Cash

Cash (pronounced kash)

(1) Money in the form of coins or banknotes, historically that issued by a government or a bank or other financial institution operating with the approval of a government.

(2) Money or an equivalent paid at the time of making a purchase.

(3) Immediate payment, in full or part, for goods or services, even if not paid in physical cash (ie as distinct from the various forms of time (delayed) payment).

(4) To give or obtain cash for a check, money order, bill of exchange etc.

(5) In some games of cards, (1) to win (a trick) by leading an assured winner or (2) to lead (an assured winner) in order to win a trick.

(6) Any of several low-denomination coins of China, Vietnam, India, and the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), especially the Chinese copper coin.

1590–1600: From the Portuguese caixa, from the Tamil காசு (kācu) (a copper coin), from the Sanskrit karṣa (a weight (of precious metal such as silver or gold)).  There was also the sixteenth century Old Italian cassa (money box) from the Latin capsa (case).  Variation of cash appear in many languages including the Japanese: キャッシュ (kyasshu), the Serbo-Croatian (kȅš & ке̏ш) the Romanian cash and the Swedish cash.

Cashable is an adjective, cashability & cashableness are nouns.  The noun plural is cash (except for the proper noun; the surname’s plural being Cashes).  The homophone of cash is cache, often mispronounced as kaache although cache’s adoption as a technical term in computing has led some to suggest kaache should be the use in the industry with kash for all other purposes and there’s much support for the view which does make sense, even if, given the specificity of the context, confusion is unlikely.  The verb cashier (and the related cashiering & cashiered) is (1) the simple past tense and past participle of cashier and (2) the apparently curious term for the dismissal of a military officer, cashiered in this context from the Dutch casseren & kasseren, from the Old French casser (to break (up)).  During a ceremonial cashiering, the break of his link with the military was sometimes symbolized dramatically by literally breaking the officer’s sword (which had in advance been partly sawn through).   

The surname appears to be an American variant of Case, the records indicating it was first adopted by in the US by German immigrants named Kirch and Kirsch, an example of the Anglicization of names once a common of those migrating to the English-speaking world.  In rare cases it has been used a male given name, often as a second name reflecting the mother’s maiden name.  A cashier (person in charge of money), dates from the 1590s, from the French caissier (treasurer), from caisse (money box), the immediate source of the English word perhaps the Middle Dutch kassier.

Lindsay Lohan themed cash.  Unfortunately, these Lohanic notes are not issued by the US Federal Reserve and thus neither legal tender nor readily convertible (at least at face-value) to other currencies.  However, Lindsay Lohan is dabbling in the embroynic world of the NFT (non fungible token) which may evolve to have some influence on the development of how cash is stored and exchanged (if not valued).   

In idiomatic use, cashing-in one’s chips means literally to take one’s winnings and leave the casino but is also used to mean “to die” whereas cashing-up is a technical term from business referring to the end-of-day audit & balancing procedures.  A moneybags (ie bags full of cash) is someone (usually conspicuously) rich.  A cash-cow is a product or service which dependably provides the owner or operator a lucrative profit.  A cash-crop (agricultural product grown to sell for profit) is attested from 1831 and was distinct from one with some other primary purpose (such as for self-sustenance or stock-feed).  A cash-back is a trick in advertising and a form of discount.  The phrase cold, hard cash is another way of emphasizing the primacy of money.  A cash-book (which historically were physical ledgers but most are now electronic) was a transactional register.  To cash was “to convert (a cheque (the US check) or other bill of exchange) to cash", known since 1811 as a variation of the noun and the now-extinct encash from 1865 was also used as a piece of specialized jargon meaning exactly the same thing; it was replaced as required by cashed & cashing.  The cash-box (also called money-box), dating from the 1590s, was (and remains) a box for the safe-keeping physical cash and was from the sixteenth century French caisse (money box), from the Provençal caissa or the Italian cassa, from the Anglo-Norman & Old French casse (money box), from the Latin capsa (box, case) ultimately from capiō (I take, I seize, I receive), from the primitive Indo-European kehp- (to grasp) (which also led to the Spanish caja (box); the original sense was literally the wooden or metal box by the eighteenth century, the secondary sense of the money began to run is parallel before, for most purposes, becoming the sole meaning.  To cash in is to profit from something, applying it one's advantage.  A cash-register, dating from 1875, was historically a mechanical device used to record transactions and issue receipts, such machines now mostly electronic and increasingly linked to centralized (even international) databases; in Jewish humorous use, a cash-register was “a Jewish piano”.  Cash-flow (which surprisingly seems to date only from 1954) refers to a specific characteristic of business and means the periodic accumulation of disposable revenue to permit the operations always to meet its obligations and continue trading; it’s not directly related to long-term profitability in that something with a good cash-flow can continue indefinitely while only breaking even while a profitable concern with a poorly managed cash-flow can flounder.  In commerce, use is common such as cash-and-carry, cash account, cash-only, discount for cash etc although transaction handling costs have affected the last: where once it was common for businesses to offer a discount to customers paying with physical cash (sometimes because it offered the possibility of a hidden (ie un-taxed) transaction, it’s now not uncommon for a fee to be imposed, reflecting the difference in processing costs for weightless (electronic) payments compared with the physical (notes & coins).  In criminal slang, "cash" is said to be a euphemism for “to do away with, to kill” the word "disband" also carrying this meaning and both “cash” and “disband” are reputed to be used on the dark web as code by those offering contract killing although such things are hard to verify and may be an internet myth. Cash on delivery (COD) dates from 1859 and was an invention of American commerce designed to encourage sales from businesses previously unknown to the individual consumer.  Cashless (often as cashless-society or cashless transaction) refers usually to the elimination of physical money (ie notes and coins), something sought by many bureaucrats for various reasons although of concern to civil libertarians.

