Distract

Distract (pronounced dih-strakt)

(1) To draw away or divert, as the mind or attention.

(2) To disturb or trouble greatly in mind; beset.

(3) To provide a pleasant diversion for; to amuse or entertain.

(4) To separate or divide by dissension or strife; to confuse.

(5) To make “crazy or insane” (now rare except in the idiomatic “drive to distraction” and its variants when the concept of “mad” is used in its colloquial sense).

1350–1400: From the Middle English, from the Medieval Latin distracten (to turn or draw (a person, the mind) aside or away from any object; divert (the attention) from any point toward another point), from the Latin distrahō (to pull apart), the construct being dis- + trahō (to pull), from distractus (drawn apart), past participle of distrahere (to draw apart), the construct being dis- + trahere (to draw).  The dis prefix was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).  It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)).  Distract, distracting & distracted are verbs & adjectives, distractionism, distractibility, distraction, distractedness, distracter & distractee are nouns, distractable, distractible, distractionary, distractive & distractful are adjectives and distractedly & distractingly are adverbs; the common noun plural is distractions.

Diversions are where one finds them.

The sense of “to throw into a state of mind in which one knows not how to act; cause distraction in; confuse by diverse or opposing considerations” has been in use by at least the 1580s.  Obviously related (and emerging a decade-odd later) was the stronger sense of “disorder the reason of, render frantic or mad”, once in common use and preserved (in rather diluted form) in the idiomatic phrase “driven to distraction”.  The literal senses of “pull apart in different directions and separate; cut into parts or sections” were in use from the late sixteenth century but are now functionally extinct.  The adjective distracted dates from the 1570s in the sense of “perplexed, harassed, or bewildered by opposing considerations” and came directly from the verb distract; from the 1580s it gained the meaning “disordered in intellect, frantic, mad”.  The noun distraction came from the mid-fifteenth century distraccioun (the drawing away of the mind from one point or course to another or others), from the Latin distractionem (a pulling apart, separating), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of distrahere (draw in different directions).  The sense of a “drawing of the mind in different directions, mental confusion or bewilderment” dates from the 1590s, and the meaning “violent mental disturbance, excitement simulating madness (in driven to distraction etc) was known from the turn of the century.  The meaning “a thing or fact that causes mental diversion or bewilderment” was in use by at least 1615 but, like other related forms, it probably was long in oral use.  The special use of distraction in medicine was used to describe “traction so exerted as to separate surfaces normally opposed”; it is long archaic.  The old idea of “distraction” meaning “crazy or insane” survives in the idiomatic phrases “drive to distraction”, “driven to distraction” and “crazy or insane” are now used in the colloquial, non-clinical sense meaning “a bit stressed or discombobulated”.  Usually, the phrases are used by those being so annoyed by someone or something they cannot focus on the task at hand.

Of Dr Faustus

Title page of the 1620 edition of the ‘B’ text of Doctor Faustus (first published in 1616 as The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus).

English playwright, poet and translator Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) was the enfant terrible of the Elizabethan age (1558–1603) and the circumstances surrounding his murder at a youthful 29 death has long attracted speculation.  Marlow’s most famous work was The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (clipped usually to “Doctor Faustus”), a tragedy (some critics class it as a morality play) first staged around 1594.  Kind of the ultimate cautionary tale, it was based on German stories about an eminent scholar who sells (for eternity) his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years magical powers.  The plot is charmingly simple: it follows Dr Faustus down the magical path lad for him by the demon Mephistopheles to his ultimate downfall as he fails to repent before his damnation.  An entertaining work, Marlow’s play also has the virtue of brevity unlike Goethe’s (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832) sprawling Faust in two parts; Goethe’s Faust may be the author’s magnum opus and the finest achievement in German literature but it is very long.

Faust and Mephistopheles (1869), oil on canvas by Alfred Louis Vigny Jacomin (1842-1913).

What enabled Mephistopheles to tempt Faustus was that the doctor, who regarded himself an expert of just about every aspect of science and philosophy, had become enchanted by the idea of necromancy, something not easily explored in the temporal world.  Dating from the late twelfth century, necromancy was from the Middle English nigromancye, from the Old French nigromancie, from the Medieval Latin nigromantia, from the Classical Latin necromantia, from the Ancient Greek νεκρομαντεία (nekromanteía), the construct being νεκρός (nekrós) (dead) + μαντεία (manteía) (divination).  The spelling in the Medieval Latin with the element niger (black) was influenced by the notion of this being a “black (in the sense of “dark”) art; the modern spelling had emerged by the mid sixteenth century.  Necromancy, as understood by Faustus, meant the sorcery associated with raising or reanimating the dead and the Devil uniquely was well placed to provide instruction but there would be a price to be paid.  One of the devices Marlow has Mephistopheles (and sometimes the Devil himself) use to divert Faustus’s thoughts from anything which might bring about his repentance and save his soul are “distractions”.  The distractions are presented as essentially theatrical spectacles in the form of sensual pleasures, promises of power and trivial entertainments, all designed to ensure spiritual distraction; it was something like Faustus’s Elizabethan TikTok feed.

