Arch

Arch (pronounced ahrch)

(1) In architecture, a curved masonry construction for spanning an opening, consisting of a number of wedge-like stones, bricks, or the like, set with the narrower side toward the opening in such a way that forces on the arch are transmitted as vertical or oblique stresses on either side of the opening.

(2) In architecture, an upwardly curved construction, as of steel or timber functioning in the manner of a masonry arch.

(3) A doorway, gateway etc, having a curved head; an archway or the curved head of an opening, as a doorway.

(4) Any overhead curvature resembling an arch.

(5) Something bowed or curved; any bowlike part.

(6) In anatomy, any of various parts or structures of the body having a curved or arch-like outline, such as the transverse portion of the aorta (arch of the aorta) or the raised bony vault formed by the tarsal and metatarsal bones (arch of the foot),

(7) In cobbling, a device inserted in or built into shoes for supporting the arch of the foot.

(8) A dam construction having the form of a barrel vault running vertically with its convex face toward the impounded water.

(9) In glassmaking, a chamber or opening in a glassmaking furnace.

(10) Cunning, crafty or sly.

(11) Playfully roguish or mischievous.

(12) A preeminent person, a chief (largely obsolete except for technical use in ecclesiastical or other hierarchies, (Archdeacon, Archbishop, Archangel, Archduke, monarch, matriarch et al).

(13) One of the basic patterns of the human fingerprint, formed by several curved ridges one above the other.

1250-1300: From the Middle English arch, from the Old English arce, ærce & erce, from the Old French arche, from the Vulgar Latin arca, feminine variant of Latin arcus (arc, a bow), from the Classical Latin atchi, from the Ancient Greek arkhi (to rule).  From the Latin, other European languages similarly borrowed including the Old Norse erki, the Dutch aarts, the Middle Low German erse, the Middle High German & German erz and the Gothic ark.  Archangel was universally borrowed unchanged from the Greek.  Arch was added to many words borrowed from Latin and Greek in the Old English period; it subsequently became a productive form added to nouns of any origin, which thus denote individuals or institutions directing or having authority over others of their class (archbishop; archdiocese; archpriest, archdeacon). More recently, arch, has developed the senses “principal” (archenemy; archrival) or “prototypical” and thus exemplary or extreme (archconservative); nouns so formed are almost always pejorative (archvillain).

Some variations of the arch.

The original meaning, used in architecture of building, bridges and other structures, was by the early fifteenth century applied to eyebrows and anything having this form.  The sense of "chief, principal" used first in the twelfth century as archangel became extended to so many derogatory uses that by mid-seventeenth century, it acquired a meaning of "roguish, mischievous" although over time that softened, by the nineteenth century generally understood to mean something like "saucy".  The verb arch emerged in the early fourteenth century in the sense of "to form an arch" (which had be implied in the earlier arched) and within a hundred years there was the transitive sense "furnish with an arch".  Arch is a noun, verb & adjective, arched is an adjective, arching is a verb, noun & adjective and archly is an adverb; the noun plural is arches.

The Court of Arches

Church of St Mary-le-Bow (bow the archaic name for arch), London, a Church of England parish church in the City of London.

Churches have existed on the site since 1080, the present building designed by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) and built over a decade, finally completed in 1680.  The tower has for centuries been noted for its bells which are the source of the legend of Dick Whittington calling him in 1392 back to London where he would sit as lord mayor.  In London tradition, to be thought a true Cockney, one had to be born within earshot of the bells so the demographics of that race were interrupted for two decades, the damage inflicted in 1941 by the Luftwaffe so severe it would not be until 1961 the bells again rang.

A record from the Court of Arches Act books, first session of Trinity Term, 22 May 1665 (Arches A 4, f.115v)

The Court of Arches is the provincial court for Canterbury.  Having both appellate and original jurisdiction, it is presided over by the Dean of the Arches, who is styled "The Right Honourable and Right Worshipful the Official Principal and Dean of the Arches".  The dean must be a barrister of ten years' High Court standing or the holder or former holder of high judicial office, the appointment made jointly by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.  Although it has sat in other places, the court’s permanent seat is the Church of St Mary-le-Bow, the arches of which lend the court its name.  Technically, the proper jurisdiction of the court is limited to the thirteen parishes belonging to the archbishop in London but, as the office of Dean is united with that of Principal Official, the dean receives and determines appeals from the sentences of all lesser ecclesiastical courts within the province.  Many original suits are also heard, where lesser courts waive jurisdiction by letters of request.  The original jurisdiction formerly exercised by a separate provincial court, known as the Court of Audience, was long ago abolished.

