Breakaway

Breakaway (pronounced breyk-uh-wey)

(1) An act or instance of breaking away; secession; separation.

(2) A departure or break from routine or tradition.

(3) A person, thing or institution which breaks away.

(4) An object, used in theatrical productions as a prop, constructed easily to break or fall apart (also used to describe costumes designed quickly to be change and thus easily removed), especially upon impact; by extension, anything deliberately constructed of lightweight material or in such a way as to shatter or come apart easily, sometimes as a safety feature.

(5) In ice hockey, a sudden rush down the ice by a player or players in an attempt to score a goal, after breaking clear of defending opponents.

(6) In various codes of football, a run by an offensive player breaking through the defense for a long gain.

(7) In basketball, a term for the fast break.

(8) In rugby union, two forwards positioned at the side of the scrum (also called flankers).

(9) In Australian rural slang, an animal that breaks away from the herd or flock or a synonym for a stampede of a number of beasts.

(10) In Australian geographical slang, an eroding steep slope on the edge of a plateau; an escarpment; a channel of floodwater that has burst from its usual course; or the track or channel eroded by the water (archaic).

(11) Of, relating to, or being that which separates or secedes.

(12) In horse racing, a premature start.

(13) In bicycle racing, a individual or group of riders which has gone ahead of the peloton (the main group).

(14) In the entertainment industry, enjoying sudden & rapid popular success as a result of one role, release etc (archaic, now called “break-out”).

(15) In geopolitics, a sometimes used alternative descriptor for the renegade province of Taiwan. 

1885–1895: A noun & adjectival form based on the (verb) phrase “break away”.  Break was from the Middle English breken, from the Old English brecan (to break), from the Proto-West Germanic brekan, from the Proto-Germanic brekaną (to break), from the primitive Indo-European breg- (to break).  Away was from the Middle English away, awey, awei, oway, o wey & on way, from the Old English āweġ & onweġ (away), the original form being on weġ (on one's way; onward; on), the construct being a- (on) +‎ way (a road; direction).  It was cognate with the Scots awa & away (away), the Old Frisian aweg & awei (away), the Saterland Frisian wäch & wääge (away), the Dutch weg (away), the German weg (away), the Danish væk (away) and the Swedish i väg (away; off; along).

The phrase “break away”, in the sense "disengage oneself abruptly, escape" dates from the 1530s.  The late nineteenth century breakaway was used to describe physical objects, especially specifically engineered theatre props.  The use in sport was noted first in 1906 while the hyphenated break-away seems initially to have been used to describe those individuals associated with breakaway movements but a convention of use never emerged.  The use to describe splinter groups or anything schismatic began in the adjectival sense in the 1930s and was so joined by the noun and in that context the synonyms include breakup, separation, defection, dissension, disunion, division, parting, rift, rupture, schism, split, disaffiliation, & splinter group.

All Blacks vs the Barbarians, Cardiff Arms Park, 1973.

Rugby Union is noted, inter alia, for some inconsistencies in the names applied to positions.  The reasons for this are historical as the game’s origins lie in the early nineteenth century at a time when communication was slow and irregular between the parts of the British Empire (and the US) where it was played.  Nomenclature thus evolved in bubbles (as did some rules) and it seems that in Australia and New Zealand, the terminology could differ even between provinces.  Despite professionalism, some of the differences persist to this day which is why mysterious terms like “second five-eight” and “wing three quarter” still sometimes baffle neophyte audiences.  The breakaway is now more commonly called the “flanker” and there are blindside flankers (No 6) and openside flankers (No 7), the distinction being that the No 7 attaches (loosely) to the scrum on whichever side is further from the nearer touchline.  Breakaways are there to tackle the opposition and hopefully steal the ball and, although not tightly bound to the scrum, do contribute to its rigidity by applying lateral force.  The breakaways are the most obvious variation from the formation used in the breakaway (the split from rugby union dating from 1895) code of rugby league which otherwise uses the same positions and field placements, although, reflecting the later, more codified origin, the terminology tends to be more consistent between nations.

Breakaways: GAFCON and the Diocese of Southern Cross.

Belonging to a long tradition of splits, squabbles, schisms and general fissiparousness in Christianity and other faiths, congregations of Australia’s breakaway faction of the Anglican Church this week began meeting in suburban clubs and halls.  Modest though the surrounds might have been, the turbulent priests are not all that lonely in their walk, joining the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), an umbrella breakaway group dividing the Anglican Church in many countries.

