Mystique

Mystique (pronounced mi-steek)

(1) A framework of doctrines, ideas, beliefs, or the like, constructed around a person or object, endowing the person or object with enhanced value or profound meaning:

(2) The aura of mystery (real, imagined or confected) or mystical power surrounding a particular occupation or pursuit:

1891: A borrowing by English in the sense of “atmosphere of mystery and veneration”, from the French noun & adjective mystique (a mystic; the act of a mystic; the mystical), from the Latin mysticus, from the Ancient Greek μυστικός (mustikós) (secret, mystic), from μύστης (mústēs) (one who has been initiated).  Mystique is a noun; the noun plural is plural mystiques.

A Dangerous Liaison (2008) by Carole Seymour-Jones (1943-2015).

When Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex (1949)) was published by French feminist and social theorist Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), it was recognized almost at once as a landmark in feminist thought but it was in the twenty-first century re-evaluated when gender came to be re-defined as a spectrum rather than a binary.  Of particular interest was de Beauvoir’s mapping of existentialist thought on to the matter, asserting that being a woman was a construct, something obviously dependent on being born female but the product of processes integral to a society in which women had been defined as inferior to men, a tradition she traces back centuries.  The Second Sex and Germaine Greer’s (b 1939) The Female Eunuch (1970) remain the two most important texts of late twentieth century feminism.  De Beauvoir is one of those writers who led a life which many choose to entangle with what she wrote but The Second Sex is best read by allowing the words to prevail.  

However, the complexity of The Second Sex, infused as it was with strands of French structuralism, meant that it lacked accessibility unless a reader had some background in certain philosophical traditions and it was American feminist Betty Friedan’s (1921–2006) The Feminine Mystique (1963) which, by sheer weight of numbers, proved the greater influence politically, many claiming still it was the work responsible for the emergence of second wave feminism.  The Feminine Mystique is by comparison a slight work and although not of excessive length, is thematically repetitious and can be deconstructed as a long social media post about one woman’s discontent with her life, something to which she (not without justification) links the structure of the patriarchal society in which she exists.  That made it a compelling polemic for the receptive millions of women who read it as their own biographies and ensured its success but it also lent second-wave feminism (which greatly the book at least influenced) a distinctly white, Western, middle-class flavor which asked many of the right questions but ignored (rather than deliberately excluded) most of what lay beyond that fashionable but narrow cultural vista.

Jane Birkin and the mystique of the Birkin Bag

Jane Birkin (with her usual straw bag) and Serge Gainsbourg (1928-1991) at the premiere of their film Slogan, August 1969.

One well-known example of manufactured mystique is that attached to the Birkin Bag manufactured by the French fashion house Hermès, the origin of which was a chance meeting in 1984 on Paris-London shuttle flight between the English actress Jane Birkin (1946-2023) and Jean-Louis Dumas (1938-2010), then executive chairman Hermès.  Ms Birkin was placing her usual straw bag in the overhead locker when “everything fell out” her belongings scattering over her and Monsieur Dumas.  The inevitable conversation ensued and the pair thrown together by circumstances spent the brief flight designing Ms Birkin’s ideal leather bag for weekend travel, the airline’s sick bags improbably used for the first sketches.  Within months, the Birkin was a Hermès part-number.

Although in her later years Ms Birkin ceased to carry one (it became “just too heavy"), over the last four decades, the Birkin has become a coveted item, much sought by those attracted by its association with pop-culture celebrities and the price-tag which begins somewhere over US$10,000 and can, for a custom unit, extend into six figures.  Although the Birkin range is advertized both in the glossy catalogues and on-line, it’s not a “display item” carried on the shelves of the bricks & mortar stores and it’s long been part of the product’s image that as well as being PoA (price on application), they’re not “for everyone”, Hermès selling them only to someone “suitable”; it’s all part of the mystique.  There has long been speculation about how “real” this mystique may be, the suspicion being that if anyone offers cold hard cash (or its modern equivalent), a store manager would think of their end-of-year bonus and make the sale.  However, in March 2024, two disgruntled (rejected) Birkin customers filed suit in Federal court in California, alleging Hermès was in violation of US antitrust legislation by allowing only those with a “sufficient purchase history” with the company to bag a Birkin.  Essentially, the case hinges on the lure of the right to buy a Birkin being used as an inducement to spend money on shoes, jewellery, scarves and such, the carrot of the bag dangled while the stick is used to force folk to create a “purchase history”.  The suit also noted the company’s sales associates are driving the scheme, thereby gaining benefits for both themselves and Hermès, an important technical point in US antitrust law.

