Phonetic

Phonetic (pronounced fuh-net-ik)

(1) Of or relating to speech sounds, their production, or their transcription in written symbols.

(2) Corresponding to pronunciation; agreeing with pronunciation; spelling in accord with pronunciation.

(3) Concerning or involving the discrimination of non-distinctive elements of a language (in English, certain phonological features, as length and aspiration, are phonetic but not phonemic); denoting any perceptible distinction between one speech sound and another, irrespective of whether the sounds are phonemes or allophones.

(4) As a noun, (in Chinese writing) a written element that represents a sound and is used in combination with a radical to form a character.

(5) In the language of structural linguistics, relating to phones (as opposed to phonemes).

1803: From the New Latin phōnēticus, from the Ancient Greek φωνητῐκός (phōnētikós) (vocal), the construct being phōnēt(ós) (utterable; to be spoken (verbid of phōneîn (to make sounds; to speak))) + -ikos (the adjective suffix).  The source was the Latin phōnē (sound, voice), from the primitive Indo-European bha- (to speak, tell, say).  The meaning "relating or pertaining to the human voice as used in speech" was in use by 1861 but the technical use "phonetic science” (scientific study of speech) was in the literature twenty years earlier.  Phonetic is an adjective and a noun (in the technical sense of a element in Chinese writing) and phonetically an adverb.  Phonetical is an adjective which can correctly be used in certain sentences but is largely synonymous with phonetic and thus often potentially redundant.  Fauxnetic (the construct being faux (fake) + (pho)netic) exists to describe a respelling system: not adequately indicating pronunciation and can be used humorously or technically.

The NATO Phonetic Alphabet

Phonetic alphabets were devised as radiotelephonic spelling systems to enhance the clarity of voice-messaging in potentially adverse audio environments, afflicted by factors such as the clatter of the battlefield, poor signal quality or language barriers where differences in pronunciation can distort understanding.  If a universal radiotelephonic spelling alphabet (substituting a code word for each letter of the alphabet) is adopted, critical messages are more likely correctly to be understood.

The NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) phonetic alphabet became effective in 1956 and soon became the established universal phonetic alphabet but the one familiar today took some time to emerge, several adaptations earlier trialed.  The early inventors and adopters of what were then variously called voice procedure alphabets, (radio-)telephony alphabets & (word-)spelling alphabets, were branches of the military anxious, as the volume of radio communication increasingly multiplied, to adopt a standardized set of standards as they had in Morse Code for cable traffic and semaphore for signals.  A surprising array of systems were developed by the military and the cable & telephony operators which, obviously worked well within institutions but as communications systems were tending to become interconnected, the utility for interoperability was limited by the confusion which could arise where the choices of name didn’t coincide.

Probably the first genuinely global models were those standardized during the 1920s by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the latter adopted by many post offices (and other authorities administering regional telephone systems).  It featured mostly the names of cities across the globe although substituted kilogramme (sic) for the Khartoum or Kimberley used earlier by others:

Amsterdam, Baltimore, Casablanca, Denmark, Edison, Florida, Gallipoli, Havana, Italia, Jerusalem, Kilogramme, Liverpool, Madagascar, New York, Oslo, Paris, Quebec, Roma, Santiago, Tripoli, Uppsala, Valencia, Washington, Xanthippe, Yokohama, Zurich.

City names had long been a popular choice because they were usually well-known with (at least in the English-speaking world), more-or-less standardized pronunciations but the military, always interested in specific (if not general) efficiencies, preferred words with no more than two syllables and preferably one.  The joint Army/Navy project in the US (called the Able Baker alphabet after the first two code words) was adopted across the entire service in 1941 and its utility, coupled with the wealth of documentation available saw it quickly and widely used by allied forces, something encouraged by their dependence on US materiel and logistical support.  In the muddle of war, adoption was ad hoc and it seems nothing was formalized until the 1943 when the British Royal Air Force (RAF) advised all stations that Able Baker was the RAF standard, codifying what had for some time been standard operating procedure.  The Able Baker set used:

Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, Zebra.

The demands of war meant there was little time for linguistic sociology but after the war, concerns began to be expressed that almost all (and by then dozens had been created) the phonetic alphabets were decidedly English in composition.  A new version incorporating sounds common to English, French, and Spanish was proposed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), one of the alphabet soup of international organizations which emerged after the formation of the United Nations (UN); their code-set was, for civil aviation only, adopted in 1951 and was very similar to that used today:

Alfa, Bravo, Coca, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Gold, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Metro, Nectar, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Union, Victor, Whiskey, eXtra, Yankee, Zulu.