Lindsay Lohan under a colonnade arch, Miami, Florida, 2013.

The official principal of the Arches court is now the only ecclesiastical judge empowered to pass a sentence of deprivation against a clerk in holy orders.  The appeals from the decisions of the Arches court were once made directly to the sovereign but are now heard by the judicial committee of the Privy Council except on matters of doctrine, ritual or ceremony, which go to the Court for Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved.  Charmingly, the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Act 1532, dating from the reign of Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) remains one of the statutes empowering the court’s original jurisdiction though since the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, it no longer hears appeals from the consistory courts of the bishops in all testamentary and matrimonial causes.

Convocation

Convocation (pronounced kon-vuh-key-shuhn)

(1) The act of convoking.

(2) The state of being convoked.

(3) A group of people gathered in answer to a summons; an assembly.

(4) In the Church of England, either of the synods of the provinces of Canterbury or York.

(5) In the Protestant Episcopal Church, an assembly of the clergy and part of the laity of a diocese.

(6) The area represented at such an assembly.

(7) A formal assembly at a college or university, especially for a graduation ceremony.

(8) In universities, a term used generally to describe the group (of the institution’s graduates and others) entitled to elect governing bodies such as their senate.

(9) In Indian institutions of learning, a degree-awarding ceremony.

(10) The collective noun for eagles.

(11) In historic Freemasonry, a meeting of companions of a Holy Royal Arch chapter of the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.

1350–1400: From the Middle English convocacio(u)n (assembly of persons) from the Middle French convocation from the Latin convocātiōn (stem of convocātiō).  Old French picked up convocation directly from the Latin convocationem (nominative convocatio), noun of action from past participle stem of convocare (to call together), the construct being com (together) + vocare (to call).  Vocare was derived from vox (voice).  The form exists in many modern European languages; as well as the English and French convocation, there’s convocació in Catalan, convocazione in Italian, convocação in Portuguese and convocación in Spanish.  Convocation and convoker are nouns and convoked & convoking are verbs; the common noun plural is convocations.

The Holy Royal Arch

A Masonic faction, within Freemasonry the Holy Royal Arch is described as a degree.  The origins of Royal Arch Masonry and the Holy Royal Arch are murky and it’s known only that it dates back to the mid eighteenth century although fragments of Royal Arch rituals exist in Masonic literature from the 1720s.  The first historically verified appearance of was in 1743 when a “Royal Arch” was carried in a Dublin by “two excellent Masons”.  The appearance of the arch provoked controversy and attracted the disapprobation of Dr Dassigny in his critique “A serious and impartial enquiry into the cause of the present decay of Free-masonry in the Kingdom of Ireland” (1744).

Royal Arch Masonry was the subject of a long factional battle within Freemasonry and by 1751 the factions had coalesced into two, the older body paradoxically known as the Moderns, the newer the Antients (an even then archaic spelling of ancient).  Their disputes became increasingly circular and by 1813, Antients and Moderns agreed on an act of union and formed the United Grand Lodge of England.  The compromise became possible by the creation of a protocol under which the union would recognise the Royal Arch (to placate the Antients) but create it as a separate order (to appease the Moderns).

The recognition can be seen as a pyrrhic victory for the Antients.  By 1817, the faction had faded away and, although never formerly dissolved, the membership was soon absorbed into what had previously been the grand chapter of the Moderns with all forming as a group when members attend a grand chapter convocation.  The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or has never denied being a faction of the Freemasons.

Proscenium

Proscenium (pronounced proh-see-nee-uhm or pruh-see-nee-uhm)

(1) In a modern theatre, the stage area between the curtain and the orchestra or the arch that separates a stage from the auditorium together with the area immediately in front of the arch (also called the proscenium arch).

(2) In the theatre of antiquity, the stage area immediately in front of the scene building (probably a medieval misunderstanding).

(3) In the theatre of antiquity, the row of columns at the front the scene building, at first directly behind the circular orchestra but later upon a stage.

1608: From the Latin proscēnium and proscaenium (in front of the scenery) from the Ancient Greek προσκήνιον (proskḗnion), (entrance to a tent, porch, stage) which, in late Classical Greek had come to mean “stent; boothtage curtain”.  The construct in Greek was πρό (pró-) (before) + σκηνή (skēnḗ) (scene; building) + --ion (the neuter noun suffix).  The noun plural is proscenia, the relative rarity of the base word meaning prosceniums is seen less frequently still but both are acceptable.  The standard abbreviation in the industry and among architects is pros.  For purists, the alternative spelling is proscænium and other European forms include the French proscénium and the Italian proscenio, other languages borrowing these spellings.