Hermès Birkin 3-en-1: "(1) a canvas clutch topped with the emblematic leather flap, (2) A leather tote with side straps & turnlock and (3) A clutch & tote together recreate the eternal Birkin."  The 3-en-1 is one of many current designs in the range.

Interestingly, it was further alleged the floor staff don’t earn commissions on Birkin bag sales and are instructed to use the handbags only as a device “…to coerce consumers to purchase ancillary products” while only “…those consumers who are deemed worthy of purchasing a Birkin handbag will be shown a Birkin handbag” in a private viewing room.”  Any civilian (ie a non-celebrity or not someone identified as rich) walking into the store and asking to see a Birkin is told they’re “out of stock”.  The lawsuit requested class-action status for thousands of US consumers who bought Hermès goods or were asked to buy them as a prerequisite for buying a Birkin and sought unspecified monetary damages and a court order banning Hermès’s allegedly anti-competitive practices.

A certain, brutish mystique: 1974 Holden Torana L34.

Restrictions on a right to purchase are not unusual.  Ferrari have specified that some of their low-volume models are available only to previous customers and that has sometimes demanded the prior purchase of more than one of the Italian machines.  Whether apocryphal or not, the story is that on more than one occasion, upon being informed of the clause, the buyer would at random pick a Ferrari from the showroom stock and buy it, just to qualify.  Somewhat down the food chain, in 1974 when quietly Holden in Australia introduced their L34 option (a homologation package to ensure certain parts could be used in racing) for the Torana SL/R 5000, although the thing could be registered for road use, it was specified it could be bought only by holders of a certain level of competition licence issued by CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sport).  That policy was a pre-emptive strike to ensure there would be no repetition of the moral panic stirred up two years earlier by the tabloid press which claimed the three local manufacturers were selling “160 mph (257 km/h) supercars” to the public, summoning the fear of the usual suspects (males aged 17-25) unleashing these lethal weapons on public roads.  As was often the case in moral panics, the tabloids were being economical with the truth but their campaign spooked the politicians and the manufacturers, the new generation of high-performance machinery swiftly cancelled.  Ironically, when tested, it transpired the L34 package was about durability rather than power or speed and was actually a little slower than a standard SL/R 5000 but the exotic terms & conditions (T&Cs) certainly gained it some mystique.

The Mean Girls (2004) crew on DeviantArt by SBBeauregarde in cosplay mode: Marvel Comics' Mystique.

The Mystique de la Merde 

The word mystique even has a place in what must be one of the darker corners of literary theory.  The term Mystique de la Merde dates from September 1956 when an article by Robert Elliot Fitch (1902-1986) was published in the New Republic.  Fitch was a Congregationalist minister who graduated successively from Yale (1923), the Union Theological Seminary (1926) and Columbia (1929), later becoming a professor of Christian ethics and dean of Berkeley's Pacific School of Religion but he was interested also in literary theory, often as a device by which he could explore the decline in Western society associated with God’s withdrawal from the place.  Fitch’s Mystique de la Merde wasn’t literally “the mystique of shit” but a description of what he detected in literature (and therefore life in general) as “a preoccupation with the seamier, muddier, bloodier aspects of life, as well as, excessively, with sex and money.”  Befitting the decline of civilization, Mystique de la Merde was a deliberately more vulgar version of Nostalgie de la boue (nostalgia for mud), a phrase coined in 1855 by French dramatist Émile Augier (1820–1889) meaning “an attraction for low-life culture, experience, and degradation (in individuals, institutions & culture).”

In his New Republic piece, Fitch started as he intended to continue: "…perhaps we should take note of a brand of piety which may best be characterized as the mystique de la merde. This might be rendered in English as the deification of dirt, or the apotheosis of ordure, or just plain mud mysticism.  At any rate it provides a label for a sectarian cult which appears to have attracted some of the best talent in contemporary literature."  He nominated Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) as a founding father of the cult (he must have been tempted to call him the “high priest”) in whose writing he identified a surfeit of “…fertility, money, blood and iron."  One sex was stirred into that mix (as Hemmingway did), one has, as Fitch noted: all “…the basic ingredients of ultimate reality" as seen by the merde mystics.

Ernest Hemingway in Cuba, 1952.  F Scott Fitzgerald's (1896–1940) wife Zelda (1900–1948) described Hemmingway's novel The Sun Also Rises (1926) as "Bull fighting, bull slinging, and bullshit".  Had she lived, she may have found "Mystique de la Merde" a needless gloss.