Most agreed the IATA system was technically better and certainly more suited to communications conducted by a multi-language community, for whom many English was neither a first nor sometimes even a familiar tongue.  However, the military in this era was still using the Able Baker system and the difficulties this created were practical, many airfields and the overwhelming bulk of air-space shared between civil and military operators.  It was clear the need for a universal phonetic alphabet was greater than ever and accordingly, reviews were begun, soon coordinated by the newly formed NATO.  After some inter-service discussion, NATO provided a position paper proposing changing the words for the letters C, M, N, U, and X.  This was submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organization (IACO) and, having a world-wide membership structure, the IAOC took a while to consider thing but eventually, a consensus was almost to hand except for the letter N, the military faction wanting November, the civil Nectar and neither side seemed willing to budge.  Seeing no progress, NATO in April 1955 engaged I a bit of linguistic brinkmanship, the North Atlantic Military Committee Standing Group advising that regardless of what the IACO did, the alphabet would “be adopted and made effective for NATO use on 1 January 1956.”

This created the potential for an imbroglio in that there were many civilian institutions and not a few branches of militaries with which they interacted, hesitant to adopt the alphabet for national use until the ICAO decided what to do which would have created the unfortunate situation in which the NATO Military Commands would be on the one system and others on a mixture.  Fortunately, the ICAO responded with new-found alacrity and approved the alphabet, November prevailing.  NATO formalized the use with effect from 1 March 1956 and the ITU later adopted it which had the effect of it becoming the established universal phonetic alphabet governing all military, civilian and amateur radio communications.  Although it was substantially the work of other, particularly the various civil aviation authorities around the world, because it was NATO which was most associated with the final revision, it became known as the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.

Russian military phonetic alphabet compared with NATO set.

There were objections.  In the word-nerdy world of structural linguistics, there are objections to the very phrase "phonetic alphabet" because they don’t indicate phonetics and cannot function as genuine phonetic transcription systems like the International Phonetic Alphabet, reminding us the NATO system is actually the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet.  Those few who note the argument tend politely to agree and move on.  There are also those who use the NATO set but disapprove of the Americans, NATO, the West, capitalism etc; they call it something else if they call it anything at all.  Then there are countries which speak languages other than English.  English is the international language of civil aviation so they’re stuck with that but foreign militaries and security services often have their own sets.

There’s never been the same interest in or effort devoted to a system of numeric code words (ie the numbers from zero to nine) and the IMO defines a different set than does the ICAO: 0 (Nadazero), 1 (Unaone), 2 (Bissotwo), 3 (Terrathree), 4 (Kartefour), 5 (Pantafive), 6 (Soxisix), 7 (Setteseven), 8 (Oktoeight) & 9 (Novenine).  The divergence has never created much controversy because the nature of the words which designated numbers tend not easily to be confused with others and the fact they were often spoken is a context which made obvious their numerical nature added to clarity.  Indeed, although NATO created a comple set of ten names for numbers, the only ones recommended for use were : 3 (Tree), 4 (Fowler), 5 (Fife) & 9 (Niner), these the only ones thought potentially troublesome.  In practice, in NATO and beyond, these are rarely used and that very rarity means they’re as likely to confuse as clarify, especially if spoken between those who speak different languages.

Pronunciation can of course be political so therefore can be contextual.  Depending on what one’s trying to achieve, how one chooses to pronounce words can vary according to time, place, platform or audience.  Some still not wholly explained variations in Lindsay Lohan’s accent were noted circa 2016 and the newest addition to the planet’s tongues (Lohanese or Lilohan) was thought by most to lie somewhere between Moscow and the Mediterranean, possibly via Prague.  It had a notable inflection range and the speed of delivery varied with the moment.  Psychologist Wojciech Kulesza of SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland identified context as the crucial element.  Dr Kulesza studies the social motives behind various forms of verbal mimicry (including accent, rhythm & tone) and he called the phenomenon the “echo effect”, the tendency, habit or technique of emulating the vocal patters of one’s conversational partners.  He analysed clips of Lilohan and noted a correlation between the nuances of the accent adopted and those of the person with who Ms Lohan was speaking.  Psychologists explain the various instances of imitative behaviour (conscious or not) as one of the building blocks of “social capital”, a means of bonding with others, something which seems to be inherent in human nature.  It’s known also as the “chameleon effect”, the instinctive tendency to mirror behaviors perceived in others and it’s observed also in politicians although their motives are entirely those of cynical self-interest, crooked Hillary Clinton’s adoption of a “southern drawl” when speaking in a church south of the Mason-Dixon Line a notorious example.