The occasionally cited literal translation of the Greek "the space in front of the scenery" appears to be another of the medieval-era errors created by either a mistranslation or a misunderstanding.  The modern sense of "space between the curtain and the orchestra" is attested from 1807 although it had been used figurative to suggest “foreground or front” since the 1640s.

Architectural variations

Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts.

Although the term is not always applied correctly, technically, a proscenium stage must have an architectural frame (known to architects as the “proscenium arch” although these are not always in the shape of an arch).  Their stages tend to be deep (the scale of the arch usually dictating the extent) and to aid visibility, are sometimes raked, the surface rising in a gentle slope away from the audience.  Especially in more recent constructions, the front of the stage can extend beyond the proscenium into the auditorium; this called an apron or forestage.  Theatres with proscenium stages are known as “proscenium arch theatres” and often include an orchestra pit and a fly tower with one or more catwalks to facilitate the movement of scenery and the lighting apparatus.

Thrust stage, Shakespeare Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario.

There are other architectural designs for theatres.  The thrust stage projects (ie “thrusts”) the performance into the auditorium with the audience sitting on three sides in what’s called the “U” shape.  In diagrams and conceptual sketches, the thrust stage area is often represented as a square but they’ve been built in rectangles, as semi-circles, half-polygons, multi-pointed stars and a variety of other geometric shapes.  Architects can tailor a thrust stage to suit the dimensions of the available space but the usual rationale is to create an intimacy between actors and audience.

In the round: Circle in the Square Theatre, New York City.

The term theatre-in-the-round can be misleading because the arrangement of the performance areas, while central, is rarely executed as an actual circle, the reference instead being to the audience being seated “all around”.  Built typically in a square or polygonal formation, except in some one-act performances, the actors enter through aisles or vomitories between the seating and directors have them move as necessitated by the need to relate to an audience viewing from anywhere in the 360^o sweep, the scenery minimal and positioned avoid obstructions.  Because theatre-in-the-round inherently deconstructs the inherently two-dimensional nature of the classical stage, it was long a favorite of the avant-garde (there was a time when such a thing could be said to exist).  The arena theatre is theatre-in-the-round writ large, big auditoria with a central stage and like the sports stadia they resemble, typically rectangular and often a multi-purpose venue.  There’s a fine distinction between arena theatres and hippodromes which more recall circuses with a central circular (or oval) performance space surrounded by concentric tiered seating with deep pits or low screens often separating audience and performers.

Winter Talent Show stage, Mean Girls (2004).

The black-box (or studio or ad hoc) theatre is a flexible performance space.  At its most basic it can be a single empty room, painted black, the floor of the stage the same level as the first audience row from which there’s no separation.  To maximize the flexibility, some black-box theatres have no permanent fixtures and allow for the temporary setup of seating to suit the dynamics of the piece and the spaces have even been configured with no seating for an audience, the positional choices made by patrons influencing the performance.  The platform stage is the simplest setup, often not permanent and suited to multi-purpose venues.  Flexible thus but the lack of structure does tend to preclude more elaborate productions with the stage a raised and usually rectangular platform at one end of a room; the platform may be level or raked according to the size and shape of the space.  The will audience sit in rows and such is the simplicity that platform stages are often used without curtains, the industry term being “open stage or “end stage”, the latter perhaps unfortunate but then actors are used to “break a leg” and “died on stage”.

Open Air Theatre Festival, Paris.

The phrase open air theatre refers more to the performance than the physical setting.  It means simply something performed not under a roof (although sometimes parts of the stage or audience seating will be covered).  The attraction for a director is that stages so exposed can make use of natural light as it changes with the hour sunsets and stars especially offering dramatic possibilities; rain can be a problem.  Open air theatres are also an example of site-specific theatre (of which street theatre is probably best-known), a term with quite a bit of overlap with other descriptors although it’s applied usually to theatre is performed in a non-traditional environments such as a pubs, old prisons or warehouse, often reflecting the history of the place.  Promenade theatre (sometimes called peripatetic theatre) involves either the actors or the audience moving from place to place as the performance dictates.  Interactive theatre is rarely performed (at least by intent); it involves the actors interacting with the audience and is supposed to be substantially un-scripted but, like reality television, some of what’s presented as interactive theatre has been essentially fake.

