Plethora & Plethoric

Plethora (pronounced pleth-er-uh)

(1) Superfluity or excess; an overabundance.

(2) A large quantity or wide array; a great abundance.

(3) In re-modern medicine, , a morbid condition due to excess of red corpuscles in the blood or increase in the quantity of blood (archaic except for historic references); an excess of any of the body’s fluids (archaic).  Medieval apothecaries offered plethora of potions and concoctions to treat “redd face”.

(4) In modern pathology, an excess of Excess of blood in the skin, especially in the face and especially chronically.

1535-1545: From the Medieval Latin plēthōra, from the Ancient Greek plēthṓra or plēthōrē or plēthṓra (fullness; satiety) from plēthein (to be or grow full), from the primitive Indo-European pele (to fill).  The original use of the word was in medicine; later adopted by pre-modern pathology to describe a specific condition.  The modern, figurative meaning (too-muchness, overfullness) was in use by the early eighteenth century.  In figurative use the synonyms include excess, abundance, glut, myriad, surfeit, superfluity & slew while in medical use they’re hyperaemia & hyperperfusion.  The non clinical description of the apothecaries redd face include flushing, blushing, floridity & ruddiness (the condition rosacea (a chronic condition characterized by redness of the face) is treatable but incurable).  Plethoric is the adjective, plethorically the adverb.  Plethora is a noun; the noun plural is plethorae or plethoras.

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

Plethoric (pronounced ple-thawr-ik, ple-thor-ik or pleth-uh-rik)

(1) In speech or text, overfull; turgid; inflated; pompous.

(2) By extension, excessive, overabundant, rife; loosely, abundant, varied.

(3) In medicine, a patient suffering from plethora (ruddy in complexion, congested or swollen with blood).

(4) In medicine, of, relating to, or characterized by plethora.

1610–1620: From the Late Latin plethoricus, from the Hellenistic Ancient Greek πληθωρικός (plēthōrikós), from πληθώρα (plēthṓra) (plethora); It deconstructs as plethor(a) +‎ -ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The use in medicine dates from the fourteenth century while the figurative senses (Excessive, overabundant, rife; loosely, abundant) in rhetoric (and later just about anything) emerged gradually after the seventeenth.  Plethoric is an adjective and plethorically is an adverb.

The apothecaries redd face

From Antiquity, through the medieval period and until as recently as some 200 years ago, it was medical orthodoxy that the plethoric (the primary symptom being a chronic reddishness of the face) was caused by an excess of the humor of yellow bile (xanthe chole).  Humoral (humor a translation of the Ancient Greek χυμός (chymos (literally juice or sap, figuratively flavor)) theory (known also as humorism or humoralism), was a system of medicine from Antiquity which provided a framework and description of the supposed workings of the human body.  It was the standard model for the philosophers and physicians of Ancient Greek and Rome and endured in Western medicine well into the nineteenth century when many of its assumptions about physical illness were disproved by germ theory and the understanding of the role of pathogens in disease.  The overturning of humoral theory was one of the landmarks in the origins of modernity.

In antiquity it was a concept rather than something with a standardized systemization and there existed competing models with more or fewer components but it’s because the description with four was that endorsed by the Greek physician Hippocrates (circa 460–circa 370 BC) that it became famous in the West and absorbed into medical practice.  The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (μέλαινα χολή (melaina chole)), yellow bile (ξανθη χολή (xanthe chole)), phlegm (φλέγμα (phlegma)) & blood (αἷμα (haima)), each corresponding with the four temperaments of man and linked also to the four seasons: yellow bile=summer, black bile=autumn, phlegm=winter & blood=spring.  In Hippocratic medicine, to be healthy, the four humors needed to be in balance and this, once achieved, was the state of enkrateia (from the Ancient Greek ἐγκράτεια (eukrasia) (in power), the construct being ἐν (en-) (in-) + κράτος (krátos) (power), a word which appears in the New Testament in the context of virtues (Acts 24:25, Galatians 5:23 & 2 Peter 1:6).  In the King James Version (KJV, 1611), it would be translated as "temperance", a word which went on to assume a life of its own.

Medieval apothecaries treated redness in the face (which may have been rosacea, sunburn, or a variety of internal or skin conditions) using a number of remedies based either on herbal medicine or humoral theory.  Some would to some extent have been have been efficacious, some worthless and some genuinely dangerous.  They included:

Herbal Remedies: (1) Rose water was frequently used both for it cooling and anti-inflammatory properties (applied directly to the skin to soothe redness and irritation), (2) Chamomile (one of medicine’s most ancient calmatives) was applied as a poultice or used in a wash to reduce inflammation and redness, (3) the flesh of the Aloe Vera plant was renowned for its soothing effect and was used to treat various skin conditions, including redness (it’s now recommended also as an alternative to shampoo and conditioner) and (4) cucumber was made into a topical paste and applied directly to the affected skin.

Cooling Agents: Diluted vinegar, often mixed with herbs, was applied to cool the skin and reduce redness. This was believed to balance the body's humors, particularly if the redness was thought to be caused by an excess of heat (choleric humor).

Minerals: (1) In severe or intractable cases (as chronic rosacea tends to be), Ceruse (white lead) was sometimes used to whiten and cover red or blemished skin (a treatment which would be though dangerous by modern standards) and (2) Calamine (a mineral compound) was used to treat skin irritation and reduce redness.  Calamine lotion remains one of the most effective treatments for minor skin irritations.