Memo: Team Douglas Productions, 29 July 2004.

Also of interest to students of nomenclature is the process by which the names of people can become objects applied variously.  As Napoleon, Churchill and Hitler live on as Napoleonic, Churchillian and Hitlerite, on the internet is a body of the Lohanic.  Universally, that’s pronounced lo-han-ick but Lindsay Lohan has mentioned in interviews that being a surname of Irish origin, it’s “correctly” low-en, a form she adopted early in 2022 with her first posting on TikTok where it rhymed with “Coen” (used usually for the surname “Cohen” which is of Hebrew origin and unrelated to Celtic influence).  For a generation brought up on lo-han it must have been a syllable too far because it didn’t catch on and by early 2023, she was back to lo-han with the hard “h”.  Curiously, while etymologists seem to agree that historically lo-en was likely the form most heard in Ireland, the popular genealogy sites all indicate the modern practice is to use lo-han so hopefully that’s the last word.  However, the brief flirtation with phonetic h-lessness did have a precedent:  When Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) was being filmed in 2004, the production company circulated a memo to the crew informing all that Lohan was pronounced “Lo-en like Coen” with a silent “h”.

Disc or Disk

Disc or disk (pronounced disk)

(1) A phonograph record.

(2) Any thin, flat, circular plate or object.

(3) Any surface that is flat and round, or seemingly so.

(4) In computing hardware, any of several types of media consisting of thin, round plates of plastic or metal, used for external storage.

(5) In zoology and anatomy, any of various roundish, flat structures or parts in the body, especially an intervertebral disc.

(6) In botany, (in the daisy and other composite plants) the central portion of the flower head, composed of tubular florets (especially the middle part of the lip of an orchid).

(7) Any of the circular steel blades that form the working part of a disk harrow.

(8) In mathematics, the domain bounded by a circle.

1655-1665: From the French disque, from the Latin discus, from Ancient Greek δίσκος (dískos) (disk, quoit, platter; a circular plate suited for hurling) from δικεῖν (dikeîn) (to hurl, to launch) from the primitive Indo-European dik-skos from the root deik (to show, pronounce solemnly).  The Proto-Germanic diskaz was also drawn from the Latin and Greek root and was cognate with the Old Saxon disk, the Old Dutch disc (Dutch dis (table)), the Old High German tisc (German tisch (table)) and the Old Norse diskr (plate).

The sense of "phonograph disk" dates from 1888 and discophile was used to describe enthusiasts for gramophone recordings from 1940.  Disk jockey as a term to describe those on radio who broadcast music from records was first recorded 1941; it became dee-jay is 1955 and was further truncated to DJ in 1961; the video version "veejay" is from 1982 but never really caught on.  Disk-drive is from 1952 although disk was first noted in the context of computing in 1947.  Disc brakes were first developed in the late nineteenth century, began to be used on cars at scale in the 1950s and were widely widely available early in the next decade.  The first compact disc (CD) was released in 1982, the digital versatile disc (DVD) in 1995 and the BluRay (BD) disc in 2006.

Disk or Disc

LP album cover; the LP was the final evolution of the traditional phonographic disk.  This cover is memorable but fake, it is a fake disk.

Although both the Latin and Greek spellings have endured, there is in English no formal rule for the use of disc & disk and the two are often used interchangeably.  Even within industries or in countries, there is no consensus on the difference but there are conventions.  Historically the Latinate form was preferred in the British Empire and the Greek in the US but the advent of disk as the preferred use in the computing industry from the 1940s spread worldwide although, as a point of deliberate differentiation, disc was adopted for the new optical hardware (CD, DVD and BluRay).  The distinction is maintained still; mechanical devices are diskettes or hard disks whereas the optical are all discs.

The newer form of storage is solid state and the devices are properly called semiconductor storage devices (SSD) but are more typically referred to (wrongly and presumably influenced by the SSD acronym) as  solid-state disks, or solid-state drives even though SSDs don't have the rotating disk or the drive mechanism which powers the movable read–write heads used with hard disk drives (HDD) and floppy disks (FDD); even among those who understand the difference, the habits of old die hard.  So, the SSD has neither disk nor drive but does require, somewhere in the system, a software driver.