Borrowed from antiquity, the proscenium arch theatre was for centuries a part of what defined the classical tradition of Western dramatic art but in the twentieth century playwrights and directors came to argue that modern audiences were longing for more intimate experiences although there’s scant evidence this view was the product of demand rather than supply.  That said, the novelty of immersive, site-specific performances gained much popularity and modern production techniques stimulated a revival of interest in older forms like theatre-in-the-round.

There were playwrights and directors however (some at whatever age self-styled enfants terribles), who preferred austerity, decrying the proscenium arch as a theatre based on a lavish illusion for which we either no longer had the taste or needed to have it beaten out of us.  It was thought to embody petit bourgeois social and cultural behaviors which normalized not only the style and content of theatre but also the rules of how theatre was to be watched: sitting quietly while well dressed, deferentially laughing or applauding at the right moments.  A interesting observation also was that the proscenium arch created a passive experience little different from television, a critique taken up more recently by those who thought long performances, typically with no more than one intermission (now dismissed as anyway existing only to serve wine and cheese) unsuitable for audiences with short attention spans and accustomed to interactivity.

Quite how true any of that was except in the minds of those who thought social realist theatre should be compulsory re-education for all is a mystery but the binge generation seems able easily to sustain their attention for epic-length sessions of the most lavishly illusionary stuff which can fit on a screen so there’s that.  The criticisms of the proscenium arch were more a condemnation of those who were thought its devoted adherents than any indication the form was unsuitable for anything but the most traditional delivery of drama.  Neither threatening other platforms nor rendered redundant by them, the style of theatre Plato metaphorically called “the cave” will continue, as it long has, peacefully to co-exist.

Gestapo

Gestapo (pronounced guh-stah-poh or guh-shtah-poh (German))

(1) A branch of German police under the Nazi regime (1933-1945) comprising various sections.

(2) A critical descriptor of any organ (usually) of a state which to some degree resembles Nazi Gestapo, especially in the brutal suppression of opposition (often initial lower-case).

(3) By extension, any oppressive force, group or tactic.

1933: An abbreviated form of the German Geheime Staatspolizei (the construct being Ge(heime) Sta(ats)po(lizei)); literally “secret state police”.  Gestapo is a proper noun.

A typically German abbreviation

It’s an urban myth that Hugo Boss designed the uniforms of the Gestapo.  The field officers of force didn't wear uniforms and in that sense operated in the manner of police detectives while some administrative (district) staff wore much the same garb as their SS equivalents.  When operating in occupied territories under wartime conditions, Gestapo wore the same field grey as the SS with a few detail differences in the insignia.  Hugo Boss was one of a number of companies contracted to produce the uniforms of the SS (Schutzstaffel (literally "protection squadron" but translated variously as "protection squad", "security section" etc)).  The SS began (under different names) in 1923 as a party organization with fewer than a dozen members and was the Führer's personal bodyguard.  The SS name was adopted in 1925 and during the Third Reich evolved into a vast economic, industrial and military apparatus more than two million strong to the point where some historians (and contemporaries) regarded it as a kind of "state within a state".  Of the SS, that's a more accurate description than of many of the apparatuses of the party and state but it was a feature of the Nazi period (not well-understood until after the war) that the internal dynamic was one of a permanent state of institutional struggle for dominance, reflecting Hitler's world view.  Post-war analysis by economists revealed the extent to which this system created structural inefficiencies.

The meme-makers found Hugo Boss's corporate history hard to resist.

The investigative & operational arms of Gestapo comprised the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police) and the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police), the final structural shape achieved in 1936 when Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) was granted control of all police forces in Germany, this having the general effect of formalizing the all forces branches of the Himmler’ apparatus.  It was a reward for Himmler’s role in the Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird), the bloody purge between 30 June-2 July 1934, when the regime carried out a number of extrajudicial executions, ostensibly to crush what was referred to as "the Röhm Putsch".  The administrative change was notable for marking the point at which control and enforcement of internal security passed from the state to the party, something reinforced in 1943 when Himmler was appointed Interior Minister.

The Gestapo was in 1946 declared a “criminal organization” by the international Military Tribunal (IMT) conducting the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and although the idea of an organization being criminal seemed novel to many, there were precedents.  Under the Raj, the British India Act (1836) provided that if a man was proved to be a member of the Thuggee (the Thugs, a group of professional robbers and murderers who strangled their victims), regardless of whether his conduct disclosed any actual offence, he might receive a life sentence with hard labor and in laws were passed in the US declaring the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) criminal, a model used in 1919 by the state of California to outlaw “criminal syndication”.  Under Soviet law, someone could even be deemed a member of some organization, even if they didn’t actually belong to it, something of a Stalinist companion the crime of “unspecified offences”.  Germany too had “a bit of previous” in the approach, the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) making it a crime to belong to any “anti-government secret organization”, in 1923 gazetting the Communist Party, the National Socialist Party (the Nazis) and the German People’s Freedom Party among the proscribed.