Writing in the milieu of the beat generation writers, Fitch observed that in handling what clearly was a literary phenomenon, the critic was at some disadvantage because while writers could function on the “four letter [word] level”, “…the critic must stick to three-syllable words.”  He concluded, presumably not without regret, that: “When we have become honest, we discover that the reigning God is only a devil in disguise" and the real reason for this is that God “…has made us unhappy.”  He cites Mrs Evans in Eugene O'Neill’s (1888–1953) soliloquy heavy Strange Interlude (1928) who affirms that the only good thing is being happy: “I used to be a great one for worrying about what's God and what's devil, but I got richly over it… being punished for no sin but loving much.”  One suspects Fitch might have written a critique of the early twenty-first century with some relish.

Limn

Limn (pronounced lim)

(1) To represent in drawing or painting; to delineate (rare except as literary device and also used figuratively).

(2) To portray in words; to describe (rare except as literary device).

(3) To illuminate (in the archaic sense) manuscripts; to decorate with gold or some other bright colour (obsolete except in historic references)

1400–1450: From the late Middle English limnen, limyne, lymm, lymn & lymne (to illuminate (a manuscript)), a variant of the Middle English luminen (to illuminate (a manuscript)), a short-form variant of enluminen or enlumine (to shed light upon, illuminate; to enlighten; to make bright or clear; to give colour to; to illuminate (a manuscript); to depict, describe; to adorn or embellish with figures of speech or poetry; to make famous, glorious, or illustrious), from the Old & Middle French enluminer (to illumine (a manuscript)), from the Latin illūminō (to brighten, light up; to adorn; to make conspicuous), the construct being il- (a variant of in- (the prefix used in the sense of “in, inside”)) + lūminō (to brighten, illuminate; to reveal), the construct being from lūmen (genitive luminis) (radiant energy; light; (and used poetically) brightness”) (from the primitive Indo-European lewk- (bright; to shine; to see)) + -ō (the suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs).  The more familiar derived form in Latin was inlūmināre (to embellish; to brighten (literally “light up”), related obviously to related to lucere (to shine), the idea identifiable in the Modern English lustre.

Limn’s figurative sense of “portray, depict” which persists in literary and poetic use (some journalists also like the archaic flourish) was in use by the 1590s.  The derived forms include the verbs dislimn, dislimns, dislimning & dislimned (to remove the outlines of; to efface); enlimn enlimns, enlimning & enlimned) (to adorn (a book, manuscript etc) by illuminating or ornamenting with coloured and decorated letters and figures, the adjective unlimned (not limned or depicted), outlimn (to sketch out or delineate) and the noun limner (plural limners) (one who limns or portrays.  The use of limning as a noun described a depiction (the definitional boundaries of which shifted over the centuries).  The spelling limne was (obsolete) by the seventeenth century.  Limn & limned are verbs, limner is a noun & limming is a noun & verb; the two nouns plural are limners & limnings.

Two limnings in miniature from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. 

In the popular imagination, the illuminate manuscript is one where the art has a quality of vibrancy, the colors vivid, typified by Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry) (1413-1416) by Dutch miniature painters, the brothers Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg from the city of Nijmegen.  The volume is now in the collections of the Musée Condé in the Château de Chantilly, Chantilly, France.  January (left) and September (right) were two of a number of illustrations in a seasonal theme and as well as of interest to historians of art, the depictions have been used as documentary evidence of aspects of lifestyle as varied as the place of animals in society to the colors of garments.  In the tradition of the International Gothic of fourteenth & fifteenth centuries (the successor epoch to the High Gothic) the book is noted for its detail, refinement and use of gold leaf though quite how reliable as a historic record such documents are has been questioned; while not exactly the Instagram of the age, they were certainly idealized and produced for whomever it was prepared to pay for the commission.

Limnophile Lindsay Lohan lingers to look with longing at a lake's languid waters, Georgia Rule (2007).

Limno- is a word-forming element used in science in the sense of “of or pertaining to lakes and fresh water; the study of bodies of fresh water” and dates from 1892 when the name for the discipline appeared in scientific papers, the first to use the term apparently the Swiss geologist François-Alphonse Forel (1841-1912).  The related forms are limnological, limnetic, limnophile (there seem not to be any limnophobes), limnologist and the marvellous adjective limnophilous (loving or having an affinity towards lakes).  The noun limnology does not describe the study of illuminated manuscripts and despite the spelling is unrelated, the construct being limno-, from the Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē) (pool of standing water, tidal pool, pond, marsh, lake," a word of uncertain origin but perhaps connected to the Latin limus (mud), from the primitive Indo-European root slei & lei- (slime), via the notion of “moistness, standing water), from or closely related to λιμήν (limḗn) (harbor) & λειμών (leimṓn) (moist place, meadow) +‎ -(o)logy.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).