Lindsay Lohan music albums on CD: Speak (2004) and A Little More Personal (RAW) (2005, both released by Casablanca Records.

Although the use in IT greatly increased use of disk, even before the debut of optical media, there was never any indication disc would become extinct.  Except where specifically defined as a brand-name or trademark (such as the CD), both are likely to continue to be used interchangeably with regional and perhaps even generational variations.  Most style guides, even those which provide prescriptive lists, acknowledge this and suggest regardless of the form(s) users choose, what matters is to maintain consistency.  Rotating disks and discs are anyway vanishing from computer hardware so the influence of the industry's conventions of use will presumably diminish.

Cinque

Cinque (pronounced singk)

(1) In certain games (those using cards, dice, dominoes etc), a card, die, or domino with five spots or pips.

(2) As cinquefoil (1) a potentilla (flower), (2) in heraldry, a stylized flower or leaf with five lobes and (3) in topology, a particular knot of five crossings.

1350–1400: From the Middle English cink, from the Old French cinq (five), from the Vulgar Latin cinque, from the Latin quīnque (five).  The archaic spelling cinq was from the modern French cinq, whereas the standard spelling probably emerged either under the influence of the Italian cinque or was simply a misspelling of the French.  In typically English fashion, the pronunciation “sank” is based on a hypercorrect approximation of the French pronunciation, still heard sometimes among what use to be called “the better classes”.  The alternative forms were cinq (archaic), sinque (obsolete) and sink & sank (both misspellings).  The homophones are cinq, sink, sync & synch (and sank at the best parties); the noun plural is cinques.

Cinque outposts, attested since the 1640s was a term which referred to the five senses.  The noun cinquecento (written sometimes as cinque-cento) is used in (as noun & adjective) criticism & academic works when describing sixteenth century Italian art and literature.  It dates from 1760, from the Italian cinquecento (literally “500”) and was short for mil cinquecento (1500).  The use to describe "a group of five, five units treated as one," especially at cards or dice, dates from the late fourteenth century and in English was borrowed directly from the French cinq, a dissimilation from Latin quinque (five) which in Late Latin also picked up the familiar spelling cinque.  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European penkwe (five).

Cinquefoil housing stained glass (leadlight) window.

In architecture, a cinquefoil is a ornament constructed with five cuspidated divisions, the use dating from the late fifteenth century, from the Latin quinquefolium, the construct being quinque (five) + folium (leaf), from the primitive Indo-European root bhel- (to thrive, bloom).  In Gothic tracery, there was a wide use of circular shapes featuring a lobe tangent to the inner side of a larger arc or arch, meeting other lobes in points called cusps projecting inwards from the arch and architects defined them by the number of foils used, indicated by the prefix: trefoil (3), quatrefoil (4), cinquefoil (5), sexfoil (6), multifoil etc.  Although used as stand-alone fixtures, bands of quatrefoils were much used for enrichment during the Perpendicular period and, when placed with the axes set diagonally, quatrefoils were called cross-quarters.

Porsche "phone-dial" wheels, clockwise from top left: 1981 911SC, 1988 924S, 1987 944S & 1985 928S.  With a myriad of variations, the cinquefoil motif was a style for wheels used by a number of manufacturers, the best known of which were the ones with which Porsche equipped the 911, 924, 944 & 928 where they were known as the “phone-dial”, a reference which may puzzle those younger than a certain age.  Because these have five rather than ten holes, they really should have picked up the nickname "cinquefoil" rather than "phone-dial" but the former was presumably too abstract or obscure so the more accessible latter prevailed.  

Lamborghini likes the phone-dial still, Left to right: Huranan, Gallardo, Countach, Diablo and Silhouette.

Plastic wheelcover for the Ford Fairmont XE (left), a circa 1949 British GPO standard telephone in Bakelite (centre) (globally, the most produced handset in this style was the Model 302, manufactured in the US by Western Electric between 1937-1955 with a thermoplastic case) and plastic wheelcover for the Ford Fairmont XF (left).

