prices Dinos often achieve, the economics of a restoration (that may be the wrong word) can be rationalized would need to be calculated by experts.  As with the 365 GTC/4, Gullwing may be amenable to offers but rather that the customer always being right, this one needs "the right customer".

Aggregate demand: The highly regarded auction site Bring-a-Trailer (BAT, their origin being a clearing house for “projects” although most were less challenging than Gullwing’s Dino) publishes auction results (including “reserve not met” no-sales) and the outcomes demonstrate how much the market lusts for Dinos.  BAT also has a lively comments section for each auction and more than once a thread had evolved to discuss the incongruity of the prices achieved by Dinos compared with the rarer Boxer 365 & 512 BB (1973-1984) which was when new much more expensive, much faster and, of course, a genuine twelve cylinder Ferrari.  In such markets however, objective breakdowns of specifications and specific performance are not what decide outcomes: The customer is always right.

Vorticism

Vorticism (pronounced vawr-tuh-siz-uhm)

A short-lived movement in the British avant-garde, nurtured by Wyndham Lewis, which climaxed in a London exhibition in 1915 before being absorbed.

1914: The construct was vortic + -ism.  The Latin vortic was the stem of vortex, (genitive vorticis), an archaic from of vertex (an eddy of water, wind, or flame; whirlpool; whirlwind whirl, top, crown, peak, summit), from vertō (to turn around, turn about) from vertere (to turn), from the primitive Indo-European wer (to turn; bend).  The –ism suffix is 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).  Vorticism is a noun, vorticist is a noun & adjective and vorticistic is an adjective; the noun plural was vorticists,  The forms vorticistically & vortical seem never to have come into use.

Hieratic head of Ezra Pound (1914), by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915).

The name Vorticism was said to have been coined in 1914 by the poet Ezra Pound (1885–1972) years before fascism and madness possessed his soul.  Pound had already used the word "vortex" to describe the effect modernist poetry was having on intellectual thought in Europe and he used the word not in the somewhat vague sense it often assumed when used figuratively to suggest swirling turbulence but rather as a mathematician or meteorologist might: an energy which gathers from the surrounding chaos what’s around, imparts to it a geometrical form which, intensifying as it goes, arrives at a single point.  Pound’s coining of the name is generally accepted but some historians claim the name was chosen by the Italian futurist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) who claimed all creative art could emanate only from a vortex of emotions.

Blast Magazine, July 1915.

Vorticism flourished only briefly between 1912-1915 as an overly aggressive reaction to what was held to be an excessive attachment to and veneration for delicacy and beauty in art and literature, preferring to celebrate the tools of modernity, the violence and energy of machines.  In painting and sculpture the angles were sharp and the lines bold, colors displayed in juxtaposition to emphasize the starkness of their difference and there was a reverence for geometric form and repetition.  The movement in 1914 published its own magazine: Blast: the Review of the Great English Vortex which was more manifesto than critique, a London-based attempt to gather together the artists and writers of the avant‐garde in one coherent movement.  It wanted the shock of the new.

Composition (1913), by Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957).

The idea was an art which reflected the strains of the vortices of a modern life in what was increasingly a machine age.  Thus, although it remains a footnote in the history of modern art, the label Vorticism refers to a political and sociological point rather than a distinct style such as contemporaries like Cubism or Futurism.  The timing was of course unfortunate and the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918) robbed Vorticism of much of its initial energy; the exhibition eventually staged in London’s Doré Gallery in 1915 remained a one-off and, like much of the pre-1914 world, Vorticism didn’t survive the World War.

Dance Hall Scene (circa 1913), by CRW Nevinson (1889-1946).

Being unappreciated at the time, most of the paintings of the vorticists were lost but retrospectives have been assembled from what remains and the still extant photographic record and there’s now a better understanding of the legacy and the influence on art deco, dada, surrealism, pop art, indeed, just about any abstract form.  Graphic art too benefited from the techniques, the sense of line and color identifiable in agitprop, twentieth century advertising and, most practically, the “dazzle” camouflage used by admiralties in both world wars as a form of disguise for ships.

Juan Garrido, a graphic designer based in Caracas, Venezuela, created the display typeface Vorticism in 2013.  Reflecting the cultural and linguistic influences, while there are a number of typefaces called futurism (or some variation) and some based on the word "vortex", Mr Garrido's "Vorticism" is uniquely named.