Humoral Treatments: (1) Until quite recently, it was common for skin redness (especially in the face) to be caused by an imbalance in the body's humors, especially an excess of blood (sanguine humor).  Phlebotomy (bloodletting) was often performed and there were specialists who practiced the trade exclusively (in the USSR (the old Soviet Union) it was still an orthodox treatment as recently as the 1950s, even comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) enjoying some sessions.  (2) Presumably as a result of empirical observation, a patient diet was identified as a contributory factor and the apothecaries followed the practice of the physicians from Antiquity, advising sufferers to eat “cooling foods” like cucumbers, lettuce, and melons, while avoiding “heating foods” such as spicy dishes and red meat.

Spectrum condition: The redness in the face of the honourable Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) is used by his colleagues to gauge where his state of mind lies in the adjectival progression of the plethoric (left), the more plethoric (comparative; centre) and the most plethoric (superlative; right).  Mr Joyce’s symptoms (ambitious, leader-like, restless, easily angered) suggest an excess of yellow bile and to counteract this, Hippocrates recommended cold and wet foods such as cucumber or lettuce to bring the humors back into alignment.  Mr Joyce should adopt a cucumber & lettuce diet and it may be a good time for him to try it because he recently announced he'd given up alcohol, the abstinence inspired by a recent "incident" in which he was filmed lying drunk on the footpath (sidewalk) next to a Canberra planter box, conducting a mumbled, expletive-laden conversation with his wife.  He said he's since lost 15 kg (33 lb) and given up smoking (it not known if politicians lie about such claims).  Interestingly, political scientists seem generally to expect the well-publicized event (one of a number featuring Mr Joyce) would probably result in him increasing his margin at the next election (sprawled drunk in a city street making him "authentic" and "relatable").  When interviewed, the once "notorious drunkard" said: "Maybe at some stage I’ll have a beer again, but at the moment, nah".

Badminton

Badminton (pronounced bad-min-tn)

(1) A racquet sport played on a rectangular (at competitive level, always indoor) two players or two pairs of players equipped with light rackets used to volley a shuttlecock over the high net dividing the court in half.

(2) A drink made with a mix of claret, soda water and sugar (also as badminton cup).

(3) A small village and civil parish in the south-west English county of Gloucestershire (initial upper case).

(4) A community in the Glyncoed area, Blaenau Gwent county borough, Wales, UK.

(4) Among the young of Hong Kong, a euphemism for sexual congress.

1873-1874: The game was named after Badminton House, the country seat of the dukes of Beaufort in Gloucestershire (now associated with the annual Badminton horse trials).  The derived terms include badminton court, badminton racquet and badminton ball.  The locality name was from the Old English Badimyncgtun (estate of (a man called) Baduhelm), which deconstructs as the personal name Bad (possibly also found in the Frankish Badon) + helm (from the Old English helma (helm, tiller)+ -ing (from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing)).+ -tun (used here to refer to “a place”).  Among players in England, the sport is sometimes referred to with the slang “badders”.  Badminton & badmintonist are nouns; the noun plural is plural badmintons.

Badminton racquets (racket in US use) use the same design as tennis racquets but are of lighter construction and not as tightly strung.

Games using shuttlecocks (the designs having variations but all using deliberately “anti-aerodynamic” properties to dissipate the energy carried in flight) are known to have been played for at least centuries across Eurasia, the attractions including the game not putting a premium on physicality (women at comparatively little disadvantage because the effect of fluid dynamics on the shuttlecock negated much of the power of inherently stronger men) and there being no need for a truly flat, prepared surface.  The recognizably modern game of badminton evolved in the early-mid nineteenth century and was something of a cult under the Raj, played by expatriate British officers of the Indian Army, both the polo crown and those unable to afford the upkeep of ponies.  It was a variant of the earlier games “shuttlecock” and “battledore” (battledore an older term for “racquet”).  The history of the sport’s early days is murky and it’s not clear if the first games in England really were played at Badminton House, the Duke of Beaufort’s country estate in 1873-1874 but it seems it was from then the game spread.  The apparently inexplicable “badminton ball” (the game played with a shuttlecock) is accounted for by the fame once being played using a soft, woolen ball and called “ball badminton”.

Among the first players at Badminton House were soldiers returning from their service under the Raj and just as they took English habits and practices to India (for good and bad), upon returning they brought much from the Orient, including their sport.  Under the Raj, it had been played outdoors and when it was wet or windy, the woollen ball was often used but the principle was essentially the same as the modern game except nets weren’t always used and there was sometimes no concept of a defined “court”, the parameters established by the players’ reach and capacity to return the shot from wherever the ball or shuttlecock was placed; what was constant was that if the shot hit the opponent’s ground, the point was won.

Standard dimensions of shuttlecocks used in officially sanctioned competitions.

Under the Raj, the game was known also as Poona or Poonah, named after the garrison town of Poona (named thus in 1857 and changed to Pune in 1978 as part of the process which restored the historic names of Chenni (Madras until 1996), Mumbai (Bombay until 1996) etc).  It was in Poona where some of the most devoted players were stationed and there were several layers of competition taken as seriously as polo tournaments; when these offers returned to England, badminton clubs were soon established (mostly in the south).  The so called “Pune Rules” (of which there were variations reflecting the regimental origins of the clubs) were maintained until 1887 when the recently confederated Badminton Association of England (BAE) codified a standard set which differ little from those of the modern game.  The All England Open Badminton Championships for gentlemen's doubles, ladies' doubles, and mixed doubles were first played in 1899 while singles competitions debuted in 1900 and an England–Ireland championship match was held in 1904.  It first appeared in the Olympic Games as an “exhibition sport” at Munich (1972) and has been in the regular programme since Seoul (1988), the medal table dominated overwhelmingly by the PRC (People’s Republic of China); only players from the PRC and Indonesia have every won Olympic gold.