Probably some are annoyed at the “five-hole” wheel design coming to be known as the “phone-dial” because of course the classic rotary-dial mechanism had ten holes, one for each numeral.  Ford Australia actually stuck to the classics when designing a plastic wheel-cover for the XE (1982-1984) Fairmont (the next rung up in the Falcon's pecking order) because it featured the correct ten holes and it was re-allocated as a “hand-me-down” for the Falcon when the XF (1984-1988) was introduced, the Fairmont now getting an eight-hole unit.  None of these seem ever to have been dubbed “phone-dials”, probably because plastic wheel–covers have never been a fetish like the older metal versions or aluminium wheels (often as “rims” in modern usage, a practice which also annoys some).

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.  By the late 1980s, most wheel covers were plastic pressings, other than in places like the isolated environments behind the Iron Curtain.

Lindsay Lohan in 2004 using touch-dial wall-phone.

Remarkably, although touch-dial (ie buttons) handsets appeared in the consumer market as early as 1963 and soon became the standard issue, in 2024 it’s possible still to buy new, rotary-dial phones although only the user experience remains similar; internally the connections are effected with optical technology, the “sound & feel” emulated.  There’s also a market for updating the old Bakelite & Thermoplastic units (now typically between 70-90 years old) with internals compatible with modern telephony so clearly there’s some nostalgia for the retro-look, if not the exact experience.  Even after the touch-dial buttons became ubiquitous the old terminology persisted among users (and in the manufacturers' documents); when making calls users continued to "dial the number".  The same sort of linguistic legacy exists today because ending a call is still the act of "hanging up" and that dates from the very early days of telephony when the ear-piece was a large conical attachment on a cord and at a call's conclusion, it was "hung up" on a arm, the weight of the receiver lowering the arm which physically separated two copper connectors, terminating the link between the callers.  

Ms Justine Haupt (b 1987) with custom rotary-dial cell phone in aquamarine.

Ms Justine Haupt, an astronomy instrumentation engineer at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory went a step further (sideways, some might suggest) and built a rotary-dial cell phone from scratch because of her aversion to what she describes as “smartphone culture and texting”, something to which many will relate.  In what proved a three year project, Ms Haupt used a rotary-dial mechanism from a Trimline telephone (introduced in 1965 and produced by Western Electric, the manufacturing unit of the Bell System), mounted on a case 4 x 3 x 1 inches (100 x 75 x 25 mm) in size with a noticeably protuberant aerial; it uses an AT&T prepaid sim card and has a battery-life of some 24-30 hours.  Conforming to the designer’s choices of functionality, it includes two speed-dial buttons, an e-paper display and permits neither texting nor internet access.  Although she intended the device as a one-off for her own use, Ms Haupt was surprised at the interest generated and in 2022 began selling a kit with which others could build their own (US$170 (Stg£130)), all parts included except the rotary-dial mechanism which would need to be sourced from junk shops and such.  Unlike the larger mechanism on the traditional desk or wall-mounted telephone, the holes in the Trimline’s smaller rotary-dial used the whole circle so the ten-hole layout is symmetrical and thus the same as the XE Fairmont’s wheelcover, something doubtlessly wholly coincidental.

The rough-fruited cinquefoil or sulphur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta).

In botany, the potentila is a genus containing some three-hundred species of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the rose (rosaceae) family.  Since the 1540s it’s been referred to as the cinquefoil (also “five fingers” or “silverweeds”), all distinguished by their compound leaves of five leaflets.

The Confederation of Cinque Ports was a group of coastal towns in Kent, Sussex and Essex, the name from the Old French which means literally “five harbors”.  The five were Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe, all on the western shore of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest.  Because of (1) their importance in cross-channel trade and (2) being in the region ,most vulnerable to invasion, they were granted special privileges and concessions by the Crown in exchange for providing certain services essential for maritime defense, dating from the years prior to the formation of the Royal Navy in the fifteenth century.  The name was first used in the late twelfth century in Anglo-Latin and the late thirteenth in English.

An early version of a public-private partnership, with no permanent navy to defend it from sea-borne aggression, the crown contracted with the confederation to provide what was essentially a naval reserve to be mobilized when needed. Earlier, Edward the Confessor (circa 1003–1066; King of England 1042-1066) had contracted the five most important strategically vital Channel ports of that era to provide ships and men “for the service of the monarch” and although this was used most frequently as a “cross-Channel ferry service” and was not exclusively at the disposal of the government.  Under the Norman kings, the institution assumed the purpose of providing the communications and logistical connections essential to keeping together the two halves of the realm but after the loss of Normandy in 1205, their ships and ports suddenly became England’s first line of defense against the French.