GAFCON’s core objections are to the “revisionist interpretations” of the Bible by Anglican bishops, a slippery slide of “heresies” which have permitted the ordination of women, the blessing of same-sex marriages and a permissive attitude towards divorce.  Accordingly, the Diocese of Southern Cross was recently launched at a GAFCON conference in Canberra, the announcement made by its new bishop, Glenn Davies (b 1950; Archbishop of Sydney 2013-2021), the Anglican church’s former archbishop of Sydney.  In a statement which was a lament rather that a celebration, the bishop noted it was “…a sad day, in many ways”, adding that “…if the leadership would repent and turn back to the teachings of the bible, we wouldn’t need the Diocese of Southern Cross. I’d shut it down and come back.”  He denied procuring worshipers from other congregations, saying “I’m not luring people in, I’m not recruiting; I’m providing a safe haven and they can come to me.”

The way things used to be done.  St George's Anglican Church, Beenleigh, Queensland, Australia.

The Australian event is the latest expansion of a movement that is dividing the communion in many countries with rebel dioceses having already been formed in North America, South America, Africa and Europe and there are many who concede the schism has already evolved to the point where it must be acknowledged there are now two Anglican Churches in the US.  The nature of religiosity among Christians in Australia is however different from the US experience, both qualitatively and quantitatively.  Anglicanism was between white settlement in 1788 and the twenty-first century, at least nominally, most numerous denomination in Australia but the most recent census data revealed Anglican affiliation dropped more than any other religion in the past five years, from 3.1 to 2.5 million people, almost one in five and fewer than 10% of the population now self-identify as Anglican.  Of this declining sect of Christianity, many predict the breakaway Diocese of Southern Cross will grow but it’s unlikely to assume the critical mass such movements can attain in Africa and the Americas, simply because there simply aren’t enough folk who take religion that seriously.

The new way.  The first service of the Diocese of Southern Cross was held in a meeting room of the Beenleigh RSL (Returned Services League) & Golf Club.

 The breakaway GAFCON is not a new formation.  The culmination of the internal stresses visible in the Anglican communion since the 1968 Lambeth Conference, GAFCOM coalesced over three conferences held between 2008-2018, convened by conservative Anglican bishops and leaders concerned about the establishment’s positions on issues such as the ordination of women, secularism, HIV/AIDS , the matter of gay clergy and marriage equality.  Provocatively held one month prior to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, GAFCON made clear it existed because of heresy, the revisionist "false gospel" which since the 1960s had become part of Anglican orthodoxy, claiming it denied the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and promoted a corrosive cultural relativism which accepted a "variety of sexual preferences and immoral behavior as a universal human right".  These matters had been debated by the factions for years but it was the consecration of the confessed (and non-celibate) homosexual Vicky Gene Robinson (b 1947; Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire 2004-2013) as a bishop by the Episcopal Church in the US which induced the conservative faction be explore an institutional formation, either to “march through the institution” or form a separate church, depending on how the numbers fell.

As things turned out in 2008, it seemed clear a takeover wasn’t (yet) a practical proposition but that GAFCON would continue as a concept.  What was decided was to create in North America, where the threat seemed greatest, a kind of parallel church, an ecclesiastical structure which would cater for conservative Anglicans, a mechanism possible the communiqué asserted because the Archbishop of Canterbury is not a pope and his recognition of an institution is not required to secure a presence within the Anglican Communion.  In a nice touch, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was called "a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer”.  Lambeth Palace, predictably, while noting the breakaway’s position was fraught with theological and structural difficulties, otherwise did nothing.  Schisms sometimes flourish, sometimes fade away, sometimes are re-absorbed by the establishment and sometimes cause wars.  With the Lambeth Conference having just concluded, attention will now turn to at least three of those options.

The word “breakaway” can be used of used of Hollywood starlets who wish to break away from the innocent persona of their youth (left), chocolate bars with a wafer centre (a la the Kit Kat) (centre) and devices designed to break away from their connection at a certain stress point (right).

Faction

Faction (pronounced fak-shun)

(1) A group or clique forming a minority within a larger body, especially a dissentious group within a political party, government or organization.  The terms “splinter group”, “breakaway”, “reform group”, “ginger group” et al are sometimes used as factional descriptors depending on the circumstances but the more familiar (and sometimes formally institutionalized) are forms like “right”, “left”, “wet”, “dry” “moderate”, “conservative” et al.