Like many aspects of the English language, euphemisms evolve or appear under all sorts of influences.  Some come from popular culture (wardrobe malfunction) and some are an attempt deliberately to deceive (misspoke) while others are a “curated creation” although not all succeed; Gretchen in Mean Girls (2004) never quite managed to make “fetch” happen.  Sometime, they can appear as that bugbear of governments: the “unintended consequence”.  In August 2024, the Hong Kong Education Bureau published a 70-page sex education document which, inter-alia, advised teen-aged Hong Kongers to delay romantic relationships and “set limits on intimacy with the opposite gender” (intra-gender intimacy wasn’t mentioned, presumably not because it’s regarded as desirable but because the bureau though it unmentionable).  Helpfully, the document included worksheets (with tick-boxes) for adolescents and guidance for the teachers helping to educate them on coping with sexual fantasies and the consequences of “acting on impulses”.  Easily the most imaginative tactic the bureau advocated as part of its “abstinence strategy” was that young folk should repress their teen-age sexual urges with “a game of badminton”, a suggestion which drew criticism from experts and lawmakers and derision from the public.  Nobody suggested playing badminton was a bad idea but the consensus was that advocating it as an alternative behaviour for two horny teen-agers was “overly simplistic and unrealistic”, the most common critique being the bureau was “out of touch”, a phrase not infrequently directed towards the Hong Kong government generally.

Some also questioned whether a 70 page booklet was the ideal information delivery platform for the TLDR (too long, didn’t read) generation, brought up on TikTok’s short, digestible chunks.  Still, there was certainly much information and helpful tips including a compulsory form for couples in a “love relationship” which contained a list of the parameters they could use to “set limits to their intimacy” and informed them these matters involved four key subjects: (1) the relationship between love and sex, (2) the importance of boundaries, (3) how to cope with sexual fantasies and impulses and (4) the horrible consequences and were one to act upon these impulses.  The conclusion was strong” “Lovers who are unable to cope with the consequences of premarital sex, such as unwed marital pregnancy, legal consequences and emotional distress, should firmly refuse to have sex before marriage.”  Sex can of course be transactional and even contractual and in that spirit students were urged to “fill in and sign a commitment form to set limits on intimacy” and to help with what young folk could find a difficult clause to draft, the bureau suggested: “It is normal for people to have sexual fantasies and desires, but we must recognise that we are the masters of our desires and should think twice before acting, and control our desires instead of being controlled by them.”  Signing that would presumably “kill the moment” and the bureau assured its readers this would control their sexual impulses in certain ways so they could promise to develop “self-discipline, self-control, and resistance to pornography”.

Nor were external influences neglected, the bureau counselling adolescents that a way to suppress their “natural sexual impulses” was to avoid media and publications which “that might arouse them”, recommending instead they “exercise and indulge in distractions” which will help divert their attention away from “undesirable activities”.  As everyone knows, badminton is both good exercise and a desirable activity.  Not only the sometimes decadent media was seen as a threat; there was also the matter of one’s peers and one scenario the bureau described was coming upon “a young couple in a park” exchanging caresses, the correct reaction to which was to avoid temptation by “leaving the scene immediately” or instead “enjoying the sight of flowers and trees in the park”.  Of greater relevance perhaps was the way to handle the situation were a young man to find himself alone with his girlfriend while “studying at home”: “Leave the scene immediately; go out to play badminton together in a sports hall.”  There was also sartorial advice for your scholars, the students to dress appropriately and avoid wearing “sexy clothing” that could lead to “visual stimulation.”  Any ayatollah would agree with that, wondering only why it took the Hong Kong government so long to point it out.  Whether the new guidelines will be result in behavioral changes remains to be seen but the document certainly stimulated responses from the meme-makers, one claiming the advocacy for badminton as a contraceptive proved just how out of touch was the Hong Kong government because it “obviously hasn’t caught up with the popularity of pickleball.”  However, the most obvious cultural contribution was linguistic, phrases like: “want to try out my badminton racquet?” and “let’s play badminton” suggested as the latest euphemism for acts of illicit sex.

“Fetch” never quite happened: Regina George (Rachel McAdams (b 1978)) shuts down Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)), Mean Girls (2004).  Thanks to the government of Hong Kong, “Badminton” may yet happen.

In fairness to the Hong Kong government, it’s not unique in its ineptitude in talking to the young about sex.  Their messaging was however at least clear and unambiguous unlike that in the Australian government’s infamous “milkshake” advertising campaign in 2021.  That was about the matter of “consent to have sex”, a matter of some significance given the frequency of it being the central contested issue in many rape cases so it was an important thing to discuss but unfortunately, all that was agreed was it was embarrassingly dumbed-down and a puerile attempt at humor.  Within days the milkshake video was withdrawn from the Aus$3.7 million campaign.  About the same time the mystifying milkshake video was making children laugh, Mick Fuller (b 1968; commissioner of the New South Wales (NSW) Police Force 2017-2022) proved one didn’t have to be a boomer to be out of touch with the early twenty-first century.  Mr Fuller, noting no doubt the fondness the young folk showed towards their smartphones, suggested an app would be answer, as it seems to be to just about every other problem (“there’s an app for that”).  Deconstructed, that would seem to require both parties logging into the app (hopefully having it already installed) and in some way authorizing sexual activity with the other.  For security reasons, 2FA (two-factor authentication) would obviously be a necessity so it would be doable, only delaying rather than killing the moment.  Still, it didn’t sound like something which would soar to the top of App Store charts and while Mr Fuller argued such a tool could be used “to keep matters out of the justice system”, he did concede it might be a “ “terrible” suggestion and “the worst idea I have all year.”.

