Droste

Droste (pronounced dross-tee)

(1) A surname of Germanic origin.

(2) An object displaying the Droste effect.

1904: The Droset effect is named after an image of a nurse carrying a serving tray with a cup of hot chocolate and the box, the image thus replicating.  The Droste brand was from the Netherlands and was founded in 1863 by Gerardus Johannes Droste (1836-1923), the image was designed by Jan Musset (1861–1931.  The packaging of the cocoa powder was first used in 1904.  The surname’s origin was in the German province of Westphalia, the name derived from the Old German drotsete, derived from the elements truth (body of servants) and sizzen (to preside).  The surname Droste thus denotes a head servant or steward, in charge of a nobleman's household servants.  The first known instance of the name appearing in records was found in Schweinheim, Westphalia in 1335.  The variations in the spelling of the name included Droste, Drost, Droz, Drossate, Drossaerd, Drossärd, Drossart and others.  Droste is a proper noun, a noun and an an adjective; the noun plural is Drostes.

A box of Droste cocoa powder, which demonstrates the effect to which it lent the name.

In French, the equivalent term is mise-en-abyme (plural mise en abymes or mises en abyme), (literally “placement into abyss”).  Long familiar in art and advertising, it was first used as device of literary criticism by the French author André Gide (1869–1951), whose output was varied but in the field of literary criticism was usually comprehendible, unlike some of what would later emerge from Paris.  His private (in his case a relative term) life was less admired.  In literature, the expression of the idea varies from introspection to the interpolation of a version of the work into the work itself; a story within a story.  In its more arcane interpretations, it’s used in deconstructive literary criticism to explore the inter-textual consequences of language (language abstracted from the constructed “reality” of the text).

A visual representation of the original Droste in an infinite loop (choose loop option to run).  Depending on how one defines infinity, an actual Droste probably can’t exist because at some point the light reflecting to define the image would become a single photon and because light cannot be smaller than a photon, the loop must stop.  It can however be described to the point where the loop tends toward infinity because whatever the visual dimension might be, descriptively it can (as a mathematical expression) be halved.  Infinity itself, although it probably doesn’t exist, can also be described although perhaps not as an equation.

London based art design group Hipgnosis played with the idea for the album cover for Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969).

Gide was unusually helpful (compared by later French theorists) in provide explanations which could be understood and were genuinely deconstructive in a useful way.  He made clear for example that his allusion to the Droste effect in the visual arts (infinite regression of form) did not imply a direct application of the concept to literature; he was discussing the use of the representation of a work within a work and makes the point that pure regression within something like a novel would be an absurd loop.  Instead, his conception was of structural elements of a novel appearing within the text as a way a author can construct meaning by creating or resolving conflict.

In computing, the mechanics of the idea is expressed as a quine (a computer with no dependence of user (or third-party) input, the only output of which is a replicated copy of its own source code).  Usually called, "a self-replicating program", quine was coined by US physicist Douglas Hofstadter (b 1945) and appeared first in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979) in honor of US philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) who wrote widely about indirect self-reference.  Hofstadter’s core concept in Gödel, Escher, Bach is elusive but is probably best understood as revolving around the interplay of loops in the mathematical structures in art, music and language.  It is not an easy read.

Quantum

Quantum (pronounced kwon-tuhm)

(1) A quantity or amount.

(2) A particular quantity or amount.

(3) A share or portion.

(4) A large quantity; something ordered, delivered or stored in bulk.

(5) In physics, the smallest quantity of some physical property, such as energy, that a system can possess according to the quantum theory; involving quanta, quantum mechanics or other aspects of quantum physics.

(6) A particle with such a unit of energy; the fundamental unit of a quantized physical magnitude, as angular momentum.

(7) Of change: (1) classically, sudden or discrete, without intermediate stages & (2) in modern adjectival use, something sudden and significant.

(8) In mathematics, a definite portion of a manifoldness, limited by a mark or by a boundary.

(9) In law, a brief document provided by the judge, elaborating on a sentencing decision (now most often used in the subcontinent); the total amount of something; the quantity.

(10) In computer operating systems, the amount of time allocated for a thread to perform its work in a multithreaded environment.

(11) In computer design, short for quantum computing.

(12) In medicine, the minimum dose of a pathogen required to cause an infection.

1610-1620: From the Late Latin quantum, noun use of the neuter form of the Classical Latin quantus (how much).

Quantum imported from Latin to physics directly by German theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858–1947) to describe the concept of the "minimum amount of a quantity which can exist".  Quantum theory is from 1912 and quantum mechanics from 1922, the latter much associated with German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) who in 1927 deduced his "uncertainty principle" which declares an electron may have a determinate position, or a determinate velocity, but not both.  In physics, the term quantum jump (the abrupt transition from one stationary state to another) came into use in 1954 while quantum leap (sudden large advance) dates from 1963 and in figurative use (by non-physicists) describes some drastic change or radical advance in some aspect of something (and is thus often synonymous with that other favorite of post-modernists, the paradigm shift.  There are pedants (and one suspects few of them actually comprehend quantum theory) who insist “quantum leap” in the sense of “sudden & big is wrong but it’s just part of the evolution of English in its usual democratic way.  Quantum is a noun and adjective; the noun plural is quantums or quanta.