According to anthropologists, the word cash (money and all that) is really derived from the word kash, a beer brewed in Ancient Egypt which was used to pay workers (including the builders of the Great Pyramids).  Stone cutters, slaves, architects, and even public officials were often paid (at least in part) with beer, two containers of kash often set as the minimum wage for an Egyptian laborer’s day of work.  At the time, there was quite a brewing industry, the Egyptians known to be distributing at least six varieties of beer by 3,000 BC and there is evidence it played a part in the social conventions of the age: in some circumstances if a man offered a lady a sip of his beer, they could be held to be betrothed so dating could be minefield for those who’d drunk too much.

The traditions associated with kash spread.  In Mesopotamia, tavern owners found guilty of overcharging patrons for beer could be sentenced to death by drowning in the Tigris or Euphrates rivers (depending on where the establishment was located) although most punishments were apparently commuted to fines.  The Ancient Babylonians, serious about beer making, to regulate quality decreed that any commercial beer maker who sold unfit beer was to be drowned in that very impure libation although no records exist which confirm how many were actually suck in their own dodgy brew.  The most attractive Babylonian tale (although not one all historians accept) is that more happily, a bride’s father would supply all the “honey" kash (a form of kash to which honey and sweet herbs were added) the groom could drink for one month after the wedding.  Because the calendar was lunar based, this month was referred to as the “honey moon”.

Float

Float (pronounced floht)

(1) To rest, move or remain on the surface of a liquid (to be buoyant; to be supported by a liquid of greater density, such that part (of the object or substance) remains above the surface) or in the air.

(2) By metaphor, to move lightly and gracefully.

(3) By metaphor, information or items circulating.

(4) Figuratively, to vacillate (often followed by between).

(5) As applied to currencies, to be allowed freely to fluctuate in the foreign-exchange market instead of being exchanged at a fixed or managed rate.

(6) In the administration of interest rates, periodically to change according to money-market conditions.

(7) In the equities markets, the offering of previously privately held stock on public boards; an offering of shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of the public, normally followed by a listing on a stock exchange.

(8) In the bond markets, an offering.

(9) In theatre, to lay down (a flat), usually by bracing the bottom edge of the frame with the foot and allowing the rest to fall slowly to the floor.

(10) An inflated bag to sustain a person in water; life preserver.

(11) In plumbing, in certain types of tanks, cisterns etc, a device, as a hollow ball, that through its buoyancy automatically regulates the level, supply, or outlet of a liquid.

(12) In nautical jargon, a floating platform attached to a wharf, bank, or the like, and used as a landing; any kind of buoyancy device.

(13) In aeronautics, a hollow, boat-like structure under the wing or fuselage of a seaplane or flying boat, keeping it afloat in water (aircraft so equipped sometimes called “float planes”).

(14) In angling, a piece of cork or other material for supporting a baited line in the water and indicating by its movements when a fish bites.

(15) In zoology, an inflated organ that supports an animal in the water; the gas-filled sac, bag or body of a siphonophore; a pneumatophore.

(16) A vehicle bearing a display, usually an elaborate tableau, in a parade or procession.

(17) In banking, uncollected checks and commercial paper in process of transfer from bank to bank; funds committed to be paid but not yet charged against the account.

(18) In metal-working, a single-cut file (a kind of rasp) of moderate smoothness.

(19) In interior decorating, a flat tool for spreading and smoothing plaster or stucco.

(20) In stonemasonry, a tool for polishing marble.

(21) In weaving and knitting, a length of yarn that extends over several rows or stitches without being interworked.

(22) In commerce, a sum of physical cash used to provide change for the till at the start of a day's business.

(23) In geology and mining, loose fragments of rock, ore, etc that have been moved from one place to another by the action of wind, water etc.

(24) To cause something to be suspended in a liquid of greater density.

(25) To move in a particular direction with the liquid in which one is floating (as in “floating downstream” et al).

(26) In aviation, to remain airborne, without touching down, for an excessive length of time during landing, due to excessive airspeed during the landing flare.

(27) To promote an idea for discussion or consideration.

(28) As expression indicating the viability of an idea (as in “it’ll never float”, conveying the same sense as “it’ll never fly”).

(29) In computer (graphics, word processing etc), to cause an element within a document to “float” above or beside others; on web pages, a visual style in which styled elements float above or beside others.

(30) In UK use, a small (often electric) vehicle used for local deliveries, especially in the term “milk float” (and historically, the now obsolete “coal float”).

(31) In trade, to allow a price to be determined by the markets as opposed to by rule.

(32) In insurance, premiums taken in but not yet paid out.

(33) In computer programming, as floating-point number, a way of representing real numbers (ie numbers with fractions or decimal points) in a binary format

(34) A soft beverage with a scoop of ice-cream floating in it.

