Etymology of words with examples of use illustrated by Lindsay Lohan, cars of the Cold War era, comrade Stalin, crooked Hillary Clinton et al.
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
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, next to a stature of a beast of the field. Hitler once told a visitor; “You should visit Göring 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 etc), the main attraction being the wide cross-platform compatibility.
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.
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 prosecution. 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.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Etceterini
Etceterini (pronounced et-set-er-rhini)
One or all
of the sports cars & racing cars produced in small volumes by a number of
“boutique” Italian manufacturers during the quarter-century-odd following World
War II (1939-1945).
1980s
(though not attaining wide currency until publication in 1990): A portmanteau
word, the construct being etcetera(a) + ini.
Etcetera was from the early fourteenth century Middle English et cetera (and other things; and so
forth), from the Latin et cētera (and
the other things; and the rest of the things), the construct being et (and) + cetera (the other things; the rest). Et
was from the Proto-Italic et, from
the primitive Indo-European éti or heti and was cognate with the Ancient
Greek ἔτι (éti), the Sanskrit अति (ati), the Gothic iþ (and,
but, however, yet) and the Old English prefix ed- (re-). Cētera was the plural of cēterum, accusative neuter singular of cēterus (the other, remainder, rest),
from the Proto-Italic ke-eteros, the
construct being ke (here) + eteros
(other). The Latin suffix -īnī was an inflection of -īnus (feminine -īna, neuter -īnum), from
the Proto-Italic -īnos, from the
primitive Indo-European -iHnos and
was cognate with the Ancient Greek -ινος (-inos)
and the Proto-Germanic -īnaz. The suffix was added to a noun base
(particularly proper nouns) to form an adjective, usually in the sense of “of
or pertaining to and could indicate a relationship of position, possession or
origin”. Because the cars referenced tended
to be small (sometimes very small),
some may assume the –ini element to be an Italian diminutive suffix but in
Italian the diminutive suffixes are like -ino, -etto, -ello & -uccio but etceterini
works because the Latin suffix conveys the idea of “something Italian”. It was used substantively
or adverbially. Until the early
twentieth century, the most common abbreviation was “&c.” but “etc.” (usually
with a surely now superfluous period (full-stop)) has long been the standard
form. Etcetera is a noun; the noun
plural is etceteras
The word
“etcetera” (or “et cetera”) fully has been assimilated into English and (except
when used in a way which makes a historic reference explicit) is for most
purposes no longer regarded as “a foreign word” though the common use has long
been to use the abbreviation (the standard now: “etc”). If for whatever reason there’s a need for a “conspicuously foreign” form then the
original Latin (et cētera (or even
the Anglicized et cetera)) should be
used. There is no definitive date on
which the assimilation can be said to have been completed (or at least
generally accepted), rather it was a process.
From the 1400s, the Middle English et
cetera was used and understood by educated speakers, due to Latin's prominence
in law, science, religion and academia with it by the mid-eighteenth century
being no longer viewed as a “foreignism” (except of course among the
reactionary hold-outs with a fondness for popery and ecclesiastical Latin: for
them, in churches and universities, even in English texts, et cētera or et cetera
remained preferred). Scholars of
structural linguistics use an interesting test to track the process of
assimilation as modern English became (more or less) standardized: italicization. With “et cetera” & “etcetera”, by the
mid-eighteenth century, the once de rigour italics had all but vanished. That test may no longer be useful because
words which remains classified as “foreign” (such as raison d'être or schadenfreude)
often now appear without italics.
The
so-called “pronunciation spellings” (ekcetera, ekcetra, excetera & exetera)
were never common and the abbreviations followed the same assimilative path. The acceptance of the abbreviated forms in
printed English more widespread still during the 1600s because of the
advantages it offered printers, typesetters much attracted by the convenience
and economy. By early in the eighteenth
century it was an accepted element (usually as “&c” which soon supplanted
“et cet”) in “respectable prose”, appearing in Nathan Bailey’s (circa 1690-1742)
An Universal Etymological English
Dictionary (1721) and gaining the imprimatur of trend-setter Anglo-Irish
author & satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745). Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) made
much use of “&c” in his A Dictionary
of the English Language (1755) and although Bailey’s dictionary was influential
in the breadth of its comprehensiveness and remained, over 30 editions, in
print until 1802, it’s Dr Johnson who is better remembered because he was became
a “celebrity lexicographer” (a breed which today must sound improbable.)