IBM quantum computer.

In an announcement little noted outside the nerd community, in late 2021 IBM introduced the Circuit Layer Operations per Second (CLOPS) performance standard for quantum computing.  As a measuring metric, CLOPS corresponds to the number of quantum circuits a quantum processing unit (QPU) can execute per unit of time, the innovation compared with previous standards such as FLOPS (Floating Point Operations per Second) and its variations (ranging from kiloFLOPS (KFlops:10³) to yottaFLOPS (YFlops: 10²⁴)), in that it expresses not only the actual speed at which the workload is processed and successfully completed but also adjusts to account for the latency of the interaction between the quantum and classical computing realms.

It must be noted that to date, the pure quantum computer has existed only in theory and that functions now executed in the quantum space involve an interaction, being mediated via a classical binary computer which translates workloads into a QPU-compatible format, retrieves the workload's results and presents them in an understandable form.  CLOPS thus accounts for not only the interval of time that the workload is actually being processed at the qubit (quantum bit) level, but also the time it takes for the system to translate and transfer information across both components.

Dating back decades, IBM has published many standards which the industry has adopted ranging from specifications for memory addressing to video displays (the famous CGA, EGA, VGA, XGA et al) and had for some time discussed the need for a harmonized standard for quantum computing.  Until CLOPS was announced, the measures had usually been expressed in terms of two of quantum’s three planes: (1) scale which pertains to the number of qubits present in any given system and (2) quality which refers to the proportion of qubits that can perform usable work expressed via quantum volume.  What CLOPS does is provide a formula to express a measure of (3) speed.

IBM has published CLOPS results for some of its quantum computing systems using machines constructed with between five and 64 qubits and it was interesting to note all had a similar quantum volume score, their actual speed (expressed in CLOPS) varied between 753 and 1419 layers per second; as IBM predicted, it was latency which accounted for the difference.  Noting that, IBM also published results from their Qiskit (Quantum Information Software Kit for Quantum Computation) project which focuses on reducing the latency in the quantum-classic computing translation layer seriously via closer physical proximity between the objects, some experiments reducing run-time cycles from 45 days to nine hours.  The company expects CLOPS to be the defined measure of quantum computing in its present form as FLOPs and its variations were to super-computing.

Elope

Elope (pronounced ih-lohp)

(1) To run off secretly to be married, usually without the consent or knowledge of one's parents.

(2) To run away with a lover.

(3) To leave without permission or notification; escape:

(4) In the slang of geriatric medicine and mental health care (of a person with a mental disorder related to dementia or other cognitive impairment), to leave or run away from a safe area or safe premises.

1300s: From the Middle English alopen (to run away) (from which Anglo-Norman gained aloper) and perhaps influenced by the Middle Dutch lōpen (to run).  The Anglo-Norman aloper (to abduct, to run away from a husband with one’s lover) was from a Germanic source, either the Middle Dutch ontlopen (to run away) or some predecessor thereof.  It was cognate with the German entlaufen (to escape) and the Danish undløbe (to run away).  The sense of "run away in defiance of parental authority to marry secretly" became the standard meaning in the nineteenth century.  The now functionally extinct verb delope did not describe a young couple changing their minds and returning to their families unmarried.  It was unrelated to elope and was from the French déloper (throw away) and meant "to fire a gun into the air in order to end a duel".  Elope is a verb, eloper & elopement are nouns, eloping is a noun & verb and eloped & elopes are verbs; the most common noun plural is elopements.

The Middle Dutch (ont)lopen (run away), from ont- (away from) was from the Proto-Germanic und- (which also gave the first element in until) from the primitive Indo-European root ant- (front, forehead) with derivatives meaning "in front of, before" + lopen (to run) from the Proto-Germanic hlaupan (source also of Old English hleapan) and in support of this etymology, the OED compares Old English uðleapan, the technical word for the “escaping' of a thief”.  However the fourteenth century Anglo-French aloper (run away from a husband with one's lover) does seem the most compelling source.  Of note also is the oldest known Germanic word for "wedding", represented by the Old English brydlop (source also of the Old High German bruthlauft & the Old Norse bruðhlaup (literally "bride run) meaning "the conducting of the woman to her new home”.  Elope is a verb (used without object), eloped & eloping are verbs, elopement and eloper are nouns and the curious uneloped is an adjective.  Words similar in meaning include fly, abscond, skip, leave, decamp, bolt, escape, flee & disappear but, certainly as used today, elope is unique.

Elopement in England and Scotland

The Anglo-Norman aloper was originally a legal term meaning, of a wife, to run away from her husband with a paramour, a court journal from 1338 (during the reign of Edward III) among the earliest known recordings of court proceedings citing the word.  That was noted by John Rastell (circa 1475-1536) and his son, William Rastell (circa 1508-1565) in their 1636 legal textbook which translated what they called “…certaine difficult and obscure Words and Termes of the Common Lawes and Statutes of this Realme” from Old and Middle English into what is still a recognizably modern form.