The Badminton Cup cocktail

Ingredients

Strips of peel from a ½ cucumber
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons of superfine sugar
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
One 750-ml bottle dry red wine (ideally a Bordeaux (Claret))
16 ounces chilled soda water
Ice, preferably 1 large block

Instructions

(1) In a small punch bowl, combine the cucumber peel, sugar and nutmeg.
(2) Add wine, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
(3) Refrigerate until chilled (will typically take some two hours).
(4) Stir in the soda water, add ice and serve.

The Badminton Beltie Cocktail

The Badminton cup is a classic summer cocktail designed to refresh on a hot day.  However, English summers, though now noticeably hotter than in decades past, can be unpredictable and there will be cold days.  In such weather, the Badminton beltie is a better choice than a badminton cup, the sour fruitiness of the raspberry whisky said to combine with the sweet smoothness of the spiced rum to create a “belter of a drink”.  It was created during the unseasonably cold and wet week of the 2023 Badminton Horse Trials.

Ingredients

2 measures spiced rum liqueur (20%)
2 measures raspberry whisky liqueur (18%)
Crushed Ice

Instructions

(1) Half fill a rocks or tumbler glass with crushed ice
(2) Add measures of spiced rum liqueur & raspberry whisky liqueur.
(3) Gently muddle the mix.
(4) Garnish with two slices of fresh lime.

Acronym

Acronym (pronounced ak-ruh-nim)

In linguistics, a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words and pronounced as a separate word (and thus distinguished from an initialism in which the letters are pronounced separately; there are hybrids which combine both methods).

1943: The construct was acr- + -onym.  It was borrowed from the German Akronym, constructed from the Ancient Greek ἄκρον (ákron) (end, peak) + ὄνυμα (ónuma) (name), deconstructed as acr(o)- (high; beginning) +‎ -onym (name) and on the model of the German nouns Homonym & Synonym, first attested in German in the early 1900s and in English in 1940 (although the linguistic practice predated this by at least several decades).  The nouns acronymophilia (an abnormal liking or tendency for the use of acronyms), acronymania (the enthusiastic creation and use of acronyms) and acronymophobia (morbid fear or dread of acronyms) are deployed (usually) in humor.  Those exhibiting symptoms of acronymophilia or acronymania (beyond being a mere acronymist) are likely suffering from acronymitis.  Acronym is a noun & verb, acronymed is a verb, acronymic & acronymous are adjectives and acronymically is an adverb; the noun plural is acronyms.

The acronym is a one of a number of subsets in what are known as “curtailed words”.  Quite when the first acronym was used isn’t known but the habits of people do suggest it’s likely something ancient and there are folk etymologies which offer acronymic expansions for common words including “fuck” “posh” & “shit” but they’re all undocumented and the earliest known use in English was a form of the Arabic أبجد (ʔabjad), the term for the traditional ordering of the Arabic script (from the first four letters: أ (ʔ), ب (b), ج (j), د (d)).  It was the twentieth century in which the acronym multiplied, earlier antipodean contributions including ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) and QANTAS (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services) which soon became the word Qantas, an unusual example in English of a “q” not being followed by a “u”.  Such words do appear in English language texts but they tend to be foreign borrowings including (1) qat (or khat) (a plant native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, often chewed for its stimulant effects, (2) qi (a term from Chinese philosophy referring to life force or energy), qibla (the direction Muslims face when praying, towards the Kaaba in Mecca and (4) qiviut (the soft under-wool of the musk-ox, valued when making warm clothing).

Other acronyms followed ANZAC but it was the upsurge in military activity during World War II (1939-1945) which saw the creation of literally thousands, some to endure, some to be rendered obsolete by circumstances or changes in technology and some genuine one-offs such as PLUTO (Pipeline under the ocean and originally P.L.U.T.O.).  PLUTO really should have been PLUTC because the many lines ran on the floor of the English Channel between England & France as a way of pumping fuel to the beachhead established by the D-Day landings (6 Jun 1944) but PLUTC obviously had little appeal so PLUTO it was.  While a clever idea, problems with the couplings meant the volumes achieved never came close to reaching what was theoretically possible.  The terms acronym, abbreviation and initialism are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings:

Acronym: (a general term for a shortened form of a word or phrase): An acronym is a type of abbreviation where the initial letters of a phrase are taken to form a new word (or one which duplicates an existing word and, not uncommonly, an earlier acronym) which is pronounced as one would a single word (although in commercial use, the pronunciation can be non-standard).  Examples of well known acronyms include “NASA” (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), “Laser” (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) and “UNESCO” (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization”.

Abbreviation (a general term for a shortened form of a word or phrase): An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase used to represent the full version.  Abbreviations can include acronyms and initialisms, but they can also be simple clippings, truncations or contractions and common examples include “Dr” (Doctor), “Prof” (Professor) and “Thu” (Thursday).