Distractions played a part: Al Gore (b 1948; VPOTUS 1993-2001 & NPOTUS 2000, left) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; NPOTUS 2016, right).

The distractions take many forms but their principle purpose is to divert Faustus from thinking about or speaking of Christ and heaven, thus the famous rebuke: “Thou shouldst not think of God.”  What Lucifer does is stage a pagent of the Seven Deadly Sins, a masque-like parade of Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, and Lechery to amuse and seduce Faustus away from repentance.  As one might expect of weak, mortal man, Faustus delights in the spectacle: “O, this feeds my soul!”; well the Devil knew his customer.  Also provided are texts teaching transformations, conjuring, and occult knowledge, intellectual distractions appealing to Faustus’s vanity and appetite for mastery of new and unexplored subjects.  This is however a play written for the stage and it has a beginning, middle and end with much of the middle devoted to diversions: invisible tricks played on the pope (said to be very popular with contemporary audiences), conjuring spirits for emperors and nobles, practical jokes, feasts, and displays of magical power.  What Marlowe does is show Faustus squandering his grand bargain on shallow amusements rather than profound knowledge; comparisons have been made between what was promised would be the role of the “Information Super Highway” (dating from the time when “Al Gore invented the Internet”) and TikTok feeds.

Helen of Troy (1898), oil on canvas by Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919).  Helen has for millennia been depicted by painters and sculptors and historians of art have used the images to track changes in Western ideal of female beauty.  

Near the end, when an Old Man urges Faustus sincerely to repent, Mephistopheles counters with Helen of Troy as an erotic and aesthetic temptation, Faustus responding with the famous: “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships…?”  Helen represented the ultimate sensual distraction from salvation; as the Devil and advertising agencies understand: sex sells.  As a psychological study, Marlow’s work is a clever piece of the way manipulation can work, certainly with a victim as vain and self-absorbed as Faustus who Mephistopheles can convince repentance has become impossible, trapping him in a twilight zone between fear of the consequences of his actions and his irresistible urge to taste the distractions offered.  For those attracted by the comparisons with the internet, a major theme of the play is the notion of distraction, Faustus almost never allowed (or willing, depending on the reading), to sustain serious contemplation of repentance, Marlowe presenting damnation not as an open rebellion against God, but a gradual surrender of attention to spectacle, appetite, vanity and diversion. 

Of Marjorie Taylor Greene and flying saucers

Marjorie Taylor Greene with assault rifle, campaign material, 2020.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG, b 1974; US Representative (congressperson) (Republican-Georgia 2021-2026)) parlayed a career as a conspiracy theorist (evils of Islam, anti-Semitism, white genocide / replacement, Pizzagate, QAnon, etc (although she later disavowed her acceptance of what QAnon promotes)) into a seat in the US House of Representatives.  Once very much a Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) fan-girl and a devotee of the his MAGA (Make America Great Again) cult, during the second Trump presidency she made a remarkable volte-face, accusing him of betraying the “America First” movement, criticizing his policies (both domestic and foreign) and reluctance to release files related to convicted paedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019).  With apologies to William Congreve (1670–1729) who included the original line in his tragedy The Mourning Bride (1697): “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a MAGA woman scorned.” and Mr Trump responded to this treachery by attacking her in a post on his ever-entertaining Truth Social platform, vowing to have her “primaried” (denied a place on the Republican ticket for the mid-term congressional elections in November 2026).  As recent Republican primaries have demonstrated, Mr Trump continues to hold the party in his thrall and MTG might have expected to suffer the same fate.  Accordingly, she resigned her seat so Mr Trump can treat that as a victory although she became what Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963 & POTUS 1963-1969) called “outside the tent” (his argument being often it was preferable to have malcontents “inside the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in”).

Marjorie Taylor Greene in happier times.

Outside the tent, the scorned MTG renewed her attacks.  Most displeased at US military action against Iran, she called for the cabinet to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the constitution and remove the president from office (on the grounds of physical or mental incapacity) and, in a rhetorical flourish, suggested the Republican Party should be “burned to the ground.”  That was good but she also provided a critique of the administration’s tactic of “rolling out distractions”, calling the Pentagon’s release of “UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) files” as “look at the shiny object”, propaganda, placed in the public domain to divert public attention from matters such a high gas (petrol) prices, inflation and foreign military operations.  She dismissed the “UFO files” (the Pentagon prefers the nerdier UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena)) as revealing “nothing” and said the release was a mere strategic diversion, the administration knowing news outlets would think it a “sexy” topic that would displace gas and egg prices from the headlines and hopefully encourage the usual suspects in the public arena to start arguing about flying saucers.  Her core point was instead of publishing “UFO files” containing nothing substantive, the administration should fully disclose the Epstein files with no redactions beyond what was necessary to “protect the victims”.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, post MAGA.