Elopement they defined as “…when a married woman departeth from her husband with an adulterer, and dwelleth with the adulterer without voluntary reconcilement to her husband, by that she shall lose her dower…”.  They further noted the existence of a legal maxim of the time, in the form of verse:

The woman that her husband leaves

And in adultery leads her life

If that he dye vnreconcil’d

The Law endoweth no such wife

It changed.  From the twelfth to the early nineteenth century, “elope” was used to refer to a wife who had run off with her lover, the meaning shift changing to describe two unmarried lovers running away to marry, a thing which became popular after passage of the Marriage Act (1753) in England which required those under twenty-one to obtain their parents’ permission to marry.  Marriages being not infrequently arranged by parents with daughters’ opinions either ignored or un-sought, flights from undesired unions became frequent.  An unintended consequence of the Act was the boost to Scottish tourism.  Scotland’s legal system was, and remains, separate from that of England and not only waived parental consent but permitted marriage between girls of twelve and boys of fourteen so there was a happy conjunction between the push from the south and the pull from the north.  A sudden spike in young English lovers hastening over the border to marry ensued.  

Just across the English-Scottish border lay the village of Gretna Green which, improbably, became the Las Vegas of the era.  Under Scottish customary practice, village blacksmiths were known also as “anvil priests”, empowered to perform “anvil weddings” at their forge.  Under pressure from both London and the Scottish church, in 1856 Scottish marriage laws were amended to try to stem the flow of elopements, requiring a couple to live in a parish for three weeks prior to the ceremony, twenty-one days ample time for families to reclaim runaways.  Scottish commerce however rose to the occasion, offering three-week (room & meals) packages with what hotels now call “silent bookings” (anonymity).  Business continued.

A residual of these times remains in Scottish law, a twenty-one day notice of marriage still required although the residency requirement has been repealed and bride and groom now have to be over sixteen to marry.  Still in the business after two-hundred and sixty years, the Old Blacksmith's Shop in Gretna Green village continues to conduct anvil weddings although there's apparently no guarantee the celebrant will be a genuine blacksmith, those of that profession not now so numerous.  Experiencing something of a post COVID-19 boom, bookings are essential.

It's a changing world and the traditional reasons for elopement now generally less prevalent, the word “elope” has been re-purposed.  When the site SheKnows commented on the path to Lindsay Lohan's nuptials: “They got engaged in November 2021 before eloping in July 2022.”, they appeared to vest "elope" with a very modern sense.  The implication seems to be if a pop-culture figure's wedding happens without being packaged as a photo collection and video stream sold to whichever outlet is (1) thought appropriate and (2) willing to pay the asking price, that’s an elopement.  That sounds right and reflects the wider net cast by contemporary celebrity culture, the modern apparatus of distribution meaning such folk now have millions from whom to elope.

Hatter

Hatter (pronounced hat-er)

(1) A maker or seller of hats.

(2) In Australian slang (1) a person who has become eccentric from living alone in a remote area or (2) a person who lives alone in the bush, as a herder or prospector (now archaic and dating from the 1850s, a synecdoche of “mad as a hatter”).

(3) A student or member of the athletic program at Stetson University in Florida.

(4) In dialectical South Scots, to bother; to get someone worked up (and thus related to the modern “to hassle”).

1350–1400: From the Middle English hatter, the construct being hat + -er.  Hat was from the Middle English hat (head covering), from the Old English hæt (head-covering, hat), from the Proto-Germanic hattuz (hat), from the primitive Indo-European kadh (to guard, cover, care for, protect).  It was cognate with the North Frisian hat (hat), the Danish hat (hat), the Swedish hatt (hat), the Icelandic hattur (hat), the Latin cassis (helmet), the Lithuanian kudas (bird's crest or tuft), the Avestan xaoda (hat), the Persian خود‎ (xud) (helmet) and the Welsh cadw (to provide for, ensure).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought usually to have been borrowed from Latin –ārius and reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant was -our), from the Latin -(ā)tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  The –er suffix was added to verbs to create a person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb; used to form an agent noun.  If added to a noun it usually denoted an occupation.  Hatter is a noun and the rare hattering & hattered are verbs; the noun plural is hatters.

Lindsay Lohan wearing hats.

The synonyms are hatmaker (or hat-maker) & milliner.  As makers of hats, the difference between a hatter and a milliner is that a milliner is a hat-maker specializing (historically bespoke headpieces) in women's headwear (and works at a millinery shop), while a hatter makes hats for men (and works at a hattery).  In the business of selling hats the distinction blurred, especially in the case of operations which dealt with hats for both men and women.  As a retailer, a hatter could deal either exclusively in hats for men for those for both sexes whereas what was sold by a millinery was (at least intended) only for women.  Milliner was from the Middle English Milener (native of Milan), the construct an irregular form of Milan + -er, the link explained by the northern Italian city being the source of many of the fine garments for women imported into England in the late Medieval age.

