Luddite

Luddite (pronounced luhd-ahyt)

(1) A member of any of various bands of workers in England (1811–1816) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment.

(2) Someone opposed or resistant to new technologies or technological change.

(3) Of or relating to the Luddites

1805–1815: Said to be named after a Mr Ned Ludd, a Leicestershire worker who in the late eighteenth century, a fit of rage destroyed mechanical knitting machines he believed were threatening his livelihood by displacing him from his job.  There is doubt (1) whether there was an actual mill worker called Ned Ludd and (2) whether the famous act of industrial sabotage really happened in the circumstances described.  The origin of the name Ludd can be traced to the ancient Anglo-Saxon tribes of the British Isles and was occupational, used by those employed as pages or servants, the Old English Ladde a term which described a household servant.  That’s generally accepted among genealogists but there are sources which note that in the Old English and Scotch, the word lade meant “a canal or duct for water” and that Ludd evolved as a geographical name, used to describe one who worked near or lived on the banks of a waterway.  It’s entirely possible the two forms evolved separately and while the name was probably in use earlier, the first traces of it in the parish records of England appear circa 1100 variously as Ladda, Ladde, le Ladd, Ludd & Ludde.  Variations in spelling were common and it wasn’t until the late Middle English that a widespread standardization can be said to have begun and because elements of Greek, the various flavours of Latin, French and Germanic languages mixed with the native tongues of the British Isles, the influences were many, the differences in pronunciation accounting for at least some of the variations.  Related to what would become the lineage of Ludd included Ladd, Ladde, Laddey, Ladds, Lade, Ladey, Laddy and others.  The -ite suffix was from the French -ite, from the Old French, from the Latin -ītēs, from the Ancient Greek -ῑ́της (-ī́tēs).  It had a wide application including (1) the formation of nouns denoting the followers or adherents of a individual, doctrine or movement etc, (2) the formation of nouns denoting descendants of a certain historic (real or mythical) figure (widely used of biblical identities), (3) the formations of demonyms, (4) in geology the formation of nouns denoting rocks or minerals, (5) in archeology, the formation of nouns denoting fossil organisms, (6) in biology & pathology to form nouns denoting segments or components of the body or an organ of the body, (7) in industry & commerce to form nouns denoting the product of a specified process or manufactured product & (8) in chemistry to form names of certain chemical compounds (historically especially salts or esters of acids with names with the suffix –ous).  Luddite & Ludditism are nouns; the noun plural is Luddites.

The Luddites were a social movement of textile workers in England during the early nineteenth century who protested against the introduction into factories of machinery, their concern being their jobs would be lost and they and their families would face destitution because they would be forced into manual labor at a very low rate of pay.  Real though the movement was, there is no documentary evidence to support the suggestion a Mr Ned Ludd was a real figure associated with the Luddites and the English parish records of the era are comprehensive and regarded as accurate.  Historians have trawled through the ledgers covering the relevant decades and have been unable to verify that a Mr Ned Ludd was ever employed in the factories.  The consensus is that the identity of Ned Ludd was a construct with which the cause of the workers could be identified although whether the name emerged organically from the movement or was created by a writer as a narrative device is unknown.

Lindsay Lohan with sledge-hammer demonstrating a Luddite technique by attacking Volvo.  This wasn’t an industrial protest and was actually an event staged to protest about the cancellation of a television show.  Actually, a sledge-hammer or some other suitable tool may have been what the Luddites used for their sabotage.  English picked up sabotage from the French saboter (deliberately to damage, wreck or botch), used originally to refer to the tactic used in industrial disputes by workers wearing the wooden shoes called sabots who disrupted production in various ways.  The persistent myth is that the origin of the term lies in the practice of workers throwing the wooden sabots into factory machinery to interrupt production but the tale appears apocryphal, one account even suggesting sabot-clad workers were simply considered less productive than others who had switched to leather shoes, roughly equating the term sabotage with inefficiency.

Even the extent to which weavers (and other factory workers) actually sabotaged machines in the manner of the legendary of Ned Ludd is unclear and while it clear from the reports of the time there were instances of sabotage, it does appear they were sporadic and opportunistic acts and certainly not part of a planned movement, much less a revolutionary one.  However, the term has endured to be applied broadly to encompass anyone who opposes new technology or social change and it’s now rarely used with any hit the recipient is contemplating violent resistance.  In this sense, the term is often used in a pejorative way to describe individuals or groups who are seen as reactionary or obstructionist.  Ludditism can exist even at high technological levels, some users accustomed to the familiarity of certain apps or operating systems resistant to change, usually on the basis that the change offers no benefits and sometimes even brings disadvantages.

Tamper

Tamper (pronounced tam-per)

(1) To meddle, especially for the purpose of altering, damaging, or misusing (usually followed by with).

(2) To make changes in something, especially in order to falsify (usually followed by with).

(3) Secretly or improperly to engage in something; to engage in underhand or corrupt dealings, especially in order to influence improperly (usually followed by with); to use corrupt practices such as bribery or blackmail.