(2) Internal organizational strife and intrigue; discord or dissension (applied mostly to political parties but used also to describe the internal workings of many institutions).

(3) As a portmanteau word, the construct being fact + (fict)on), in literature, film etc, a form of writing which blends fact and fiction (though distinct from the literary form “magic realism); in journalism, elements of faction are seen in variations of the technique sometimes called “new” or “gonzo” journalism.  In reportage, it should not be confused with “making stuff up” and it’s distinct from the “alternative facts” model associated with some staff employed in the Trump White House.

1500-1510: From the fourteenth century Middle French faction, from the Latin factionem (nominative factiō) (a group of people acting together, a political grouping (literally “a making or doing”)), a noun of process from the perfect passive participle factus, from faciō (do, make), from facere (to make, to do), from the primitive Indo-European root dhe- (to set; put; to place or adjust).  The adjective factious (given to faction, turbulently partisan, dissentious) dates from the 1530s and was from either the French factieux or the Latin factiosus (partisan, seditious, inclined to form parties) again from factionem; the related forms were the noun factiousness and the adverb factiously.  In ancient Rome, the factions were the four teams which contested the chariot racing events in the circus, the members distinguished by the colors used for their clothing and to adorn their horses and equipment.  Because politics and the sport soon intertwined the meaning of faction shifted to include “an oligarchy, usurping faction, party seeking by irregular means to bring about a change in government”.  Even after the fall of Rome, the traditional Roman factions remained prominent in the Byzantine Empire and chariot racing went into decline only after the factions fought during the Nika riots in 532 which saw some thirty-thousand dead and half of Constantinople razed.  Faction, factioneer, factionist & factionalism are nouns, factionalize is a verb, factional & factionless are adjectives, factionally is an adverb, factionary is a noun & adjective, factionate is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is factions.

The use of the word to describe the literary device which blends facts with fiction faction is said to date from the late 1960s although some sources suggest it had earlier been used in discussions held in conferences and meetings but the most usual descriptor of such works was the earlier “non-fiction novel” which by the mid century (especially in the US) had become a popular (and in literary circles a fashionable) form although, as such, it was not originally directly related to post-modernism.  Critics trace the origins of the form to the years immediately after World War I (1914-1918) and distinguish the works produced then from earlier texts where there was some use of dubious material presented as “fact” in that in the twentieth century the author’s made their intent deliberate.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was well acquainted with the earthly lusts and frailties of men and in Coriolanus (1605-1608) act 5, scene 2, at the Volscian camp when Menenius is halted by sentries who refuse to allow him to see their generals he knew what to say though it did him little good.

First sentry: Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.

Menenius: Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always factionary on the party of your general.

Second sentry: Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say, you cannot pass.  Therefore, go back.

Menenius: Hath he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not speak with him till after dinner.

The Baader-Meinhof faction

Founded in 1970, the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction (RAF)) was a left-wing, armed militant revolutionary group based in the Federal Republic of Germany (The FRG or West Germany (1949-1990)) which, for almost thirty years, undertook assassinations, kidnappings, robberies and bombings and although actually less active than some other terrorist cells, the RAF was better known and most influential in the early-mid 1970s.  The RAF was dissolved in 1998 although, in the nature of such things, some members continued to use their skills in criminal ventures including drug-trafficing as a form of revenue generation.  The RAF always used the word Fraktion, translated into English as faction.  The linguistic implications never pleased RAF members who thought themselves the embedded, military wing of the wider communist workers' movement, not a faction or splinter-group.  In this context the German doesn’t lend well to translation but closest single-word reflecting the RAF’s view is probably “section” or “squad”.  German journalist Stefan Aust (b 1946) also avoided the word, choosing Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (the  Baader-Meinhof Complex) as the title of his 2008 book because it better described how the organization operated.

