Broad

Broad (pronounced brawd)

(1) Of great breadth.

(2) A quasi-standard expression of lineal measurement (from side to side).

(3) Of great extent; large; extensive, ample, spacious, vast.

(4) Wide-open; full (applied usually to daylight).

(5) Not limited or narrow; of extensive range or scope (applied to knowledge, experience etc).

(6) Liberal; tolerant (semi-institutionalized as one of the three factions of the Anglican Church (Low, broad & high).

(7) A generalized summary of something (often as broad outline); general rather than specific.

(8) Something made plain or clear; outspoken.

(9) Indelicate; indecent, vulgar (now rare).

(10) Of conversation, rough; countrified, unrefined.

(11) Unconfined; unbridled; unrestrained.

(12) In linguistics, of pronunciation, strongly dialectal; the most exaggerated of its type; consisting of a large number of speech sounds characteristic of a particular geographical area or social class.  As applied to Gaelic languages: velarized (ie palatalized).

(13) In phonetics, of a transcription, using one basic symbol to represent each phoneme; of or relating to a type of pronunciation transcription in which symbols correspond approximately to phonemes without taking account of allophonic variations.

(14) In (mostly historic US & Canadian) slang, a usually disparaging term for a women, often one that hints at promiscuity (but not prostitution); often in the plural.

(15) In film & television production, an incandescent or fluorescent lamp used as a general source of light in a studio.

(16) A type of wide-bladed battle sword.

(17) A gold coin of England and Scotland, minted first in 1656 and issued by James I and Charles I; equal to 20 shillings.

(18) As broadband, a term now vague in meaning which implies a high-speed internet connection but which has been applied to any service rated faster than the highest speed possible using a single analogue modem connected with a conventional phone line (copper pair (Cat3)).

(19) In public finance, as broad money, denoting an assessment of liquidity including notes and coins in circulation, bank holdings, most private-sector bank deposits, and certain bank-deposit certificates; usually classed as M3 in the (sort of) standardized system by which OECD countries measure the money supply.

(20) In UK dialectal use, a river spreading over a lowland (in East Anglia, a shallow lake).

(21) In woodworking, a wood-turning tool used for shaping the insides and bottoms of cylinders.

(22) In the UK, a common pronunciation of B-road (a secondary road).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English brood, brode, brod & broad from the Old English brād (broad, flat, open, extended, spacious, wide, ample, copious; not narrow), from the Proto-Germanic braidi, from the Proto-West Germanic braid, from the Proto-Germanic braidaz (broad), of uncertain origin.  It was cognate with the Scots braid (broad), the West Frisian breed (broad), the Saterland Frisian breed (broad), the Low German breet & breed (broad), the Dutch breed (broad), the German & Old High German breit (broad, wide), the Danish, Swedish & Norwegian Bokmål bred (broad), the Norwegian brei (broad), the Icelandic breiður (broad, wide), the Old Norse breiðr (breithr), the Old Frisian brēd and the Gothic braiths & brouþs.  The word is not found except in Germanic languages and there has never been any clear distinction between broad & wide although there are conventions of use but they vary widely (and presumably in some places broadly) by geographical region.  Related and sometimes synonymous words include deep, expansive, full, large, vast, comprehensive, extensive, far-reaching, sweeping, universal, wide, wide-ranging, clear, explicit, straightforward, radical, improper, indecent & roomy.  Broad is a noun & adjective, broadly is an adverb; broadness is a noun, broaden is a verb, broadening is a noun & verb and broadest & broadish are adjectives; the noun plural is broads.    

Circa 1300, broad also had the specific meaning "breadth", now obsolete, which was from broad the adjective.  The sense of "shallow, reedy lake formed by the expansion of a river over a flat surface" was a Norfolk dialect word from the 1650s and broad had assumed its (broad) meaning as "the broad (wide) part" of anything by 1741.  The broad-brim hat was first described in the 1680s and the phrase “broad-brimmed” or “broad-brimmer” was eighteenth & nineteenth slang for a "Quaker male", so described because of their characteristic attire.  Broad-minded (in the sense of open-minded, liberal, less judgmental) was from the 1590s but this abstract mental sense of broad existed also in Old English as bradnes which meant both "breadth" & "liberality".

German broadsword, Waloon pattern, circa 1650.

Some swordsmiths insist the only true broadsword is one of the “basket-hilted swords”, characterized by a basket-shaped guard at the hilt which protects the hand, an elaboration of the quillons added to swords' cross-guards since the later Middle Ages.  What everybody else now calls the broadsword is a bladed weapon of the early modern era (sixteenth-seventeenth century), the construct in Old English being brad + swurd and, exclusively a battlefield weapon, they were always distinguished from rapiers and other dueling swords by their wide and often long & thick blades.