(35) In poker, a manoeuvre in which a player calls on the flop or turn with a weak hand, with the intention of bluffing after a subsequent community card.

(36) In knitting, one of the loose ends of yarn on an unfinished work.

(37) In transport, a car carrier or car transporter truck or truck-and-trailer combination; a lowboy trailer.

(38) In bartending, the technique of layering of liquid or ingredients on the top of a drink.

(39) In electrical engineering, as “float voltage”, an external electric potential required to keep a battery fully charged

(40) In zoology, the collective noun for crocodiles (the alternative being “bask”).

(41) In automotive engineering, as “floating axle”, a type of rear axle used mostly in heavy-duty vehicles where the axle shafts are not directly attached to the differential housing or the vehicle chassis but instead supported by bearings housed in the wheel hubs.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English floten, from the Old English flotian (to float), from the Proto-Germanic flutōną (to float), from the primitive Indo-European plewd- & plew- (to float, swim, fly).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian flotje (to float), the West Frisian flotsje (to float), the Dutch vlotten (to float), the German flötzen & flößen (to float), the Swedish flotta (to float), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Middle Low German vloten & vlotten (to float, swim), the Middle Dutch vloten, the Old Norse flota, the Icelandic fljóta, the Old English flēotan (to float, swim), the Ancient Greek πλέω (pléō), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Russian пла́вать (plávatʹ) and the Latin plaustrum (wagon, cart).  It was akin to the Old English flēotan & Old Saxon flotōn (root of fleet).  The meaning “to drift about, passively to hover" emerged circa 1300 while the transitive sense of “to lift up, to cause to float (of water etc)” didn’t come into use for another 300-odd years and the notion of “set (something) afloat” was actually originally figurative (originally of financial matters) and noted since 1778.  Float was long apparently restricted to stuff in the water and didn’t come into use to refer to things in the air until the 1630s, this extending to “hover dimly before the eyes” by at least 1775.   In medicine, the term “floating rib” was first used in 1802, so called because the anterior ends are not connected to the rest.  The Proto-Germanic form was flutojanan, from the primitive Indo-European pleu (to flow) which endures in modern use as pluvial.

Etymologists have concluded the noun was effectively a merger in the Middle English of three related Old English nouns: flota (boat, fleet), flote (troop, flock) & flot (body of water, sea), all from the same source as the verb.  The early senses were the now-mostly-obsolete ones of the Old English words: the early twelfth century “state of floating"”, the mid thirteenth century “swimming”, the slightly later “a fleet of ships; a company or troop” & the early fourteenth century “stream or river”.  From circa 1300 it has entered the language of fishermen to describe the attachments used to add buoyancy to fishing lines or nets and some decades later it meant also “raft”.  The meaning “a platform on wheels used for displays in parades etc” dates from 1888 and developed either from the manner they percolated down a street on from the vague resemblance to flat-bottomed boat which had been so described since the 1550s.  The type of fountain drink, topped with a scoop of ice cream was first sold in 1915.

The noun floater (one who or that which floats) dates from 1717 as was the agent noun from the verb.  From 1847 it was used in political slang to describe an independent voter (and in those days with the implication their vote might be “for sale”), something similar to the modern “swinging voter”.  By 1859 it referred to “one who frequently changes place of residence or employment” and after 1890 was part of US law enforcement slang meaning “dead body found in the water”.  The noun flotation dates from 1765, the spelling influenced by the French flotaison.  The adverb afloat was a direct descendent from the Old English aflote.  In idiomatic use, it was the boxer Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) who made famous the phrase “float like a butterfly; sting like a bee” and “whatever floats your boat” conveys the idea that individuals should be free to pursue that which they enjoy without being judged by others.  To “float someone’s boat” is to appeal to them in some way.  Float is a noun & verb, floater is a noun, floated is a verb, floating is a noun, verb & adjective and floaty is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is floats.

Lindsay Lohan floating in the Aegean, June 2022.

In the modern age, currencies began to be floated in the early 1970s after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system (1944) under which most major currencies were fixed in relation to the US dollar (which was fixed to gold at a rate of US$35 per ounce).  That didn’t mean the exchange rates were static but the values were set by governments (in processes called devaluation & revaluation) rather than the spot market and those movements could be dramatic: In September 1949, the UK (Labour) government devalued Sterling 30.5% against the US dollar (US$4.03 to 2.80).  The Bretton Woods system worked well (certainly for developed nations like the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of western Europe) in the particular (and historically unusual) circumstances of the post-war years but by the late 1960s, with the US government's having effectively printed a vast supply of dollars to finance expensive programs like the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms build-up, the “Great Society” and the space programme, and social programs, surplus dollars rapidly built up in foreign central banks and increasingly these were being shipped back to the US to be exchanged for physical gold bars.  In 1971, the Nixon administration (1969-1974) responded to the problem of their dwindling gold reserves by suspending the convertibility, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system and making floating exchange probably inevitable, the trend beginning when Japan floated the Yen in 1973.

A Bloomberg chart tracking the effect of shifting the US dollar from its link with gold to a fiat currency.  Due to this and other factors (notably the oil price), in the 1970s, the bills of the 1960s were paid.