Remarkably (commented upon even at the time), the Orpo (Ordnungspolizei (Order Police, the “policemen” in the usual sense of the word)) and the Kripo weren’t included in the indictment on the basis they remain “civilian organizations”.  In the trial, the defense raised a number of technical points about the state of German law operative at the time the events being judged transpired and the court accepted some of these but anyway on 30 September 1946 ruled the Gestapo a criminal organization, thus implicating all members (excluding only some clerical & ancillary staff and those who had ceased to be employed prior to 1 December 1939.  In legal theory, this meant all operational SiPo staff active after 1 December 1939 could individually have been indicted in accordance with the available evidence and the expectation was that at least those most senior or accused of the more serious crimes would have faced trial.  However, there was no follow-up “Gestapo” trial, “punishment” limited to those Gestapo staff held in Allied internment camps, almost all of who were released after three years.  Although the Allied Control Commission (ACC) which administered occupied Germany allowed local courts to conduct trials, the number of Gestapo officers tried was comparatively low and even when convicted, the period spent in detention prior to trial was deducted from their sentence, a convention not extended to the seven sent to Spandau Prison after the main trial.  Only in first the Russian Zone (and later as the German Democratic Republic (GDR)) were many Gestapo officers charged and sentenced, almost all released after 1957.

For the majority, like many Germans they were subject to the “denazification” process, the prize of which was to gain a “Certificate of Exoneration”, a piece of paper which appealed to the famously sardonic Berlin sense of humor, soon dubbed the Persilschein (Percil Certificate), an allusion to the popular washing detergent which promised to make clothes “whiter than white”.  Most Gestapo staff received a Persilschein and many either resumed their employment in the new German state and ultimately were credited for pension purposes with their service during the Nazi years.

Politicians often reference the Nazis when attaching their opponents and "Gestapo" is a popular slur. 

Even before World War II (1939-1945) began, the word "Gestapo" had entered the English language as a synecdoche for “police state tactics” and it was in this sense Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) on 4 June 1945 used the word in a broadcast for the UK general election, warning a Labour government (“the socialists” as he called them) would inevitably create such an apparatus to enforce the myriad of regulations and controls they were proposing:

“….there can be no doubt that socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the state. …liberty, in all its forms is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of socialism. …there is to be one state to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This state is to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, and the arch-caucus boss.

A socialist state once thoroughly completed in all its details and aspects… could not afford opposition.  Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.

But I will go farther.  I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart that no socialist system can be established without a political police.  Many of those who are advocating socialism or voting socialist today will be horrified at this idea. That is because they are short-sighted, that is because they do not see where their theories are leading them.

No socialist government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent.  They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.  And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil.  And where would the ordinary simple folk — the common people, as they like to call them in America — where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?”

Essex man: Clement Attlee at home, mowing the lawn, Stanmore, Essex 19 April 1945.

It was a controversial statement and even many of Churchill’s Conservative Party colleagues distanced themselves from the sentiments.  The man being accused of planning this police state was Clement Attlee (1883–1967; UK prime-minister 1945-1951) who had served as Churchill’s deputy in the National Government (1940-1945) and was one of history’s more improbable figures to be painted an incipient totalitarian.  The electorate wasn’t persuaded and in the 1945 election Labour won a huge majority of seats in what is described as a “landslide” although the numbers are distorted by the UK’s “first-past-the-post” system; Labour gathered well under half the votes cast but that pattern has subsequently been typical of UK elections and in 1951 the Conservatives actually returned to office despite Labour out-polling them.  Attlee had responded to Churchill’s speech the next day:

“The Prime Minister made much play last night with the rights of the individual and the dangers of people being ordered about by officials.  I entirely agree that people should have the greatest freedom compatible with the freedom of others.  There was a time when employers were free to work little children for sixteen hours a day.  I remember when employers were free to employ sweated women workers on finishing trousers at a penny halfpenny a pair.  There was a time when people were free to neglect sanitation so that thousands died of preventable diseases.  For years every attempt to remedy these crying evils was blocked by the same plea of freedom for the individual.  It was in fact freedom for the rich and slavery for the poor.  Make no mistake, it has only been through the power of the state, given to it by Parliament, that the general public has been protected against the greed of ruthless profit-makers and property owners. The Conservative Party remains as always a class party.  In twenty-three years in the House of Commons, I cannot recall more than half a dozen from the ranks of the wage earners.  It represents today, as in the past, the forces of property and privilege.  The Labour Party is, in fact, the one party which most nearly reflects in its representation and composition all the main streams which flow into the great river of our national life.”