One of the
implications of linguistic assimilation is the effect on the convention applied
when speaking from a written text.
Although wildly ignored (probably on the basis of being widely unknown),
the convention is that foreign words in a text should be spoken in the original
language only if that’s necessary for emphasis or meaning (such as Caudillo, Duce or Führer) or emphasis. Where
foreign terms are used in writing as a kind of verbal shorthand (such as inter alia (among other things)) in oral
use they should be spoken in English.
However, the convention doesn’t extent to fields where the terms have
become part of the technical jargon (which need not influence a path of
assimilation), as in law where terms like inter
alia and obiter (a clipping of obiter dictum (something said by a judge
in passing and not a substantive part of the judgment)) are so entrenched in
written and oral use that to translate them potentially might be misleading.
Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, left), Britney Spears (b 1981, centre) & Paris Hilton (b 1981, right), close to dawn, Los Angeles, 29 November 2006; the car was Ms Hilton's Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199 (2003-2009)). This paparazzo's image was from a cluster which included the one used for the front page on Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York Post with the still infamous headline “BIMBO SUMMIT”. Even by the standards of the Murdoch tabloids, it was nasty.
So, the text written as: “Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears et al recommend that while a handbag always should contain “touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner, the more conscientious should pack more including, inter alia, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a small brush set & comb etc.” would be read aloud as: “Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and others recommend that while a handbag always should contain “touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner, the more conscientious should pack more including, among other things, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a small brush set & comb etcetera.” Despite the cautions from purists (including just about every grammar text-book and style guide on the planet), the “choice” between “etc” and “et al” does seem to becoming blurred with many using seemingly using the two interchangeably. The rules are (1) “etc” (and other things) is used of things (and according to the style guides should always appear with a period (full-stop) even though such use is archaic and another of those “needless tributes to tradition”) and (2) “et al” (and others) is used of people (especially in citations and again, always with a period). So, “et al” can’t be used for things; strictly, it’s for things; it’ll be interesting to see if these rules survive into the next century. Really, it's a silly rule and because it's hardly difficult to distinguish between a text string of "people" and one of "things", if used interchangeably, the two abbreviations are unlikely to confuse. Et al was the abbreviation of the Latin et aliī (and others).
In computing, Unix-based operating systems (OS) feature a directory (the word “folder” thought effete by the Unix community, most of whom are at their happiest when typing arcane commands at the prompt) called “etc” (along with /root, /boot, dev, /bin, /opt etc) which is used as a repository for system-wide configuration files and shell scripts used to boot and initialize the system. Although there are many variants of the OS, typically an /etc directory will contain (1) OS configuration files (/etc/passwd; /etc/fstab; /etc/hosts), (2) system startup scripts (/etc/init.d or /etc/systemd/, (3) network configuration, (4) user login & environment configuration files and (5) application configuration files. Originally (sometime in 1969-1970), the “etc” name was adopted because it was “an et cetera” in the literal sense of “and so on”, a place to store files which were essential but didn’t obviously belong elsewhere, a single “general purpose” directory used to avoid needless proliferation in the structure. Rapidly Unix grew in complexity and configurability so the once “place for the miscellaneous” became the canonical location for configuration files, the original sense displaced but the name retained. It is pronounced et-see (definitely not ee-tee-see or et-set-er-uh). Despite their reputation, the Unix guys do have a joke (and there are unconfirmed rumors of a second). Because so many of the files in /etc can be modified with any text-editor, in some documents earnestly it’s revealed /etc is the acronym of “Editable Text Configuration” but that is fake news; it's a backronym.
The Etceterini: exquisite creations with names ending in vowels
In the
tradition of mock-Latin, the word etceterini was a late twentieth century
coining created to refer to the ecosystem of the numerous small-volume Italian
sports & racing cars built in the early post-war years. A portmanteau word, the construct being etceter(a)
+ ini, the idea was a word which summoned the idea of “many, some obscure” with
an Italianesque flavor. Credit for the
coining is claimed by both automotive historian John de Boer (who in 1990
published The Italian car registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini register) and
reviewer & commentator Stu Schaller who asserts he’d used it previously. Whoever first released it into the wild (and
it seems to have been in circulation as least as early as the mid-1980s) can be
content because it survived in its self-defined niche and the evocative term
has become part of the lexicon used by aficionados of post-war Italian sports
and racing cars. Being language (and in
this English is not unique), it is of course possible two experts, working in
the same field, both coined the term independently, the timing merely a
coincidence. Etceterini seems not to
have been acknowledged (even as a non-standard form) by the editors of any mainstream
English dictionary and surprisingly, given how long its history of use now is,
even jargon-heavy publications like those from the Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE) haven’t yet added it to their lexicons.