Others however moved more slowly, many adopting the tactic of the Australian government which as late as 1983 was still running what was known as a “managed float”, an arrangement whereby the prime-minister, the treasurer and the head of the treasury periodically would meet and, using a “a basket of currencies”, set the value of the Australian dollar against the greenback and the other currencies (the so-called “cross-rates”).  Now, most major Western nations have floating currencies although there is sometimes some “management” of the “float” by the mechanism of central banks intervening by buying or selling.  The capacity for this approach to be significant is however not as influential as once it was because the numbers in the forex (foreign exchange) markets are huge, dwarfing the trade in commodities bonds or equities; given the volumes, movements of even fractions of a cent can mean overnight profits or losses in the millions.  Because some "floats" are not exactly "free floats" in which the market operates independently, there remains some suspicion that mechanisms such as "currency pegs" (there are a remarkable variety of pegs) and other methods of fine tuning can mean there are those in dark little corners of the forex world who can benefit from these manipulations.  Nobody seem prepared to suggest there's "insider trading" in the conventional sense of the term but there are some traders who appear to be better informed that others. 

Probe

Probe (pronounced prohb)

(1) To search into or examine thoroughly; question closely; an investigation, especially by a legislative committee, of suspected illegal activity.

(2) To examine or explore with or as if with a probe; the act of probing.

(3) A slender surgical instrument for exploring the depth or direction of a wound, sinus, or the like.

(4) In aerospace, an unmanned exploration spacecraft.

(5) A projecting, pipe-like device on a receiving aircraft used to make connection with and receive fuel from a tanker aircraft during refuelling in flight.

(6) A device, attached by cord to an oven that can be inserted into food so the oven shuts off when the desired internal temperature of the food is reached.

(7) In biochemistry, any identifiable substance that is used to detect, isolate, or identify another substance, as a labelled strand of DNA that hybridizes with its complementary RNA or a monoclonal antibody that combines with a specific protein.

(8) In electronics, a lead connecting to or containing a measuring or monitoring circuit used for testing; a conductor inserted into a waveguide or cavity resonator to provide coupling to an external circuit

1555–1565: From the Medieval Latin proba (examination (“test” in Late Latin)), derivative of probāre (to test, examine, prove), from probus (good).  The Spanish tienta (a surgeon's probe) came from tentar (try, test).  The dual meanings in Latin ((1) instrument for exploring wounds etc and (2) an examination) persist in English.  The sense "act of probing" is from 1890, from the verb; the figurative sense of "penetrating investigation" is from 1903.  The use to describe a "small, unmanned exploratory spacecraft" is attested from 1953; unrelated to this is the curious popularity of aliens subjecting humans to examinations with anal probes in stories of alien abduction.  Probe is a noun & verb, probing & probed are verbs, probeable is an adjective and probingly is an adverb; the noun plural is probes.

The Voyager 1 space probe launched by NASA in 1977.

Originally (with companion probe Voyager 2) a twelve-year mission, it’s expected to remain a functional scientific instrument until 2025 and is now some 24 billion km (15 billion miles) away, the most distant human-made object from Earth (only our radio waves have travelled further).  There are some who claim the probes have already reached inter-stellar space while other astronomers  maintain the edge of our solar system extends much further than was once thought and they're travelling still through a sort of cosmic limbo.  The Voyager probes, even after they're long inert, may continue their journeys for thousands or millions of years because, although the universe is a violent, destructive swirl, there is vast distance between threatening stuff.

Of the many inconsistencies in English spelling, none must be seem more mystifying to anyone learning the language than those words affected by the “mute e rule”: the inflections and derivatives formed from words ending in a “silent e”.  The question always is: to e or not to e?  Deciding whether to retain or omit the last letter is easier than once it was because dictionaries seem now to be more consistent in their approach, presumably one of the benefits of their shift to becoming on-line resources although, for historic reasons, we seem stuck with what seem ancient, arbitrary decisions such as ageing and icing continuing in peaceful co-existence.  So, there are words where centuries of particular spellings have become entrenched that to suggest a change would be absurd and that means any rule would have both examples which conform and those which defy.  Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) acknowledged the impossibility of constructing a rule of absolute validity but as a guide offered (1) an indicative rule and (2) a guide to the exceptions.  The (1) rule was “when a suffix is added to a word ending in a mute e, the mute e should be dropped before a vowel but not before a consonant”.  The condition for (2) an exception was “the mute e should be kept even before a vowel if it is needed to indicate the soft sound of a preceding g or c or to distinguish a word from another with the same spelling”.  Probe is such an exception because if one has a probe, it’s helpful to know if something (or someone according to those who have been abducted by aliens) is probeable and that adjective can’t be spelled “probable” because that has another meaning.

The Mazda MX-6-based Ford Probe (1988-1997, left) and the car it was once mooted to replace, the long-serving “Fox” Mustang (1978-1993).