The term broadsheet was first used to describe a newspaper in 1705 when the distinguishing characteristic was being a “large sheet of paper printed on one side only”; by 1831 the usual phrase was “"a broadsheet newspaper" which in the twentieth century evolved into a distinction between the sober publications of record, reflection and reporting (The Times of London, The New York Times, The Manchester Guardian etc) and the popular tabloid press concerned with entertainment, sport and (increasingly) celebrity culture (the News of the World, The Sun, the New York News etc), based on the former being printed in larger formats, the latter half-sized (tabloid in printer’s jargon.  Even when some broadsheets switched to the smaller format, the phraseology remained and seemed to have survived even where some have abandoned print editions entirely, tabloid journalism still something simultaneously popular and disreputable.

Lindsay Lohan on Broadway, attending the production MJ The Musical, New York, July 2022.

Broadway (like High Street or Main Road) became a common street name apparently as early as circa 1300, applied obviously to particularly wide roads or streets, the allusive use for "New York’s theater district" dating from 1881.  The derivative “off broadway” (sometime with initial capitals) described smaller theatres in the New York City area, those with fewer than 300 seats, or a production in such a theater, usually away from the "Broadway" theater district and which operated under special rules from the theatrical unions which permitted productions to be mounted at much lower cost.  Use of off-broadway was first noted in 1953 as the volume of productions began greatly to expand in the buoyant post war economy and off-off & off-off-off (etc) broadway followed, the number of “offs” hinting progressively at the diminishing size of the budget, theatre and reputations of those associated with the production.

Broadcasting in the modern understanding of the word attained critical mass first in the 1920s as medium-wave AM radio became popular as the cost of vacuum tube radio transmitters and receivers fell to affordable levels.  Broadcasting was based on the idea in agriculture of broad-sowing, the casting of seeds over a broad area and was electronic communication on a one-to-many basis, as opposed to earlier radio, telephone, and telegraph models which were one/few to one/few.  Although the technology and the distribution platforms have since much evolved, broadcasting remains conceptually the same but the technological changes have greatly affected the behavior of audiences and much of what “broadcasters” now do is really stranded narrowcasting, the content designed not for the large-scale, even nation-wide catchments which once were available but aimed instead at specific demographics also served by the narrowcasters proper.  So changed is the environment that the terms are now less useful than when there were clear distinctions between them.

Dean Martin (1917-1995) and Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) carry "strike" signs demanding "Free Broads" as part of a gag during a show at the Sands' Copa Room, Las Vegas, 1960.

Although the "rat pack" persona was cultivated as something edgy and anti-establishment, their audience was politically conservative and, by the 1960s, part of an older generation which mostly didn't approve of young people marching with protest signs.  For a couple of old pros playing Las Vegas, this was an easy laugh and, by the standards of the time, self-deprecating.

The apparently etymologically baffling use of broad to describe a woman with some suggestion of promiscuity has attracted speculation.  It’s been suggested it might be an alteration of bride, especially through influence of the cognate German Braut, which was used in a similar sense (young woman, hussy) and there was the Middle High German brūt (concubine) but, especially given it came to be noted as a generalized slang term for women only circa 1911 in US use, etymologists prefer to link the development to the earlier slang “abroadwife”, used to mean both “woman who lives or travels without her husband" and “woman maintained in another place by a man and unknown to his wife”.  It’s now a dated form, used sometimes ironically but has often been misapplied with a suggestion of prostitution.  Because of these negative associations, and the increasing popularity of women's athletics, the name of the track and field “broad jump” (dating from 1863) was changed to “long jump”, beginning in the US in 1967 and soon adopted by athletics federations worldwide.

Some broadband is more broad than others: Indicative speed (January 2022) of internet connections in selected countries based on Ookla’s speedtest.net data, the informal standard for consumer-level speed testing.