(4) In the profession of blasting, an employee who tamps (to fill a hole containing an explosive with dirt or clay before blasting) or a device used to tamp.

(5) As “jury tampering”, an attempt by various means to influence a member or members of a jury.

(6) A device used to pack down tobacco in a pipe.

(7) In the construction of thermo-nuclear weapons, a casing around the core to increase specific efficiency by reflecting neutrons and delaying the expansion.

(8) In rail transport, a railway vehicle used to tamp down ballast.

(9) In law, to attempt to practice or administer something (especially medicine) without sufficient knowledge or qualifications (obsolete).

(10) In North America, to discuss future contracts with a player, against the rules of various sanctioning bodies in professional sports.

1560–1570: From the Middle English tamper, From the Middle French temprer (to temper, mix, meddle) and a doublet of temper.  The word began in Middle English as a verb, a figurative use of tamper “to work in clay etc, mixing it thoroughly”, probably originally a variant of the verb temper (and that original spelling persisted in places as late as the late eighteenth century), the shift to “tamper” possibly influenced by the dialectal pronunciation of workmen engaged in the process.  The noun tamper (one employed to tamp) emerged circa 1865 as an agent noun from the verb and almost simultaneously was used also as a descriptor of devices used for tamping.  The adjective tamperproof (also tamper-proof) dates from 1886 and the related forms (anti-tampering, tamper-evident, tamper-resistant) were coined as technology evolved.  Tamper & tampering are nouns & verbs, tamperer is a noun, tamperproof is a noun & adjective and tampered & tamperest are verbs; the common noun plural is tamperers.

The (almost) tamper-proof SCRAM

Alcohol monitoring bracelets are claimed by the manufacturer to be tamper-proof (as opposed to the less confident “tamper-resistant” sometimes used) and on the basis of the findings of the last decade-odd they may be close to correct.  The devices used to be marketed as the Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor (SCRAM) but SCRAM Systems re-branded as Alcohol Monitoring Systems Inc (AMS) and change the product name to AMS bracelets although in real-world use, both AMS SCRAM bracelets and the old SCRAM remain commonly heard.  Quite why they’ve always been called bracelets when, being attached around the ankle, they should properly be called anklets, is one of the mysteries of modern English.  One reason a SCRAM is so hard successfully to tamper with is its very simplicity: It keeps track of the wearer's alcohol intake by a sample of their sweat.  When someone drinks liquor, some 1% of it is emitted through the skin's pores and when these molecules are detected by a SCRAM’s sensors, the content is measured and recorded.  The sensors pass the data to an analysis chip which is calibrated to gauge exactly how much alcohol was consumed, this information transmitted wirelessly to an AMS server which hourly passes the findings to whichever court (or their agent) ordered the fitting of the SCRAM.

Lindsay Lohan in AMS SCRAM bracelet.

The simplicity of the process means that even if the wearer tampers with it by plunging their foot into cold water (thereby stopping the sweating), even that would flag a waring because the reading would be recorded as aberrant in the hourly data transmission and the inconsistency would trigger a response from the court.  Apparently, offenders are informed of the efficiency of the device when fitted but the manufacturer has noted some innovative attempts to bluff the booze box.  Some have tried to place cellophane, aluminium foil, animal membrane or condoms between skin sensor, others attempting to emulate human skin by using baloney, salami, sliced ham or even chicken skin.  All attempts have been defeated however because SCRAMs include other sensors including one which monitors temperature and another which triggers an alarm if the strap is stretched beyond a certain point.  Human skin has specific properties and if variations on an acceptable range of those parameters are detected, there’s an infrared beam which measures the volume of light reflected by the skin.  Cellophane, foil and other surfaces all trip the infrared alarm as they reflect differently than human skin.

Another popular attempt at tampering turned out to be known as “spiking the bracelet”, the preferred technique being liberally to spray the ankle with a perfume or other topical substance known to have a high alcohol content.  What this does is induce the sensor to report an impossibly high alcohol level and although it certainly masks any actual alcoholic intake, such tampering is itself a violation of the terms imposed by the court and an offender can be brought before a judge who may revoke the order imposing the use of the SCRAM (regarded as a privilege) and impose an immediate custodial sentence.

Incarnadine

Incarnadine (pronounced in-kahr-nuh-dahyn, in-kahr-nuh-din or in-kahr-nuh-deen)

(1) A color classically blood-red but for commercial purposes also described as variations in the range of crimson, flesh-colored, pale pink etc.

(2) To make incarnadine; to tinge or stain with a reddish hue.