A competent, inoffensive coupé, the Ford Probe would probably have existed for a decade as a moderate success and then, having been discontinued without a direct replacement, been soon forgotten, had it not been for the furore which ensued when the idea surfaced it might be the company’s replacement for the Mustang.  In 1987, by means of a “controlled leak” the pro-Mustang faction (the beer drinkers) within the corporation let it be known Ford was planning to replace the Mustang with a modified version of a Mazda (championed by the chardonnay faction).  The reaction was vociferous & voluminous, Ford’s mailbox (and in 1987 mail came in envelopes with stamps attached) soon overflowing with complaints, the idea of a front-wheel-drive (FWD) Mustang anathematic, the absence of a V8 apparently beyond comprehension (although the Mustang II had suffered that fate in 1973-1975).  They also put their money where their poison pens were because the previously moribund sales of Mustangs suddenly spiked, the thought that this might be the last chance to buy a “proper” rear-wheel-drive (RWD), V8 powered Mustang enough to push the thing back up the sales chart.  The flow of letters and cash proved enough to persuade Ford and the platform was reprieved, the Mustang surviving to this day as a unique and highly profitable niche.  The Mazda co-project however was well advanced so the decision was taken to proceed and offer both and, badged as the Ford Probe, the modified Mazda lasted a decade-odd and it’s doubtful it cannibalized much of the Mustang’s market, its competition the other mid-sized, FWD Japanese coupés which had become popular.  A typical Japanese product, well engineered with a high build-quality, the Probe was a success (though it never realised Ford’s hopes in overseas markets) and when production ended, the only reason it wasn’t replaced was because the demographic buying the things had shifted to other segments, notably the sports utility vehicles (SUV) which would soon dominate.

1969 M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16 (Durango 95)

The still controversial film A Clockwork Orange (1971) was based on the dystopian 1962 novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess (1917–1993).  At the time shocking in its depiction of violence, it's set some time in the future and as part of the verisimilitude the car used in the "driving scene" was a M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16, one of three built.  Only 34 inches (864 mm) high (the prototype was 5 inches (125 mm) lower!), it emerged from the studios of the designers of the quirky Marcos sports cars which were idiosyncratic even by the standards of the cottage industry of low-volume sports cars which flourished in the UK until the early 1970s.  Although utterly impractical (passengers entered and exited through a sliding glass roof) it certainly looked futuristic but performance was disappointing because of the limited power. To create the mid-engined Probe, the designers used the engine and gearbox from the modest Austin 1800, moving the FWD package amidships, an approach later adopted by a number of manufacturers.  Had it been built using the mechanicals from the contemporary Cadillac Eldorado (which improbably had a 472 cubic inch (7.7 litre) V8 driving the front wheels through a chain-drive transaxle), assuming such a thing could be made to fit, it would have offered performance to match the promise of the looks.  In the film, the Probe was given the name “Durango 95” a name which seems to have chosen for no particular reason although the “95” may have been an allusion to 1995, decades away when the book was written.  Although A Clockwork Orange is perhaps not something with which manufacturers would like their products to be associated, many have since used the Durango name for a variety of purposes.

Newspaper headline writers like the word “probe”.  Within the industry, short, punchy words like “probe”, “jab”, “fix”, “bid” et al are part of a subset of English called “headline language”.

Driving scene in A Clockwork Orange (1971): 1969 M-505 Adams Brothers Probe 16 (Durango 95).

Corrupt

Corrupt (pronounced kuh-ruhpt)

(1) Guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked; willing to act dishonestly for personal gain; willing to make or take bribes; morally degenerate.

(2) Debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil.

(3) Of a text, made inferior by errors or alterations.

(4) Something infected or tainted; decayed; putrid; contaminated.

(5) In digital storage (1) stored data that contains errors related to the format or file integrity; a storage device with such errors.

(6) To destroy the integrity of; cause to be dishonest, disloyal, etc, especially by coercion, bribery or other forms of inducement.

(7) Morally to lower in standard; to debase or pervert.

(8) To alter a language, text, etc for the worse (depending on context either by the tone of the content or to render it non-original); to debase.

To mar or spoil something; to infect, contaminate or taint.

To make putrid or putrescent (technically an archaic use but there’s much overlap of meaning in the way terms are used).

(11) In digital storage, introduce errors in stored data when saving, transmitting, or retrieving (technically possible also in dynamic data such as memory).

(12) In English Law, to subject (an attainted person) to corruption of blood (historic use only).

(13) In law (in some jurisdictions) a finding which courts or tribunals can hand down describing certain conduct.

1300–1350: From the Middle English verb corrupten (debased in character), from the Middle French corrupt, from the Old French corropt (unhealthy, corrupt; uncouth (of language)) from the Latin corruptus (rotten, spoiled, decayed, corrupted (and the past participle of corrumpō & corrumpere (to destroy, ruin, injure, spoil (figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe” (and literally “break to pieces”)), the construct being cor- (assimilated here as an intensive prefix) + rup- (a variant stem of rumpere (to break into pieces), from a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European runp- (to break), source also of the Sanskrit rupya- (to suffer from a stomach-ache) and the Old English reofan (to break, tear)) + -tus (the past participle suffix).  The alternative spellings corrumpt, corrump & corroupt are effectively all extinct although dictionaries sometimes list them variously as obsolete, archaic or rare.  Corrupt and corrupted are verbs & adjectives (both used informally by IT nerds as a noun, sometimes with a choice adjective), corruptedness, corruption, corruptible, corruptness, corrupter & corruptor are nouns, corruptest is a verb & adjective, corruptive is an adjective, corrupting is a verb and corruptedly, corruptively & corruptly are adverbs; the most common noun plural is corruptions.  Forms (hyphenated and not) such as incorruptible, non-corrupt, over-corrupt, non-corrupt, pre-corrupt & un-corrupt etc are created as needed.