Depiction of the mad hatter’s tea party.  Created by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), The Hatter appears in both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) and though nowhere in the text does the author make reference to a "mad hatter", that is the popular form and not an unreasonable one, given the madness of both The Hatter and the March Hare is confirmed by the Cheshire Cat.  Lewis Carroll was said to be familiar with the traits of madness and the condition suffered by hatters was well known but some literary historians have speculated The Hatter may have been based on an eccentric shop-keeper.  There’s no documentary evidence to support the claim.

Role model JR Ewing (Larry Hagman, 1931–2012) in Stetson hat.

The use of Hatter (usually in the collective Hatters) to describe students or members of the athletic program at Florida’s Stetson University comes from John B Stetson (1830-1906), otherwise famous as the hatter known for his eponymous hats.  The school was in 1883 founded as the DeLand Academy but was in 1889 renamed Stetson after the Mr Hatter joined the Board of Trustees, the change acknowledging his financial largess.  Thus were born the Hatters and the name (informally) extends to the school’s mascot (who is correctly named John B) which wears a Stetson hat, green bandana, and alligator skin boots.  The mascot is considered equal in status to all other members of the school family.

Lindsay Lohan wearing more hats.

The phrase “mad as a hatter” was first recorded in 1829 and is usually attributed to the correlation noted between those engaged in the profession of hat-making and instances of Korsakoff's syndrome induced by the frequency of them handling mercury-contaminated felt.  The nineteenth century speculation of a link with the Old English ātor (poison) or its descendant the Middle English atter (poison, venom,) lacks evidence has long been discredited.  Korsakoff's syndrome was named after the Russian neuropsychiatrist Sergei Sergeievich Korsakoff (1854-1900 (his work on alcoholic psychosis still influential)) who identified the syndrome which is induced by both exposure to mercury and chronic alcohol use.  A neurological disorder of the central nervous system caused by a deficiency of thiamine, the symptoms include amnesia, deficits in explicit memory, tremors and general confabulation.  The fourteenth century variant “mad as a March hare” alludes to the crazy behavior of hares during rutting season, mistakenly thought to be only in March.

In 1888, a hydrochloride-based process which obviated the need to use mercury when processing felt was patented and in France and the UK, just before the turn of the century, laws were passed banning the use of substance in the making of hats but, as an illustration of the way things have changed, in the US, the risk was ignored by hatters and their employers alike, even trade unions making no attempt to end its use.  Only with the onset of World War II when all available mercury was needed for military production did US hat makers voluntarily agree to adopt the long available alternative process which used hydrogen peroxide.

Goth

Goth (pronounced goth)

(1) A member of an East Germanic people from Scandinavia who settled south of the Baltic early in the first millennium AD. They moved on to the Ukrainian steppe, first raiding and later invading many parts of the Roman Empire between the third and fifth centuries.

(2) In historic slang, a person of no refinement; barbarian.

(3) A genre of rock music, first popular in the 1980s and characterized by morbid themes and dreary melodies.

(4) A person part of a sub-culture favoring this style of music and whose tastes tend to be dark and morbid.

(5) In fashion, a descriptor of dark (usually black or purple) clothing and heavy make-up intended to create a ghostly appearance.

Pre-900: From the Middle English Gothe and Late Latin Gothī (plural); which supplanted the Old English Gota (plural Gotan), cognate with Gothic Gut (as in Gut-thiuda (Goth-people)).  Word in Greek was Gothoi.  In the nineteenth century, use in English became common to describe both architecture (often written as Gothick) and the literary style of certain novels; an adherent of either style was sometimes called a Gothicist.  Modern use to describe the fashion and music emerged in the 1980s, considered still a fork of the punk aesthetic.

The Visigoths

The Visigoths were the western branches of the old nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths.  These tribes flourished and spread throughout the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, an era known as the Migration Period.  It was the Visigoths under Alaric I who sacked Rome in 410, an act which made Europe’s descent into medievalism inevitable although there are historians who dispute the detail of that.

The term Visigoth was a geo-etymological error made by Cassiodorus (Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, circa 485–circa 585).  Always known as Cassiodorus, he was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and a bureaucrat in the administration of the Ostrogoth king, Theoderic the Great.  Confusingly for students of the epoch, Senator was part of his surname; he was not a member of any senate.  His mistake was thinking Visigoth meant "west Goths".  Visigoth is from the Latin Visigothus, probably deriving from the Proto-Germanic Wīsagutô, a construction of wīsaz (wise, knowledgable) +‎ gutô (a Goth) or from the primitive Indo-European wesu (good).

Battle of Guadalete, circa 1890, by Salvador Martínez Cubells (1845–1914)).