Initialism (An abbreviation where each letter is pronounced separately): An initialism is specific type of abbreviation formed from the first letters of a phrase, but unlike acronyms, each letter is pronounced separately.  Well-known initialisms include “CIA” (Central Intelligence Agency), “UAE” (United Arab Emirates) and “WHO” (World Health Organization).

Leslie Nielsen (1926-2010) ) in one of his muddles as President Harris, addressing the General Assembly (GA) of the United Nations (UN), treating an initialism as an acronym, Scary Movie 4 (2006).

The WHO is an example of the way in which the oral use of acronyms, abbreviations & initialisms evolves by way of practice and habit rather than defined rules or convention.  Obviously, in speech, once could speak of “the who” but it’s never done, the name always expressed in full which is most among the notoriously lazy speakers of the English language who tend usually to prefer the shortest form.  Perhaps it’s felt there could be some ambiguity using the word “who” for such a purpose although that seems a thin argument and it may be there was a sense “the who” might be thought flippant although initialisms are common replacements for formal terms; HMG (his (or her) Majesty’s government) is a standard in Whitehall and Westminster while JPII & JP2 routinely appeared in Vatican documents to refer to John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005).  Sometimes, the reason dictating the choice between spelling out the letters or forming a word is obvious:  The Bougainville Revolutionary Army was an armed secessionist movement formed in 1988 by some inhabitants of Bougainville Island who sought independence from Papua New Guinea (commonly referred to as PNG) and the group was always spoken of as the initialism the “bee-ah-eh” rather than the “Bra”, the latter definitely inappropriate.  By contrast, the armed Basque separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (“Basque Homeland and Liberty” or “Basque Country and Freedom; active 1959-2018) was always used as an acronym (pronounced et-ah rather than ey-tuh).

The BRA and the bra, not to be confused: Francis Ona (b circa 1953–2005; Bougainville secessionist leader) with fighters from the BRA (Bougainville Revolutionary Army) (left) and Lindsay Lohan in demi-cup bra, Terry Richardson (b 1965) photo-shoot for Love Magazine, 2012.  Of the military formation, BRA is an acronym while as a abbreviation, under ISO 3166-1, it's the alpha-3 country code for Brazil.  Bra is also an abbreviation which has become an English noun; it was a clipping of brassiere, from the French brassière (in the sense it was used of a camisole-like garment).  The French brassière was a singular form which is why in English one buys "a bra" rather than the "pair of bras" one would expect on the model of "pair of spectacles", pair of gloves" etc.

Sometimes though there is inventiveness.  In 1964 the Ford Motor Company released a version of their 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) FE V8 which featured a then novel (for Detroit) single overhead camshaft.  In industry parlance such a configuration was a “SOHC” but there was no accepted way to pronounce that a stand-alone word so the slang became “cammer” but others saw the possibility in Sohc and decided it was the “sock” so it was both an initialism and an acronym.  Acronyms can also be confused with something else.  In July 1968, John Gorton (1911-2002; Australian prime-minister 1968-1971), conducting a press conference in Djakarta (now Jakarta), was asked a question about “…general SEATO attitudes…” (SEATO was the South East Asian Treaty Organisation, a regional security arrangement (which included the UK & USA); it was created in 1954 but had become moribund years before its dissolution in 1977) to which he replied “Who’s this General Seato?”  The tale is not believed apocryphal.

There is no universal convention (an certainly no “rule”) about whether acronyms are written in upper case (NATO; UNESCO), lower case (radar, scuba) or camel case (a combination of both) (ChiPs) and the best advice is probably to follow to practice of the manufacturer, institution etc or follow one’s preferred style guide.  Quite how these practices evolve varies with the acronym, the most significant influence apparently the subjective sense of how anacronymic they’re perceived to have become and there’s also some evidence of regionalism; historically the US style guides tended to recommend all upper case for pronounced acronyms of four or fewer letters (NATO) while in the UK there was a preference to use the conventions of standard English (Nato) but the such is the US influence on the language that the upper case form is becoming more dominant.  Acronyms formed from beginning syllables are sometimes written in camel case (EpiPen) which appals some but in many cases they’re registered trademarks and that dictates what is correct; in the IT industry the mix of upper & lower case in all sorts of words has for decades been prevalent and such is the apparent randomness that the mix can’t be predicted.  Often “minor” words (“of”; “the”; “and” et al) are represented in lower case but this is not universal so “Out of Order” might appear either as “OOO” of “OoO”.  One thing which does seem to thankfully (mostly) to have vanished is the full stop (period) between letters; U.S.A. demanding a pointless additional three keystrokes.

Melcryptovestimentaphilia

Melcryptovestimentaphilia (pronounced mel-krip-toh-ves-tuh-muhn-tah-fil-ee-uh)

(1) A desire or fondness for women's black underwear.

(2) A compulsion to steal women's black underwear.

(3) Being able to achieve sexual arousal only when women's black underwear is in some way involved.