Lindsay Lohan in the Vorticism typeface.

Ezra Pound (1919), by Wyndham Lewis.

Even in 1912, Vorticism’s use of bold, abstract, and geometric forms (often depicting movement and mechanical apparatuses) wasn’t new but the movement had an energy which attracted those wanting to create imagery which marked a dramatic break from the representational forms which then were still dominant early in the ear which would come to be known as the dawn of modernity.  In that sense, Vorticism is understood as one of a number of movements embracing a new aesthetic reflecting the dynamism and energy of the modern world.  That as a distinct entity Vorticism didn’t endure was in a way an indication of success rather than failure because its motifs and techniques were co-opted to serve as foundational aspects of many movements in modern art, the abstract and geometric forms underpinning Futurism and Constructivism as well as becoming a staple of commercial graphic art and advertising.  Perhaps the most obvious influence was the artistic legitimization of the integration of text into images, a practice borrowed from commerce and a notable signature of Dada and Surrealism.  The use of text as a visual element challenged traditional boundaries between different art forms, a tension which enabled Pop art to create was in some ways a novel ecosystem.  However, those same motifs have been used also as something illustrative of the destructive tendencies of the speed and spread of mechanical and industrial reality which the vorticists championed and Precisionism & Bauhaus celebrated, at least in a sanitized and idealized way which hid the essential ugliness below.

Farce

Farce (pronounced fahrs)

(1) To stuff; to cram (obsolete).

(2) To make fat; to swell out (obsolete).

(3) To render pompous (obsolete).

(4) In the Roman Catholic Church, an alternative form of farse (to insert vernacular paraphrases into a Latin liturgy).

(5) A light, humorous production (plays, television film etc) play in which the plot depends upon the exploitation of improbable (or even impossible) situations rather than upon the development of character.

(6) The genre of comedy represented by works of this kind

(7) Humor of the type displayed in such works.

(8) Something foolish; a mockery; a ridiculous sham, a ludicrous situation or action.

(9) In cooking, forcemeat (a mixture of finely chopped and seasoned foods, usually containing egg white, meat or fish, etc., used as a stuffing or served alone).

(10) To add witty material to a speech or composition.

1300–1350: From the Middle English noun fars (stuffing), from the Middle French farce, from the Vulgar Latin farsa, noun use of feminine of Latin farsus, from the earlier fartus (stuffed), past participle of the verb farcīre (to stuff) which Middle English picked up as farsen, from the Old French farsir & farcir, from Latin farciō (to cram, stuff).  It was a doublet of farse.  The origin of the Latin farcire (to stuff, cram) is of uncertain origin but some etymologists suggest it may be connected with the primitive Indo-European bhrekw- (to cram together).  Farce in the fourteenth century first meant the chopped-meat stuffing used in cooking and farced into dishes.  The idea of a scene or plotline of “ludicrous satire or low comedy” being interpolated into a play was first described as “a farcing and thus soon ‘a farce’”) in the 1520s, while the dramatic sense of a “ludicrous satire; low comedy” was from the French use of farce (comic interlude in a mystery play) was a sixteenth century development while in English, the generalized sense of “a ridiculous sham” came into use in the 1690s.  In literary use, the companion term is tragicofarcical (having elements of both tragedy and farce).  Farce is a noun & verb, farced & farcing are verbs and and farcical is an adjective; the noun plural is plural farces.  The adjective unfarced (also as un-farced) is used in cooking to distinguished a dish not farced from one farced; it is not used of plays or literature.

The now rare noun infarction first appeared in the medical literature in the 1680s as a noun of action from the Latin infarcire (to stuff into), the construct being in- )in the sense of “into” (from the primitive Indo-European root en- (in) + farcīre (to stuff).  In pathology it was widely used of various morbid local conditions but as technology and techniques improved and more specific descriptions evolved used declined and the early twentieth century it tended to be restricted to certain conditions caused by localized faults in the circulatory system.  The construct of the noun forcemeat (also as force-meat) was force (“to stuff (as a variant of farce)) + meat.  The term first appeared in cookbooks in the late 1670s (although the technique (as “farcing”) dated back centuries; it described “mincemeat, meat chopped fine & seasoned, then used as a stuffing”.

Karl Marx (left) who turned G.W.F. Hegel (right) "upside down on his head".