It happened in what is now southern Spain but it’s not known exactly where the Battle of Guadalete was fought and even the date is disputed, most sources saying it was in 711, others a year later although all agree it lasted, on and off, for days.  There had been earlier engagements but Guadalete, fought between the Umayyad Caliphate and Roderic, Visigothic King of Hispania, was the first major battle of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania.  Against the Christian Visigoth army under Roderic, the invading force of the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate was comprised mostly of Berbers and a smaller number of Arabs.  The significance of the battle, not wholly realized at the time, is that it was a set-piece culmination of the earlier skirmishes which had weakened the structure and lines of communications of the Visigoth army.  The Umayyad victory marked the beginning of their conquest of Hispania,  Roderic and many of his generals killed in the battle, opening the way for the capture of the Visigothic capital of Toledo.

Modern-sounding geopolitical concepts like political economy were important influences in the Islamic expansion in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.  North African politics and economics influenced the early Muslims’ decision to cross the Strait of Gibraltar because the Arab armies which had conquered North Africa found themselves drastically outnumbered by the Berbers (Amazigh), many of whom were either Christian or somewhere in the pagan tradition and the invaders’ rules were unambiguous: Christians, a “People of the Book,” were expected to pay the jizya, an additional tax not imposed on Muslims while pagans were offered the choice of conversion or the blade of the sword.

Clear though the theocratic rules may have been, the realities of an small occupying force attempting to exploit a local population which was hostile and greatly outnumbered the conquerors meant the triumph of politics over ideology, both the collecting of tax and conversions of heathens soon haphazard.  But, the lands of North Africa were vast and their defense and administration required money and if it couldn’t locally be collected, it would have to come from the spoils of war new conquests will bring.  To the south lay the seemingly endless deserts of the Sahara and to the north, the waters of the Mediterranean and whatever dangers lay in the sea-crossing to Iberia, they were preferable to attempting to push through the Sahara.

Some toxicity in Visigothic politics was also a factor in the invasion.   The Visigoths had ruled almost all of Hispania since 415 when they drove out the Vandals who taken control of the province from Rome; ironically it was to North Africa the Vandals fled.  The Visigoth king had once been elected but, as happens in kingdoms, dynastic habits evolved and had become the practice for the crown to be passed to a son although, that inheritance was subject to the veto of the aristocracy.  Usually the nobles concurred but not always and in 710, upon the death of a king, they intervened to replace the dynasty with new blood.  Conflict between the clans ensued and, although in battle the new king prevailed, it appears part of the settlement was the division of the kingdom.

At that point, matters cease to be history and become the stuff of myth and legend.  From Arabic sources is the story that the Muslims invaded Hispania at the behest of Count Julian of Ceuta, the last Christian governor in North Africa. Ceuta lies on the African coast just south of Gibraltar and Julian, who may have been Berber, or Germanic, or Greek and was either a vassal of the Visigoths or a Byzantine governor of North Africa, the records to establish the truth are lost.  Julian had somehow succeeded in holding Ceuta against the Muslim advance and, secure in his city, sent his daughter to Toledo to study at the court of Roderic, the new Visigoth king, which seemed a good idea at the time but within months, Julian was told she was pregnant with Roderic’s child.  Enraged, in 710 Julian approached his former enemies and suggested an invasion of Hispania.  Improbable though this may be, the PR machines on the Muslim and Christian sides were cranked up and offered their own embellishments, the former saying the evil Roderic had raped the poor girl, the latter that the little harlot had seduced poor Roderic.

Julian, it is said, provided provisions, logistical support and intelligence for the assault but little more is known other than it was the name of the general leading the invasion force, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād (طارق بن زياد in the Arabic) from which the Rock of Gibraltar gained its name, Jabal Ṭāriq (جبل طارق), meaning “mountain of Ṭāriq”.  The invasion was a success but the scale of the military operation is uncertain, medieval writings mentioning forces on both sides in the hundreds of thousands but most historians believe the Muslims had no more than 20,000 troops and the Visigoths perhaps twice that number.

Whatever the numbers, the Visigoths were defeated, Roderic killed in battle.  After the fog of war cleared, the fog of history drifted in and there are many tales to explain how a big army with all the advantages which accrue to defenders could be defeated by a smaller expeditionary force.  Some suggest Roderic didn’t enjoy the loyalty of all his men, many unhappy at his usurpation of the throne but this is contradicted by those who claim the old king was despised by all and that Roderic’s enthronement had been widely celebrated.  Apart from the legal point about the nobles exercising their right to elect a king so it could hardly be said to be a usurpation, the truth of any of this is unknown.  Nor is much known about the battle, military historians tending to conclude the most likely reason for the Arab success was the deployment of fast, mobile, cavalry against static defencs lines in an unrelenting succession of attacks which simply overwhelmed the Visigothic army.

After victory at Guadalete, Ṭāriq didn’t pause, marching on to the Visigothic capital, Toledo before his enemy had time to regroup.  At that point, Musa bin Nusayr, Ṭāriq’s commanding officer, shocked at the rapidity of the advance and anxious to grab for himself the glory of victory, assembled “reinforcements” and hastened across the strait to assume personal command.  Musa didn’t long get to bask in the glow of Ṭāriq’s triumph, the Caliph, Ibrahim ibn al-Walid (ابراهيم ابن الوليد بن عبد الملك‎), soon recalling them both to Damascus where they would live out their days.  This narrative, though widely told, is disputed, some claiming the two soldiers had a harmonious relationship and some saying that while there were disputes, they were later reconciled.  Again, it’s all lost to history.