Mid-twentieth century:  A portmanteau word, the construct being mel- (from the Ancient Greek μέλας (mélas) (black; dark) (genitive μέλανος (mélanos)) + -crypto- (from the Ancient Greek κρυπτός (kruptós) (hidden, secret) + -vestimenta-, a back-formation from the Latin vestimentum (clothing; garment), the construct being vestīre (clothe), from vestis (a garment, gown, robe, vestment, clothing, vesture), from the primitive Indo-European wéstis, from wes- (to be dressed) +‎ -mentum (from the Latin suffix -menta (familiar in collective nouns such as armenta (herd, flock)) from the Proto-Italic -məntom, from the plural primitive Indo-European -mn̥the + -philia, from the Ancient Greek φιλία (philía) (fraternal) love).  It was used to form nouns conveying a liking or love for something and in clinical use was applied often to an abnormal or obsessive interest, especially if it came to interfere with other aspects of life (the general term is paraphilia).  The companion suffix is the antonym -phobia. The related forms were the prefixes phil- & philo- and the suffixes -philiac, -philic, -phile & -phily.  Melcryptovestimentaphilia & melcryptovestimentaphilism are nouns, and melcryptovestimentaphiliac is an adjective; the noun plural is melcryptovestimentaphiliacs.  Were the situation to demand an adverb, it would be melcryptovestimentaphilially.

Model Adriana Fenice (b 1994) in black underwear.

The origin of melcryptovestimentaphilia is unknown but it was more likely a coining for humorous purposes than something document in clinical psychiatry.  The word appears in An Almanac of Words at Play (1975) by US philologist & writer Willard Espy (1910–1999) which is one of the languages more eclectic gatherings of words, phrases, fables, fragments of verse, parodies, anagrams, clever sayings, palindromes, fractured & tortured English, graffiti, typographical blunders (a polite description of what James Joyce (1882–1941) called “bitched type”), anecdotes, appalling stanzas, coined words, epitaphs, slang, collective nouns, last words of the dying (including the apocryphal which are among the best) and linguistic curiosities such as malapropisms, spoonerisms, macaronies, oxymorons, acrostics, acronyms, Clerihews, lipograms and rhopalic verse.  It’s one of those books which can be read either in lineal form or by just opening it at random to see what one finds.

Lingerie, the DSM and the ICD

Unsurprisingly, melcryptovestimentaphilia appears in neither the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) nor the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD), not because the syndrome doesn’t exist but because the profession’s modern view of such things is such a focus should not in itself be considered a disorder, unless accompanied by distress or impairment although it was noted by many that if even a nominally “harmless” fetish became an obsession, it certainly could impair healthy sexuality.  Since the DSM-5 (2013), a diagnosis of paraphilia (a type of mental disorder characterized by a preference for or obsession with unusual sexual practices) was assigned to individuals who experience sexual arousal from objects or a specific part of the body not typically regarded as erotic and presumably any body part or object can be a fetish, the most frequently mentioned including underwear, shoes, stockings, gloves, hair and latex.   Fetishists may use the desired article for sexual gratification in the absence of a partner although it’s recorded this may involve nothing more than touching smelling the item and the condition appears to manifest almost exclusively in men, the literature suggesting a quarter of fetishistic men are homosexual but caution needs always to be attached to these numbers (because fetishism is something which many happily enjoy their whole adult lives, it never comes to the attention of doctors and a high proportion of the statistical material about fetishism is from patients self-reporting).  The statistics in a sense reflect thus not the whole cohort of the population with the condition but rather those who either want to talk about it or are responding to surveys.  That is of course true of other mental illnesses but is exaggerated with fetishism because so much lies with the spectrum of normal human behavior and the definitional limitations in the DSM-5 reflect this, including three criteria for Fetishistic Disorder and three specifiers:

Criterion 1: Over a six month period, the individual has experienced sexual urges focused on a non-genital body part, or inanimate object, or other stimulus, and has acted out urges, fantasies, or behaviors.

Criterion 2: The fantasies, urges, or behaviors cause distress, or impairment in functioning.

Criterion 3: The fetishized object is not an article of clothing employed in cross dressing, or a sexual stimulation device, such as a vibrator.

Specifiers for the diagnosis include the type of stimulus which is the focus of attention (1) the non-genital or erogenous areas of the body (famously feet) and this condition is known also as partialism (a preoccupation with a part of the body rather than the whole person), (2) Non-living object(s) (such as shoes), (3) specific activities (such as smoking during sex).

Fan de sous-vêtements noirs, Lindsay Lohan.  Women often choose the color of their underwear on the basis of the clothing with which it will be worn and beige is a big seller because it blends best with the skin of the white population (although in a nod to the DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) imperative, the hue is no longer advertised as "skin-tone").  Black is popular because much black clothing is worn but there's evidence to suggest women really like both navy blue and gun-metal grey even though both are niche products compared with black, white & beige.

It was Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) who admitted that, lawfulness aside, as animals, the only truly aberrant sexual behavior in humans could be said to be its absence (something which the modern asexual movement re-defines rather than disproves).  It seemed to be in that spirit the DSM-5 was revised to treat a behaviour such as melcryptovestimentaphilia (and many other “harmless” manifestations) as “normal” and thus within the purview of the manual only to the extent of being described, clinical intervention no longer required.  Whether all psychiatrists agree with the new permissiveness isn’t known but early reports suggest there’s nothing in the DSM-5-TR (2022) to suggest those with even an obsessional fondness for black underwear will soon again be labeled as deviants.  Of course, those who feel compelled to steal the stuff or engage in anything non-consensual with the stuff as a theme will be guilty of something but their condition is, in a legal sense, incidental to the offence.