President Trump said he’d directed the Pentagon to make available on their website 161 (with more to come) files “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)", because of “the tremendous interest shown”.  Of course, as MTG pointed out, there is also “tremendous interest” in what’s as yet unseen in the Epstein files.  What MTG claimed was the public’s “tremendous interest” is seeing “names named” in the Epstein files was in conflict with the equally “tremendous interest” Mr Trump told her his “friends” had in the information remaining suppressed.  According to her, Mr Trump asked her to remove her support from releasing the Epstein files because placing them in the public domain would “expose and hurt ‘good people’ he knew at Mar-a-Lago”.  That clash of interests hasn’t gone away so while it can’t be predicted whether it will involve the White House’s new ballroom or some other “shiny object”, more distractions may be expected.

Of political distraction

In political science, “distraction” is used in two ways.  The first sense describes forces or events which operate to divert a government’s attention from the matters on which they intended to focus.  Sometimes, this can happen because external events impose themselves or it can be a product of the attention of those in government being drawn to “other matters”.  The most amusing of these are personal vendettas which can assume a life of their own but they can involve just about anything.  The more interesting “political distractions” are those governments, parties or individual politicians “manufacture” to divert public attention away from damaging scandals, corruption, policy failures or unpopular legislation.  As one might imagine, given those imperatives, politicians often feel the need to distract the press and public for the public from thinking or talking about their many failings.  The orthodox approach among political scientists is to list diversions in six categories:

(1) Toss a dead cat on the table.  This describes the tactic of suddenly introducing an outrageous, shocking or highly controversial topic into the public arena, something designed to force the media and public to become interested in the new matter and forget or at least neglect whatever damaging discussion was dominating news cycle.  Aspects of the “culture wars” are dependable dead felines which is why matters such as trans-women’s participation in women’s sport do seem often to “crop up” when a politician’s poll-numbers are looking dire.

(2) Take out the trash.  The polite term for TotT is “Strategic Timing” which describes announcing policies likely to be unpopular policies or controversial executive orders on days when public attention is guaranteed to be fixed elsewhere, such as during big sporting events or during major holidays.  The trick to a successful execution of TotT is just to do it without leaving a “paper trail” (which can now be electronic).  That was a mistake made a certain bureaucrat in the UK government who, within minutes of the second jet hitting New York’s World Trade Center on 9/11 (11 September, 2001), sent a memorandum to her department head suggesting “It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury.”  What was meant by that was that the coverage of the terrorist attacks would “swamp” just about everything else, meaning the government wouldn’t have to try to “defend the indefensible”.

(3) Tail Wagging the Dog: In political science this tactic is glossed as “Diversionary Foreign Policy” and refers to governments initiating or escalating foreign conflicts, border tensions, or military action to create the “rally 'round the flag” effect and divert attention from domestic matters which are proving tiresome.  Cases studies of “wagging the dog” are numerous but in the case of nations inclined often to embark upon foreign military actions, it can be difficult to be sure a certain venture is an example or just “business as usual” foreign policy doctrine in action.  When, in August 1998, Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) ordered a missile strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, that was claimed by the White House to be based on “solid intelligence” the facility was (1) connected with Osama bin Laden’s (1957-2011) al-Qaeda terrorist group (1957-2011) and was “manufacturing or storing the VX nerve agent”.  Although a successful military operation (ie the factory was destroyed with a low civilian casualty toll), the administration was forced subsequently to concede the intelligence was “not as solid as first portrayed”.  In Sudan, the locals had few doubts about the president’s motivation, the Monica Lewinsky (b 1973) scandal at the time dominating the US news cycle.

Distracting: English model Penny Lane (b 1991), Miami Swim Week, June 2026.  Her "catwalk strut" in a black, cut-out monokini with a matrix of thin, horizontal straps slashing across the midriff was the sensation of the show. 

(4) Scapegoating.  Although it’s the always reliable “blame the Jews” which is the standard template for scapegoating, the formula is adaptable to circumstances which can extend from religion & ethnicity (the way the Jews are exploited containing elements of both) to occupational categories, social class, political alignment and more.  Scapegoating can be a handy device of distraction when managing disquiet over issues such as unemployment, failing infrastructure, the spread of disease, crime, urban congestion, economic difficulties, rising prices or the weather (it really has been done).  Of late, the perfect scapegoats have been “illegal migrants” (often clipped to “illegals”), now in ample supply.