One military legacy of the conquest of their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was one hardly noticed at the time and dismissed as insignificant by those who did.  The one area which did not fall to them was the tiny northern kingdom of Asturias and it was from this postage stamp of a renegade province that one day would form the political and geographic base for the Reconquista, the eventual re-imposition of Christian control over Iberia.

American Sapphic, Lindsay Lohan & former special friend Samantha Ronson by Ben Tegel after American Gothic (1930) by Grant Wood (1891-1942).

Cat

Cat (pronounced kat)

(1) A small domesticated carnivore, Felis domestica or F. catus, bred in a number of varieties.

(2) Any of several carnivores of the family Felidae, as the lion, tiger, leopard or jaguar.

(3) A woman given to spiteful or malicious gossip (archaic).

(4) In historic Admiralty jargon, the truncated term for the cat-o'-nine-tails, a whip used to administer corporal punishment on ships at sea.

(5) A contraction of generalized use in words staring with cat (category, catboat, catamaran, catfish, catapult, catalytic et al).

(6) In nautical use, a tackle used in hoisting an anchor to the cathead.

(7) A double tripod having six legs but resting on only three no matter how it is set down, usually used before or over a fire.

(8) In medieval warfare, a movable shelter for providing protection when approaching a fortification.

(9) In aviation, the acronym for clear-air-turbulence.

(10) In medical diagnostics, the acronym for computerized axial tomography.

(11) In computing, the acronym for computer-aided teaching and computer-assisted trading

Circa 700:  From the Middle English cat or catte and the Old English catt (masculine) & catte (feminine).  It was cognate with the Old Frisian and Middle Dutch katte, the Old High German kazza, Old Norse köttr, Irish cat, Welsh cath (thought derived from the Slavic kotŭ), the Russian kot and the Lithuanian katė̃; the Old French chat enduring.  The curious Late Latin cattus or catta was first noted in the fourth century, presumably associated with the arrival of domestic cats but of uncertain origin.  The Old English catt appears derived from the earlier (circa 400-440) West Germanic form which came from the Proto-Germanic kattuz which evolved into the Germanic forms, the Old Frisian katte, the Old Norse köttr, the Dutch kat, the Old High German kazza and the German Katze, the ultimate source being the Late Latin cattus.

The prefix meaning “down, against or back,” occurred originally in loanwords from the Greek (cataclysm; catalog; catalepsy) and on the basis this model, was used in the formation of other compound words such as catagenesis or cataphyll.  The source was the Greek kata, a combining form of katá (down, through, against, according to, towards, during).  A most active prefix in the Ancient Greek, in English it’s found mostly in Latin words borrowed after circa 1500.  As applied, the meanings from the Greek attached to the constructs: down (catabolism), away, off (catalectic), against (category), according to (catholic) and thoroughly (catalogue).  In Byzantine Greek, spelling was katta and by circa 700 the variations were in universal European use, the Latin feles almost wholly supplanted.

In the literature, a Latin root is cited because it’s documented but, linguists suggest ultimate source was probably Afro-Asiatic, noting the Nubian kadis, and Berber kadiska, both of which meant "cat" and the Arabic qitt (tomcat) may be from the same source.  Despite that, in English, meaning extended to the big cats (lions, tigers etc) only after circa 1600.  In the early thirteenth century, it was used as a term of disapprobation for women, used sometimes as a synonym for prostitute.  In African-American use, it was a way of referring to one’s own or other cohorts while the application to jazz musicians or their audience emerged in the 1920s, both being adopted as part of the language of the counter-culture in the 1960s, the latter phase without the earlier racial specificity.

Phrases associated with the cat o’ nine tails

The cat o’ nine tails ("the cat" in the vernacular), was a short whip used to administer corporal punishment in the British military, most notably by the Royal Navy.  Used as a judicial punishment in many countries, there are references to in police reports as early as 1691 but the term became more widely used after 1695 when it was mentioned in the script of a play, the Admiralty adopting it somewhat later.  The cat is widely believed to be the source of a number of sayings but among etymologists, opinion is divided.  Although the British Army formerly abolished flogging in 1881, it the navy it was only ever “suspended” although it's said no sentences have been imposed since 1879.

Cat got your tongue?:  Said to refer to those about the be punished often being somewhat lost for words at the sight of the whip, some linguists point-out it wasn’t seen in print until the 1880s and suggest its most likely the invention of children.

Bell the cat:  At sea, a bell would sound prior to floggings being administered.  A more prosaic explanation is the practice of attaching collars with bells to domestic cats to (1) make them easier to find and (2) protect birds and other small creatures.