The noun broadband actually dates from the 1620s in various senses from dressmaking to engineering.  It was used in electronics from 1956 with the meaning "a band having a wide range of frequencies" but the now most familiar use is as a descriptor of high-speed internet access.  Although the term broadband had since the 1970s been used in the technical language of the then embryonic industry of networking and distributed communications, it was little known by the public until the first standards were published for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), a consumer-level version of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology.  Ever since, it’s been used in the sense of “high-speed internet” but except for some local (and usually quickly outdated) legislated definitions, it’s never had a universal or even generally accepted meaning beyond the very early implementations when it was understood to imply a connection faster than the fastest service attainable by a single (8000/8000 baud; V.92; 56.0/48.0 kbit/s down/up) analogue modem connected with a conventional phone line (untwisted copper pair (UTP-Cat3)) which was usually accepted to be 56 kbit/s.  That soon was not a great deal of help and now, unless in a jurisdiction where use of the term broadband requires the maintenance of minimum up & download speeds, it’s really just an advertising term and unless a service so advertised turns out to be so slow that the use might be held to be deceptive or misleading, is often little more than “mere puffery”.  Hotels which in the 1990s and early 2000s spent a lot of money to install the hardware and software to support what was then “broadband” which they advertised as such soon, faced complaints as rapid advances in technology rendered their infrastructure quickly obsolescent and slow, the only solution sometimes to replace all the equipment although many instead took advantage of the profit-sharing industry which emerged, third-parties handling the installation and support, the hotel taking just a commission on total revenue.  Just as a precaution, some gave up on advertising “broadband” and instead offered the even more vague “hi-speed” which definitely meant nothing in particular.     

Contemporary art museum The Broad, Grand Avenue, Los Angeles.  The building's name is a reference not to the architecture but the philanthropists Eli (1933-2021) & Edythe (b 1936) Broad, who paid for it and provided the core of the collections exhibited.  It opened in September 2015, the architecture generally well-received.

Broadcloth (also as broad-cloth) was a "fine woolen cloth used in making men's garments" and dates from the early fifteenth century, the name derived from its width (usually 60 inches (1.5m)).  The phrase “broad daylight” emerged in the late fourteenth century and broad was first applied to speech and accents during the 1530s. To be “broad in the beam” is to be overweight, the term, predictably, applied almost exclusively to women.  To have “broad shoulders” suggests an ability to take criticism, or accept responsibility, an allusion to the figure of Atlas from Greek mythology who was condemned to forever carry on his shoulders the weight of the world.  In admiralty jargon, “broad on the beam” is a nautical bearing 90° to the heading of a vessel while “broad on the bow” is a bearing 45° to the heading of a vessel.  Broadacre farming or agriculture is a generalized reference to activities undertaken on large-scale open areas as opposed to smaller, fenced enclosures and can be used to describe either cropping or animal production.  The expression, like “mileage” or “tons” has survived metrification; “broadhectare” does exist as jargon in the field of residential land supply but is not widely used.

The Anglicans

Some time ago, the ever-entertaining Anglican Church, sort of formalized their three warring factions as the low and lazy, the broad and hazy and the high and crazy:

The Low and 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 and 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 are preached 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 and 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 Pope Pius IX was still running the show from Rome and some act as though he’s still there.

Of money

All will be pleased to know there is narrow money and broad money.  Narrow money includes notes and coins in circulation and bank deposits (if available to conduct transactions).  Broad money includes all narrow money and other liquid assets that can be used to buy goods and services.  Collectively, the money circulating in an economy is called money supply, movements in which are tracked and sometimes manipulated governments and central banks.  There are economists who insist the distinction between narrow and broad money is mainly theoretical and they have a point in that the relationship between national wealth and (1) physical notes and coins and (2) the notion of asset backing (such as a gold standard) are both now somewhat abstract and the money supply can now be expanded without the effects of the physical economy which would once have been inevitable but the measures are still of great interest, as is the strange fact that the actual definitions of money used by governments and central banks in major trading economies vary from country to country.

The United States

The US Federal Reserve provides only two main measures of money M1 (narrow) and M2 (broad).  M1 consists of currency in circulation, travelers’ checks of nonbank issuers, demand deposits, and other checkable deposits (eg negotiable order of withdrawal accounts at depository institutions).  M2 is M1 plus savings deposits and money market deposit accounts, time deposit accounts below $100,000, and balances in retail money market mutual funds.  The interesting thing about the US is that the Fed’s M1 & M2 excludes a lot of what most economists regards as money but it’s very difficult to estimate how much, all agreeing only that it’s big number.

The Euro Zone

The European Central Bank (ECB) publishes M1, M2 & M3, each measure becoming progressively broader.  M1 includes currency in circulation plus overnight deposits.  M2 is M1 plus deposits redeemable at notice of up to three months and deposits with an agreed maturity of up to two years.  M3 is M2 plus repurchase agreements, money market fund shares, money market paper, and debt securities issued with a maturity of fewer than two years.

The United Kingdom

The Bank of England uses four measures of money, M0, M2, M4, and M3H, M0 the narrowest, M4 the broadest.  M0 is currency in circulation plus bankers’ deposits held by the Bank of England.  M2 is M0 plus deposits held in retail banks.  M4 is M2 plus certificates of deposits, and wholesale bank and building society deposits.  The mysterious M3H is a parity device which exists to allow the Bank of England to align their reporting for statistical purposes with the money supply measures published by the ECB and this is M4 plus foreign currency deposits in banks and building societies.