(3) In figurative use, bloodstained, bloody

1585–1595: From the Middle French, the feminine of incarnadin (flesh-colored), from the dialectal Italian incarnadino, a variant of incarnatino (carnation; flesh-colored), the construct being incarnat(o) (embodied; made flesh (the sense most familiar in ecclesiastical use in the form “incarnate”, from the Late Latin incarnātus (made flesh, incarnate)) + -ino.  The Italian suffix -ino was from the Latin -īnus, from the primitive Indo-European -iHnos (and comparable with the English -ine).  It was used (1) to form adjectival diminutives, (2) to indicate a profession, (3) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin and (4) to indicate tools or instruments.  Incarnato was from Ecclesiastical Latin and the Late Latin incarnātus (having been made incarnate), the perfect passive participle of incarnō (to become or make incarnate; to make into flesh), the construct being in- (in, inside, within) + carō (flesh, meat; body (and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ker & sker- (to cut off)) + -ō (the suffix used to form regular first-conjugation verbs).  The noun and verb were derived from the adjective and the senses (1) of the blood-red colour of raw flesh, (2) the figurative blood-stained; bloody (most famously as “blood on one’s hands”) and the noun use (blood-red colour of raw flesh) are the legacy of William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) use of the word as a verb in the blood-soaked Macbeth (circa 1606).  In the technical language of the Roman Catholic Church, incardinate has the specific technical meanings (1) to raise someone to the rank of cardinal & (2) to enroll someone as a priest attached to a particular church.  Incarnadine is a noun, verb & adjective and incarnadined & incarnadining are verbs & adjectives; the noun plural is incarnadines.

The Shakespeare effect

William Shakespeare: Macbeth Act 2, Scene 2, 54–60:

[Knocking within] Macbeth:

Whence is that knocking?
How is't with me, when every noise appalls me?
What hands are here? Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

Shakespeare wasn’t actually unusual in his inventive ways with words, English then far from standardized and such “dictionaries” as existed sometimes offering different spellings and conflicting meanings.  Shakespeare probably felt no more entitled than any other writer to kick the language around but because what he wrote is celebrated as a core of the Western literary canon, what he did is both better remembered and granted a certain authority.  His attitude was probably something like the “low-level peaks & pokes” database administrators used to be able to use to solve immediate problems, even if such tricks weren't in the manual.  So, in the early 1600s, “the multitudinous seas incarnadine” would have been novel and what Shakespeare did was make a verb of incarnadine, a sixteenth century adjective meaning "pink", the sense derived from the Latin root carn- ("of flesh" and thus, in its derivatives, "the color of flesh").  “To incarnadine” thus meant turn something pink or light red and in the bard’s vivid imagery Macbeth imagines his bloodied hands turning Neptune's green ocean.  Under the influence of Shakespeare’s text, the verb and adjective have both come to refer to the color of blood itself (a range of crimson tones) rather than to the light red of a blood-stained sea.  This extends to the play as psychological drama, Macbeth coming to realize that no matter what, his guilt can never be washed off, even if the blood can be cleaned from his hands.  Instead, his guilt will poison the world around him for which the wide ocean is a metaphor and already in his hallucinations he sees his hands plucking out his eyes in retribution for the murder of Duncan.

Shakespeare would have approved the verbing: Lindsay Lohan incarnadining her lips, Playboy magazine photo-shoot, 2011.

However, for whatever reason,  Shakespeare didn’t use the word again although there was no shortage of death and blood in the dozen-odd plays he wrote after Macbeth and in all that he wrote, it’s the only occasion on which the word appears.  Maybe he didn’t like the effect or perhaps his critics were critical but it's surprising it didn't re-appear because his opportunities to seek some alternative to “red”, “crimson” or “scarlet” were not infrequent, some 74 unfortunate souls dying in his plays in the stage-scenes alone with the inherently bloody business of stabbing a popular means of dispatch.  Not surprisingly then, the word “blood” appears in Shakespeare's works 673 times.  The author’s neglect of incarnadine was matched by that of the general population and since the nineteenth century its most usual appearance in text has been in lists of obsolete and antique words and were it not for lexicographers preserving it thus, it might now be regarded as extinct which, for most practical purposes, it otherwise is.

Crooked Hillary Clinton in incarnadine pantsuit, a practical color in that one can wipe the blood from one’s hands without it showing.

Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth a central character responsible for much violence and bloodshed yet one who avoids blood literally ending up on her hands.  It’s Lady Macbeth who goads and manipulates her husband into killing King Duncan so he may seize the throne of Scotland and make her queen.  She even plans the murder, taking part in the plot by making it appear others are responsible.  After the foul deed, Lady Macbeth begins to suffer from her role in the murder, haunted by visions of blood on her hands which she tries to wash off, symbolizing her inability to rid herself of the guilt she feels.

Color contrast ratios of incarnadine against while and black backgrounds.