Dogdish

Dogdish (pronounced dog-dish or dawg-dish)

(1) The dish in which a pet dog’s meals are served (probably a rare use because “dog bowl” is the more common (an accurate) descriptor.

(2) In US use, the style of simple hubcap used in the 1960s & 1970s for low-cost vehicles (especially for fleet operators such as police forces) or certain high-performance cars (including those ordered for competition use).

1940s or 1950s (in the automotive context): The word dog pre-dates the eleventh century and was from the Middle English dogge (akin to the Scots dug), from the Old English dogga & docga, of uncertain origin.  The documentary evidence from a thousand years ago is unsurprisingly scant but does suggest “dog” was used to mean something like the modern “cur” or “mutt” (ie a common or stray dog as opposed to one of good breeding), later refined to be applied to “large or stocky canines”.  The Old English dogga & docga may have been a pet-form diminutive of dog, the appended suffix -ga also used of pet frogs (frocga) and pigs (picga).  The ultimate source of dog (and the meaning) is uncertain but there may be some link with the Old English dox (dark, swarthy) or the Proto-West Germanic dugan (to be suitable), the latter the origin of the Old English dugan (to be good, worthy, useful), the English dow, the Dutch deugen and the German taugen.  It’s all speculative but the most supported theory appears to be it was likely a children’s epithet for dogs meaning something like “good creature”.  Less supported is the notion of a relationship with docce (stock, muscle), from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā (round mass, ball, muscle, doll), from which English gained dock (stumpy tail) and ultimately (in that context) docking (the removal of a tail.  In England, as late as the early fifteenth century, the common words used of domestic canines was hound, from the Old English hund while dog tended to be restricted to a sub-type resembling the modern mastiff and bulldog.  In the way English tends towards shorter forms, by the sixteenth century dog had become the general word with hound increasingly a specialist word used of hunt dogs (accounting for all those English pubs called “The fox & hounds”.  At the same time, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff although this use didn’t persist as “dog” became more generalized.  Etymologists note that despite the overlaps in form and meaning, the English word was not related to the Mbabaram dog.  Dish predated the tenth century and was from the Middle English dish & disch, from the Old English disċ (plate; bowl; dish), from the Proto-West Germanic disk (table; dish), from the Latin discus, from the Ancient Greek δίσκος (dískos) (quoit, disc, discus, dish, trencher, round mirror, reliquary, marigold).  For centuries the orthodox etymology of dískos was that it was from δίκ-σκος (dík-skos), from δικεῖν (dikeîn) (to cast) but more recent scholarship have cast doubts on this on the grounds the suffix -σκο- was rare in nominal derivation.  The alternative suggestion was δισκ- (disk-) was a variant of δικεῖν (dikeîn) (of pre-Greek origin) rather than a direct formation.  Dogdish is a noun; the noun plural is dogdishes.

The dogdish hubcap

Dogdishes (also as dog dish or dog-dish and there’s even a faction which calls them “pie pans”, the collective being “poverty caps”) are a basic, unadorned style of hubcap used with steel wheels (“steelies” to the tappet-heads).  Although some steel wheels could be stylish (notably those offered by the US manufacturers in the 1960s & 1970s and those used on the later Jaguar E-Types (XKE) and some Daimler & Jaguar XJs, in passenger vehicles, lighter aluminium wheels have in recent decades become the standard fitting for all but the cheapest models in a range.  However, the steel wheel possesses a number of virtues as well as being cheaper than aluminium units, notably their resistance to impact injuries and ease of repair, the latter the reason they’re still the choice for many police vehicles and rental fleets.  The steel wheel is inherently heavier so not the ideal choice for high performance use but the strength is attractive for off-road users who appreciate being able to effect repairs in remote places with little more equipment than a hammer.

1929 Mercedes-Benz 460 Nürburg (W08, 1928-1933); a Nürburg was the first "Popemobile" (supplied by the factory to Pius XI (1857–1939; pope 1922-1939) and the official car of Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958, the future Pope Pius XII (1939-1958)) while Apostolic Nuncio to Germany (1920–1930).  The wheels were fashioned in timber and the hubcaps were of stainless steel.  Wooden wheels were by 1929 already archaic although some were still being produced as late as 1939.  Typically, hickory was favored because of its strength, flexibility and shock resistance which made it able to cope with the stresses imposed by the often rough roads of the era.

1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham.  During the 1930s, for various reasons (dirt protection, aerodynamics and, increasingly, aesthetics), hubcaps grew to become "wheel covers" and in the hands of US stylists in the 1950s they became an integral component of the whole design, used for product differentiation and the establishment of a model's place in the hierarchy.  Compared with the excesses which would be seen in the 1960s & 1970s, those on the 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham were almost restrained.      

The origin of the hubcap was, fairly obviously, “a cap for hub”, something which dates from the age of horse-drawn carts.  Although they would later become something decorative, hubcaps began as a purely function fitting designed to ensure the hub mechanism was protected from dirt and moisture because removing a wheel when the hub was caked in mud with bolts “rusted on” could be a challenge.  In the twentieth century the practice was carried over to the automobile, initially without much change but as wheels evolved from the wooden-spoked to solid steel (and even in the 1920s some experimented with aluminium), the hubcaps became larger because the securing bolts were more widely spaced.  This meant they became a place to advertise so manufacturers added their name and before long, especially in the US, the humble hubcap evolved into the “wheel-cover”, enveloping the whole circle and they became a styling feature, designs ranging from the elegant to the garishly ornate and some were expensive: in 1984 a set of replacement “wire” wheel covers for a second generation Cadillac Seville (the so-called “bustle-back”, 1980-1985) listed at US$995.00 if ordered as a Cadillac part-number and then that was a lot of money.