Bollard

Bollard (pronounced bol-erd)

(1) In nautical use, a thick, low post, usually of iron or steel, mounted on (1) the deck of a ship and (2) a wharf or the like, to which mooring lines from vessels are attached.

(2) Any small post to which lines, ropes etc are attached.

(3) A short post or block, usually deployed in an array and designed to exclude or divert motor vehicles from a road, lawn, pedestrian space etc, either as part of routine traffic management or as a security or anti-terrorism device (can be permanent or temporary).

(4) In mountaineering, an outcrop of rock or pillar of ice that may be used to belay a rope.

1300s: From the From Middle English bollard, the construct probably the Middle English bole (tree trunk) +‎ -ard.  Bole was a mix of the Old English bula & bulla and the Old Norse boli, both from the Proto-Germanic bulô, from the primitive Indo-European bhel (to blow, swell up).  The –ard suffix was from the Middle English -ard, from the Old French -ard (suffix), from the Frankish -hard (hardy, bold), from the Proto-Germanic harduz (hard); it was used as a pejorative or diminutive suffix).  In 1844 it came to be used (first in the merchant marine, later by the Admiralty) to describe the strong, upright posts built into docks for fixing hawsers for mooring ships and after 1948 it began to be used in reference to the traffic control devices.  By the late 1950s, it was the word of choice to describe any upright device used either as a tethering point for ropes and cords or to restrict or direct vehicular or other traffic.  The security bollard (constructs in concrete or metal sufficiently large to prevent a vehicle from passing) began to appear in numbers as early as the 1940s although the specific phrase wasn’t in wide use until the 1980s in response to the increasing use of cars and trucks as delivery systems for large improvised explosive devices (IED).  Other derived terms include traffic bollard (a conical plastic device in distinctive colors used temporarily to divert motor vehicle traffic or to surround obstacles or dangerous sites) and bollard condition (the state of a ship with a propeller operating only to the extent of permitting near zero-speed maneuvering when moored).  Bollard is a noun; the noun plural is bollards.

Pedestrian crossing in Pompeii, Italy.  Most of the city was buried under volcanic ash and pumice when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.

Structurally, bollards were part of Roman urban roadways although the function was different.  Roman pedestrian crossings used essentially the same design as today's zebra crossings except what we see as the white lines were elevated slabs of granite, allowing people to cross the road without their feet having to touch the mud and muck (Roman sewerage systems, though advanced by the standards of Antiquity, were neither as extensive nor as reliable modern machinery) which would often sit or flow through the streets and horse manure was ever-present.  The gap between the slabs was such that the wheels of horse-drawn or hand carts would fit between.

Arco di Settimio Severo (1742), oil on canvas by Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697–1768), a significant painter of the eighteenth century Venetian school.

Built in the imperial capital in the traditional Roman way with travertine, white marble & brick, held together using concrete mixed with their famously sticky cement, the Arco di Settimio Severo (Arch of Septimius Severus) sits at one end of the Roman Forum and was dedicated in 203 to commemorate capture of Ctesiphon in 198 by Lucius Septimius Severus (145–211; Roman emperor 193-211).  Like many dictators (ancient & modern), Lucius had a fondness of triumphal architecture into which his name could be carved, another Arch of Septimius Severus built in Leptis Magna (his city of birth (now in present-day Libya)).  Discovered as a ruin in 1928, it was re-constructed by Italian colonial archeologists and architects.

It’s not known when the line of bollards (visible through the arch in Canaletto’s painting from 1842) was installed although it’s more likely to be an aspect of Renaissance town planning than anything Medieval.  Although speculative, it’s thought the spacing between the bollards indicates the intention was to deny access to heavy traffic (ie anything horse-drawn) while permitting hand carts (an essential part of the home-delivery economy) to pass.

The catwalk re-imagined: Lindsay Lohan walking between the bollards for one of her well-publicized (and not infrequent) court appearances during her "troubled Hollywood starlet" phase, Los Angeles, February 2011.  The legal matters involved set no precedents and it was in that sense not a notable case but the white piece was a Glavis Albino bandage dress from Kimberly Ovitz's (b 1983) pre-fall collection (which listed at US$575) and almost as soon as the photographs appeared on-line, it sold-out so there’s was that.  Here the bollards are used as stringers for the yellow plastic "Police Line: DO NOT CROSS" do not pass" tape and the same function is served by the stanchions used for the velvet ropes which define the limits for photographers at red-carpet events.