It is a truly lovely color, a deep rich red less orange than the classic brick, darker than a bright cherry and lighter than a Merlot although those disturbed by such things might see also the color of raw steak and spilled blood.  It has survived as a technical term used in color charts, incarnadine listed as Hex #aa0022 (Color Mixture: Pink and Red & Color Hue/Base color: Red).  In the RGB color code model, Hex #aa0022 Color Code is created after adding 66.67% red color, 0% green color and 13.33% blue color.  Hex #aa0022 Color code in the CMYK color (process color) code model is generated after subtraction of 0% cyan, 100% magenta, 80% yellow and 33% black.  It’s a handy word for the manufacturers because it provides something different for the color charts, other variations of red including blood red, brick red, burgundy, cardinal, carmine, carnation, cerise, cherry, cherry red, Chinese red, cinnabar, claret, crimson, damask, fire brick, fire engine red, flame, flamingo, fuchsia, garnet, geranium, gules, hot pink, incarnadine, Indian red, magenta, ruddle, maroon, misty, mantle, rose, nacarat, oxblood, pillar-box red, pink, flush, Pompeian red, poppy, raspberry, red violet, rose, rouge, ruby, ruddy, salmon, sanguine, scarlet, shocking pink, rust, stammel, strawberry, Turkey red, rubricate, bloody, blooming, Venetian red, vermillion, vinaceous, vinous, violet & wine.

Scavenge

Scavenge (pronounced skav-inj)

(1) To take or gather (something hopefully usable) from discarded material.

(2) To cleanse of filth, as in cleaning a street (in the UK “scavenger” was once a term for a municipal street sweeper).

(3) In internal combustion engines (1) to expel burnt gases from a cylinder

(4) As “oil scavenger”, a device used to remove excess or unwanted oil from certain areas of various types of engine.

(5) In metallurgy, to purify molten metal by introducing a substance, usually by bubbling a suitable gas through it (the gas may be inert or may react with the impurities).

(6) In democratic politics (in preferential voting systems), to negotiate with other candidates or party machines to obtain preferences (usually on a swap basis).

(7) To act as a scavenger; to search (applied especially to creatures which look for food among the carrion killed by others).

(8) In chemistry, to act as a scavenger (for atoms, molecules, ions, radicals, etc).

(9) In historical UK use, a child employed to pick up loose cotton from the floor in a cotton mill.

1635–45: A back formation from scavenger, from the Middle English scavager, from the Anglo-Norman scawageour (one who had to do with scavage, inspector, tax collector), from the Old Northern French scawage & escauwage (scavenge) and the Old French scavage & escavage, an alteration of escauvinghe (the Medieval Latin forms were scewinga & sceawinga), from the Old Dutch scauwōn (to inspect, to examine, to look at).  The verb scavenge in the 1640s was first a transitive verb in the sense of “cleanse from filth” while the intransitive meaning “search through rubbish for usable food or objects” was in use at least by the 1880s and the idea of “extracting & collecting anything usable from discarded material” dates from 1922.  Scavenge is a verb, scavenged, scavengering & scavenging are verbs & adjectives, scavengeable is an adjective and scavenger & scavengerism are nouns; the noun plural is scavengers.

Lindsay Lohan: Fear of scavengers.

The noun scavenger dates from the 1540s and described originally “a person hired to remove refuse from streets” (a job which would come later to be known as a “street sweeper”, a modification of the late fourteenth century Middle English scavager & scawageour, the title of the employee of London city who originally was charged with collecting tax on goods sold by foreign merchants.  The origin of that title was the Middle English scavage & scauage, from the circa 1400 Anglo-French scawage (toll or duty exacted by a local official on goods offered for sale in one's precinct), from the Old North French escauwage (inspection), from a Germanic source (it was related to the Old High German scouwon and the Old English sceawian (to look at, inspect) and from the same lineage came the modern English “show”.  In the 1590s it came into use in zoology to refer to creatures which look for food among the carrion killed by others.  The game of “scavenger hunt” seems to have gained the name in 1937 and one form of the word which went extinct was scavagery (street-cleaning, removal of filth from streets), noted in 1851.

Oil scavenge systems

In an internal combustion engine, an oil scavenger is a device used to remove excess or unwanted oil from certain areas of the engine, typically from the bottom of the engine's crankcase or oil pan.  The oil scavenger can help to prevent excessive oil pressure or foaming, something to be avoided because in high-performance engines operating under extreme conditions, excessive pressure can collapse pistons, a destructive process.  The core of the system is a scavenge-pump (some even suction mechanisms) which draw the excess oil from the engine and directs it back into the oil pan or an external reservoir.

Internal combustion engine with dry sump and oil scavenging system.

The classic use of oil salvage is in dry sump lubrication systems in which the oil that is supplied by the pressure pump drains off the engine as a frothy, thoroughly-mixed air-oil suspension into a relatively shallow, low-capacity, sump that is often contoured around the rotating crankshaft-assembly.  In this system, there are several scavenge pump stages that pump the aerated oil from the “dry” sump and into the external oil tank that has the dual-assignment of (1) storing the major amount of the engine oil supply and (2) de-aerating the mixture being returned by the scavenge pump(s).  After lubricating the various components, the oil flows into the sump at the bottom of the engine and from here the scavenge stages of the pump retrieves the highly-aerated oil, delivering the mix through a filter and then to a centrifugal and boundary-layer air-oil separation system in the oil tank. The air extracted from the scavenge oil exits the system through the breather and the result is cool, clean oil into the external tank ready for recirculation.

Aircraft turbine engine with oil scavenging system.