Andreas Baader & Ulrike Meinhof

In the era they were active, a common descriptor in the English-speaking word was the Baader-Meinhof Group or Gang, named after two of its members Andreas Baader (1943–1977) and Ulrike Meinhof (1934-1976) and the media’s choice of “gang” or “group” may have reflected the desire of governments for the RAF to be depicted more as violent criminals and less as revolutionaries.  The popular press however certainly preferred Baader-Meinhof to RAF because of the drama of the story, Meinhof having been part of the gang which freed Baader from prison.  Both later killed themselves and, although they were never the star-cross'd lovers some journalists liked to suggest, it added to the romance and the Baader-Meinhof name survived their deaths and although the media, politicians and security agencies adopted the eponymous title, it was never used by the RAF.  In the tradition of Marxist collectives, the members regarded the RAF as a co-founded group of many members and not one either defined by or identified with two figureheads, apart from which, the dominant female of the group was actually Gudrun Ensslin (1940-1977).

Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin in court, "Department store trial" (Galeria Kaufhof GmbH), Frankfurt am Main, FRG, 14 October 1968.

The early years of Gudrun Ensslin would have given little hint of how her life would unfold but at 16 comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) entered the Tiflis Theological Seminary to train as a Russian Orthodox priest at the Tiflis Theological Seminary so things can change.  In her youth, Fräulein Ensslin had been a scout leader and assisted her parish priest in work such as organizing Bible studies; her school reports all record her as a diligent, well-behaved student but according to her father (who, as a priest may have some bias), all that changed when “she became erotized” and discovered the charms of dating boys.  By 1967 she was engaged and had given birth to a son when she met Andreas Baader who had arrived in Berlin four years earlier to evade the attention of the Munich police force which had shadowed his dissolute life of petty crime, youth detention centres and prison.  He'd also gone "underground" to escape conscription and rapidly he and Ensslin became lovers; she abandoned her child and with some other discontented souls, the pair decided to escalate their fight against the system, their early attempts to undermine bourgeois capitalism involving fire-bombing the Galeria Kaufhof department stores they considered citadels of "consumerist materialism".  Later they would expand their activities to include kidnappings, bank robberies, bombings & murder and it was in 1968 the German journalist, Ulrike Meinhof, “joined the fight”, writing in the Konkret (published by her husband Klaus Rainer Röhl (1928–2021)):  “Protest is when I say it does not suit me.  Resistance is, when I make sure that what does not suit me, no longer happens.”  The German konkret can be translated as “concrete”, “specific” or “tangible”, depending on the context.  In the sense of Herr Röhl’s (who styled himself “K2R”) magazine, “Konkret” carried the connotation of “real” or “practical”, a nod to Marxist revolutionary principles which tended to discount abstract theoreticians or those who dreamed of utopias; the focus was on what should be done and what could be achieved.  Herr Röhl certainly had a practical understanding of German accounting law because Konkret provided him with a Porsche 911 as a company car.  Because the KPD (German Communist Party) was banned in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany, 1949-1990), Herr Röhl's membership was clandestine, as were the payments Konkret received from the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany, 1949-1990) and Moscow although funds also came from the FRG.  It must have amused him that Moscow was, in effect, paying for his Porsche, villa and pleasant lifestyle while simultaneously Bonn was contributing to what might be its own overthrow.

Police inspecting the stolen Porsche 911S Targa, Frankfurt, June 1972.

Although a left wing revolutionary, Andreas Bernd Baader liked fast cars owned usually the class enemy and that he never held a drivers licence didn’t deter him from stealing or driving these status symbols of the system he planned to destroy.  His favorite cars by the early 1970s were the Porsche 911 and the BMW E9 coupé and one note in the police reports on him notes that he liked to have a tennis racquet on the passenger seat, the thinking apparently that it was such a middle-class symbol that just the sight of it would make him less suspicious to police.  At the time the Baader-Meinhof gang were active, his automotive taste clearly had been imposed on his fellow revolutionaries because “BMW” came to be understood as “Baader-Meinhof-Wagen” (ie Baader-Meinhof car), the vehicle of choice for the senior gang members whereas newcomers were permitted to drive nothing more elevated than an Audi 100.  Baader-Meinhof had its own class structure and the proletariat was relegated to FWD (front wheel drive), surely as demeaning a humiliation as any inflicted by the plutocracy.

The stolen Iso Rivolta IR300, Frankfurt, June 1972.