The earliest charter still extant dates from 1278 but a royal charter of 1155 charged the ports with the corporate duty to maintain in readiness fifty-seven ships, each to be available each year for fifteen days in the service of the king, each port fulfilling a proportion of the whole duty.  In return the ports and towns received a number of tax breaks and privileges including: An exemption from tax and tolls, limited autonomy, the permission to levy tolls, certain law enforcement and judicial rights, possession of lost goods that remain unclaimed after a year and of flotsam (floating wreckage and such) & jetsam (goods thrown overboard).  Even at the time this was thought to be a good deal and the leeway afforded to the Cinque Ports and the substantial absence of supervision from London led inevitability to smuggling and corruption although in this the Cinque Ports were hardly unique.

The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was something like a viceroy and the office still exists today but is now purely ceremonial and, although technically relict, remains a sinecure and an honorary title, regarded as one of the higher honors bestowed by the Sovereign and a sign of special approval by the establishment which includes the entitlement to the second oldest coat of arms of England.  The prestige it confers on the holder is derived from (1) it being the gift of the sovereign, (2) it being England’s most ancient military honor and (3), the illustrious standing of many of the previous hundred and fifty-eight holders of the office.  It is a lifetime appointment.

William Lygon (1872-1938), seventh Earl Beauchamp, in uniform of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

The office of lord Warden has not been without the whiff of scandal.  William Lygon, who in 1891 succeeded his father as the seventh Earl Beauchamp, was at twenty-seven appointed governor of New South Wales, a place to which he would later return, happily and otherwise.  In 1913, Beauchamp, well-connected in society and the ruling Liberal Party’s leader in the House of Lords, was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and, fond of pomp, ceremony and dressing-up, he enjoyed the job.  However, in 1930, he embarked on a round-the-world tour which included a two-month stint in Sydney, where he stayed, accompanied by a young valet who lived with him as his lover.  This, along with other antics, did not go unnoticed, and the Australian Star newspaper duly reported:

“The most striking feature of the vice-regal ménage is the youthfulness of its members … rosy cheeked footmen, clad in liveries of fawn, heavily ornamented in silver and red brocade, with many lanyards of the same hanging in festoons from their broad shoulders, [who] stood in the doorway, and bowed as we passed in … Lord Beauchamp deserves great credit for his taste in footmen.”

The report found its way to London when Beauchamp’s brother-in-law, the second Duke of Westminster (1879–1953), hired detectives to gather evidence, hoping to destroy him and damage the Liberal Party, the Tory duke hating both.  Evidence proved abundant and not hard to find and in 1931 Westminster publicly denounced Beauchamp as a homosexual to the king (George V 1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936), who was appalled and responded that he “…thought men like that always shot themselves.”  Westminster insisted a warrant be issued for Beauchamp’s arrest and that forced him into exile.

Lady Beauchamp seems to have shown some confusion upon being informed of her husband’s conduct.  Although he had enjoyed many liaisons in their (admittedly large) residences, his partners including servants, socialites & local fishermen and his proclivities were an open secret known to many in society, his wife remained oblivious and expressed some confusion about what homosexuality was.  Leading a sheltered existence, Lady Beauchamp had never been told about the mechanics of "the abominable crime of buggery" and baffled, thought her husband was being accused of being a bugler.  Once things were clarified she petitioned for divorce, the papers describing the respondent as:

“A man of perverted sexual practices, [who] has committed acts of gross indecency with male servants and other male persons and has been guilty of sodomy … throughout the married life … the respondent habitually committed acts of gross indecency with certain of his male servants.”

Beauchamp decamped first to Germany, a prudent choice given that although homosexual acts had been illegal since the unification of Germany in 1871, under the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), enforcement was rare and a gay culture flourished blatantly in the larger German cities, the Berlin scene famous even then.  After the Nazis gained power in 1933, things changed and Beauchamp contemplated satisfying George V’s assumption but was dissuaded, instead spending his time between Paris, Venice, Sydney and San Francisco, then four of the more tolerant cities and certainly places where wealthy gay men could usually bribe their way out of any legal unpleasantness.