Oil salvage systems are especially critical in aviation.  In car engines, used oil is able to drain down into the oil pan, where it can be circulated back through the engine or cooling system but at altitude, gravity or air pressure may not be sufficient for oil to drain on its own and for these reasons aircraft are equipped with scavenge pumps to help pull the used oil out of the engine into a reservoir for cooling, de-aerating, and recirculation.  In hard-to-empty areas that are far from the oil sump (like the rear of the engine) a scavenge pump prevents the pooling of used oil.  The aircraft scavenge pump system does not have its own power source, but operates on a designated line from the main electrical system and on bigger aircraft powered by turbines with large oil capacity, as many as six scavenge pumps may operate in unison.

Harass

Harass (pronounced huh-ras (U) or har-uhs (Non-U))

(1) To disturb or bother persistently; torment, as with troubles or cares; pester.

(2) To intimidate or coerce, as with persistent demands or threats.

(3) To subject another to unwelcome sexual advances.

(4) In military and paramilitary jargon, to trouble by repeated attacks, incursions etc, as in war or hostilities; harry; raid.

1610–1620: From the French harasser (to tire out; to vex), the origin obscure but probably from the Middle French harasser (to harry, harass), a verbal derivative of harace & harache from the Frankish hara (here, from this side) which existed in the Old French as harer (to set a dog upon prey) and of Germanic origin; the Old High German was hera & harēn (to cry out), the Middle Dutch was here.  The alternative, less supported, etymology suggests a derivation from the Old French harier (to harry), related to harace (a basket made of cords) & harasse (a very heavy and large shield).  The now obsolete meaning “to lay waste, to devastate” dates from the 1620s whereas the sense "to vex by repeated attacks" from the French harasser (to tire out, to vex) emerged in the early sixteenth century and the noun harassment (action of harassing; state of being harassed) was first noted in 1753.  Harass, as applied to mind or body, suggesting the infliction of the weariness that comes from the continuance or repetition of trying experiences, so that there is not time for rest, appeared in dictionaries first in 1897.  The distinction of meaning is that to feel harassed doesn’t (necessarily) depend on an identifiable act of harassment by others.  Synonyms, varying by context, include badger, vex, plague, hector, annoy, besiege, harangue, beset, burn, raid, tease, intimidate, pester, torment, persecute, heckle, hassle, hound, maraud, bait, distress, exhaust, strain, vex, foray, worry & devil.  Harass is a noun & verb, harassing is an adjective & noun, harasser & harassment are nouns, harassed & harassable are adjectives and harassingly is an adverb; the noun plural is harasses.

Another class-identifier

Harass was traditionally pronounced in English as har-uhs, with stress on the first syllable but a newer pronunciation, huh-ras, with stress on the second, has become more common in the last half-century, especially in North America.  Although there’s no evidence, the speculation is the newer form emerged because it’s easier to say and there’s much support for the view, the feeling it happened just as kuhn-trov-er-see emerged as more palatable alternative to the traditional and proper kon-truh-vur-see.  Most dictionaries now acknowledge both forms are correct, the cross-cutting cleavages being both trans-Atlantic and generational, the inference generally drawn that the younger version will continue to gain adherents while the traditional form will survive among pedants and as a class-identifier.

Cross-vested harassment complaints: Ms Lohan & Mr LaBella.

In what sounded a very New York City sort of affair, Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) and Christian LaBella (b 1987) in September 2012 each filed harassment complaints with against each other after they were interviewed by police about a squabble in a hotel room, the details of which remain contested and sketchy.  Mr LaBell was a former congressional aide and because no charges could be substantiated, no further was taken, the cross-harassment complaints apparently satisfying honor on both sides.  All's well that ends well.

Crook

Crook (pronounced krook)

(1) A bent or curved implement, piece, appendage, etc; hook.

(2) The hooked part of anything.

(3) An instrument or implement having a bent or curved part, as a shepherd's staff hooked at one end or the crosier of a bishop or abbot.

(4) A bend or curve; a bent or curved part; a curving piece or portion of something).

(5) In slang, a person who steals, lies, cheats or does other dishonest or illegal things; a criminal; to steal, cheat, or swindle; an artifice; a trick; a contrivance.

(6) To bend; curve; a bend or curve.

(7) In slang, sick; unwell; feeble (Australia & New Zealand).

(8) In slang, out of order; functioning improperly; unsatisfactory; disappointing (Australia & New Zealand).

(9) In etiquette (as “to crook the knee”), a bending of the knee; a genuflection.

(10) A lock or curl of hair (obsolete).

(11) In structural engineering, a support beam consisting of a post with a cross-beam resting upon it; a bracket or truss consisting of a vertical piece, a horizontal piece, and a strut.

(12) A specialized staff with a semi-circular bend (called “the hook”) at one end and used by shepherds to control their flocks (a small scale version of which (as the “pothhook”) is used in cooking to suspend a pot over a heat-source.

(13) In the traditional Christian churches, a bishop's standard staff of office, the shape of which emulates those historically used by shepherds, an allusion to the idea of Christ’s relationship to his followers as that of “a shepherd of his flock”, mentions in several passages in scripture including John 10:11 (I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep) and Psalm 23:1 (The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want).