For someone trying to avoid the attention of the authorities, Porsches and the big BMW coupés may seem a curious choice given one could more inconspicuously move about in a beige VW Beetle but Baader also affected his style in other ways, his fondness for velvet trousers and designer sunglasses (a thing, even then) mentioned in police reports.  Nor was his taste restricted to German machinery because he also stole an Italian Iso Rivolta IR 300, another inadvisable choice for someone with habits which would have been better pursued with a low profile because of the 800-odd made between 1962-1970, only a reputed 50 were in the FRG when one fell into his (legal but unlawful) possession in 1972.  Apparently he was about to inspect the Rivolta (which he’d yet to drive since the theft) when he was arrested, emerging from the purple (aubergine in the Porsche color chart) Porsche 911S Targa which had been painted its original yellow when he’d stolen it some months earlier.  He and two fellow terrorists had made themselves quite an obvious target, sitting in the aubergine 911, parked facing the wrong way in a middle-class neighbourhood where nobody ever parks in an unapproved manner.  Pleased with the opportunity presented, a police marksman ensconced in a building across the street shot Baader in the thigh and the trio were arrested. Stashed in the Porsche and the garage in which sat the Iso were self-made hand grenades, a bomb in the form of a welded cash box, ammunition, detonators and cables.

Ulrike Meinhof (left) and the cover art for Marianne Faithfull’s album Broken English (1979, right).

Ulrike Meinhof came to public attention for her part in the operation which freed Baader from custody and the escape vehicle used was a silver-grey Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT, a model in which he’d never expressed any interest but which he presumably came to hold in high regard.  Subsequently, for years, Meinhof, the Baader-Ensslin couple and the rest of the RAF left a bloody trail of attacks and bank robberies in their wake and, as a footnote, most of their prominent victims drove Mercedes-Benz, a coincidence of economic circumstances and market preferences.  The title track of Marianne Faithfull’s (1946-2025) album Broken English (1979) was inspired by the life and death of Ulrike Meinhof.

Broken English by Marianne Faithfull, Dave Genn, Matthew Good, Joe Mavety, Barry Reynolds, Terence Stannard & Stephen York.

Could have come through

Anytime

Cold lonely

Puritan

What are you

Fighting for?

It's not my

Security

 

It's just an old war

Not even a cold war

Don't say it in Russian

Don't say it in German

Say it in broken English

Say it in broken English

 

Lose your father

Your husband

Your mother

Your children

What are you

Dying for?

It's not my

Reality

 

It's just an old war

Not even a cold war

Don't say it in Russian

Don't say it in German

Say it in broken English

Say it in broken English

 

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

Factionalism

Factionalism is probably inherent to the nature of organizations and it really needs only for a structure to have two members for a faction to form.  Factions can be based on ideology, geography, theology, personalities (and factions have been formed purely as vehicles of hatred for another) or just about basis and the names they adopt can be designed to denigrate (redneck faction), operate euphemistically (centre-left (just right wingers who didn’t want to admit it)) or indicate a place on the spectrum (left vs right, liberal vs conservative et al).  They can also be modified by those wishing to demonize (lunar-right, hard-right, religious right etc).  The labelling can also be linguistically productive  In the UK during the 1980s, “the wets” was an epithet applied within the Conservative Party to those who opposed the government’s hard line policies, on the model of the slang “a bit wet” to describe those though effete or lacking resolve.  The wets responded by labelling their detractors “the dries” to which they responded with “warm and dry”, words with positive associations in a cold and damp country.  The names constantly evolve because fissiparousness is in the nature of organizations.

Of human nature

Cady's Map by Janis Ian.

The human race does seem inherently fissiparousness and wherever cultures have formed, history suggests divisions will form and folk will tend to coalesce (or be allocated or otherwise forced) into factions.  Usually, this is attributed to some defined or discernible difference (ethnicity, skin color, language, tribal affiliation, religion et al) but even among homogeneous groups, it's rare to identify one without sub-groups.  It does seem human nature and has long since become institutionalized and labelling theory practitioners can probably now build minor academic careers just by tracking the segregation as it evolves (boomers, gen-X, millennials etc).  The faction names of the cliques at North Shore High School (Mean Girls, Paramount Pictures 2004)) were Actual Human Beings, Anti-Plastics, The Art Freaks, Asexual Band Geeks, Asian Nerds, Burnouts, Cheerleaders, Cool Asians, Desperate Wannabes, Freshmen, Girls Who Eat Their Feelings, J.V. Cheerleaders, J.V. Jocks, Junior Plastics, Preps, ROTC Guys, Sexually Active Band Geeks, The Plastics, Unfriendly Black Hotties, Unnamed Girls Who Don't Eat Anything, and Varsity Jocks.  Given the way sensitivities have evolved, it’s predictable some of those names wouldn’t today be used; the factions' membership rosters would be much the same but some terms are now proscribed in this context, the threshold test for racism now its mere mention, racialism banished to places like epidemiological research papers tracking the distribution of morbidity. 