Australia

The Reserve Bank of Australia used to use M1, M2 & M3 but now publishes M1, M3 & Broad Money.  M1 is currency in circulation plus bank current deposits from private non-bank entities.  M3 is M1 plus other deposits from building societies and credit unions with banks.  Broad Money is M3 plus borrowings from the private sector by non-bank depository corporations excluding holdings of currency and deposits of non-bank depository corporations.

Japan

The Bank of Japan is a monetary classicist and publishes M1, M2, and M3, where M1 is the narrowest and M3 the broadest.  M1 includes currency in circulation plus deposits.  M2 is M1, plus certificates of deposit.  M3 is M2 plus savings and deposits at financial institutions and post offices.

For countries which run modern economies with convertible currencies and a high degree of interoperability and (usually), little (at least by historic standards) in the way of exchange controls, it may seem strange that the definitions of money vary to the extent they do, the only feature of commonality really that each maintains a measurable concept of narrow and broad money.  Only a few central banks, such as the Bank of England, include a device with which those interested in such things can align the numbers more accurately to compare one with another; it’s almost as if the central banks and governments like some vagueness in the system.

There is no direct relationship between the volume of the money supply and its value expressed as purchasing power.  German children during the hyper-inflation experienced in the Weimar Republic in 1923 would play with literally trillions, using bundles of currency with a face value in the billions (of the then current Papiermark) as toy building blocks.  Although the purposes for which it was originally set up have long been overtaken by events, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) still exists (which is interesting in itself) and although the BIS organizes interesting conferences and seminars and publish a wealth of meaty material, it’d be an interesting task for them to devise a standardized money supply model which could augment (ie not replace) the machinery to which the central banks would no doubt cling.  Even if restricted to members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it would be an interesting data-set to align with other charts but the chances of this seem remote.  It might frighten the horses.

Fissiparous

Fissiparous (pronounced fi-sip-er-uhs)

(1) In biology, reproducing or propagating by fission; propagated by spontaneous fission or self-division (that form of asexual generation in which the parent divides; each part becoming a new individual).

(2) Having a tendency to divide into groups or factions; factious, tending to break into pieces

1825-1835: An adaptation of the New Latin fissiparus, the construct being fissi, from fissus (split, cleft) + parous, from pariō (I bring forth) by mistaken analogy with vīviparus.  Vīviparus was a 1640s adoption from the Late Latin viviparus (bringing forth alive), the construct being vivus (alive, living), from the primitive Indo-European root gwei- (to live) + parire (bring forth, bear) from the primitive Indo-European root pere- (to produce, bring forth).  Outside of physics and biology, fissiparous is rare, the preferred synonyms in general use being  divisive, fractious, fragmenting & unstable; when used it’s often as the collocation "fissiparous tendencies".  Fissiparous & fissipalmate are adjectives, fissiparousness, fissiparity & fissiparism are nouns and fissiparously is an adverb; the most common noun plural is fissiparism.

Outside of the technical use (mostly in physics and biology), fissiparous is used in political science or the study or organizational behavior when discussing the institutions which either inherently posses or are prone to developing factions.  While it’s true that not very helpful in that any institution with more than one member could presumably be vulnerable, the view is that the institutions most at risk are those where ideological differences exist either in objective or the means by which it may be achieved.  However, even if no disputes of this kind may exist, of achieving fissiparousness may manifest simply because of a pursuit for organizational power or authority.  The risk to therefore thought to be greatest in the institutions which (1) exist to pursue some ideological purpose, the parameters of which are variable and (2) the rewards of power are greatest.  That’s why fissiparousness is often displayed in political parties and religions.

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.

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.

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. 

Largo

Largo (pronounced lahr-goh)

(1) Slow; in a broad, dignified style.

(2) A movement in this style in music; performed slowly and broadly.

1675-1685: From the Italian Largo (slow, broad), from the Classical Latin largus (large, abundant).  In music, as an adjective it generally means "slow in time" and, as a noun, a movement to be performed in such style.  Composers use the modifying adjectives larghet′to to indicate "somewhat slow; not so slow as long; a movement in somewhat slow time & larghis′simo for "extremely slow".

Context matters

In music, largo is an Italian tempo marking.  It translates literally as “broadly”, hence the name of Florida’s Key Largo island chain but to a conductor or musician, it means “play at a slower tempo”.  In composition, the language of tempo markings is nuanced for while both largo and adagio signify a slowing of pace, they convey different meanings to which composers can also add refinements such as the emotionally manipulative bolt-ons giocoso (merry), mesto (sad) and nobilmente (noble).