(5) Culture Wars.  Culture wars long pre-date Antiquity but in their modern sense were really a creation of the left, political parties (labour, socialist etc) which, even though for decades rarely being in power, were able in many places to become the central dynamic of the political process by “setting the agenda” some of their ideas becoming the dominant orthodoxy.  However, the right stumbled upon culture wars after the re-orientation of Western economies to the neo-Liberal model which tended to damage the interests of the working class.  What distractions like the culture wars (abortion, guns, right to drive huge pick-up trucks etc) offered to the right was the intoxicating prospect of persuading the working class to vote contrary to their own economic interest.  Threats to a way of life (trans people, climate change theories etc) have been added as culture war theatres as they proved to have traction.

(6) Flooding the Zone.  In the pre-digital age, this was called “drowning them in paperwork” which, although a mixed metaphor, conveyed well the notion of providing so much data it was impossible effectively to process.  In the age of social media, the technique has had to be adjusted because there are now some who will ignore the distraction and relentlessly focus of a single issue of interest but it does still work, advances in AI (artificial intelligence) meaning it’s now possible to release huge tranches of “redacted documents”.  At the micro level, the principle can be used by issuing literally dozens of executive orders (some of which the administration may have no intention of effecting and exist only as “sacrificial devices” in order to divert attention from a certain order.  Of course, just as AI can be a shield, it can also be a weapon, journalists and others now able to apply a Bot to a tranche, enabling in a short time the sort of analysis which would take a team of humans months or even years.

The ultimate usual suspect: Noam Chomsky's thoughts on distraction

In full flight: Noam Chomsky (left) discussing something with Jeffrey Epstein (right) while flying somewhere on a private jet.  Professor Chomsky is believed “deeply to regret” his association with Epstein, a man he once described as a “highly valued friend”.   The image was released by the US DoJ (Department of Justice).

Linguistics theorist & public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky (b 1928) has for decades been something of an institution of the left, his critique of the policies of the US government in most aspects unchanging yet still attracting interest with each iteration, despite much of the mainstream media in the US maintaining what was, in effect, a ban on him appearing.  Unlike his work in structural linguistics, the complexities of which were understood by a relative few, Chomsky’s political writings were more accessible, something which some criticism from political scientists and those specializing in international relations who found his “elegant reductionism” just a form of simplification for mass-market appeal; political scientists much prefer the arcane.  Chomsky regards the tactics of distraction as tools in the strategy of manipulation and regards the art and science of distraction as the most significant of the ten vectors of manipulation practiced by the “political class” (political operatives and the news media).

(1) The strategy of distraction.  The primary element of social control is the tool of distraction, used to divert public attention issues and changes determined by political and economic elites; the most common tactic is the “flood”: “flooding” people with continuous distractions and insignificant information.  Distraction strategy is also essential to limit or even prevent public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics: “Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance.  Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think.”

(2) Create problems, then offer solutions.  This method is also called “problem–reaction-solution.”  It creates a problem, a “situation” that will induce some reaction in the audience and, in time, will see them demanding a “solution”.  Examples include allowing urban violence to spread or intensify (if necessary, agents of the state can even arrange the attacks), then responding to demands for “security” by passing laws allowing a harsh crackdown and restrictions on social rights.  Such a tactic can augment a manufactured “economic crisis”, one of the solutions being a reduction in spending on public services, even to the point of their widespread disestablishment.

(3) Gradualism.  The “gradual strategy” is a form of the “thin end of the wedge” and is a way of eventually achieving something which would have been unacceptable had there been an attempt to implement the change is “one hit”.  What’s done is that measures are applied gradually over years or even decades, the public acting like the tale of the frog in the pot of water being slowly brought to the boil.  That famous example turned out not to be how frogs react to gradually increasing water temperature but, in the West, it’s something like the way the radically new socio-economic conditions of neo-liberalism were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s.  Had the architects attempted to impose at once what proved to be the eventual outcome, the public would likely not have accepted the change.

(4) Deferment.  This is a “long game” tactic, the theory being a way to have the public accept an unpopular policy is to present it as “painful but necessary”, the psychology behind that being the notion it’s more palatable to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate slaughter.  Intriguingly, deferment is said to be effective because there is much to suggest there’s a general public belief “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice suggested will finally be avoided.  That may sound surprising but the findings are said to be “solid” and mean people “get used to” the inevitability of the change and, “with a sense of resignation”, will accept things.

(5) Infantilism.  The theory (adopted also in many forms of advertising) is that if information is presented in a way one might to a child of twelve, (in other words as if addressing an adult with a mentally deficiency), the recipient will digest it with the lack of critical sense typical in a child of that age.  Not all political scientists are convinced this approach works in matters of public policy but its success in the marketing of at least certain products is acknowledged.

(6) Emotional appeals work better than anything analytic.  The idea is that stressing the emotional aspect of something can be effective because it tends to induce a “short-circuiting” of a recipient’s capacity for rational analysis, and finally to the critical sense of the individual.