Two folio pages from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. 

Intriguingly different from most in the genre is the Black Hours Manuscript (known also as the Morgan Black Hours), created between 1460-1480 (some sources claim the final artwork was completed by 1475) in Bruges in what is now the Flemish Region of Belgium.  Created probably for a patron or member of the Burgundian Court, it’s now held in Manhattan’s Morgan Library and Museum.  What is most striking about the Black Hours is the extensive use of dark blueish hues as the predominant background shading.  Highly unusual in any artistic form in this era, the color occurs because of the extremely corrosive process used to dye the vellum with iron gall ink.  The black pages are a rarity (and at the time an expensive one) and the miniatures all use tones, the palette throughout very limited and restricted to blue, old rose, green, gray and white, with a few touches of gold, a radical departure from the usual splashes of yellow and scarlet, the margins decorated with blue borders, gold acanthus leaves and the expected drolleries.  So distinctive are the stylistic elements that historians of art continue to debate the influences on the creators and traces of its motifs appear often in modern graphic art.

Feminism

Feminism (pronounced fem-uh-niz-uhm)

(1) A doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

(2) In both its structured and ad hoc forms, a movement for the attainment of such rights for women (sometimes used with initial capital letter).

(3) Feminine character (obsolete except for historic references).

1851: From the French féminisme, ultimately from the Classical Latin fēminīnus, the construct being the Latin fēmina (woman) + ism.  The first known use in French dates from 1837.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  It seems first to have been used in in English in 1851, originally as a neutral term meaning "the state of being feminine".  The sense of "advocacy of women's rights" began in 1895 ("political feminism" often traced from here although given the history that is misleading) and the word came soon to be used as a "loaded" descriptor of the female character, a kind of informal measure of the patriarchal view of femininity, often in criticism of artistic performance or literature.

Feminism & feminist are nouns, feministic is an adjective and feministically is an adverb; the most common noun plural is feminists but given the proliferation of terms created with modifiers, feminisms are often referenced even if the word is not used.  So productive has the word feminism proved that there are literally more than a hundred derived forms including the:  geographical (Afro-feminism; Euro-feminism), political (anarcho-feministic, radical feminism), humorous (femocrat; femnazi), structural (post-feminism; lipstick feminism; postmodern feminism) and contested (male-feminism; trans-feminism).       

Waves

The notion of feminism being not a fixed manifesto but a process in incremental waves is from a 1968 piece in the New York Times Magazine by writer Martha Lear (b 1932).  The context was to note the appearance a decade earlier of second-wave feminism, focusing now on unofficial inequalities, unlike the first wave which was essentially structuralist.  While lineal, there’s overlap between the waves and, in both popular culture and academia, some resistance to change.  Whatever it’s other implications, feminism needs to be considered a political construct and it operates, a does politics, through cross-cutting cleavages; in the same way the formation of the G8 (the Group of 8, an assembly of advanced industrial economies created when Russia was added to the G7) didn’t mean the G7 ceased to exist, the successive waves in feminism both absorbed and operated in parallel with earlier waves.

First-wave feminism (1895-1950s): In this “de jure” period, focus was on legal issues such as women's suffrage, property rights and political candidacy.

Second-wave feminism (1960s-1980s): Even before equality in legal rights was wholly achieved, the movement broadened the debate to include sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights and other de facto inequalities. Attention to first-wave issues focused on child custody and divorce law.

Third-wave feminism (1990-2000s): Although there were cultural links, the intellectual origins of 3WF lie in an article by feminist Rebecca Walker in 1992 and although never exactly defined, it was said to emphasis an interest in individualism and diversity.  Controversial even at the time, with strains of libertarianism now competing with the historic collectivist model, it sought to change the parameters of feminism.

Fourth-wave feminism (circa 2010-):  Regarded as a least partially technologically deterministic, 4WF is thought to have emerged circa 2008-2012 as social media gained critical mass.  It focuses on intersectionality and examines the interconnected systems of power that maintain the marginalized of certain groups in society.  4WF advocates for greater representation of these groups in all places within the power-elite, arguing equality for women will become possible only if policies and practices incorporate all groups.  Some have suggested the need for a 5WF but no coherent work has been published.

Fourth wave feminist: Lindsay Lohan images from a photoshoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for Love Magazine, 2012.

Agathokakological

Agathokakological (pronounced ag-uh-thuh-kak-loj-uh-kuhl)

Composed of both good and evil.

