Brat (pronounced brat)
(1) A child, especially one is
ill-mannered, unruly, annoying, spoiled or
impolite etc (usually used either playfully or in contempt or irritation, often
in the phrase “spoiled brat”.
(2) As “military brat”, “army brat” etc, a child with one
or more parent serving in the military; most associated with those moving
between military bases on a short-duration basis; the derived form is “diplomatic
brat” (child living with parents serving in overseas missions).
(3) In the BDSM (bondage/discipline,
dominance/submission, sadism/masochism) community, a submissive partner who is
disobedient and unruly (ie a role reversal: to act in a bratty manner as the
submissive, the comparative being “more bratty”, the superlative “most bratty”).
(4) In mining, a thin bed of coal mixed with pyrites or
carbonate of lime.
(5) A rough makeshift cloak or ragged garment (a now
rare dialectal form).
(6) An apron fashioned from a coarse cloth, used to
protect the clothing (a bib) (a now obsolete Scots dialect word).
(7) A turbot or flatfish.
(8) The young of an animal (obsolete).
(9) A clipping of bratwurst, from the German Bratwurst (a
type of sausage) noted since 1904, from the Middle High German brātwurst, from the Old High German, the
construct being Brāt (lean meat,
finely shredded calf or swine meat) + wurst
(sausage).
(10) As
a 2024 neologism (technically a
re-purposing), the qualities associated with a confident and assertive woman
(along the lines of the earlier “bolshie woman” or “tough broad” but with a
more overtly feminist flavor).
1500–1520: Thought to be a transferred use (as slang for “a beggar's child”) of the early Middle English brat (cloak of coarse cloth, rag), from the Old English bratt (cloak) of Celtic origin and related to the Old Irish brat (mantle, cloak; cloth used to cover the body). The origin of the early Modern English slag use meaning “beggar's child” is uncertain. It may have been an allusion, either to the contemporary use meaning “young of an animal” or to the shabby clothing such a child would have worn", the alternative theory being some link with the Scots bratchet (bitch, hound). The early sense development (of children) may have included the fork of the notion of “an unplanned or unwanted baby” (as opposed to a “bastard” (in the technical rather than behavioral sense)) had by a married couple. The “Hollywood Brat Pack” was a term from the mid-1980s referring to a grouping of certain actors and modeled on the 1950s “Rat Pack”. The slang form “brattery” (a nursery for children) sounds TicTokish but actually dates from 1788 while the generalized idea of “spoiled and juvenile” became common in the 1930s. The unrelated use of bratty (plural bratties) is from Raj-era Indian English where it describes a cake of dried cow dung, used for fuel. Brat is a noun, verb & adjective, brattishness & brattiness are nouns, bratting & bratted are verbs, brattish & bratty are adjectives and brattily is an adverb; the noun plural is brats.
First published in 1968, New York magazine is now owned by Vox media and, unlike many, its print edition still appears on surviving news-stands. The editorial focus has over the decades shifted, the most interesting trend-line being the extent to which it could be said to be very much a “New York-centred” publication, something which comes and goes but the most distinguishing characteristic has always been a willingness (often an eagerness) to descend into pop-culture in a way the New Yorker's editors would have distained; it was in a 1985 New York cover story the term “Brat Pack” first appeared. Coined by journalist David Blum (b 1955) and about a number of successful early twenty-something film stars, the piece proved controversial because the subjects raised concerns about what they claimed was Blum’s unethical tactics in obtaining the material. The term was a play on “Rat Pack” which in the 1950s had been used of an earlier group of entertainers although Blum also noted another journalist's coining of “Fat Pack”, used in restaurant-related stories.