(7) Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity.  The object is to make the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement.  Most obviously, this is achieved by keeping the quality of education provided to the lower social classes at a most mediocre level, ensuring a wide “ignorance gap” exists between them and the hegemonic class.  Instead of knowledge, the lower classes are given diversions such as reality TV and an endless diet of football matches.

(8) Self-identification of the lower classes with ignorance.  Apparently, this wasn’t something anticipated by the theorists but among sub-sets of the marginalized class, what evolved was a kind of “cult of ignorance” in which being uneducated and vulgar is fashionable and a form of class solidarity, toxic masculinity said by some sociologists to be a modern manifestation.

(9) Strengthen a sense of self-blame.  By definition, if individuals blame themselves for their misfortunes, they won’t blame the government and expect solutions to be provided although, impressionistically, it would seem demands often are made of governments regardless of a misfortune’s cause.  Still, if individual blames themselves, (failure of effort or ability), the hope is instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual descends into an acquiescent insensibility and hopefully a state of depression which tends to inhibit getting out of bed, let getting ideas about staging a revolution.

(10) Knowledge is power.  Just because something is a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true and in recent decades there does seem to have been a growing gap between knowledge in public hands and that owned and operated by the power elite.  The system of control has developed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically meaning mechanisms of control can now be more targeted.  There were optimistic types who believed placing AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities in the hands of the masses might redress this imbalance but there seem little to suggest the technology is doing anything other than strengthening the existing hegemony.

Flounce & Ruffle

Flounce (pronounced flouns)

(1) To go with impatient or impetuous, exaggerated movements.

(2) To throw the body about spasmodically; flounder.

(3) An act or instance of flouncing; a flouncing movement.

(4) A strip of material gathered or pleated and attached at one edge, with the other edge left loose or hanging: used for trimming, as on the edge of a skirt or sleeve or on a curtain, slipcover etc.

1535–1545: Of obscure and contested origin.  Some sources suggest something akin to words from old dialectal Scandinavian forms such as the Norwegian flunsa (to hurry) or the Swedish flunsa (to plunge; to splash) but the first record of these is two centuries after the English is first documented.  Thus more preferred is a derivation of the obsolete Old French frounce (wrinkle), from the Germanic froncir (to wrinkle) and the eventual spelling in English was probably influenced by bounce.  Notions of "anger, impatience" began to adhere to the word during the eighteenth century although, as a noun of motion, use dates from the 1580s.  The use to describe “an ornamental gathered ruffle sewn to a garment by its top edge” (a kind of ruffle) was first noted in 1713, from the fourteenth century Middle English frounce (pleat, wrinkle, fold) from the Old French fronce & frounce (line, wrinkle; pucker, crease, fold) from the Frankish hrunkjan (to wrinkle), ultimately derived from the Proto-Germanic hrunk.  Flounce, flounciness & flouncing are nouns & verbs, flounced is a verb, flouncier, flounciest & flouncey are adjectives and flouncily is an adverb; the noun plural is flounces.  In the industry, "flouncy" is sometimes used as noun, applied to garments flouncier than most.

Ruffle (pronounced ruhf-uhl)

(1) To destroy the smoothness or evenness of; to produce waves or undulations.

(2) In avian behaviour, for a bird to erect the feathers, usually to convey threat, defiance etc.

(3) To disturb, vex, or irritate; disturbance or vexation; annoyance; irritation; a disturbed state of mind; perturbation.

(4) Rapidly to turn the pages of a book.

(5) In the handling of playing cards, rapidly to pass cards through the fingers while shuffling.

(6) In tailoring, to draw up cloth, lace etc, into a ruffle by gathering along one edge.

(7) In military music, in the field of percussion, the low, continuous vibrating beating of a drum, quieter than a roll (also called a ruff).

(8) To behave riotously; an arrogantly display; a swagger (obsolete).

(9) In zoology, the connected series of large egg capsules, or oothecae, of several species of American marine gastropods of the genus Fulgur.

(10) In LGBTQQIAAOP slang, the passive partner in a lesbian relationship, known also as a “fluff”.

1250-1300: From Middle English ruffelen, possibly from the Old Norse hruffa & hrufla (to graze, scratch) or the Middle Low German ruffelen (to wrinkle, curl) but beyond that the origin is unknown.  It was related to the Middle Dutch ruyffelen and the German & Low German ruffeln.  The meaning "disarrange" (hair or feathers) dates from the late fifteenth century; the sense of "annoy, distract" is from the 1650s.  As one could become ruffled, so too one be unruffled, that adjectival form dating from the 1650s.  The literal meaning, in reference to feathers, leaves and such was first recorded in 1816.  Synonyms (though sometimes overlapping or inaccurately applied) as applied to fabrics include strip (of fabric), frill, pleat & furbelow.  As applied to the state of mind there’s disarrange, disorder, wrinkle, rumple, disturbance, agitation, commotion, flurry & perturbation.  One popular use of "unruffled" is to describe the characteristics of an engine which does its stuff smoothly, unobtrusively and seemingly effortlessly (the latter a matter of perception rather than mechanical understanding).  Ruffle is a noun & verb, ruffler & rufflement are nouns, ruffled & ruffling are verbs, ruffly & ruffleable are adjectives and rufflingly is an adverb; the noun plural is ruffles.