Dealing with terrorism is of necessity a reactive business and in Western cities, bollards sometimes appeared within hours of news of the use of motor vehicles somewhere as an instrument of murder, either as a delivery system for explosives or brute-force device to run down pedestrians.  Because of the haste with which the things were deemed needed, it wasn’t uncommon for bollards initially to be nothing but re-purposed concrete blocks (left), often not even painted, the stark functionality of purpose limited to preventing vehicular access which permitting those on foot to pass with minimal disruption.  They’ve since become a fixture in the built environment, often is stylized shapes (centre & right) and urban designers have been inventive, many objects which function as bollards not recognizably bollardish, being integrated into structures such as city furniture or bus shelters.

LEDA Security's rendering of some of the possibilities of bollards as engineered street furniture. Where the space is available, even small green spaces can be installed and, with integrated drip-feed irrigation systems, maintenance is low.  It was beneath one of these installations Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) was filmed while sprawled on the ground, conducting a late-night, profanity-laced (though quite friendly) telephone conversation with his (second) wife, the mother of two of his six children.  It was later confirmed Mr Joyce had been drinking.

Hard-working bollards doing their job at the liquor store.

Invert

Invert (pronounced in-vurt)

(1) To turn upside down.

(2) To reverse in position, order, direction, or relationship.

(3) To turn or change to the opposite or contrary, as in nature, bearing, or effect; to turn something inward or back upon itself; to turn inside out.

(4) In chemistry, to a subject a substance to a reaction in which a starting material of one optical configuration forms a product of the opposite configuration; subjected to a reaction in which a starting material of one optical configuration forms a product of the opposite configuration.

(5) In music, to subject to musical inversion, the transposition between the upper voice part and the lower (to move the root note of a chord up or down an octave, resulting in a change in pitch).

(6) In phonetics, to articulate as a retroflex vowel; to turn the tip of the tongue up and back.

(7) In formal logic, to form the inverse of a categorical proposition.

(8) In psychology & psychiatry, a person who adopts the role of the opposite sex (historically used in clinical practice and law enforcement as an alternative word for homosexual.

(9) In civil engineering (particularly hydrology), the lower inner surface of a drain or sewer; the lowest point inside a pipe at a certain point.

(10) In Architecture, an arch that is concave upwards, especially one used in foundation work; the base of a tunnel on which the road or railway may be laid and used when construction is through unstable ground (and may be flat or form a continuous curve with the tunnel arch).

(11) A sometimes used synonym for divert in certain contexts; to convert to an incorrect use.

(12) In anatomy, to turn the foot inwards.

(13) In biochemistry, as invertasome, a nucleoprotein complex that causes inversion of a DNA sequence.

(14) In skateboarding, a technique in which the skater grabs the board and plants a hand on the coping so as to balance upside-down on the lip of a ramp.

(15) In zoology, an informal term for an invertebrate.

1525–1535: From the Middle French invertir, from the Latin invertere (to turn upside down or inside out), the construct being in- (in) + vertere (to turn), an inflection of vertō (I turn; I change; I reverse), from the Proto-Italic wertō, from the primitive Indo-European wértti from the root wer- (to turn; to bend).  It was cognate with the Sanskrit वर्तते (vártate (to turn)), the Sanskrit वर्तयति (vartáyati (to turn)), the Avestan varət, the Proto-Slavic vьrtěti, the Old Church Slavonic врьтѣти (vrĭtěti (to turn around)), the Polish wiercić (to drill; to fidget), the Russian вертеть (vertetʹ (to rotate)), the Proto-Baltic wert-, the Lithuanian ver̃sti, the Persian گرد‎ (gard (grow; turn)), the Proto-Germanic werþaną (to become), the Old English weorþan (to happen), the English worth and the Old Irish dofortad (to pour out).  The prefix -in is quirky because it can act either to negate or intensify.  The general rule is that when pre-pended to a noun or adjective, it reinforces the quality signified and when pre-pended to an adjective, it negates the meaning, the latter mostly in words borrowed from French.  The Latin prefix in- was from the Proto-Italic en-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥- (not), the zero-grade form of the negative particle ne (not) and was akin to ne-, nē & nī.  In Modern English it is from the Middle English in-, from Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in, from the primitive Indo-European en.  In the Classical Latin, invertere had the literal sense of "turn upside down, turn about; upset, reverse, transpose" and was used figuratively to suggest "pervert, corrupt, misrepresent" while when used of words it implied "being used ironically". Invert, invertibility & inverting are nouns, verbs & adjectives, inversion, inversion & inverter are nouns, inverted is a verb & adjective, invertible & inversive are adjectives and invertedly is an adverb; the noun plural is inverts.