The factions of the Anglican Church

Fissiparousness is much associated with the modern Church of England, factions of which some time ago mostly abandoned any interest in God or the message of Christ for the more important matters of championing or decrying gay clergy, getting women into or keeping them out of the priesthood, and talking to or ignoring Rome.  Among those resistant to anything beyond the medieval, there's even an institutional forum, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) which holds meetings at which there is much intrigue and plotting; it's sort of an anti-Lambeth Conference though the cucumber sandwiches are said to be much the same.  Under the stresses inherent in the late twentieth-century, fissiparousness saw the Anglicans coalesce into three factions, the low & lazy, the broad & hazy and the high & crazy.

Overlaps in the Anglican Church factions

The Low & Lazy

Like the high churchers, the low lot still believe in God but, their time not absorbed plotting and scheming or running campaigns to stamp out gay clergy and opposing the ordination of women, they actually have time to pray, which they do, often.  The evangelical types come from among the low and don’t approve of fancy rituals, Romish ways or anything smelling of popery.  Instead, they like services where there’s clapping, dancing and what sounds like country & western music with sermons telling them it’s Godly to buy things like big TVs and surf-skis.

The Broad & Hazy

The broad church is more a club than a church, something like the Tory Party at prayer.  The parishioners will choose the church they (occasionally) attend on the same basis as their golf club, driving miles if need be to find a congregation acceptably free of racial and cultural DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).  They’re interested not at all in theology or anything too abstract so sermons need to be brief and sufficiently vague to please the bourgeoisie.  The broad church stands for most things in general and nothing in particular; finding most disputes in Anglicanism baffling, they just can't see what all the fuss is about.

The High & Crazy

The high church has clergy who love dressing up like the Spice Girls, burning incense and chanting the medieval liturgy in Latin.  They disapprove of about everything that’s happened since the 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer and believe there’d be less sin were there still burnings at the stake.  Most high church clergy wish Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) still sat on the throne of Saint Peter and some act as though he does.

Nexus

Nexus (pronounced nek-suhs)

(1) A means of connection, tie or link; a form or state of connection.

(2) A connected series or group (objects or concepts); a network or web.

(3) The core or center or a matter, discussion or situation.

(4) In cellular biology, a specialized area of the cell membrane involved in intercellular communication and adhesion.

(5) In digital anthropology, the world’s first web browser.

(6) In law in many North American jurisdictions, the relationship between a vendor and a jurisdiction taxation purposes.

(7) In formal grammar, a technical term in the work of Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943) describing a group of words expressing two concepts in one unit (such as a clause or sentence).

(8) In the civil law of Ancient Rome, a person who had contracted a nexum (obligation) such that, if they failed to re-pay that obliged, a creditor could compel them to work as a servant until the debt was paid; an indentured servant.

1655-1665: From the Latin nexus (the act of binding together; bond), the perfect passive participle of nectō (bind) and past participle of nectere (to bind).  Nectō was from the primitive Indo-European gned & gnod (to bind) and was cognate with nōdus (knot), the Ancient Greek γνάθος (gnáthos) (a jaw), the Avestan naska (bundle), the Old Irish nascim (to bind), the Old Norse knútr (from which German gained knude, Norwegian knute, and Icelandic hnútur).  Related were the Old English cnotta (which survives in Modern English as knot), the Old English cnyttan (which in Modern English is knit), the Old High German knotto (knoten in modern German) and the Middle Dutch cnudde (the Modern Dutch knot).  The suffix created the Latin verb of action.  Nexus is a noun; the noun plural is nexuses, nexusses or (the very rare) nexus although the Latin plural form (written nexūs or nexûs) is used in process philosophy, a highly technical branch of the discipline which administers the school of thought that change (ie alterations in the state of relationship(s) between things) constitute the only experience of life (the alternative schools focused on the process of change being understood as inadvertent or illusory).