Adagio (music performed in a slow, leisurely manner, borrowed circa 1745 from the Italian where the construct was ad (at) +‎ agio (ease), from the Vulgar Latin adiacens, present participle of adiacere (to lie at, to lie near), the noun sense in music to describe "a slow movement" dating from 1784) is used also in Italian traffic management (one of public administration’s more challenging assignments), appearing on Italian road signs to suggest a lower speed but drivers would never see a sign urging largo.  Except in musical notation largo means broad, a word of dimension or perspective, the use in music metaphorical as one might speak of the voice of a soprano “darkening” as they age and thus it can be baffling when composer uses largo in its ordinary sense.  In Gioachino Rossini's (1792–1868) The Barber of Seville (1816), a famously fast-paced aria is called "Largo al factotum" but this is not an instruction to the conductor but just a title; the translation being “make way (ie provide a broad space) for the servant”.  Factotum, known in English since 1556, is from the Medieval Latin factotum (do everything) and is used usually to describe a servant or assistant assigned to general duties.  Even in musical notation, the use of largo and adagio wasn’t always consistent among composers.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), remembered as the philosopher who loomed over the French revolution, was also a composer and in his 1768 Dictionary of Music insisted largo was the slowest of all tempo markings but for others it lay somewhere between adagio and andante (in musical direction meaning "moderately slow", a 1742 borrowing from the Italian andante, suggesting "walking" present participle of andare (to go), from the Vulgar Latin ambitare, from the Classical Latin ambitus, past participle of ambire (to go round, go about), the construct being amb- (around), from the primitive Indo-European root ambhi- (around) + ire (go), from ei- (to go)).  Rousseau's definition is now preferred.

While Rousseau didn’t expand on this, largo does by his era seem to have come to be used to signify an expression of emotional intensity, Ombra mai fù, the opening aria from Georg Friederich Händel's (1685–1759) 1738 opera Serse being such an exemplar it’s known famously as “Handel’s Largo from Xerxes”.  A hint of Handel’s intention is his marking on the original score being the diminutive larghetto.  Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) restricted largo only to the personal, emotional passages whereas Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) could use it also as a device of controlled tension, a slowing of tempo almost to a pause.  Others followed Handel, even if the largo became, after Beethoven, less fashionable, the cor anglais-haunted largo from Anton Dvořák's (1841–1904) 1893 Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World) as illustrative of the technique as any.

Comrade Shostakovich (Dmitri Shostakovich 1906–1975) followed the textbook.  Having his own reasons for needing to write something to make people feel rather than think, on its first performance in 1937, the largo in his Symphony No 5 brought tears from the audience.  Pleased to have pleased the Kremlin, Shostakovich subsequently drew lachrymosity where he could, both the first movement of Symphony No 6 (1939) and three movements of the Eighth Quartet (1960) claw slowly at the emotions.  The motif is familiar from his earlier cello & violin concertos, other symphonies and a piano sonata.

Tangerine Dream, Zeit (1972).  Largo in four movements.

Zeit was one of the more starkly uncompromising pieces of the "dark ambient" music European experimentalists would explore for a couple of decades.  Four often languid movements, each a side of the two vinyl disks, it was underpinned by the then still novel Moog synthesizer and the jarring interruption of the strings of the Cologne Cello Quarte.  Whatever Zeit was, it proved to be either unique or the final evolution of the form, depending on one's view of earlier experiments with the possibilities offered by electronics.  Tangerine Dream certainly never pursued the concept but their work impressed film director Bill Friedkin (b 1935) who commissioned them to produce the soundtrack for Sorcerer (1977); at the time, the music was better received than the film although views have changed in the decades since and Sorcerer now enjoys a cult-following.  Friedkin later remarked that had he earlier known of the band, he'd have used them for The Exorcist (1973).  

Austere and gloomy, Zeit ("time" in German) was interesting experience if listened to in darkness, on headphones; acid helped.  Efforts by some to find a connection between this and the implications of inherited guilt on a generation of German youth again dabbling with amoral technologies were never convincing, Ziet just an hour and a quarter of electronica to be enjoyed or endured.  There were critics who found both but, as even the unconvinced seemed willing often to concede, in the milieu of the sometimes willfully obscure electronica of the era, the Tangerine Dream crew were fine exponents.