Let the cat out of the bag:  To avoid the leather of the tails becoming brittle or stiff, when not in use, the cat was kept in a bag filled with sea-brine.  It’s also suggested it’s a variation of “pig in a poke (bag)”; a way of cautioning folk not to buy animals in bags given worthless felines could be substituted for valuable piglets.  Letting the cat out of the bag disclosed the trick.

Not enough room to swing a cat:  The sailors’ informal term for decrying the small spaces below deck.  This was long-thought to reference the dimensions required to use the cat as intended but some sources, noting the phrase pre-existed the Admiralty’s use, suggest, perhaps speculatively, it must refer to manhandled felines.  In this case, the naval connection is preferred.

While the cat’s away, the mice will play:  Nothing specifically naval, a general reference to cats and mice, the simile extending to what the untrustworthy get up to in the absence of figures of authority.

Rubbing salt into the wound: When the punishment was complete, the wounds were usually cleaned with especially salty brine or seawater, a basic and sometimes effective precaution against infection.  The modern meaning of the phrase is derived from the additional pain caused rather than the primitive infection control and is thus a variation of “adding insult to injury” (or really, adding injury to injury), the notion of gratuitously or vindictively adding to existing pain.

Lindsay Lohan clad in cat theme for Halloween party at the Cuckoo Club, London, October 2015.

Axe

Axe or Ax (pronounced aks)

(1) An instrument with a bladed head on a handle or helve, used for hewing, cleaving, chopping etc.  Axes appear to date from circa 6000 BC.

(2) In the slang of jazz musicians, various musical instruments.

(3) In slang, dismissal from employment.

(4) In slang, any usually summary removal or curtailment.

(5) In rock music, twelve or (especially) six-string electric guitars, a device with both is called a “doubleneck”.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English ax, axe, ex & exe (edged instrument for hewing timber and chopping wood; battle weapon), from the Old English æx and æces (ie ces (the Northumbrian acas)) (axe, pickaxe, hatchet), from the Proto-Germanic akusjo, related to the Old Frisian axa.  All were akin to the Gothic aquizi, the Old Norse øx & ǫx, the Old Frisian axe, the Old High German accus, acchus, akus & ackus (from which modern German gained Axt) and the Middle High German plural exa.  Source was the Germanic akwiz, (which existed variously as akuz, aksi, ákəs, áks) from the Latin acsiā and the Ancient Greek axī́nē, from the primitive Indo-European agwsi & agwsi- (axe).  The word hatchet (a smaller axe) was an imperfect echoic, an evolution of the earlier axxette.  Squabbles surrounded the spelling in the twentieth century and in Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858-1933) noted with regret that while ax, though “…better on every ground, of etymology, phonology and analogy” appeared so strange to modern eyes that “…it suggests pedantry and is unlikely to be restored.”  The phrase "my grandfather's axe" explores the nature of authenticity, the expanded quotation being "This is my grandfather's axe; my father replaced the handle and I replaced the head."

The Axeman Cometh: Eighteenth century line engraving of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587; Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland 1542-1567) at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, 8 February 1587.  Perhaps remarkably, this image is available as a greeting card.

Although there was a long history of regicide, this was the first lawfully sanctioned killing of an anointed European monarch but it joined the roll call of botched executions, the decapitation requiring three blows with the axe rather than the “best practice” single strike.  The executioner’s first blow was misdirected and struck the back of her head and although the second almost completely severed the neck, a third attempt was needed for a last, recalcitrant piece of sinew.  Following protocol, the executioner took the head by the hair and held it aloft and spoke the words: “God save the Queen” (Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).  At that moment, it was revealed the luxuriant auburn tresses in his hand were part of a wig and the head tumbled to the floor, the deceased 44 year old having cropped, grey hair.  The reports of the aftermath of her death are contradictory with one account saying as she lay dead, a tiny dog she’d concealed in her petticoats scrambled from the folds, curled up in a pool of her blood and died but what is not disputed is the garment’s fabric was velvet in crimson brown, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Roman Catholic Church to which she’d remained attached.  Her last words were: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum” (Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit).2009. 

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin with Gibson EDS-1275 Doubleneck, Earl’s Court, London, May 1975.

The sense of an axe as a "musical instrument" dates from 1955, originally from the jazz scene where it referred to the saxophone, the now more common use to describe electric guitars emerging only in the summer of love (1967).  The phrase "to have an axe to grind" was first used in 1810 in a matter involving the US politician Charles Miner (1780-1865) but has since the late nineteenth century been often misattributed since to Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), the latter in this case a victim of the phenomenon of "quotation celebrity" which affects also figures such as William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955).  In the case of the bard that always seems strange because all his words exist in print but it does seem that when some see a familiar fragment containing a word like "hath", they assume it comes from Shakespeare.

An Auburn haired Lindsay Lohan in crop top, AXE Lounge, Southampton, New York, June 2009. 

Battleaxes (don't call them old).  Bronwyn Bishop (b 1942) (left), Nancy Pelosi (b 1940) (centre) & crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947) (right).