Nowhere did Karl Marx (1818-1883) ever write “history repeats itself” but the phrase “history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce” is often attributed to him and has long been an undergraduate favourite.  The origin of that was in the first chapter of his essay Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon (18th Brumaire of Louis Bonapatre (1852)) in which, writing of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) he wrote: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice.  He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”  The “second time as farce” notion seems to have been something picked up from his benefactor & collaborator German philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) who a few months earlier, in one of his letters to Marx, had observed: “it really seems as though old Hegel, in the guise of the World Spirit, were directing history from the grave and, with the greatest conscientiousness, causing everything to be re-enacted twice over, once as grand tragedy and the second time as rotten farce, Caussidière for Danton, L. Blanc for Robespierre, Barthélemy for Saint-Just, Flocon for Carnot, and the moon-calf together with the first available dozen debt-encumbered lieutenants for the little corporal and his band of marshals. Thus the 18th Brumaire would already be upon us.”

In Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie (Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843), Marx had made a similar point:  “A coup d’état is sanctioned as it were in the opinion of the people if it is repeated.  Thus, Napoleon was defeated twice and twice the Bourbons were driven out.  Through repetition, what at the beginning seemed to be merely accidental and possible, becomes real and established.”  Marx did take a few interpretative liberties with Hegel.  When in Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (Lectures on the Philosophy of History (a compilation of lectures delivered at University of Berlin in 1822, 1828 & 1830)), Hegel compared nature where “there is nothing new under the Sun,” with history where there is always development he was describing historical progression in terms of the Hegelian philosophy which holds that history follows the dictates of reason and that the natural progress of history is due to the outworking of absolute spirit.  Still, Marx did boast that to make use of Hegel's dialectic he had to “turn him upside down on his head” so perhaps he felt entitled to kick the dead man’s ideas around a bit.

The farce on stage and in literature

In literary use, the farce is a form of comedy where the purpose is to “provoke mirth of the simplest and most basic kind: roars of laughter rather than smiles; humour rather than wit.  It is associated with, but must be distinguished from, burlesque; it is with clowning, buffoonery and knockabout slapstick, a form of ‘low’ comedy in which the basic elements are: exaggerated physical action (often repeated), exaggeration of character and situation in which absurd, improbable (even impossible ones and therefore fantastical) events and surprises in the form of unexpected appearances and disclosures”.  In farce, character and dialogue are nearly always subservient to plot and situation with plots often complex, events succeeding with a sometimes bewildering rapidity.

Quite when the first farces were performed is not known but historians seem to agree it would certainly have predated anything in the literary tradition.  Elements recognizably “farces” exist in some surviving plays from Antiquity in which “low comedy” in the shape of ridiculous situations and ludicrous results, ribaldry and junketings are interpolated into works of satire and studies of the farce have identified the device in Greek satyr play and the Roman fabak.  Technically though, the first plays actually described as “farces” were French works from the late Middle Ages where there were “stuffings” described as “between scenes”: comic interludes between the “serious” parts in religious or liturgical drama.  Usually, such “stuffings” were written in octosyllabic (containing eight syllables) couplets with an average length of some 500 lines.  These interpolations poked fun at the foibles and vices of everyday life (particularly at commercial knavery and conjugal infidelity, two subjects with enduring audience appeal).

The Taming of the Shrew, Barbican Theatre, June 2019.  For the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), Justin Audibert (b 1981) re-imagined the England of the 1590s as a matriarchy in which Baptista Minola is seeking to sell off her son Katherine to the highest bidder.

Later, in French theatre, these farcical interludes developed into a form of their own: the “one-act farce”, pieces which were in their time something like to short-form clips which TikTok made a business model.  The contemporary English Mystery Plays also often included one or more comic interludes and interestingly, demonic & grotesque figures behaving in a buffoonish manner (letting off fireworks something of a theme) appeared with much greater frequency than in France.  In the time of the Morality Plays, apart from aberrations like William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) The Taming of the Shrew (1592) & The Comedy of Errors (circa 1593), there was little written for the English stage which could truly be described as farce but by the time the genre of “Restoration comedy” (known sometimes as “Comedy of manners”) had become established in the late seventeenth century, farce was back to celebrate the re-opening of public stage performances, banned for the previous 18 years by the Puritan regime.  For better or worse, farce has been with us ever since.