Lindsay Lohan story (2 September 2022) in the on-line edition of Die Zeit (The Time) a national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg, Germany.  A broadsheet (literally and editorially), it's a liberal publication and was first published in 1946, one of the earliest of the new newspapers which emerged in the immediate post-war years while Germany was still under allied occupation.  Hamburg was in the British Zone of Occupation until 1949 when it was merged with the US & French zones to constitute the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, the old West Germany) which lasted until the 1990 unification with the German Democratic Republic (GDR, the old East Germany). 

Plantar

Plantar (pronounced plan-ter)

In anatomy and zoology, of or relating to the sole of the foot.

1706: From the Latin plantāris (pertaining to the sole of the foot), from planta (sole of the foot) from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root pletə- or plat- (to spread) an extension of the root pele- (flat; to spread).  Related were the Sanskrit prathati (spreads out), the Hittite palhi (broad), the Ancient Greek platys (broad, flat), the Lithuanian platus (broad), the German Fladen (flat cake), the Old Norse flatr (flat), the Old English flet (floor, dwelling) and the Old Irish lethan (broad).  The Latin planta may be analysed as plant +‎ -ar.  The –ar suffix was from Latin -āris (of, pertaining to) and was appended to nouns to create adjectives.  The -aris suffix was a form of -ālis with dissimilation of -l- to -r- after roots containing an l (the alternative forms were -ālis, -ēlis, -īlis & -ūlis); it was used to form adjectives, usually from noun, indicating a relationship or a "pertaining to".  The exact origin of the Latin planta (which in addition to meaning (1) “sole of the foot” could be used in the sense of (2) any vegetable production that serves to propagate the species; a sprout, shoot, twig, sprig, sucker, graft, scion, slip, cutting or (3) a young tree, a shrub that may be transplanted; a set) is uncertain.  It was from either (1) the Proto-Italic plāntā, from the primitive Indo-European pléh-n̥t-eh, from pleh- (flat) or (2) the Proto-Italic plānktā, from the primitive Indo-European pl̥hnk or gteh, from plehk- & plehg- (to strike, fast).  In anatomy, the derived terms include plantar fascia (the thick connective tissue which supports the arch of the foot) and plantar fasciitis (a painful inflammation of the plantar fascia.  The term plantar wart (apparently sometimes initially misunderstood by patients as “planter’s wart”) describes a wart which occurs on the sole of the foot or the toes.  The medical Latin is verruca plantaris.  Plantar is an adjective.

Plantar flexion and dorsiflextion

Lindsay Lohan, plantaflexing.

Plantar flexion refers to the movement of the foot when it is bent at the ankle away from the body, accomplished by flexing muscles in the calf, ankle, and foot.  In normal range of human activity, the range of motion is usually between 20-50^o, a commons example being depressing a car’s accelerator (throttle) pedal. Or even the mere act of walking.  The word “flexion” is used by anatomists and others to describe the movement of many body parts.  The notion of flexing at the knee or elbow is well understood in everyday life and technically, flexion is the decreased angle at a joint between two or more bones.  In the common act of bending the elbow from a straightened position, the angle decreases between the humerus and the radius and ulna of the forearm.  Plantar flexion is defined usually as the decreased angle between the plantar side of the foot and the back of the tibia at the tibiotalar joint (better known as the ankle) and can be visualized as the bending of the sole of the foot down where the toes are moving down and away from the body.  Done deliberately in exaggerated form it can feel unnatural but having one’s toes point downwards is something inherent to human movement, the activities (as well as using a car’s throttle pedal) including bending the foot during walking (propelling the mass of the body forward as it pushes off the ground) and standing on one’s tip toes which reaching for something in a high place.

Lindsay Lohan, dorsiflextion to the left, plantar flexion to the right.

The companion movement is dorsiflexation, an upward bending which, although applied most often to the foot, other body parts such as hands or digits (fingers) can be said to dorsiflex.  Dating from the early nineteenth century, dorsiflexion was a creation which appeared first in the literature of the early-modern science of anatomy.  The construct was dorsi (from the Middle English dorsal or dorsale from the Medieval Latin dorsālis (of or relating to the back)) + flex (from the Latin flexiō (genitive flexiōnis), from flectō (I bend, curve), from the Proto-Italic flektō, of uncertain origin and unknown in other Indo-European cognates) + -ion (the Latin suffix denoting action or condition).  The –ion suffic was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  Dorsiflexion is also a movement associated with the multiple joints.  The definition is of an action in which induces a decreased angle between the dorsal side of the body part and the bone or bones that are proximal to the body.  When one’s wrist is bent and the back of the hand is moving towards the body, that is an act of dorsiflexion and when the toes are pointed up or raised backward toward the body, this is also dorsiflexion so, using the feet as an illustrative example, plantar flexion and dorsiflextion can be understood as opposite movements at the ankle joint (both obviously being associated with flexion). That means the essence of the difference is the location of the foot doing the bending away from the ankle joint: If the toes rise as the ankle bends, it’s dorsiflexion while if the toes tend downwards, it’s a plantar flex.