The verb axe dates from the 1670s in the sense of "to shape or cut with an axe" and was a direct development from the noun.  The figurative use meaning "to remove" (a person, from a position) or "severely reduce" (expenditure) began circa 1923 and soon extended to the sense of severely cutting the levels of anything to do with money.  Surprisingly, there seems to be no reference to the noun axe-handle or ax-handle prior to 1798.  The noun battleaxe (also as battle-axe & battle-ax) was a military term which referred specifically to a weapon of war, typically a double headed device which cut when swung in either direction although, despite the way they're often depicted in popular culture, they weren't always large and heavy, something not surprising given soldiers' traditional preference for lightweight tools.  The figurative sense meaning "formidable woman" was US slang, dating from 1896.  Unlike most gender-loaded (this one by historical association) terms, it may in some circumstances be still OK to use because "formidable" does have positive connotations although anyone brave enough to try might be well-advised to field "battleaxe" rather than "old battleaxe" and let it do its work synecdochally.

Comrade Stalin (left), an ice axe (centre) and comrade Trotsky (right).

Comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder of the Fourth International) in The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? (1936) had a feeling for the political phrase and labelled the state created by comrade Joseph Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) a “Soviet Thermidor” because although Tsarist era capitalism wasn’t re-created (a la the monarchy in France not being restored in the 1790s), the combination of a bureaucracy supporting a personality cult (even if the latter was in 1936 still somewhat disguised) was “a counterrevolutionary regression” which betrayed what was achieved by comrade Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924; head of government of Russia or Soviet Union 1917-1924) between 1917-1924.  The phrase caught the imagination of many, notably those in the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (The POUM, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), a non-communist Marxist party (a surprisingly populated fork of left-wing thought) which comrade Stalin correctly associated with Trotskyism.  The POUM was highly productive in thought but drifted increasingly far from the moorings of political reality although rhetoric which included polemics like “Stalinist Thermidorians have established in Russia the bureaucratic regime of a poisoned dictator.”  Agents of the Narodný komissariat vnutrennih del (NKVD, The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs and one of the many predecessors to the KGB), answerable only to comrade Stalin, killed dozens of POUM’s Central Committee which ended the organization’s effectiveness for a generation.  In his prodigious memory, comrade Stalin filed away annoying phrases and in 1940 he had comrade Trotsky murdered in Mexico.  The murder weapon was an ice-axe.

Cloak and axe of Giovanni Battista Bugatti (1779–1869), official executioner for the Papal States 1796-1864, Criminology Museum of Rome.  Woodcuts and other depictions from the era suggest the blood-red cloak wasn't always worn during executions. 

Giovanni Battista Bugatti began his career at a youthful 17 under Pius VI (1717–1799; pope 1775-1799) and diligently he served six pontiffs before being pensioned off by Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878), his retirement induced not by the Holy See losing enthusiasm for the death penalty because one Antonio Balducci succeeded him in the office which fell into disuse only with the loss of the Papal States (756-1870; a conglomeration of territories in the central & northern Italian peninsula under the personal sovereignty of the pope), after the unification of Italy.  Unlike his illustrious predecessor, history has recorded little about Signor Balducci although it’s known he performed his final execution in 1870.  Signor Bugatti was by far the longest-serving of the Papal States’ many executioners and locals dubbed him Mastro Titta, a titular corruption of maestro di giustizia (master of justice) and his 69 year tenure in his unusual role can be accounted for only by either (1) he felt dispatching the condemned a calling or (2) he really enjoyed his work, because his employers were most parsimonious: he received no retainer and only a small fee per commission (although he was granted a small, official residence).  His tenure was long and included 516 victims (he preferred to call them “patients”, the term adopted also by Romans who enjoyed the darkly humorous) but was only ever a part-time gig; most of his income came from his work as an umbrella painter (a part of the labour market which still exists as a tint, artisan niche).  Depending on this and that, his devices included the axe, guillotine, noose or mallet while the offences punished ranged from the serious (murder, conspiracy, sedition et al) to the petty (habitual thieves and trouble-makers).

Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934; Cardinal Secretary of State 1914-1930, left) and Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943, right), signing the Lateran Treaty, Lateran Palace, Rome, 11 February 1929.

Although as early as 1786 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany became the first Italian state to abolish the death penalty (torture also banned), the sentence remained on the books in the Papal States; then as now, the poor disproportionately were victims of the sanction, similar (or worse) crimes by the bourgeoisie or nobility usually handled with less severity, “hushed-up” or just ignored.  With the loss of the Papal States, the pope’s temporal domain shrunk to little more than what lay around St Peter’s Square; indeed between 1870 and the signing of Lateran Treaty (1929) after which the Italian state recognized Vatican City as a sovereign state, no pope left the Vatican, their status as self-imposed prisoners a political gesture.  The Lateran treaty acknowledged the validity of the sentence (Article 8 of the 1929 Vatican City Penal Code stating anyone who attempted to assassinate the pope would be subject to the death penalty) although this provision was never used, tempted though some popes must have been.  Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) in 1969 struck capital punishment from the Vatican's legal code and the last reference to the sanction vanished in 2001 under Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005).