Pittsburgh Police arrest card #25747, from 1932 which circulated on the internet after being published in Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots (2006) by Mark Michaelson, Steven Kasher & Bob Nickas.  Some thought the “Crime” noted was “Invert” (and thus suggesting the offence was homosexuality) or the word was “Invest” what was police slang for “investigate”.  There appears to have been a typo and the correct letter could be either “v” or “s” but it seems most likely he was being investigated as a suspected communist.

Richard Fridolin Joseph Freiherr Krafft von Festenberg auf Frohnberg, genannt von Ebing (1840-1902) was a German psychiatrist remembered for his seminal work Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie (Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study) (1886).  Fortunately for all, for most purposes he shortened his name to Richard von Krafft-Ebing and was recognized as perhaps the first acknowledged expert on matters of sexual deviance, his publications either creating or formalizing the diagnostic categories which would remain influential for decades and some of his work remains recognizable in the literature even today.  One of his terms was "sexual inversion" which he used to describe homosexuality and it appeared in the first edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published in 1952.  Dr von Krafft-Ebing had used sexual inversion as a purely descriptive term for homosexuality, reflecting the academic tone he adopted in the hope those other than in the professions of medicine or law would be discouraged from turning the pages.  Very much seriously minded, he didn’t write to satisfy prurient interest.  He did however definitely regard sexual inversion as deviant and in this sense it carried over to the DSM where it was listed as a mental disorder although the operation of the linguistic treadmill meant that when the DSM-II was issued in 1968, the term was replaced with “homosexuality”.  From then on, the profession moved in the last quarter of the twentieth century as legislative change would unfold in the Western world, sometimes moving ahead of the law, sometimes following.  When the fourth edition of the DSM-II was published in 1974, the APA tested the waters by introducing a sort of diagnostic ambivalence about the matter and with the coming of the DSM-III (1980), homosexuality ceased to be considered a mental disorder and was treated as just another variation in the human condition.

Lindsay Lohan contemplating the subliminal messaging of The McDonalds big “M”, McDonald's drive-thru, Santa Monica, California, December 2011.  The car is a Porsche Panamera.

A contemporary of Dr von Krafft-Ebing was of course the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), someone who thought much about the centrality of sex to the human condition and, famously, the role of mothers in its formation.  One admirer (though by no means an uncritical one) of Dr Freud was the Russian-born, US-based clinical psychologist Louis Cheskin (1907-1981) who systematized a process of analysis which tracked the relationship between the aesthetic elements (ie the packaging) of products with customers’ perceptions of the content; this he called “sensation transference”.  Some of his best known work was in colors, working out how people generally understood the messages conveyed by different hues and he applied his findings with great success to product wrappings, corporate logos and even the interior color schemes for department stores and restaurants.  According to him, a restaurant which wants its customers to linger might use blue while a fast-food outlet which wants a high turnover of it chairs and tables should favor orange or yellow.

A practical application of Freud via Cheskin: Charlotte McKinney’s (b 1993) famous advertisement for Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC, Super Bowl XLIX, 2015.

Already famous from his work with the Ford Motor Company, notably for his collaborations with the company’s general manager Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) during which he conducted the research which contributed to the marketing campaigns for the wildly successful Mustang (1964) and Lincoln’s Continental Mark III (1968), Cheskin was retained as a consultant by McDonald’s, then in the throes of one of their periodic changes to the corporate logo.  At the time, McDonald’s management wanted to refocus the business and one aspect of this was to change the stylized “M” (the golden arches), then thought dated.  In this case Louis Cheskin followed Freud and wrote one of his persuasive papers which convinced the executives the big “M” was a asset because, as well as the obvious association with the McDonald’s name, there was also a culinary cum anatomical link: If the “M” was inverted, it summoned in the mind the nurturing image of a mother’s breasts, “subconsciously making hungry customers feel comforted and at home”.  Whether the chain’s slogan at the time (Give mum a night off) was influential in the decision to retain the (uninverted) “M” isn’t clear.”

Evolution of the big “M” since 1942 (left) and inverted (right).  One can see what Louis Cheskin was getting at.