LBJ, the "Chicken Tax" and the Subaru BRAT
The Subaru BRAT was (depending on linguistic practice)
(1) a coupé utility, (2) a compact pick-up or (3) a small four wheel drive
(4WD) ute (utility). The name was an acronym
(Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter), the novel idea of “bi-drive” (4WD) being the notion of both axles being driven, that linguistic construction dictated by the need to form the acronym. “Bi-Drive Recreational All-Terrain
Transporter” certainly was more imaginative (if opportunistic) than other uses
of BRAT as an acronym which have included: ”Behaviour
Research And Therapy” (an academic journal), “Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast” (historically a diet recommended
for those with certain stomach disorders), “Brush
Rapid Attack Truck” (a fire-fighting vehicle), “Basenji Rescue and Transport” (a dog rescue organization), “Behavioral Risk Assessment Tool” (used
in HIV/AIDS monitoring), Beautiful, Rich
and Talented (self-explanatory), the “Bureau de Recherche en Aménagement du
Territoire” (the Belgium Office of Research in Land Management (in the
French)), “Beyond Line-Of-Sight Reporting
and Tracking” (a US Army protocol for managing targets not in visual range)
and “Battle-Management Requirements
Analysis Tool” (a widely used military check-list, later interpolated into
a BMS (Battle Management System).
Built on the platform of the Leone (1971-1994) and known in some markets also as the MV Pickup, Brumby & Shifter, the BRAT was variously available between 1978-1994 and was never sold in the JDM (Japanese domestic market) although many have been “reverse imported” from other places (Australia favored because salt isn't used on the roads so rust is less of an issue) and the things now have a cult following in Tokyo. The most famous BRAT owner was probably Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) who kept a 1978 model on his Californian ranch until 1988, presenting something of a challenge for his Secret Service detail, many of whom didn’t know how to drive a stick-shift (manual transmission). That though would have been less frightening than the experience of many taken for a drive by Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) in the Amphicar 770 (1961-1965) he kept at his Texas ranch. LBJ suddenly would turn off the path, driving straight into the waters of the dam, having neglected to tell his passengers of the 770’s amphibious capabilities. Although “770” has been used in the industry (in the US and Australia) as a trim-level designation (often as part of the sequence 440, 550, 660 etc) , on the amphibious Amphicar it was a reference to it being able to achieve speeds of 7 knots (8 mph; 13 km/h) on water and 70 mph (110 km/h) on land, both claims verified by testers although the nautical performance did demand reasonable calm conditions.
The Subaru BRAT is remembered also as a “Chicken Tax car”. Tax regimes have a long history of influencing or dictating automotive design, the Japanese system of displacement-based taxation responsible for the entire market segment of “Kei cars” (a clipping of kei-jidōsha (軽自動車) (light automobile), the best known of which have been produced with 360, 600 & 660 cm3 (22, 37 & 40 cubic inch) engines in an astonishing range of configurations ranging from micro city cars to roadsters and 4WD dump trucks. In Europe too, the post-war fiscal threshold resulted in a wealth of manufacturers (Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, BMW, Ford, Maserati, Opel etc) offering several generations of 2.8 litre (171 cubic inch) sixes while the that imposed by the Italian government saw special runs of certain 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) fours, sixes & even V8s. The US government’s “Chicken Tax” (a part of the “Chicken War”) was different in that it was a 25% tariff imposed in November 1963 (to come into effect in January 1964) by the Johnson administration on potato starch, dextrin, brandy and light trucks; it was a response to the impost of a similar tariffs by France and the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) on chicken meat imported from the US.
In any president’s political horse trading there are always hidden agendas and ulterior motives and in LBJ’s White House there were more than usual because that’s the way he’d always done business and had he written a guide to the process, he might have called it "The Art of the Deal". He was in his generation the most skilled of all, historians concluding after in 1937 having been initiated into the fraternity of Freemasons, he took the only first degree (as an “Entered Apprentice”) and opted not further to progress because soon he understood there was little even the Masons could teach him about the dark arts of plotting & scheming. Year after the imposition of the chicken tax, the contents of the surviving tape-recordings of discussions in the White House revealed LBJ was negotiating with UAW (United Auto Workers’) president Walter Reuther (1907–1970) in the run-up to the 1964 congressional & presidential elections and the tariffs aimed at curtailing Volkswagen’s increasing market share were just one of the “quid pro quo chips” on the table. Although it was the taping system used by Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) that became infamous, devices of this kind had been installed in the White House as early as the during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) and Nixon actually had LBJ’s devices removed before his staff came to understand their usefulness and Nixon agreed to having them re-fitted, the rest being history.