The verb corrupt in the mid-fourteenth century existed in the sense of “deprave morally, pervert from good to bad which later in the 1300s extended to “contaminate, impair the purity of; seduce or violate (a woman); debase or render impure (a language) by alterations or innovations; influence by a bribe or other wrong motive", reflecting generally the senses of the Latin corruptus.  The meanings “decomposing, putrid, spoiled”, “changed for the worse, debased by admixture or alteration (of texts, language etc) and “guilty of dishonesty involving bribery" all emerged in the late fourteenth century.  The noun corruption was from the mid-fourteenth century corrupcioun which was used of material things, especially dead bodies (human & animal) to convey “act of becoming putrid, dissolution; decay”.  It was applied also to matter of the soul and morality, it being an era when the Church was much concerned with “spiritual contamination, depravity & wickedness”.  The form was from the Latin corruptionem (nominative corruptio) (a corruption, spoiling, seducing; a corrupt condition), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of corrumpere (to destroy; spoil (and figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe”.  The use as a synonym for “putrid matter” dates from the late 1300s while as applied to those holding public office being tainted by “bribery or other depraving influence” it was first noted in the early 1400.  The specific technical definition of “a corrupt form of a word” came into use in the 1690s.  The adjective corruptible (subject to decay or putrefaction, perishable) was from either the Old French corroptible or directly from Late Latin corruptibilis (liable to decay, corruptible), from the past-participle stem of corrumpere (to destroy; spoil (and figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe”.  In fourteenth century English, it applied first to objects and by the mid fifteenth to those “susceptible of being changed for the worse, tending to moral corruption.  The more blatant sense of “open to bribery” appears in the 1670s.

Boris Johnson, hair by Ms Kelly Jo Dodge MBE.

Corruption is probably a permanent part of politics although it does ebb and flow and exists in different forms in different places.  In the UK, the honors system with its intricate hierarchy and consequent determination on one’s place in the pecking order on the Order of Precedence has real world consequences such as determining whether one sits at dinners with the eldest son of a duke or finds one’s self relegated to a table with the surviving wife of a deceased baronet.  Under some prime-ministers the system was famously corrupt and while things improved in the nineteenth century, under David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) honors were effectively for sale in a truly scandalous way.  None of his successors were anywhere near as bad although Harold Wilson’s (1916–1995; UK prime minister 1964-1970 & 1974-1976) resignation honors list attracted much comment and did his reputation no good but in recent years it’s been relatively quiet on the honors front.  That was until the resignation list of Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) was published.  It included some names which were unknown to all but a handful of political insiders and many others which were controversial for their own reasons but at the bottom of the list was one entry which all agreed was well deserved: Ms Kelly Jo Dodge, for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser, was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for parliamentary service.  In those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Boris Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style.

A corrupted fattie

Corrupt, a drug addict and a failure: The Führer and the Reichsmarschall at Carinhall, discussing beasts of the field.  Hitler once told a visitor; “You should visit the Reichsmarschall at Carinhall, a sight worth seeing.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) was under few illusions about the sentence he would receive from the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and resented only the method of execution prescribed was to be "hanged by the neck until dead".  Göring thought that fit only for common criminals and as Germany's highest ranked soldier, he deserved the honor of a firing squad; the death of a gentleman.  In the end, he found his own way to elude the noose but history has anyway judged him harshly as richly deserving the gallows.  He heard many bad things said of him at the trial, most of it true and much of it said by his fellow defendants but the statement which most disappointed him was that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) had condemned him as “corrupt, a drug addict and a failure”.  Once that was publicized, he knew there would be no romantic legend to grow after his execution and his hope that in fifty years there would be statutes of him all over Germany was futile.  In fairness, even in that he’d been a realist, telling the prison psychologist the statutes might be “…small ones maybe, but one in every home”.  Hitler had of course been right; Göring was corrupt, a drug addict and a failure but that could have been said of many of his paladins and countless others in the lower layers of what was essentially a corrupted, gangster-run state.

Corruption is of course though something bad and corrosive to the state but other people's corruption in other states can be helpful.  In 1940, after the fall of France, the British were genuinely alarmed Spain might enter the war on the side of the Axis, tempted by the return of the Rock of Gibraltar and the acquisition of colonial territory in North Africa.  London was right to be concerned because the loss of Gibraltar would have threatened not only the Royal Navy's ability to operate in the Mediterranean but also the very presence of the British in North African and even the supply of oil from the Middle East, vital to the conduct of the war.  Indeed, the "Mediterranean strategy" was supported strongly by German naval strategists and had it successfully been executed, it would have become much more difficult for the British to continue the war.  Contrary to the assertions of some, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) did understand the enormous strategic advantage which would be achieved by the taking of Gibraltar which would have been a relatively simple undertaking but to do so was possible only with Spanish cooperation, the Germans lacking the naval forces to effect a seaborne invasion.  Hitler did in 1940 meet with the Spanish leader Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) in an attempt to entice his entry into the conflict and even after the Battle of Britain, Hitler would still have preferred peace with the British rather than their defeat, the ongoing existence of the British Empire better suited to his post-war (ie after victory over the USSR) visions. 

The Führer and the Caudillo at the French railway station in Hendaye, near the Spanish–French border, 23 October 1940.