Lindsay Lohan, plantar flexion to the left, dorsiflextion to the right.

Although the term (plantar flex) and word (dorsiflex) refer to variations of the same movement, the practice has always been to use a compound form only for the latter although the mechanics of the etymology is the same in that plantar flex references the sole of the foot and dorsiflex the back.  Perhaps counter-intuitively, the upper surface of a foot (the dorsal surface) is, to an anatomist, the back, a convention of use more familiar when used as the “back of the hand”.  Anatomists recommend imaging the dorsal fin of the shark as a memory trick, something associated with the “back side of an animal”. Consider a dorsal fin on a shark which is located on the back side of the shark. If the foot was a four-legged animal, the dorsal side would be the top of the foot. Likewise, if the hand was held out straight, the back side of the hand is called the dorsal side.  Interestingly, by convention, despite the obvious etymological connections, dorsiflex is the universal form while plantarflex, although a correct alternative spelling, is rarely seen outside of technical literature.

Spade & Splayd

Spade (pronounced speyd)

(1) A garden or farming tool for digging, having an iron blade adapted for pressing into the ground with the foot and a long handle commonly with a grip or crosspiece at the top, and with the blade usually narrower and flatter than that of a shovel.

(2) Some implement, piece, or part resembling this.

(3) A heavy metallic projection on the bottom of a gun trail, designed to dig into the earth to restrict backward movement of the carriage during recoil.

(4) To dig, cut, or remove with a spade.

(5) In four-suit card-games, , a black figure shaped like an inverted heart and with a short stem at the cusp opposite the point; a card of the suit bearing such figures.

(6) In slang, a disparaging and offensive term for a person with black skin (based on the spade in packs of cards) (obsolete).

(7) In nautical use, a type of oar blade that is comparatively broad and short (as opposed to a spoon).

(8) A cutting tool for stripping the blubber from a whale or skin from a carcass.

(9) As “in spades”, a term synonymous with the idiomatic “laying it on with a trowel” to indicate something done to excess or in an emphatic way.

(10) As “to call a spade a spade”, to be candid; to speak plainly without resort to euphemisms.

(11) As “to do the spadework” to be thorough in preparation.

(12) A hart or stag three years old (rare).

(13) A castrated man or animal (archaic).

Pre-900: From the Middle English noun spade, from the Old English spada, spade & spadu.  It was cognate with the the Proto-Germanic spadǭ, spadô & spadō, the Dutch spade, the Old Frisian spada, the Old Saxon spado, the Old High German spato, the German Spaten, the Old Norse spathi (spade), the Hunsrik Spaad and the Ancient Greek spáthē (blade; broad, flat piece of wood).  The ultimate source was the primitive Indo-European spe-dh-, from which the Ancient Greek gained σπάθη (spáthē) (blade), Hittite išpatar (spear), Persian سپار‎ (sopār) (plow), Northern Luri ئەسپار‎ (aspār) (diging) and Central Kurdish ئەسپەر‎ (esper) & ئەسپەرە‎ (espere) (cross-piece on shaft of spade to take pressure of foot).  More recent descendants include the Scottish Gaelic spaid and the Fiji Hindi sipi.  Sometimes confused with the shovel, derived forms include the adjective spadelike, the nouns spader, spadework & spadeful and the verbs spaded & spading.  

Pentagon-authorized playing cards, 2003.

The use on playing cards dates from 1590–1600, from the Italian, plural of spada the meaning of which was originally “sword”, from the Latin spatha, from the Greek spáthē.  Historically, the ace of spades is the highest card in the deck and, dating from the reign of James I (James Stuart, 1566–1625; James VI of Scotland 1567-1925 &  James I of England and Ireland 1603-1625), the law required the ace of spades to bear the insignia of the printing house.  This was to ensure the stamp duty was paid and the method to certify its payment on playing cards was a physical stamp on the highest card of the deck.  Beginning in the seventeenth century, card manufacturers started putting their identification marks on the ace of spades and it was soon an industry tradition, maintained even when the tax was no longer payable, the intricate designs now serving to protect them from illegal copying.  The ace of spades has a (somewhat dubiously gained) reputation as the death card but its become part of the folk lore attached to various organized crime operations and has been used by some militaries in psychological warfare, the US army ordering bulk supplies of ace of spades cards to scatter around although the belief the Viet Cong soldiers feared the card appears to have been untrue.