1969 COPO Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.  Only 69 units in this configuration were built for not only was the all-aluminium ZL1 a highly-strung engine not suited to street use, it added US$4160.15 to a V8 Camaro's base price of US$2727.00 restricting demand to those who really did want to run on drag strips.  The basic interior fittings and dogdish hubcaps saved buyers a few dollars. 

But the dogdishes persisted because police forces and other fleet operators ordered cars with them in large volumes and many thrifty private buyers opted for them too.  As the cult they are today however, the origin lies in their appearance on muscle cars during the 1960s.  Sometimes their inclusion was as a cost-cutting measure (such as the 1968 Plymouth Road Runner) or because the vehicle was being produced for competition (such as the Chevrolet Camaros fitted with 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) engines via General Motors’ (GM) COPO (Central Office Production Order) scheme used usually for volume runs of things like vans for utility companies or police interceptors with the high-performance but not the "dress-up" options).  The apparent anomaly of the high-performance Camaros running the dogdishes (then sometimes referred to as “poverty caps”) was that the buyer would anyway be fitting their own wheel/tyre combination so the vehicle was supplied ex-factory with the cheapest option.  The photographic record suggests that in truth, when new, relatively few muscle cars prowled the street with dogdishes still attached, something more stylish usually fitted at some point during ownership but they’ve become so emblematic of the era that reproductions are now available for those undertaking restorations or creating their own clone (tribute/faux/fake/replica etc); authenticity can be emulated.

Dogdish owner: Lindsay Lohan leaving a Lincoln Town Car with Chloe the Maltese (which lived to the reasonable age of 15), May 2008, New York City.  He first dog, also a Maltese, she called Gucci, the name explained by the puppy arriving simultaneously with her “first pair of Gucci boots”.  The dog promptly chewed up the boots.

Usually, in the collector market, what commands the highest price is a vehicle which left the factory fitted with the most options, the “fully-optioned” machine the most desirable (although the odd extra-cost item like an automatic transmission or a vinyl roof can detract), the dogdishes don’t deter buyers, most of who would probably admit the various styled steel wheels of the era were better looking.  In August 2024, the most highly optioned 1969 Dodge Daytona in the most desirable mechanical configuration (the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Hemi V8 & four-speed manual transmission combination) achieved US$3.36 million at Mecum’s auction at Monterey, California.  The price was impressive but what attracted the interest of the amateur sociologists was the same Daytona in May 2022 sold for US$1.3 million when offered by Mecum at their auction held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.  The US$1.3 million was at the time the highest price then paid for a Hemi Daytona (of the 503 Daytonas built, only 70 were fitted with the Hemi and of those, only 22 had the four-speed manual) and the increase in value by some 250% was obviously the result of something other than the inflation rate.

The US$3.36 million 1969 Dodge Daytona.  When new, the Daytona (and the more numerous companion "winged warrior" Plymouth Superbird) was sometimes difficult for dealers to sell, the wild body modifications not appealing to all.  Consequently, so resorted to returning them to the same visual appearance as standard Dodge Chargers.  Now, the process is reversed and a number of Chargers have been transformed into "clone" Daytonas.   

The consensus was that although the internet had made just about all markets inherently global, local factors can still influence both the buyer profile and their behaviour, especially in the hothouse environment of a live auction.  Those who frequent California’s central coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco include a demographic not typically found in the mid-west and among other distinguishing characteristics there are more rich folk, able to spend US$3.36 million on a half-century old car they’ll probably never drive.  That’s how the collector market now works.

1971 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda: US$410,000 in 1999; US$3.36 million in 2014, the appreciation due to (1) the supply & demand curve and (2) the largess of the US Federal Reserve.  For those wanting "the look", reproduction stainless steel dogdishes are available for US$258.00 (set of four). 

Despite the result, the green Daytona’s result wasn’t even the highest price a Chrysler product had achieved at auction, that mark set in Seattle in 2014 when one of the five four-speed manual 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles (there were another seven automatics) sold US$3.78 million.  While the outcome of such a rarity was not indicative of broader market trends (although there have been stellar performances for classic Mercedes-Benz and pre-1973 Ferraris), it did illustrate the effect of the increase in the global money supply in the wake of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2012) when central banks essentially not only “replaced” much of money the rich had lost gambling but gave them a healthy bonus as well.  The Hemi ‘Cuda in December 1999 had (albeit in its original, un-restored state sold at auction for US$410,000 so the successful US$3.36 million bid 14 years on was an increase of more than 800%, the sort of RoI (return on investment) which would once have impressed even Richard "Dick" Fuld (b 1946), chairman & CEO of Lehman Brothers (1850-2008).  Time however will tell if the money spent in 2014 was a good investment because when another four-speed 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was offered for auction in 2021, despite predictions it would go for as much as US$6.5 million, it was passed-in at US$4.8 million without reaching the reserve.  The car was fitted with Chrysler’s “Rallye” wheels rather than the steelie/dogdish combo but this was not thought to be of any significance.

Mecum Auctions catalogue image of 1971 four-speed Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda convertible with 15" Rallye wheels.  Passed in on a high-bid of US$4.8 million, it'll be interesting to see if, when next offered, steelies & dogdishes are fitted.