Australia's defeated 1967 nexus referendum

Section 24 of the Australian Constitution provides for a numerical nexus between the House of Representatives (lower house) and the Senate (upper house):

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth, and the number of such members shall be, as nearly as practicable, twice the number of the senators.

The senate chamber in the new parliament house, opened in 1988.  The scope of works given to the architects required that both chambers should be able (without major structural change) to be re-configured to accommodate up to twice the number of members.  The building is said to have an anticipated life of some two-hundred years so it would appear in the 1970s, nobody expected there was for centuries any possibility of breaking the nexus between the houses.  Despite the ominous prospect, Australians seem rarely to think the quantity of politicians is lacking although they are often sceptical about the quality.  

Lindsay Lohan in Nexxus Style Swap hair campaign, October 2024.

After an abortive attempt in 1966, a referendum was held the following year which sought to remove the nexus, thereby freezing the number of senators at ten per state (an increase from the original six triggered by the enlargement of the lower house in 1949).  The cabinet’s enthusiasm for curbing any proliferation of senators was prompted by concern an increase in the size of the upper house would make it easier for minor parties to win seats.  The referendum was defeated and the problem persists.  As the number of senators to be elected increases, the votes each needed to gain a seat (a quota) reduces and by the 1980s, a quota in a normal half-senate election was well under 20%; in a double-dissolution, less than 8%.  That, when combined with preferential voting, means votes surplus to a quota flow through the system and it’s become successively easier to succeed, a few senators having been elected with but a handful of first-preference votes.  Section 24 is not monocausal, there being many reasons for the decline in the share of the vote enjoyed by the major parties but the recent success of micro-parties would not have been possible without the operation of the clause.  For a generation, political excrement like the Democratic Labor Party (the DLP, a right-wing, predominately Roman Catholic breakaway from the Australian Labor Party (ALP)) was helped by the lower quotas demanded in a senate of sixty rather than thirty-six.  The modern senate of seventy-six is democratically more promiscuous still.

Lindsay Lohan in a lilac dress, desktop wallpaper available from Desktop Nexus.

In Australia, as in all modern Westminster systems, the major parties alternate in their roles as "His Majesty's Government" and "His Majesty's loyal opposition" but they are as one in their attempt to keep others out of the cozy little system they've designed for themselves and, ahead of the 2016 election, changes were implemented to stop preference arrangements between minor parties and independents producing results said to be "a distortion of the electoral process" (ie independents and those from minor parties being elected to seats the majors regarded as "belonging to them").  Further to advantage the majors, a form of optional preferential voting was introduced, said to have been done to assist voters but the most obvious beneficiaries were the major parties because it became harder for independents or minor party candidates to be elected to the Senate.

Schism

Schism (pronounced siz-uhm or skiz-uhm)

(1) Division or disunion, especially into mutually opposed parties.

(2) Parties or groups so formed.

(3) In ecclesiastical matters, a formal division within, or separation from, a church or religious body over some doctrinal difference.

(4) The state of a sect or body formed by such division.

(5) The offense of causing or seeking to cause such a division.

1350-1400: From the Church Latin schisma, scisma (and in the Medieval Latin as cisma), from the Ancient Greek σχίσμα (skhísma) (genitive skhismatos), (division, cleft), from σχίζω (skhízō) (I split), the stem of skhizein (to split), from the primitive Indo-European root skei- (to cut, split).  The word replaced the French and Middle English cisme scisme & sisme (a dissension within the church producing two or more parties with rival authorities) all of which were from the Old French cisme or scisme (a cleft, a split), again ultimately from the Ancient Greek σχίσμα (skhísma).  By the late fourteenth century, scisme (dissention within the church) had emerged although in the New Testament, schism (or an equivalent from the stem of skhizein) was applied metaphorically to divisions in the Church (eg I Corinthians xii.25).  The classical spelling was actually restored in the sixteenth century but pronunciation may have remained unchanged and the general sense of “disunion, division, separation” became common in the early fifteenth century, and within a few years the adjective schismatic (the original spelling being scismatik) was coined in the sense of “pertaining to, of the nature of, or characterized by schism”, something which referred specifically to “an outward separation from an existing church or faith on difference of opinion:, on the model of the Old French scismatique & cismatique (which endures in Modern French as schismatique), from the Church Latin schismaticus, from the Ancient Greek skhismatikos.  The adjective was used also as a noun in both the Old French and Late Latin and had actually been used thus in English in the late fourteenth century in the sense of “one who participates in a schism”.  In both French & English, the modern spelling was adopted in the late sixteenth century.  Schism is a noun, schismatic & schismatical are nouns & adjectives and schismatically is an adverb; the noun plural is schisms.