Ruffled silk thong in rose pink by Daisysilk.

The use in dressmaking to describe “an ornamental frill" is attested from 1707, derived from the verb ruffle.  Related stylistically to the ruffle is the ruff in the sense of the large, stiffly starched collar especially common in the seventeenth century, a style which dated from the 1520s; used originally in reference to sleeves, it came to be applied to collars after the 1550s, almost certainly a a shortened form of ruffle which described something physically much bigger.  As applied to playing cards, it’s actually a separate word, dating from the 1580s, from a former game of that name.  In this context, word is from the French roffle, from the early fifteenth century romfle, from the Italian ronfa, possibly a corruption of trionfo (triumph).  The game was popular between 1590-1630.  The now obsolete sense of an arrogant display or swagger is from the fifteenth century and the origin is obscure but may related to some perception of those who wore ruffs or ruffles.  The meaning as used in the percussion section of military bands is from 1715–1725 and may have been imitative of the drum sound.

Consciously or not, designers can find themselves adding to whatever post-modernism now is.  Whether overlap or irony, when it hard to work out where the ruffle ends and the flounce begins; pragmatists sometimes admit defeat and describe it all as "frills".   

Describing various flavors of embellishment, flounce and ruffle have long been used interchangeably but in the narrow technical sense they’ve never been synonymous.  A ruffle is a piece of material gathered, usually at the top, the fullness extending the entire length of the fabric, while a flounce tends to flare, almost always smooth at the top and wider and fuller towards the bottom.  In dressmaking, as in any engineering discipline, terminological exactitude should be encouraged because one would be disappointed to receive ruffles if one really wanted a bit of flounce.  For those for who the distinction seems abstract, all such creations can be regarded as just “frilly” although, even within the industry, there are those who call flounces “circular ruffles”.

Lindsay Lohan in ruffles.

As a general principle, a ruffle is created by the manipulation of a piece of fabric cut in the shape of a rectangle.  Actual geometric precision is not required because depending on the garment and the effect desired, the shape may vary but it will at least tend towards the rectangular.  The technique is to gather the fabric at the top into a smaller area; when this is sewn into a seam line, typically at the waist or neck-line, the pleats created by the gather will fall naturally, the swishing movement inherent in the fullness of the fabric being the ruffle.  The outcome is determined by the fabric’s relationship of width and length and the weight and type of material used.

The first ruffles were probably nothing to do with fashion but merely a layered appendage to protective clothing, usually as a form of water-proofing.  In the decorative sense, although antecedents can be identified in ancient Egyptian art, in their modern form they appeared first in the mid-fifteenth century as attachments to the collars of chemises which, as happens in fashion, grew in shape and complexity into the large and elaborated ruffled constructions associated with Tudor England.  Since, although the flow and flourish has waxed and waned, the ruffle has never really gone away, despite the wishes of those who prefer more austere lines.  The ruffle can also be a device, the design adaptable to either (1) add visual bulk to a small bustline or (2) disguise a large bustline. 

Lindsay Lohan, flouncing about in flounces.

The construction of a flounce differs in that the pattern tends always towards the circular, the cut technically the shape of a donut although those both ambitious and skillful can render flounces used both irregular and more complex curves although one often under-appreciated factor in success is the weight and flexibility of the material chosen: the outcome is determined by depth of the curve, the width of the fabric and the weight and type of material used.  For a flounce successfully to work, it needs to “flounce” and the movement can be influenced as much by weight as cut.  It’s the inner edge of the donut which, without any gather, is sewn into the seam while the outside edge of becomes the fullness at the hem, the volume created by virtue of the longer line.  Because the inner edge is so much shorter, there’s not the same need to gather so the results tends to be soft billows of fabric rather than pleats.  The same technique can be used to create a layered effect where the material flares out not at all but instead follow the line of the garment; this is achieved by a cut where the inner edge is much closer in length to the outer so the shape is closer to a crescent.

The flounced and ruffled neckline: Salma Hayek demonstrates the difference.  Salma Hayek’s fine choice of clutch purses always catches the eye.