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

It can be difficult to decided whether “farce”, “fiasco” or “debacle” best applies in particular circumstances.  Indeed, it seems difficult to formulate anything close to a “rule” and every situation will need to be judged on its merits.  However, as a general principle, the pattern of use seems to indicate: (1) Farce is used in a way which hints at the theatrical tradition: real-life situations that are ridiculously chaotic and ludicrous, almost comical in their dysfunction. (2) A fiasco is a total utter failure, usually in a public and humiliating way when things have gone very wrong, typically due to poor planning or execution. (3) A debacle is an ignominious failure and one which often implies a broader, more significant collapse, sometimes with serious consequences.

The farce of excommunication

Presumably the Spanish nuns of The Poor Clares of Belorado chose their words with care when in June 2024 they condemned the Holy See’s action against them as “the farce of excommunication” although whether they were still within the holy communion of the Church to be excommunicated may be a moot point because the sisters insisted they had already severed all connections with the Vatican and their departure from the “Conciliar Church” was “unanimous and irreversible”.  The exchange of views between Rome and Castile-Leon came after the sisters declined to attend the ecclesial tribunal of Burgos to which they had been summoned, their notice of no-attendance transmitted to the Archbishop of Burgos with a hint of rejection of modernity: they used the fax machine.  Informing the archbishop they had left the Conciliar Church “freely, voluntarily, unanimously and in a spirit of joy”, their fax message asserted the ecclesiastical tribunal had “no jurisdiction” over them since their separation the previous month which their said was prompted by the “larceny” of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965), adding that no pope after Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958) was “legitimate”.

Being careful with words, it must be assumed the sisters were thus declaring Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) an “illegitimate pope” rather than an “anti-pope”, a distinction of some significance to canon lawyers.  “Illegitimate pope” is a general term for any pope whose election or claim to the papacy is deemed invalid or improper according to the canonical laws and practices of the Church; such a state can arise from procedural failures or the appointee lacking the requisite qualifications.  An “anti-pope” is one who makes a claim to the papacy in opposition to the pope recognized by the majority of the Catholic Church, a status which is of any consequence only if such a person has a significant following among Catholics.  Typically, anti-popes have existed during periods of schism.

Belorado Convento de Santa María de Bretonera.

Founded in 1358, in 1458 the monastery was damaged during one of the feudal battles which for more than two centuries would from time-to-time briefly flare, the structure repaired two years later.  Built in the Gothic style, there are Baroque style altar-pieces from the seventeenth century and a pipe organ dating from 1799.  The Monastery of Santa Clara is presided over by nuns of the order of the Poor Clares.

So, being critical mass theorists like any good Catholics, the sisters would understand that at the moment, Francis “has the numbers” but they certainly seem to be attempting something schismatic, their 70-page manifesto explaining that henceforth the nuns would follow the spiritual leadership of Pablo de Rojas Sánchez-Franco (b 1982), a self-styled “bishop” and professed admirer of the fascist dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975); De Rojas-Franco was excommunicated in 2019.  Like the sisters, Mr De Rojas-Franco is a sedisvacantist (one who regards all popes after Pius XII to be illegitimate heads of the Church; in this view, the Holy See in Rome is actually sede vacante (vacant throne) and Francis a heretic and usurper to be spoken of only as “Mr Bergoglio”.  One implication of this is that many post 1958 ordinations are also invalid so any penalty or canonical sanction “imposed by those who are not valid or legitimate bishops, and who have no power over souls” are thus null and void”.  In other words, “Mr Bergoglio, you can’t excommunicate us”, hence the description of Rome’s edict as a farce.

Chocolates and biscuits made by nuns of The Poor Clares of Belorado.  Presumably, chocolates made by heretics are more sinful than those made by the faithful.

So the ecclesiastical battle lines have been drawn and the Holy See has clearly decided the chirothecœ (liturgical gloves) are off, the 10 nuns of the order reporting sales of the pastries and chocolate truffles they produce as their only source of income are down, the faithful of the nearby villages clearing having been told by their priests to buy their sweet treats from non-heretics.  According to Rome, the bolshie Poor Clare nuns of Belorado have committed the crime of schism (Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law states defines schism as “the refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him”, the penalty for which is excommunication).  Since burnings at the stake and such became unfashionable, excommunication is now the most serious penalty a baptized person can incur; it consists of being placed outside the communion of the faithful of the Catholic Church and denied access to the sacraments but it need not be final, the theological purpose of the act being “to bring the guilty to repentance and conversion” and, in a phrase with internal logic which makes complete sense in the corridors of the Vatican: “With the penalty of excommunication the Church is not trying in some way to restrict the extent of mercy but is simply making evident the seriousness of the crime.”