The post-war development in the US of large scale, intensive
chicken farming had both vastly expanded production of the meat and radically
reduced the unit cost of production which was good but because supply quickly
exceeded the demand capacity of the domestic market, the surplus was exported,
having the effect in Europe of transforming chicken from a high-priced delicacy
to a staple consumer protein; by 1961, imported US chicken had taken some 50% of
the European market. This was at a time
when international trade operated under the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (the GATT (1947)) and there was nothing like the codified dispute
resolution mechanism which exists in the rules of the successor World Trade
Organization (the WTO (1995)) and the farming lobbies in Germany, France and
the Netherlands accused the US producers of “dumping” (ie selling at below the
cost of production) with the French government objecting that the female hormones US
farmers used to stimulate growth were a risk to public health, not only to those who ate
the flesh but to all because nature of the substances was such that a residue enter the water supply. The use of the female hormones in agriculture
does remains a matter of concern, some researchers linking it to phenomena noted
in the last six decades including the startling reduction in the human male's sperm
count, the shrinking in size of the penises of alligators living in close
proximity to urban human habitation and early-onset puberty in girls.
Eventually, the tariffs on potato starch, dextrin and
brandy were lifted but the protection for the US truck producers remained,
triggering a range of inventive “work-arounds” concocted between various engineering
and legal offices, most of which involved turning two-seater trucks & vans
into vehicles which technically could quality as four-seaters, a configuration
which lasted sometimes only until the things reached a warehouse where the fittings could
be removed, something which would cost the Ford Motor Company (one of the corporations
the tax had been imposed to protect) over US$1 billion in penalties, their
tactics in importing the Transit Connect light truck from Turkey (now the
Republic of Türkiye) just too blatant.
In New Zealand, in the mid 1970s, the government found the “work-arounds”
working the other way. There, changes had
been implemented to make the purchase of two seater light vans more attractive
for businesses so almost instantly, up sprang a cottage industry of assembling
four-door station wagons with no rear seat which, upon sale, returned to the
workshop to have a seat fitted. Modern capitalism
has always been imaginative.
In Fuji Heavy Industries’ (then Subaru’s parent corporation) Ebisu boardroom, the challenge of what probably was described as the “Chicken Tax Incident” was met by adding to the BRAT two plastic, rear-facing jump seats, thereby qualifying the vehicle as a “passenger car” subject in the US only to a 2.5 and not a 25% import tax. Such a “feature” probably seems strange in the regulatory environment of the 2020s but there was a time when there was more freedom in the air. Subaru’s US operation decided the BRAT’s “outdoor bucket seats” made it an “open tourer” and slanted the advertising thus, the model enjoying much success although the additional seating wasn’t available for its final season in the US, the BRAT withdrawn after 1987. Another nifty feature available on the BRAT between 1980-1982 was the “Passing Lamp” (renamed “Center Lamp” in 1982 although owners liked “Third Eye” or “Cyclops”), designed to suit those who had adopted the recommended European practice of flashing the headlights (on high beam) for a second prior to overtaking. The BRAT was not all that powerful so passing opportunities were perhaps not frequent but the “passing lamp” was there to be used if ever something even slower was encountered. The retractable lamp was of course a complicated solution to a simple problem given most folk so inclined just flash the headlights but it was the sort of fitting with great appeal to men who admire intricacy for its own sake.
BRAT seat mountings 1983 (left) and 1984 (centre). The BRAT on the right has been retro-fitted with the seats (note the safety wire attached to the frame!) using U-bolts, a satisfactory method provided (1) the U-bolts are of high-tensile steel and (2) there is a backing place of adequate strength and size.
The seats were bolted to a frame (the design of which changed) which was welded to the bed. The use of welding rather than bolts was dictated by the regulations because, had the frame been bolted (and thus defined as “removable”), the BRAT's classification would have changed from “passenger vehicle” to “truck” and been subject to the very tax the seats were installed to avoid. Amusingly though, the side impact regulations which applied to the BRAT were in a different act and for those purposes the thing was defined as a truck which meant the doors could be fitted with lighter reinforcing bars than those mandated for the Subaru Leone sedans, station wagons and hatchbacks. The stronger mechanism can be installed in a BRAT's doors so safety conscious owners do have that option.