Franco however was a professional soldier and knew Britain remained an undefeated, dangerous foe and one able to draw on the resources both of her empire and (increasingly) assistance from the US and regarded a victory by the Axis as by no means guaranteed.  Additionally, after a bloody civil war which had waged for four years, the Spanish economy was in no state to wage war and better than most, Franco knew his military was antiquated and unable to sustain operations against a well equipped enemy for even days.  Like many with combat experience, the generalissimo also thought war a ghastly, hateful business best avoided and Hitler left the long meeting after being unable to meet the extraordinary list of conditions demanded to secure Spanish support, declaring he'd "sooner have three teeth pulled than go through that again".  Franco was a practical man who had kept his options open and probably, like the Duce (Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943)) would have committed Spain to the cause had a German victory seemed assured.  British spies in Madrid and Lisbon soon understood that and to be sure, the diplomatic arsenal of the UK's ambassador to Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare (1880-1959), was strengthened with money, the exchequer's investment applied to bribing Spanish generals, admirals and other notables to ensure the forces of peace prevailed.  Surprising neither his friends or enemies, "slippery Sam" proved adept at the dark arts of disinformation, bribery and back-channel deals required to corrupt and although his engaging (if unreliable) memoirs were vague about the details, documents provided by his staff suggest he made payments in the millions at a time a million sterling was a lot of money.  By 1944, the state of the war made it obvious any threat of Spanish belligerency was gone and he returned to London.

The dreaded corrupted FAT

Dating from the mid-1970s, the file allocation table (FAT) is a data structure used by a number of file systems to index and manage the files on storage devices.  First associated with 8 inch (200 mm) floppy diskettes, it became familiar to users when introduced by Microsoft in the early days of PC (personal computer) operating systems (OS) and was used on the precursors to the PC-DOS & MS-DOS OSs which dominated the market during the 1980s.  Over the years there have been a number of implementations, the best known of which are FAT12, FAT16 & FAT32, the evolution essentially to handle the increasing storage capacity of media and the need to interact with enhancements to OSs to accommodate increasing complexities such as longer file names, additional file attributes and special files like sub-directories (now familiar as folders which technically are files which can store other files).

A FAT is almost always stored on the host device itself and is an index in the form of a database which consists of a table with records of information about each file and directory in the file system.  What a FAT does is provide a mapping between the logical file system and the physical location of data on the storage medium so it can be thought of as an address book.  Technically, the FAT keeps track of which clusters (the mechanism by which the data is stored) on the device are linked to each file and directory and this includes unused clusters so a user can determine what free space remains available.  Ultimately, it’s the FAT which maintains a record of the links between the clusters which form a file's data chain and the metadata associated with each file, such as its attributes, creation & modification timestamps, file size etc.  In the same way that when reading a database a user is actually interacting primarily with the index, it’s the FAT which locates the clusters associated with a request to load (or view, delete etc) a file and determine their sequence, enabling efficient read and write operations.  The size, structure and complexity of FATs grew as the capacity of floppy diskettes and then hard disks expanded but the limitations of the approach were well-understood and modern operating systems have increasingly adopted more advanced file systems like NTFS (New Technology File System) or exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) although FAT remains widely used especially on lower capacity and removable devices (USB drives, memory cards et al), the main attraction being the wide cross-platform compatibility.

A corrupted image (JPEG) of Lindsay Lohan.  Files can be corrupted yet appear as correct entries in the FAT and conversely, a corrupted fat will usually contain may uncorrupted files; the files are content and the FAT an index.

The ominous sounding corrupted FAT is a generalized term which references errors in a FAT’s data structure.  There are DBAs (database administrators) who insist all databases are in a constant state of corruption to some degree and when a FAT becomes corrupted, it means that the data has become inconsistent or damaged and this can be induced by system crashes, improper shutdowns, power failures, malware or physical damage to the media.  The consequences can be minor and quickly rectified with no loss of data or varying degrees of the catastrophic (a highly nuanced word among IT nerds) which may result in the loss of one or more files or folders or be indicative of the unrecoverable failure of the storage media.  Modern OSs include tools which can be used to attempt to fix corrupted FATs and when these prove ineffective, there are more intricate third-party products which can operate at a lower level but where the reported corruption is a symptom of hardware failure, such errors often prove terminal, thus the importance of data (and system) backups.

The grey area between corruption and "just politics"

As an adjective, corrupt is used somewhat casually to refer to individuals or institutions thought to have engaged in practices leading to personal gain of some sort (not necessarily financial) which are either morally dubious or actually unlawful and a corrupt politician is the usual example, a corrupted politician presumably one who was once honest but tempted.  The synonyms of corrupt are notoriously difficult to isolate within set parameters, perhaps because politicians have been so involved in framing the definitions in a way which seems rarely to encompass anything they do, however corrupt it may to many appear.  The word dishonest for example obviously includes those who steal stuff but is also used of those who merely lie and there are circumstances in which both might be unlawful but wouldn’t generally to thought corrupt conduct except by the most morally fastidious.  The way politicians have structured the boundaries of acceptable conduct is that it’s possible to be venal in the sense of selling patronage as long as the consideration doesn’t literally end up as the equivalent of cash in the pocket although such benefits can be gained as long as there’s some degree of abstraction between the steps.

Once were happy: Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire, smiling.