Ruffles and flounces are most associated with a wrap which extends around the garment but variations of the shape of the cuts and the techniques of attachment are used whenever something voluminous needs to be attached. Flounced and ruffled necklines and sleeves use the same rectangle versus donut model as the larger interpretations, both often used in scalloped cuts.  There being a geometric limit to the degree of flouncing that can be achieved for the cut alone, it’s possible further to exaggerate the effect with the insertion of a godet (from the Middle French godet, from the Dutch kodde (a piece of cylindrical wood)), a wedge-shaped section of fabric which deepens the floating wave at the hem without adding to the bulk gathered at the point of attachment.

Sometimes ruffled: The last King of Italy

Umberto II while Prince of Piedmont, a 1928 portrait by Anglo-Hungarian painter Philip Alexius László de Lombos (1869–1937 and known professionally as Philip de László). Note the ruffled collar and bubble pantaloons.

Umberto Nicola Tommaso Giovanni Maria di Savoia (1904–1983) was the last king of Italy, his reign as Umberto II lasting but thirty-four days during May-June 1946; Italians nicknamed him the Re di Maggio (May king) although some better-informed Romans preferred regina di maggio (May queen).  At the instigation of the US and British political representatives of the allied military authorities, in April 1944 he was appointed regent because it was clear popular support for Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947; King of Italy 1900-1946) had collapsed.  Despite Victor Emmanuel’s reputation suffering by association, his relationship with the fascists had often been uneasy and, seeking means to blackmail the royal house, Mussolini’s spies compiled a dossier (reputably several inches thick), detailing the ways of his son’s private life.  Then styled Prince of Piedmont, the secret police discovered Umberto was a sincere and committed Roman Catholic but one unable to resist his "satanic homosexual urges” and his biographer agreed, noting the prince was "forever rushing between chapel and brothel, confessional and steam bath" often spending hours “praying for divine forgiveness.”  After a referendum abolished the monarchy, Umberto II lived his remaining 37 years in exile, never again setting foot on Italian soil.  His turbulent marriage to Princess Marie-José of Belgium (1906-2001) produced four children but historians consider it quite possible none of them were his.

Jazz

Jazz (pronounced jaz)

(1) A style of music of African-American origin, said to have emerged in New Orleans early in the twentieth century.

(2) A style of dance music, popular especially in the 1920s, arranged for a large band and marked by some of the features of jazz.

(3) Dancing or a dance performed to such music, as with jerky bodily motions and gestures.

(4) In slang (1) liveliness; spirit; excitement, (2) insincere, exaggerated, or pretentious talk & (3) similar or related but unspecified things or activities (often in the form “…and all that jazz”) which can be used negatively if referring to rigmarole, red-tape etc.

(5) Of or relating to or characteristic of jazz; to play (music) in the manner of jazz.

(6) To excite or enliven; to accelerate (often in the form “jazz up”).

(7) In vulgar slang, copulation.

1912: An invention of US English of uncertain origin.  Until around the end of the World War I, the alternative spellings jaz, jas, jass & jasz were used.  The first documented use of the word jazz was in 1912 in the context of writing about baseball baseball, the use extending to the musical form in 1915 when it was used in reference to Tom Brown's all-white band out of New Orleans (although there are sources which date it either from a 1917 advertisement in a Chicago newspaper for Bert Kelly's Jaz Band).

Lindsay Lohan watching NBA game between Utah Jazz and LA Lakers, Los Angeles November, 2006.

The etymology has attracted much research but the findings have been inconclusive, the most popular theory being jazz was a variant of jism & jasm (from 1842 & 1860 respectively), archaic nineteenth century US slang meaning “zest for accomplishment; drive; dynamism”, the qualities apparently most often ascribed to women), also words of unknown origin.  That evolutionary path is tangled up with the sexual connotations once associated with the word jazz and etymologists stress the sequence is important.  At the turn of the twentieth century, "gism" certainly meant "vitality" but also "virility" and this (by 1899) led to the slang use for "semen" but, the etymologists caution, while a similar evolution happened to the word "jazz" (which became slang for the act of sex), that use was unknown prior to 1918 so any sexual connotation wasn’t attached at the point of origin but acquired later.  The use in reference to baseball is thought to have been among white Americans and this may also have been the case in the earliest uses with the musical form.  Overlaying all this, nor is it known whether the evolution to jazz was organic, an invention or an imperfect echoic.

Duke Ellington, Ellington At Newport (1956).

While ethno-musicologists note the way the form has evolved over a century as diverse influences have variously been absorbed, assimilated or interpolated, the profession regards the core of Jazz to be a form rooted in West African cultural and musical expression which borrowed from the unique African American blues tradition.  Technically, the most distinct characteristics are blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms and, most celebrated of all, improvisation.  As jazz was influenced, so jazz influenced and there was no musical form so associated with the “fusion movement” (better understood as a number movements) which was a feature of the experimental (and increasingly commercial) output of the decades after the World War II, a trend which produced an array of labels including acid jazz, cool jazz, jazzbo, jazz-funk, jazz fusion, trad-jazz, jazz-rock and more.