Of course heretics are flesh and blood and as they have declared themselves no longer members of the Catholic Church, by remaining in the monastery they are occupying property of the Church to which they do not belong and may be found to have no legal right to stay there.  Their archbishop has told them they are now trespassing but seems to be taking a patient approach, saying he hopes they will leave of their own volition, avoid the need to assemble a team of black-clad monsignors forcibly to evict them.  The social media savvy Francis would understand that might be “bad optics”.  Still, the archbishop insists the matter will be pursued and that Spanish civil law recognizes the Church’s Code of Canon Law as governing such things, adding “…they were told that they should not be in the monastery and in a steadfast and contumacious way they persist in being there”, concluding ominously “…so the legal authorities will act against them.”

This is not an isolated case and in the last year there have been a number of excommunications of bishops and archbishops, all of whom have denied the legitimacy of Francis, some actually calling him “a heretic”, something almost unknown for centuries.  With the death of Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), so died too the last restraining influence on Francis’s reformist tendencies and the tensions which have mostly be suppressed since Vatican II are now bubbling over.  As an amusing spectacle for the neutrals, Church politics: (“You’re a heretic!”, “No, you’re a heretic!”) is something like modern Spanish political discourse: (“You’re a fascist!”, “No, you’re a fascist!”) but how this plays out in what may be the last days of this pontificate is likely much to influence the voting in the College of Cardinals when it comes time to choose the next pope.

As the Vatican takes heresy seriously, so the fashionistas guard haute couture.  The reaction to Lindsay Lohan brief fling as fashion designer for Ungaro, Paris Fashion Week, March 2010.

Masticate

Masticate (pronounced mas-ti-keyt)

(1) To chew (usually food).

(2) To reduce materials (such as rubber) to a pulp by crushing or kneading.

1640–1650: From the Late Latin masticātus, past participle of masticāre (to chew), from the past participle stem of the post-Classical Latin masticō (I chew), from the Ancient Greek μαστιχάω (mastikháō) (I gnash the teeth”).  The English masticate was a back-formation of the earlier mastication.  The noun mastic (gum or resin obtained from certain small trees of the Mediterranean region and in various places east of Suez used as a chewing gum) emerged in the late fourteenth century and was from mastic, from the thirteenth century Old French mastic and directly from Late Latin mastichum, from the Classical Latin mastiche, from the Ancient Greek mastikhe, of uncertain origin but probably in some way connected with masasthai (to chew) and thus related to the modern mastication.  The etymologists are divided on whether the Ancient Greek mastikhan (to gnash the teeth) was from the primitive Indo-European mendh- (to chew (and the ultimate source of mandible) or of pre-Greek origin.  Masticate, masticated & masticating are verbs, masticatory, masticator & mastication are nouns and masticable is an adjective; the noun plural is mastications.

All forms tend now to be seen in specialised niches, masticatory almost always in medical or scientific literature and seems to be a favorite in entomology while masticable (capable of being chewed, that may be masticated) appeared first in 1802, quickly adopted by dieticians in hospitals & zoos although it has survived only in the latter.  Other than for technical purposes, masticate’s most obvious niche is in humor, the effect achieved by using the word in a way easily confused with the almost homophonic masturbate, a device used also with the thespian/lesbian homophone.  So usually, unless one is discussing the eating habits of insects or aiming for humorous effect, the monosyllabic “chew” is a better choice.

Thespian Lindsay Lohan with cheeseburger, masticating.