Two 1987 BRATs with retro-fitted seats, the one on the right also with an after-market roll-bar, something which, all things considered, seems a sensible addition. Of the physics, those familiar Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) First Law of Motion (known also as the Law of Inertia: "An object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in motion will continue in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced external force") can ponder the possibilities while wondering whether to bother buckling up the seat belt or just rely on the "grab handles" (and probably never was that term used more appropriately). Although the seats weren't factory-fitted after 1985, the parts could still be ordered and many later models have been retro-fitted. The adjustable headrests were a nice touch although some did note they could be classified also as "rear window protectors".
Brat: Charli XCX's Summer 2024 album
“Brat” has been chosen by the Collins English Dictionary
as its 2024 Word of the Year (WotY), an acknowledgement of the popular acclaim
which greeted the word’s re-purposing by English singer-songwriter Charli XCX
(the stage-name of Charlotte Emma Aitchison (b 1992)) who used it as the title for her summer 2024
album. The star herself revealed her stage
name is pronounced chahr-lee ex-cee-ex; it has no connection with Roman numerals and XCX is anyway not a standard
Roman number. XC is “90” (C minus X
(100-10)) and CX is “110” (C plus X (100 +10)) but XCX presumably could be used
as a code for “100” should the need arise, on the model of something like the “May
35th” reference Chinese Internet users used in an attempt to circumvent the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) "Great Firewall of China" when speaking of
the “Tiananmen Square Incident” of 4
June 1989. In 2015, Ms XCX revealed “XCX”
was an element of her MSN screen name (CharliXCX92) when young (it stood for “kiss Charli kiss”) and she used it on
some of the early promotion material for her music.
According to Collins, the word “resonated with people globally”. The dictionary had of course long had an entry for the word something in the vein of: “someone, especially a child, who behaves badly or annoys you”, but now it has added “characterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude”. In popular culture, the use spiked in the wake of the album's released but it may be “brat” in this sense endures if the appeal is maintained, otherwise it will become unfashionable and fade from use, becoming a “stranded word”, trapped in the time of its historic origin. So, either it enters the vernacular or by 2025 it will be regarded as “so 2024”. The lexicographers at Collins seem optimistic about its future, saying in the WotY press release that “brat summer has established itself as an aesthetic and a way of life”.
Lindsay Lohan in Jil Sander (b 1943) "brat green" gown, Disney Legends Awards ceremony, Anaheim, Los Angeles, October 2024. For anyone wanting to describe a yellowish-green color with a word which has the virtues of (1) being hard to pronounce, (2) harder to spell and (3) likely to baffle most of one’s interlocutors, there’s “smaragdine” (pronounced smuh-rag-din), from the Latin smaragdinus, from smaragdus (emerald), from the Ancient Greek σμάραγδινος (smáragdinos), from σμάραγδος (smáragdos).
The “kryptonite green” used for Brat’s album’s packaging seems also to have encouraged the use in
fashion of various hues of “lurid green” (the particular shade used by Ms XCX
already dubbed “brat green” although some which have appeared on the catwalks seem more of a chartreuse) and an online “brat generator” allowed users
replicate the cover with their own choice of words. The singer was quite helpful in fleshing out
the parameters of the aesthetic, emphasizing it didn’t revolve around a goth-like
“uniform” and nor was it gender-specific or socially restricted. In an interview with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), Ms XCX explained
the brat thing was a spectrum condition extending from “luxury” to “trashy” and was a thing of
attitude rather than accessories: “A pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, and a strappy white top
with no bra. That’s kind of all you
need.” Although
gender-neutral, popular use does seem to put the re-purposed “brat” in the
tradition of the earlier “bolshie woman” or “tough broad” but with a more
overtly feminist flavor, best understood as “the qualities associated with a confident
and assertive woman”. In its semantic
change, “brat” has joined some other historically negative words & phrases
(“bitch”, “bogan”, the infamous “N-word(s)” etc) which have been “reclaimed” by
those at whom the slur was once aimed, a tactic which not only creates or
reinforces group identity but also re-weaponizes what was once a spent-insult so it
can be used to return fire.