Count Basie And His Orchestra, April In Paris (1957).

In idiomatic use context matters much because to jazz something can mean “to destroy” whereas to “jazz up” is to enliven, brighten up, make more colorful etc but this can be good or bad, the familiar phrase “don’t jazz it up to much” a caution against excessive bling or needless complication.  The use in vulgar slang is now listed by most dictionaries as either archaic or obsolete but when it use it covered a wide range from (1) the act of copulation, (2) to prostitute oneself for money & (3) semen.  As an intransitive verb it meant to move about in a lively or frivolous manner or “to fool around”, the origin of this assumed to be the uninhibited style of dancing sometimes associated with the genre.  To jazz someone can also be to distract or pester them or provide misleading or incorrect information (which can be referred to using the noun “the jazz”).  As applied simply to music, it can mean either to play jazz music (in some set form or in a jam) or to dance to jazz music

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959).

The meaning "rubbish, unnecessary talk or ornamentation" dates from 1918, a use reflecting the snobby attitude many had towards a form of music which sometimes didn’t observe the usual conventions of structure.  The term “all that jazz” (sometimes cited as a synonym for “et cetera” but actually extending to ”similar or related but unspecified things or activities" was first recorded in 1939 although the extent of its history in oral use is unknown.  The verb jazz in the sense of “to speed or liven up” dates from 1917 and was used often as “jazzed” or “jazzing”.  The “jazz age” was first described in 1921 and soon popularized in the writings of F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) and the era is usually regarded as the years between the end of World War I (1918) and the Wall Street crash of 1929.  The phrase captures both what was seen as the accelerating pace of life in 1920s America and the popularity of the music.

Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um (1959).

The noun razzmatazz was interesting because it was used in the late nineteenth century to mean various things (most often something fanciful and showy) and thus obviously pre-dated jazz but, presumably because of the rhyming quality it picked up early associations with jazz which by the 1930s had become a disparaging critique ("old-fashioned jazz" especially in contrast to the newer “swing”).  Dating from 1917, the noun jazzbo (low, vulgar jazz) was a disparaging term to describe both the music and musicians; later in the twentieth century it was applied as derogatory term for African-Americans (and others with dark skins) but use soon died out.  The adjective jazzy (resembling jazz music) dates from 1918 and was often used in the forms “jazzily” & “jazziness”, use quickly extending from music to a general term suggesting “spirited, lively; exciting”.  The noun jazzetry (poetry reading accompanied by jazz music) came into use in 1959 and was part of the cultural ephemera of the beat generation.  The noun Jazzercise (the construct being jazz + (ex)ercise) was originally a proprietary name from the commercial fitness industry which, despite the implications, was used to describe routines using just about any form of music.

Lotus Jazz, 1985.

So unsuccessful was the marketing strategy used for Lotus Jazz that it’s said to rate with Ford’s Edsel and Coca-Cola's New Coke among the most popular case studies chosen by students of the discipline to illustrate corporate ineptitude.  Jazz was designed to run only on Apple’s Macintosh 512K and was an integrated suite which included a word processor, spreadsheet, database, graphics, and communication software.  It was a corporate companion of Lotus Symphony which was a suite which ran on IBM compatible PCs under PC/MS-DOS but not too much should be read into the musical nomenclature; both were integrated suites which ran under different operating systems on different hardware.  Lotus 1-2-3 wasn’t the first spreadsheet but it was the one which became the so-called “killer app” which legitimized the IBM PC for business use and, noting the small-scale successes being enjoyed by some of the early suites, Symphony was concocted as something which would rely on the reputation of 1-2-3 for its success.  Although never a big seller on the scale of 1-2-3, Symphony in the 1980s found a niche.

Jazz was supplied on four 400K floppy diskettes and Lotus thoughtfully supplied a sticky label users could use for their data diskette (which wasn’t included).

Jazz, introduced in 1985 was an attempt to replicate on the Mac the company’s success on the IBM-PC though why the decision was taken to introduce a suite instead of a version of 1-2-3 puzzled observers at the time given the Symphony name had nothing like the name-recognition of the Lotus spreadsheet.  Added to that, Jazz was expensive, limited in functionality by the memory constraint of the Mac 512 and clumsy in operation, users forced frequently to swap floppy diskettes (start-up, program & data) with the additional drawback that only a single floppy drive could be used with Jazz, neither dual floppy or hard-drives supported.  A critical and commercial failure, so toxic did the Jazz brand quickly become that plans to release an improved version in 1988 (called Modern Jazz) were abandoned and development resources were shifted to a version of 1-2-3 for the Mac.  That was of course what should have been done from the start and 1-2-3 for the Mac, released in 1991, was well received but months later Microsoft released Windows 3.1 and the universe shifted, Excel and the companion MS-Office becoming a juggernaut; Symphony and 1-2-3 were just two of the many victims.