(14) In music, a small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn etc to change its pitch or key.

1125-1175: From the Middle English croke & crok (hook-shaped instrument or weapon; tool or utensil consisting of or having as an essential component a hook or curved piece of metal), from the Old English crōc (hook, bend, crook (although the very existence of crōc in Old English is contested by some), from the Proto-Germanic krōkaz (bend, hook), from the primitive Indo-European greg- (tracery, basket, bend).  It was cognate with Old Norse krokr & krāka (hook), the Dutch kreuk (a bend, fold; wrinkle), the Middle Low German kroke & krake (fold, wrinkle), the Danish krog (crook, hook), the Swedish krok (crook, hook), the Icelandic krókur (hook) and the Old High German krācho (hooked tool).    Crook is a noun, verb & adjective, crooks is a verb; crooked is a verb & adjective, crooking is a noun & verb, crooker & crookest are adjectives, crookedly is a adverb and crookedness is a noun; the noun plural is crooks.

Lindsay Lohan with crooked Harvey Weinstein (b 1952).

Crooked (bent, curved, in a bent shape) emerged in the early thirteenth century, the past-participle adjective from the verb crook and the figurative sense of “dishonest, false, treacherous, not straight in conduct; To turn from the path of rectitude; to pervert; to misapply; to twist” was from the same era, the familiar synonyms including rogue, villain, swindler, racketeer, scoundrel, robber, cheat, shyster, knave, pilferer and shark.  In that sense it was from the Middle English crooken, croken & crokien, from the Old English crōcian, from the Proto-West Germanic krōkōn (to bend, wrinkle) and was developed from the noun.  It was cognate with the Dutch kreuken (to crease, rumple) and the German Low German kröken (to bend, offend, suppress).

Leading the flock: Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) with his bishop's crook.

The use in the slang of Australia, New Zealand emerged in the nineteenth century and was use variously to convey (1) something or the conduct of someone held to be unsatisfactory or not up to standard, (2) feeling ill or (3) annoyed, angry; upset (as in “to be crook about” or “to go crook at”), the comparative being crooker, the superlative crookest.  The sense of “a swindler” was a creation of late nineteenth century US English and developed from the earlier figurative use as “dishonest, crooked in conduct”, documented since at least the early 1700s, these notions ultimately derived from the use of crook in Middle English to describe a “dishonest trick”, a form prevalent in waring against the means to which the Devil would resort to tempt.  In idiomatic use, “arm in crook” describes two people walking arm-in-arm (ie the arms linked in the crook of the elbow) and “by hook or by crook” means “by any means necessary” although the origin of this has always puzzled etymologists.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).

Crooked Hillary Clinton gained, however unhappily, the most memorable of the monikers Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) applied so effectively in his campaigns first to secure the Republican nomination and then win the 2016 presidential election.  It was a novel approach to electioneering but there had before been crookedness in the oval office, some of the conduct in the nineteen century truly scandalous and one of Richard Nixon’s not unjustified complaints about life was he and his administration being subject to a level of scrutiny never inflicted on his (Democratic Party) predecessors.  That was illustrated during one of Nixon’s few happy moments during the Watergate scandal when on 26 September 1973 when his speechwriter Pat Buchanan (b 1938) appeared before a congressional committee investigating the manner.  The committee had taken some delight in conducting lengthy sessions during which various Republican Party figures were questioned but as Buchanan produced the facts and figures documenting decades of dirty tricks and actual illegalities by successive Democrat administrations, committee counsel Sam Dash (1925–2004) got him “…off the stand as quickly as possible”.  So crooked Hillary was part of a long political tradition and the label stuck so well to her because it according with the perceptions of many although, in fairness, there were plenty who’d done worse and suffered less. Presumably, crooked Hillary is watching with interest to see if any branch of the US justice system succeeds in declaring Donald Trump crooked.  One way on another, she could be waiting for some time.  

Richard Nixon (1913–1994, US president 1969-1974) & Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973, US president 1963-1969), the White House, 1968.

Warren Harding (1865–1923, US president 1921-1923).

Unfairly or not, Warren Harding is now often called crooked, primarily because of the link with the "Teapot Dome" scandal which occurred under his administration but he wasn’t personally implicated.  However, Teapot Dome was one of many scandals on his watch so his reputation suffered.  He dropped dead while still in office, probably a good career move.  The 1964 US presidential election in which the candidates were the incumbent Democrat Lyndon Johnson and the Republican Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) was characterized as a contest between “a crook and a kook”, LBJ famously crooked in his business and political dealings in Texas and Barry, probably unfairly, characterised by his opponents as unhinged from time-to time.  The electorate was apparently sanguine about the character traits of the two and, given the choice on election day, voted for the crook, LBJ enjoying one of the biggest landslide victories in history.