The verb chew (masticate, bite and grind with the teeth) was from the Middle English cheuen, from the Old English ceowan, from the West Germanic keuwwan (source also of the Middle Low German keuwen, the Dutch kauwen, the Old High German kiuwan and the German kauen).  The source may have been from the primitive Indo-European gyeu- (to chew), source of the Old Church Slavonic živo (to chew), the Lithuanian žiaunos (jaws) and the Persian javidan (to chew).  The figurative sense (to to think over (usually as “chew on it”)) dates from the late fourteenth century, the origin said to be “dinner table discussions over pieces of bacon fat”.  For humorous effect, the process is sometimes described as “mental mastication”.  Later variations include “to chew the rag” (discuss some matter), first documented in 1885 as army slang although there are claims it began both in the British Army and the Indian Army under the Raj.  To “chew the fat” meant the same thing and was mid-twentieth century slang.  . To chew (someone) out was first cited in 1948 but was thought to be military slang from World War II (1939-1945), the idea being having been “chewed up and spat out”.  As a packaged product, chewing gum was first sold in the US in 1843, the early formulations being hardened secretions from the spruce tree.

The purported fallacy

The purported fallacy is a rhetorical device intended to confuse or suggest irrelevant considerations into the mind of the listener,  It’s related to but distinct from the “red herring” (in figurative use, a clue, information, argument, etc. that is or is intended to be misleading, diverting attention from the real answer or issue).  A well-known example from the US is often quoted but is unfortunately a myth, fake news in its time but still refusing to die.  In the Florida primary contest for the Democratic nomination in the 1950 Senate campaign, Claude Pepper (1900–1989; Democrat Senator for Florida 1936-1951, Democrat member of House of Representatives (Florida 1963-1989)) lost to George Smathers (1913–2007; Democrat member of House of Representatives (Florida) 1947-1951 and Democrat Senator for Florida 1951-1969).  Smathers had managed Pepper's successful 1938 campaign and the association continued, Pepper pulling strings so Smathers could avoid military service during World War II (1939-1945) and helping him become an assistant attorney-general.

The 1950 Senate election in Florida was noted for flamboyant oratory, ideological ferocity and personal dramas but that was neither novel nor unique to Florida, indeed, by mid twentieth century thing had been toned-down from what had prevailed during much of the 1800s.  Smathers labeled his opponent “Red” Pepper which, if unfair, was funny and, in the early Cold War, a not unusual tactic, Senator Joe McCarthy (1908–1957; senator for Wisconsin (Republican) 1947-1957) that year having delivered his inflammatory Lincoln Day speech in which he claimed to have list of known communists employed by the State Department.  However, what arose during the campaign was the legend that Smathers, assuming low education and high prejudice in the minds of some voters, had made speeches in rural areas accusing his opponent of being “a shameless extrovert”, having “a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York”, having "practiced celibacy before his marriage" and being someone “who had been seen masticating fish”.

Irresistibly good copy, the words appeared in the 17 April issue of Time magazine and despite cautioning they were “of doubtful authenticity” they’ve for decades been recycled, used for illustrative effect for this and that across the political spectrum; Robert Sherrill (1924-2014) on the left and William F Buckley (1925–2008) on the right, both claiming it happened.  The truth (which Buckley later acknowledged), was the words turned out to be the work of journalists covering the campaign who, over drinks, began inventing double-talk quotations and swapping them.  It became a contest to see who could write the funniest and some of them leaked, published as fact.  After decades of estrangement, a Pepper fund-raising letter ended up in Smathers' office.  Smathers responded with a contribution and Pepper, after joking that the cheque bounced, sent a note of thanks.  Smathers said he would contribute to Pepper as long as he was in the Congress as a champion of the elderly, adding he was now “old enough to where I kind of feel like he may speak for me''.

Satirists work in a similar vein to those tipsy reporters.  In 2006, in a parody of the attack ads the Liberal Party was using against Stephen Harper’s (b 1959; prime minister of Canada 2006-2015) Conservative Party government, National Public Radio (NPR) offered:

Stephen Harper has plans for Canada, scary plans.  Scary, evil plans.  We can't make this up, we're not allowed to. Stephen Harper owns a dragon.  He keeps it in a shed. Seriously.  Stephen Harper drinks his own blood.  We saw him. We're not allowed to make this up.  The Liberal Party, let's see how badly we can lose this thing.

Quale

Quale (pronounced kwah-lee, kwah-ley, kwey-lee or kwey-ley)

(1) In philosophy, a property of something considered separately from the thing having that property; an instance of subjective, conscious experience.

(2) A sense-datum or feeling having a distinctive quality.

(3) Death; a plague; a murrain (obsolete).