In Australia, news the New South Wales (NSW) Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) had handed down a finding that former premier Gladys Berejiklian (b 1970; NSW Premier (Liberal) 2017-2021) had acted corruptly was of course interesting but mystifying to many was that despite that, the commission made no recommendation that criminal charges be considered.  It transpired that was because the evidence Ms Berejiklian was required to provide to the ICAC wouldn’t be admissible in a court because there, the rules of evidence are different and a defendant can’t be compelled to provide an answer which might be self-incriminating.  In other words a politician can be forced to tell the truth when before the ICAC but not before a court when charged.  That’s an aspect of the common law’s adversarial system which has been much criticized but it’s one of the doctrines which underpins Western law where there is a presumption of innocence and the onus of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt lies with the proposition.  Still, what unfolded before the ICAC revealed that Ms Berejiklian seems at the least to have engaged in acts of Billigung (looking the other way to establish a defense of “plausible deniability”).  How corrupt that will be regarded by people will depend on this and that and the reaction of many politicians was to focus on the ICAC’s statement that criminal charges would not be pursed because of a lack of admissible evidence as proof that if there’s no conviction, then there’s no corruption.  Politicians have little interest in the bar being raised.  They were less forgiving of her former boyfriend (with whom she may or not have been in a "relationship" and if one did exist it may or may not have been "serious"), former fellow parliamentarian Daryl Maguire (b 1959, MLA (Liberal) for Wagga Wagga 1999-2018).  Despite legal proceedings against Mr Maguire being afoot, none of his former colleagues seemed reluctant to suggest he was anything but guilty as sin so for those who note such things the comparative is “more corrupt” and the superlative “most corrupt”, both preferable to the clumsy alternatives “corrupter” & “corruptest”.

The release of the ICAC’s findings came a couple of days before the newly created federal equivalent (the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)) commenced operation.  Although the need for such a body had be discussed for decades, it was during the time the government was headed by Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) that even many doubters were persuaded one would be a good idea.  Mr Morrison’s background was in marketing, three word slogans and other vulgarities so it surprised few a vulgarian government emerged but what was so shocking was that the pork-barreling and partisan allocation of resources became so blatant with only the most perfunctory attempts to hide the trail.  Such conduct was of course not new but it’s doubtful if before it had been attempted at such scale and within Mr Morrison’s world-view the internal logic was perfect.  His intellectual horizons defined by fundamentalist Christianity and mercantilism, his view appeared to be that only those who voted (or might be induced to vote) for the Liberal & National Parties were those who deserved to be part of the customer loyalty scheme that was government spending.  This tied in nicely with the idea those who accept Jesus Christ as the savior getting to go to Heaven, all others condemned to an eternity in Hell.  Not all simplicities are elegant.

As things stand, such an attitude to public finance (ie treating as much spending as possible as party re-election funds) is not unlawful and to most politicians (at least any with some reasonable prospect of sitting on the treasury benches) should not be thought “corrupt”; it’s just “politics” and in NSW, in 1992 it was confirmed that what is “just politics” has quite a vista.  Then the ICAC handed down findings against then premier Nick Greiner (b 1947; NSW (Liberal) premier 1988-1992) over the matter of him using the offer of a taxpayer funded position to an independent member of parliament as an inducement to resign, the advantage being the seat might be won by the Liberal party in the consequent by-election.  As the ICAC noted, Mr Greiner had not acted unlawfully nor considered himself to be acting corruptly but that had been the result.  Indeed, none doubted it would never have occurred to Mr Greiner that doing something that was “just politics” and had been thus for centuries could be considered corrupt although remarkably, he did subsequently concede he was “technically corrupt” (not an admission which seems to have appealed to Ms Berejiklian).  The ICAC’s finding against Mr Greiner was subsequently overturned by the NSW Court of Appeal.

So the essence of the problem is just what corruption is.  What the public see as corrupt, politicians regard as “just politics” which, in a practical sense, can be reduced to “what you can get away with” and was rationalized by Ms Berejiklian in an answer to a question by the ICAC about pork-barrelling: "Everybody does it".  Of course that's correct and the differences between politicians are of extent and the ability to conceal but her tu quoque (translated literally as "thou also" and latterly as "you also"; translation in the vernacular is something like "you did it too") defense could be cited by all.  The mechanism of a NACC has potential and already both sides of politics are indicating they intend to use it against their political enemies so it should be amusing for those who enjoy politics as theatre although, unfortunately, the politicians who framed the legislation made sure public hearings would be rare.  One might suspect they want it to be successful but not too successful.  Still, the revelations of the last ten years have provided some scope for the NACC to try to make the accepted understanding of corruption something more aligned with the public’s perception.  Anomalies like a minister’s “partner” being a “partner” for purposes of qualifying for free overseas travel (business class air travel, luxury hotels, lavish dinners etc) yet not be defined a “partner” for purposes of disclosing things which might give rise to a possible conflict of interest for the minister is an example of the sort of thing where standardization might improve confidence.  It probably should be conceded that corruption can’t be codified in the way the speed limits for a nation’s highways can but it’s one of those things that one knows when one sees it and if the NACC can nudge the politicians’ behavior a bit in the direction of public expectation, it’ll be a worthy institution.  On a happier note, Mr Greiner went on to enjoy a lucrative corporate career and Ms Berejiklian (currently with telco Optus) is predicted to follow in his tracks although suggestions posted on social media she'd been offered a partnership at PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited) on the basis of her experience making her a "perfect fit for the company" are thought mischievous rather than malicious.