Richard Nixon with Checkers (1952-1964), Washington, 1959.  Sometime during the Watergate scandal (if not before) Nixon may have reflected on the remark attributed to Frederick the Great (Frederick II (1712–1786, Prussian king 1740-1786) ): "The more I know of the character of men, the more I appreciate the company of dogs".

Already a national figure for this and that, Richard Nixon added to his notoriety by denying crookedness in his "Checkers speech", made in 1952, refuting allegations of impropriety which had threatened his place on the Republican ticket as General Dwight Eisenhower’s (1890–1969, US president 1953-1961) running mate in that year’s election.  Though not uncriticised, at the time and since, the “Checkers speech” worked and Nixon’s political career survived but two decades later, another speech with the same purpose failed to hold back the Watergate tide.  Held in Florida’s Disney's Contemporary Resort, it was at the 1973 press conference Nixon declared “…in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice... People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.”  Little more than a year later, facing impeachment and removal from office, Nixon resigned although, to be fair, when he said “I’m not a crook”, he wasn’t speaking of the Watergate affair and aspects of his legacy, like that of his predecessors, needs to be assessed separately from his crookedness.

Infinitive

Infinitive (pronounced in-fin-i-tiv)

(1) In English grammar, the infinitive mood or mode (a grammatical mood).

(2) In English grammar, a non-finite verb form considered neutral with respect to inflection.

(3) In English grammar, a verbal noun formed from the infinitive of a verb.

1425–1475:  From the late Middle English, from the Middle French infinitif, the from Late Latin infinitivus (unlimited, indefinite), from the Latin infinitus (boundless, unlimited, endless (indefinite in the grammatical sense)), ivus being the Latin suffix forming adjectives).  In essence, the infinitive is a form of the verb not inflected for grammatical categories such as tense and person and used without an overt subject.  In English, the infinitive usually consists of the word “to”, followed by the verb.  Infinitive is a noun & adjective, infinitival is an adjective and infinitively an adverb; the noun plural is infinitives.

The most fastidious grammar Nazis condemn split infinitives.  In English, a split infinitive exists if an adverb sits between “to” and a verb: “to fully understand” is a split infinitive whereas “fully to understand” is not.  The “rule” exists, unfortunately, because of the influence, however misunderstood, of Classical Latin on the development of Modern English.  Infinitives appear to have been split since at least the 1400s, the practice increasingly common in Middle English before becoming rare in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  Shakespeare seems to have dabbled only twice and then probably as an artistic device, a syntactical inversion better to suit the rhythm of his prose.  Spenser, Dryden, Pope, and the King James Version of the Bible used none, and Dr Johnson, John Donne & Samuel Pepys were sparing.  Despite this timeline, no reason for the near extinction is known; there’s nothing in the documents of the era to suggest scholarly or other disapprobation.  They reappeared in the eighteenth century, became more common in the nineteenth and it was only then the label emerged to describe the construction; the earliest use of “splitting the infinitive" dating from 1887.

The Split Infinitive as a fetish

It was also in the nineteenth century the dispute began, some authorities condemning, others endorsing.  Objections fall into three categories:

(1) The descriptivist objection: Also known as linguistic snobbery, this (very English) view, first published in 1834, argued the split infinitive was a thing commonly used by uneducated persons but not by people "of the better classes".

(2) The argument from the full infinitive: It’s a very technical point.  That there are two parts to the infinitive is disputed with some linguists asserting the infinitive is a single-word verb form which may or may not be preceded by the particle “to”.  Some modern generative analysts classify “to” as a "peculiar" auxiliary verb; others as the infinitival subordinator.  However, even when the concept of the full infinitive is accepted, it does not necessarily follow that any two words belonging together grammatically need be adjacent to each other. It’s true they usually are, but exceptions are not uncommon, such as an adverb splitting a two-word finite verb ("will not do"; "has not done").

(3) The argument from classical languages: It’s a bit of a linguistic myth the prohibition is because the grammatical rules of Classical Latin were absorbed by Modern English.  An infinitive in Latin is never used with a marker equivalent to the English “to” so there’s thus no parallel for the construction.  Despite this, claims by those who disapprove that they are applying rules of Latin grammar to English has widely been asserted for over a century but they rely on a false analogy with Latin; Latin infinitives appear as a single word.  The rule which prohibits splitting hints at the deference to Latin at a time when it was fashionable to apply its rules to other languages.  It was another variation of snobbery.  As late as the Renaissance, particularly in the churches and universities, there was a reverence for the purity of the languages of antiquity and aspects of English which differed were regarded as inferior.  By the nineteenth century, with English increasingly a world-wide tongue, but for a few pedants such views had faded and there’s anyway the etymological point that there’s no precedent from antiquity because in Greek and Latin (and all romance languages), the infinitive is a single word impossible to sever.  In “educated English”, there has evolved a curious convention in the handling of split infinitives.  The accepted practice is they should be avoided in writing but in oral use are actually desirable if their adoption renders a more elegant sentence (which is almost always the case).  English has similar conventions for written and oral forms such as the use of verbal shorthand of foreign extraction such as inter-alia which appear thus in writing but which, when spoken, are translated into English.