The Pentagon still liked the imagery however.  In the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, thousands of packs of cards decorated with pictures of the most-wanted of Iraqi regime were printed.  The doubtful honor of being the ace of spades was of course granted to President Saddam Hussein but, unfortunately, the regime's final official spokesman, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (محمد سعيد الصحاف‎; b 1937), despite his memorable war-time press conferences (as a result of which he was dubbed Comical Ali or Baghdad Bob by the press corps) quickly making him the best known figure in the government except the president himself, didn't rate card, the Pentagon deeming him not worth even the two of clubs, an act of some ingratitude in the circumstances.

Drain spade with comfort step and D-grip with fibreglass handle; available at Walmart.

Although a proliferation of modern hybrid designs for home gardeners has a little blurred the distinction, traditionally, a spade differs from a two-handed shovel mostly in the form and thickness of the blade.  The phase “to call a spade a spade" (using blunt language, call things by right names and avoid euphemisms) dates from the 1540s and was a translation of a Greek proverb (which was known to the Greek satirist and rhetorician Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανός ό Σαμοσατεύς; circa 125-Circa 185) ten skaphen skaphen legein (to call a bowl a bowl) but Dutch Catholic theologian Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (Erasmus of Rotterdam; 1466–1536) mis-translated, confusing the Greek skaphe (trough, bowl) for a derivative of the stem of skaptein (to dig) and the mistake has forever stuck, possibly because, at least in English, it better conveys the meaning.

The trowel used by Queen Victoria when laying the foundation stone of the new buildings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 17 May 1899, an act she managed to perform without leaving the comfort of her carriage.  A trowel is a kind of small hand-held spade, used in gardening and to apply the mortar in brick-laying.  The ornamental trowel was rendered in silver and enamel by the silversmith Nelson Dawson (1859-1941) and his wife Edith (1862-1928).

The phrase “in spades” (a suggestion of abundance) appeared first as recently as 1929 in a short story by US journalist and author Damon Runyon (1880-1946), a reference to the desirably of having many of the suit in bridge, spades the highest-ranking suit.  A similar phrase is that reported by the poet Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) and attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881; UK prime- minister 1868 & 1874-1880) who, when discussing the techniques he adopted during his audiences with Queen Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901), advised “everyone likes flattery and when you come to royalty, you should lay it on with a trowel”.

Dating from the 1520s, the spatula, now familiar as a kitchen tool used to scrape the contents of bowls, is derived from the early fifteenth century medical instrument, from the Latin spatula (broad piece), diminutive of spatha (broad, flat tool or weapon) from the Ancient Greek spathe (broad flat blade (used by weavers); the erroneous form spattular is attested from circa 1600.

Mid-twentieth century silver-plated cake server by Viners of Sheffield (left) & early twentieth century Danish silver-plated cake spades (right).

The cake spade was a curious alternative to the cake (or pie) server, the latter a utensil styled to conform to the size and shape of the typical domestic slice of cake or pie.  Where the cake spade differed was in the use of a regular or irregular trapezoid shape which, although it would make it difficult to maneuver something cut in the traditional, elongated triangle used with circular cakes or pies, offered advantages in stability for anything served is a squarer form including stuff like lasagna.  Horses for courses.

Splayd (pronounced splade)

An eating utensil combining the functions of spoon, knife and fork.

1943: The splayd was created by William McArthur of Sydney, Australia with manufacturing licensed to several manufacturers, the best known of which was Viners of Sheffield.  Although several variations of the spork (a utensil combining the functionality of spoon and fork) already existed, the splayd’s innovation was the refinement of two outer fork tines each having a hard, flat edge, suitable for cutting through soft food and they tended to have a geometric rather than a rounded bowl, with two longitudinal folds in the metal.  Mrs McArthur used and sold splayds in her Martha Washington Café in Sydney between 1943-1967 and in 1960 sold the manufacturing rights to the Stokes company which instituted some minor changes to the design, making them more easily mass-produced.

Set of six splayds plated in 24 carat gold; most splayds were rendered in 18-8 stainless steel although, especially in England, silver plate was also used in limited quantities.

Among some of the middle class seeking to add a layer of something to their dinner parties, splades were often seen and during its heyday of popularity during the 1950s and 1960s, they were a popular wedding gift.  The design also served a useful purpose in aged care and medical rehabilitation, recommended for those with feeding difficulties following or during treatment of the arm.  A range was manufactured with the Selectagrip system which featured customizable handles to assist people who had difficulties gripping or manipulating standard utensils.  

Lindsay Lohan's Royal Routine in spades in The Parent Trap (1998).