It does though appear in specialist glossaries, car-model registry
websites and niche discussion forums, especially those tied to classic Italian
car culture (OSCA, Moretti, Stanguellini, Siata, Bandini, Ermini etc). So, as a word it has sub-cultural & linguistic
clarity but no status among the linguistic establishment.
John De
Boer’s comprehensive The Italian car
registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini
register) was last updated in 1994 and remains the best-known publication
on the many species of the genus etceterini and included in its 350-odd pages not
only a wealth of photographs and cross-referenced details of specification but
also lists chassis and engine numbers (priceless data for collectors and
restoration houses in their quests for the often elusive quality of
“originality”). Nor are the
personalities neglected, as well as some notable owners the designers and
builders are discussed and there are sections devoted to coach-builders, a once
vibrant industry driven almost extinct by regulators and the always intrusive
realities of economics. One thing which
especially delights the collectors are the photographs of some of the obscure
accessories of the period, some rendered obsolete by technology, some of which
became essential standard-equipment and some seriously weird. Mr De Boer’s book was from the pre-internet
age when, except for a pampered handful in a few universities, “publication”
meant paper and printing presses but such things are now virtualized and
“weightless publication” is available instantly to all and there are small
corners of the internet curated for devotees of the etceterini such as Cliff
Reuter’s Etceteriniermini, a title which certainly takes some
linguistic liberties. Some trace the
breed even to the late 1930s and such machines certainly existed then but as an
identifiable cultural and economic phenomenon, they really were a post-war
thing and although circumstances conspired to make their survival rare by the
mid 1960s, a handful lingered into the next decade.
That the
ecosystem of the etceterini flourished in Italy in the 1950s was because the
country was then a certain place and time and while the memorable scenes depicted
in La Dolce Vita (1960) might have
been illusory for most, the film did capture something from their dreams. After the war, there was a sense of renewal,
the idea of the “new” Italy as a young country in which “everybody” seemed
young and for those who could, sports car and racing cars were compelling. However, while there was a skilled labor
force ready to build them and plenty of places in which they could be built,
economics dictated they needed to be small and light-weight because the
mechanical components upon which so many relied came from the Fiat parts bin
and the most significant commonality among the etceterini were the small
(often, by international standards, tiny) engines used otherwise to power the
diminutive micro-cars & vans with which Fiat in the post-war years “put
Italy on wheels”. It was no coincidence
so many of the small-volume manufacturers established their facilities near to
Fiat’s factory in Torino, the closest thing the nation had to a Detroit. In the early years, it wasn’t unknown for a
donkey and cart carrying a few engines to make the short journey from the Fiat
foundry to an etceterini’s factory (which was sometime little more than a big
garage). However, just because the
things were small didn’t mean they couldn’t be beautiful and, being built by
Italians, over the years there were some lovely shapes, some merely elegant but
some truly sensuous.
There was a
high failure rate but many for years flourished and developed also lucrative
“sideline” businesses producing lines of speed equipment or accessories for
majors such as Fiat or Alfa Romeo and, as has happened in other industries,
sometimes the success of these overtook the original concern, Nardi soon
noticing their return on capital from selling thing popular custom steering
wheels far exceeded what was being achieved from producing a handful of little
sports cars, production of which quickly was abandoned with resources
re-allocated to the accessory which had become a trans-Atlantic best-seller. Whether things would have gone on
indefinitely had the laissez-faire spirit of the time been allowed to continue
can’t be known but by the 1960s, traffic volumes rapidly were increasing on the
growing lengths of autostrade (the
trend-setting Italian motorway system begun during the administration of Benito
Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) with
accident rates & the death toll both climbing. Italy, like many jurisdictions began to
impose safety regulations which before long made small-scale production runs
unviable but by then rising prosperity meant people were able to purchase their
own Fiat or Alfa-Romeo and the etceterini faded into fond memory. It is of course unthinkable such a thing
could again happen because the EU (European Union) is now staffed by divisions
of Eurocrats who spend their days in Masonic-like plotting and scheming to
devise new reasons to say no, non, nein,
nee, nein, não etc. Had these
bloodless bureaucrats existed in the 1940s, not one etceterini would ever have reached
the street.