After the death of George V, the warrant for Beauchamp’s arrest was lifted and, in July 1937, he returned to England.  What did come as a surprise to many was that soon after his arrival, invitations were issued for a Beauchamp ball, ostensibly a coming-of-age celebration for Richard Lygon (1916-1970; the youngest son) but universally regarded as an attempt at a social resurrection.  In a sign of the times, much of London society did attend although there were those who abstained and made it known.  Still, it seems to have appeared a most respectable and even successful event, Henry "Chips" Channon (1897-1958) noting in his diary it was a bit dull, the “only amusing moment when Lord Beauchamp escorted… a negress cabaret singer into supper.  People were cynically amused but I was not surprised, knowing of his secret activities in Harlem.  It is never a long step from homosexuality to black ladies.”  Beauchamp didn’t long enjoy his return to society, dying within a year of the ball.  The vicissitudes of his life were helpful to Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) when writing Brideshead Revisited (1945), the character of Lord Marchmain based on Beauchamp himself while the ill-fated Sebastian Flyte was inspired by Beauchamp’s son Hugh (1904-1936) who shared and (with some enthusiasm) pursued some of his father’s interests.  Despite it all, an appointment as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is for life and Lord Beauchamp remained in office until his death.

Quire

Quire (pronounced kwahyuhr)

(1) A set of twenty-four (24) uniform sheets of paper (in commerce, sometimes sold as twenty-five (25) sheets, analogous with baker’s dozen); a twentieth of a ream.

(2) In bookbinding, a section of printed leaves in proper sequence after folding; gathering; usually four sheets of paper folded once to form a section of 16 pages.

(3) An alternative spelling of choir (archaic except in church architecture).

(4) A book, poem, or pamphlet (archaic).

(5) In church architecture, one quarter of a cruciform church, the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and singer of the choir (choir & quire used interchangeably until the mid-nineteenth century when the former began to prevail, providing a useful distinction between the singers and the place they stood).

1175–1225: From the Middle English quayer, from the Anglo-Norman quaier (a short book) & quier, from the Old French quaier & caier (sheet of paper folded in four (which evolved into the Modern French cahier)) & quaer, from the Medieval Latin quaternum (set of four sheets of parchment or paper, from the Vulgar Latin quaternus, from the Classical Latin quarternī (four each)).  The root of the Latin quater (four times) was the primitive Indo-European kwetwer (four).  The meaning “a standard unit for selling paper" was first recorded in the late fourteenth century and the phrase “in quires” is attested from the late fifteenth, meaning "unbound."  The meaning "a standard unit for selling paper" (which became typically 24 (two dozen) or 25 (one twentieth of a ream)) sheets is recorded from the late fourteenth century and by the mid fifteenth-century, quires had come to mean also "unbound" in the sense of loose-leaf.  Quire was also an early form and later variant spelling of the Middle English choir from the Old French quer & queor, variants of cuer and the related word was the Medieval Latin quorus, a variant of chorus.  The word is a homophone of choir and doublet of cahier.  Quire is a noun and quired & quiring are verbs; the noun plural is quires.

The quire, Westminster Abbey, London.

Poop

Poop (pronounced poop)

(1) In naval architecture, as “poop deck”, a structure at the stern of a vessel.

(2) In nautical jargon, (1) as of a wave, to break over the stern of a ship or (2) to take to take seas over the stern (especially repeatedly).

(3) As “pooped”, a slang term expressing exhaustion or fatigue; has been used as a noun in this context as “an old poop”.

(4) As “pooped out”, a slang term applied usually to machinery which has failed.

(5) As “poop sheet”, military slang for information updates circulated on paper; later adopted as “get the real poop” (get the true facts on something).

(6) As a noun, excrement; as a verb, the act of defecation, both described by most dictionaries as informal and often childish; also recorded as a child’s expression of disappointment; was also used as a euphemism for flatulence, apparently as a more polite replacement for the earlier fart. 

(7) As “party pooper”, a stupid, fussy, or boring person.

(8) As onomatopoeia, to make a short blast on a horn.