1665–1675: From the Latin quāle, neuter singular of quālis (of what sort; of what kind) and cognate with the Old English cwalu and the Old Norse kval (torment, torture), both variants from the root of quell.  The later was from quala, from the French quel, the Italian quale and the Spanish cual, ultimately from the Latin quālis, from the primitive Indo-European kwis & kwo (interrogative, relative stem) and (speculatively) hzel (to grow); it was cognate with the Ancient Greek πηλίκος (pēlíkos).  Quale is a noun; the noun plural is qualia (quals is the plural of qual (a clipping of “qualifying exam”).

Qualia are the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences: Some find the experience of seeing a white Ferrari as different from viewing one in white as another might find when comparing an orchid to hemlock.  Although it had appeared before (adding to an already long list of technical terms in the discipline), in philosophy, qualia was first used in its current sense in a paper published in 1929 by US scholar Clarence Irving ("C.I.") Lewis (1883–1964).  Lewis was discussing sense-data theory and explained that he used the word, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves.  Emerging from what was at the time a rather dusty corner of academic philosophy, quale came to be more widely used (especially with the rapid growth of universities in the post-war period) and the sense expanded to refer more generally to properties of experience. While there are experiences which truly are universal with no differentiation in qualia among people, other perceptual experiences (which can be of the mind such as hallucinations, or of the body such a headache, or wholly emotional such as anger or anxiety) intrinsically have a qualitative quality: their quale.

Different qualia likely: 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4.  The term “resale red” (the idea re-painting a sports car red increases its resale value) may not have been coined to describe the Ferrari after-market but such is the association of red (particularly the classic Rosso Corsa) with the marque that some find other shades a disappointment.  However, the right Ferrari in one of the Biancos (variants of white) displays the purity of line as no other color can.

The old, and long obsolete, use of quale to mean “death” seems no longer makes sense given the way the meaning of the word has shifted.  However, although for the deceased, once dead, the experience is the same whether one was struck by a meteorite, drank one’s self to death or was murdered by the Freemasons, the manner of death might mean a different quale for the departed’s grieving loved ones.  That quirk aside, although the existence of qualia seem obvious, in philosophy, there have been decades of disputes, may focused on whether qualia can be identified with or reduced to anything physical, the suggesting being any attempted explanation of the world in solely physicalist terms would leave qualia out.  In the way of squabbles about things which can be neither be proved nor disproved, a century from now lecturers and professors are likely still to be exchanging views.

Qualia are the subjective (individually and differentially qualitative) properties of experiences and the differences between individuals are sometimes significant.  Two people drinking from the same bottle of wine may have two different experiences: one finding pleasure, one distaste; two diametrically opposed qualia.  Why this happens was explained in Why You Like The Wines You Like (2013) by Tim Hanni (b 1952), a certified Master of Wine (MW).  The certification process is administered by the Court of Master Sommeliers, established in 1977, formalizing the layers of qualification that began in 1969 in London with the first Master Sommelier examination.  It’s now conducted by the various chapters of the court and globally, they’re a rare few.  While over 600 people have been to space and there are rumored to be some 4000 members of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or, there are currently only 262 Master Sommeliers in the world; they describe themselves as “cork dorks”.

Lindsay Lohan explaining her quale upon tasting wine in The Parent Trap (1998).  IRL, she decided to focus on acting, pursuing wine-tasting only as a hobby. 

What Hanni’s book explored were the physiological and psychological reasons peoples’ experience of the taste of wine are so divergent; some factors obvious, some more subtle.  In partnership with US psychologist Dr Linda Bartoshuk (b 1938), he developed what was dubbed the “vinotype” assessment, used to explore individual preferences for, and tolerance of, various external stimuli and how those generalized preferences (or “tolerances”) affect the appreciation of wine.  Essentially, there are those who are “hypersensitive” to tastes and those who are less perceptive (ie “less sensitive”) and thus categorized as “more tolerant”.  That sounds banally predictable but there are social and economic implications because it’s clear an individual’s personal preference is determined by personal physiology and social context as well as the way the taste receptors in the mouth work.  There is still the cultural perception that those who prefer sweet wines to dry are those with a less trained or discerning palate but the difference really depends more than anything on whether or not one is one of the “hypersensitive”.  Despite that, there are social pressures (real or perceived) and some feel compelled, at least in public, to avoid sweet wines, lest they be thought unsophisticated.