Henry Fowler (1858–1933), whose A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) remains a reliable arbitrator of all things right and wrong in English, rules on the matter with his usual clarity. declaring: The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish.  These he reviewed and decided those who neither knew nor cared were the happy majority and should be envied by all the others.  Among the others may or may not have been George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950) who, after noticing a proofs-editor had "corrected" his infinitives, remarked: “I don’t care if he is made to go quickly, or to quickly go – but go he must!”

Some girls are so mean they'll correct even Captain Kirk.  William Shatner (b 1931) and Lindsay Lohan in Planet Fitness commercial played during Super Bowl 2022.

Drake

Drake (pronounced dreyk)

(1) The male of any duck.

(2) As “Drake equation”, a formula proposed as a mechanism to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.

(3) A small-bore cannon, used mostly in the seventeenth & especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.

(4) A dragon (archaic).

(5) In angling, an artificial fly resembling a mayfly.

(6) A fiery meteor, comet or shooting star (archaic).

(7) A beaked galley or Viking warship.

1250–1300: From the Middle English drake (male duck, drake), from the Old English draca, an abbreviated form of the Old English andraca (male duck, drake (literally “duck-king”), from the Proto-West Germanic anadrekō (duck leader) and cognate with the Middle Dutch andrake, the Low German drake, the Dutch draak (drake), the German Enterich (drake) and the dialectal German drache.  In the Old High German, the equivalent forms were antrahho & anutrehho (male duck).  The archaic meaning in Middle English (a dragon; Satan) dates from before 900 and was from the Old English draca (in the sense of “dragon, sea monster, huge serpent”), from the Proto-West Germanic drakō (dragon), from the Latin dracō (dragon), from the Ancient Greek δράκων (drákōn) (serpent, giant seafish), from δέρκομαι (dérkomai) (I see clearly), from the primitive Indo-European derḱ-.  The Proto-Germanic drako was productive, the source also of the Middle Dutch and Old Frisian drake, the Dutch draak, the Old High German trahho and the German drache.  In a footnote in the long history of the Royal Navy, HMS Marshal Ney, the ship once known as "the worst ship in the navy" was briefly (during her surprisingly long service) re-named HMS Drake.  Drake is a noun, the noun plural is drakes.

Guilty as sin.  Functional necrophilia by a drake: In November 2001, a researcher at Natuurmuseum (Museum of Natural History), Rotterdam, reported the first known case of homosexualnecrophilia in the mallard duck (mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)).

In idiomatic use, the phrase “ducks and drakes” (usually in the form “playing ducks and drakes”) dates from 1585 and means “recklessly or irresponsibly to behave with something valuable or to waste something precious”.  The origin is believed to lie in the pastime of throwing flat stones across the surface of water (known also as “skipping stones”, “stone skiffing” or “skimming stones”, the allusion being to the behavior of the water as the stones bounce before eventually losing energy and sinking, the effect (the circular rings produced by the skipping stone) said to be something like that created by the splashing of ducks and drakes (and waterfowl in general).  It was thus a a reference to doing something in a haphazard and careless manner, without any particular aim or purpose and over time, came to be used generally to refer to any kind of wasteful or irresponsible behavior.  It accurately described the pointlessness of skimming stones but was something of a slight on the birds; their activities on water an indication of their industriousness.  The sense of “to squander, to throw away” emerged in 1614, the notion being “throwing money away, as if throwing away stones in this pastime”.  The perfectly-shapes stone for the purpose (flattish & disc-like) was called a drakestone and in parts of northern England the pastime was known as drakestoning.

The Drake equation

The Drake Equation is a mathematical formula developed in 1961 by US astrophysicist Dr Frank Drake (1930–2022) to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations that (1) might exist in our Milky Way galaxy and (2) be capable of communicating with us. The equation takes into account various factors, such as the number of habitable planets, the probability of life forming on those planets, and the likelihood of intelligent life evolving.  The equation takes the form:

N = R* × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L

where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy that are within the parameters capable of communicating with us
R* = the rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of stars that have planets
ne = the average number of habitable planets per star with planets
fl = the fraction of habitable planets that develop life
fi = the fraction of planets with life that develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of intelligent civilizations that develop technology to communicate with others
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space

Sixty-odd years ago, Dr Drake was well aware his equation was not a tool of immediately practical application because there was no certainty about any of the values.  Additionally, the formula was designed not to estimate the actual volume of intelligent life in the galaxy but the number of instances where the conditions might exist which would allow an intelligent to broadcast radio transmissions into space.  Since then, science has became able better to quantify two of the variables but the equation remains an interesting, speculative device and it remains a widely used tool for discussion and debate.

Portrait of Sir Francis Drake (circa 1581), oil on panel by an unknown artist, National Portrait Gallery, London.  A navigator and buccaneer (a kind of pirate), Sir Francis Drake (1540–1596) was the first Englishman to sail around the world (1577–80) and is best remembered for his command of the fleet which faced the Spanish Armada in 1588.