The East-West Schism of 1054 is sometimes casually referred to as the “Great Schism” but this is best avoided because it can be confused with the Great Schism of 1378-1417 (which followed the “Avignon Papacy” (1309-1376)), known as the “Babylonian captivity of the Papacy”.  The Avignon era was a confused period, presided over by seven popes and five antipopes, something to be recalled by those who think today’s squabbles between the Vatican factions are disruptive.  The schism of 1054 was the break of communion between what are now the (Eastern) Orthodox and (Western) Roman Catholic churches.  There were a myriad of ecclesiastical and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West before 1054 covering issues such as whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist.  More serious perhaps were a cluster of arguments about power; the Pope’s claim to universal jurisdiction and the place of Constantinople in relation to Rome.

By 1053, there was open clerical warfare.  Greek churches in Italy were forced to close or to conform to Romish ways and, in retaliation, the eastern Patriarch closed the Latin churches in Constantinople; and harsh words were exchanged and by 1054 the hierarchies of both factions were busily excommunicating each other.  It’s a little misleading to cite 1054 as the date of the schism because the dispute actually dragged and technically, relationships wouldn’t fully be sundered for almost two centuries but historians accept that year as critical and in many ways, as a point on no return.  Now almost a thousand-years on, there seems no prospect of reconciliation.

Amusing Australian schisms

The Australian Rugby League (ARL), 1995-1997: Australia is well-known for schisms in sport.  The game of rugby league was the product of a schism in the rugby unions ranks, the essence of which was the disagreement about player payments and the amateur status of the game.  That schism happened in England in 1895 but exactly a hundred year later, in Australia, the professional rugby league competition endured its own when News Corp, seeing the game as the perfect content provider for the then novel platform of pay-TV, staged a raid and attempted to entice the clubs to join their breakaway competition, offering the traditional inducement of lots of money.  The established competition responded, backed with money from its broadcaster and a two-year war ensued until corporate realities prevailed and a merged entity divided the spoils between the media organizations.  The dispute and its resolution followed essentially the same path as the schism in Australian cricket a generation earlier.

The Australian Labor Party, 1955: By the mid-1950s, the strongly anti-Communist faction in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was actively engaged in a campaign to counter communist infiltration of both the political (the ALP) and industrial (the unions) arms of the labour movement.  Had the ALP enjoyed more capable leadership, things might have turned out differently but, handled as it was, the ALP split, the schism most serious in NSW and Queensland but no state was wholly unaffected.  What emerged as a predominately Catholic splinter-party was the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), the existence of which adversely affected the ALP vote for a generation.  Thought exterminated in 1974, the DLP still shows up at the odd election and has won seats before succumbing to its own schisms.

Department of Law, Macquarie University, 1980s: More traditional (black-letter) academic lawyers at Macquarie became concerned at the teachings of others whom they called legal sociologists.  Styling themselves substantive lawyers, they didn’t especially object to the content of their opponents; they just though it had no place in a law school.  A pre-social media schism, the dispute manifested mostly in letters to the editor and bitchy comments in legal journals.  Eventually, the dispute faded as the factions either called a truce or simply ignored each other.

Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, 1972: John Anderson (1893–1962) was a Scottish philosopher who held the Challis Chair of Philosophy at the University of Sydney from 1927 until retirement in 1958.  His influence continued even after his death and by the early 1970s, faculty were engaged in a quite bitter dispute about subject matter, educational techniques and the very nature and purpose of philosophical study.  The differences proved irreconcilable and in 1974 the department split into two separate units, the Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy and the Department of General Philosophy.  The latter thought the former little more than a polite discussion group re-hashing the thoughts of last two and a half-thousand years while the former considered the latter politically radical but philosophically barren.  The department eventually reunited some thirty years later.

Mean Girls (2004) is a tale of schism, back-stabbing and low skulduggery. That has attracted those in "media studies" departments and other such places who, drawing perhaps a long bow, have constructed textual analyses aligning the script with William Shakespeare's (1564–1616) The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1603), The Tragedy of Macbeth (1623) and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (1599).