Circa 1350: Origin uncertain but possibly from the Middle English powpen, popen & poupen (to make a gulping sound while drinking, blow on a horn, toot) and perhaps influenced by the Dutch poepen (to defecate) and the Low German pupen (to fart; to break wind”); the English adoption of the latter sense dating from 1735–1745.  The sense of information began as the US Army slang “poop sheet” to refer to anything on paper, distributed by the authorities, one of many ways soldiers had to disparage military intelligence, this one comparing official documents to toilet paper, presumably used.  The sense of “information collated on paper” continued in US journalism circles as “get the poop” in the post-war years but was later displaced by other slang as technology changed.  “Party pooper” was first recorded in 1910–1915 which some suggest is derived from nincompoop but not all etymologists are convinced.  The sense from which the poop desk of ships evolved happened independently, although in parallel with, the various onomatopoeic meanings.  Dating from 1375-1425, it was from the Middle English poupe & pope, from the Old French pope, poupe & pouppe, from the Italian poppa, from the Vulgar Latin puppa, from the Classical Latin puppis, all meaning “stern of a ship”.  All alternative spellings are long obsolete.  Poop & pooping are nouns & verbs and pooped is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is poops. 

A costal carpet python pooping.

In humans and other animals, although the general principle remains (if not exactly accurately) “What goes in, must come out”, there are a number of variables involved in the parameters of poop production, most obviously diet.  This coastal carpet python was seen on the Sunshine Coast in the state of Queensland, Australia and experts in such things commented there was nothing unusual in the behavior.  As they explained: “Carpet pythons will usually eat one big meal, such as a possum”, the meal lasting “...a while as slowly it's digested..." whereas “...smaller snakes, like tiger snakes, eat smaller prey like frogs.  So they will relieve themselves more regularly and with smaller stools.”  Ophiologists (those dedicated to the study of snakes) note also that there's not of necessity any direct correlation between the size of a snake and the volume of their poop, factors such as diet, climate and age all influencing the outcome and observational studies in zoos have concluded that some snakes seem simply to prefer to poop more often than others.  Now we know. 

The Poop Deck

In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck which forms the roof of a cabin or other enclosure built in the aft (rear) of a ship’s superstructure.  On larger vessels, the cabin was usually called either the “poop cabin” or “navigation cabin”.

The significance of the poop desk is that it was from here the ship was sailed; it was for centuries the highest point of a ship’s main structure and so offered the best visibility.  The captain or officer of the watch would from the poop desk instruct the helmsman how to steer with the rudder and relay instructions to those trimming the sails, to change both speed and direction.  The helmsman turned the rudder using a big wheel mounted on the quarter deck, adjacent to and within earshot of the captain on the poop deck.  The placement of poop and quarter decks was dictated by the need for the wheel to be directly above the rudder’s controls because there was no electronic or hydraulic assistance; movements of the wheel acted on the rudder through a system of ropes and pulleys so distances between the two had to be kept as short as possible.

On modern, motorized ships, the navigational functions once directed from the poop deck have been moved to the bridge, usually located towards the bow (front).  Poop desks still exist on some naval and commercial vessels and it's not merely as a term of naval architecture because many ships (such a tankers and other bulk carriers) continue to be constructed with the bridge located in the stern area.  There's no longer the need for the bridge to be so close to the rudder but the older architecture is used to maximize the space available for cargo.  On larger pleasure craft such as the big yachts billionaires like, the poop deck is usually allocated variously as a viewing area (sometimes with a diving platform), an entertainment space or a helicopter pad.

Lindsay Lohan on the poop deck of a yacht cruising of the coast of Sardinia, July 2016.

Poop porn: A scorpion having a poop.

Otiose

Otiose (pronounced oh-shee-ohs or oh-tee-ohs)

(1) Being at leisure; idle; indolent (rare).

(2) Ineffective or futile.

(3) Having no reason for being (raison d’être); having no point, superfluous or useless, having no reason or purpose.

(4) Done in a careless or perfunctory manner (rare).

1794: From the Latin ōtiōsus (having leisure or ease, unoccupied, idle, not busy, undisturbed), the construct being ōti(um) (leisure, spare time, freedom from business) + -ōsus (the adjectival suffix); source of the French oiseux, the Spanish ocioso and the Italian otioso, from ōtium (leisure, free time, freedom from business) of unknown origin.  The meaning "at leisure, idle" dates from 1850, often quoted in the literature of the time in the Latin phrase otium cum dignitate (leisure with dignity).  The earlier adjective in English was otious (at ease) from the 1610s and Middle English had the late fifteenth century noun otiosity.  The -ōsus suffix was from the Old Latin -ōsos, from -ōnt-to-s, from the Proto-Italic -owonssos, from -o-wont-to-s, the last being a combination of two primitive Indo-European suffixes: -went- (& -wont-) and –to.

Otium cum dignitate: Lindsay Lohan enjoying a dignified rest, Los Angeles, 2014.