Early 1800s: The construct was the Greek ἀγαθός (agathós) (good) + κακός (kakós) (bad) + logical.  Agathós was from the Proto-Hellenic əgathós, possibly from the primitive Indo-European m̥ǵhdhós (made great; whose deeds are great), the construct being méǵhs (great) + dheh- (do) + -ós (the Latin magnificus was from the same roots) although there are etymologists who discount and Indo-European connection and suggest it was a borrowing from some Pre-Greek source.  The source of kakka- & kaka- is unknown but there may be some connection with the primitive Indo-European root kakka- & kaka- (to defecate) and it may be compared with the Phrygian κακον (kakon) (harm) and Albanian keq (bad).  Again, there are etymologists who prefer a Pre-Greek origin.  In English slang, to be “cack handed” (cackhandedly & cackhandedness the related forms) describes someone clumsy, someone prone to dropping or breaking things.  The association was with the Old English cack (excrement; dung) and in Old English a cachus was a privy (toilet), both from the Latin cacare (to defecate).  Apparently, the ultimate origin or cack-handed was from the ancient practice (developed among people who were of course mostly right-handed), that the left hand should be reserved for cleaning oneself after defecation, the right used for all other purposes (something related to the significance of shaking hands with the right).  It’s from kakka- & kaka- that poppycock, kakistocracy, cacophony, cacology and cacography are derived.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

The suffix logical was used to form adjectival forms of nouns ending in –logy although few terms are directly derived using this suffix. Terms ending in logical are often derived from words formed in other languages or by suffixing -ical to a word ending in logy (biological = biology + -ical; genealogical = genealogy + -ical).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).  The -al suffix was from the Middle English -al, from the Latin adjectival suffix -ālis, ((the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals) or the French, Middle French and Old French –el & -al.  It was use to denote the sense "of or pertaining to", an adjectival suffix appended (most often to nouns) originally most frequently to words of Latin origin, but since used variously and also was used to form nouns, especially of verbal action.  The alternative form in English remains -ual (-all being obsolete).

1974 Triumph Stag in magenta.

Agathokakological is an adjective, the comparative being “more agathokakological” and the superlative “most agathokakological”.  To be “most agathokakological” presumably implies something like “most polarized” in that one’s qualities of good and bad are especially exaggerated.  That presumably would be the understanding of psychiatrists who would regard agathokakological as a synopsis of the human condition and a spectrum condition, some individuals containing more good than others, others more bad.  Engineers would also be familiar with the concept, few machines being either perfect or so flawed as to be useless, most a mix of virtues and vices, the Triumph Stag a classic example and one which probably moved some owners to recall Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (1807–1882) poem There was a little girl:

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Scum

Scum (pronounced skuhm)

(1) A film or layer of foul or extraneous matter that forms on the surface of a liquid as a result of natural processes such as the greenish film of algae and similar vegetation on the surface of a stagnant pond

(2) A layer of impure matter that forms on the surface of a liquid as the result of boiling or fermentation

(3) A low, worthless, or evil person.

(4) Such persons collectively.

(5) An alternative name for scoria, the slag or dross that remains after the smelting of metal from an ore.

1200–1250: From the Middle English scume, derived from the Middle Dutch schūme (foam, froth) cognate with German schaum, ultimately of Germanic origin, drawn from the Old High German scūm and Old French escume.  In Old Norse word was skum, thought derived from the primitive root (s)keu (to cover, conceal).  By the early fourteen century, the word scummer (shallow ladle for removing scum) had emerged in Middle Dutch, a borrowing from the Proto-Germanic skuma, the sense deteriorated from "thin layer atop liquid" to "film of dirt," then just "dirt" and from this use is derived the modern skim.  The meaning "lowest class of humanity" is from the 1580s; the familiar phrase “scum of the earth” from 1712.  In modern use, the English is scum, French écume, Spanish escuma, Italian schiuma and Dutch schuim.  Scum is a noun & verb and scumlike & scummy are adjectives; the noun plural is scums.

The Society for Cutting Up Men: The S.C.U.M. Manifesto

S.C.U.M.  Manifesto (1968 Edition).

Although celebrated in popular culture as the summer of love, not everyone shared the hippie vibe in 1967.  The S.C.U.M. Manifesto was a radical feminist position paper by Valerie Solanas (1936-1988), self-published in 1967 with a commercial print-run a year later.  Although lacking robust theoretical underpinnings and criticized widely within the movement, it remains feminism’s purest and most uncompromising work, an enduring landmark in the history of anarchist publishing.  In the abstract, S.C.U.M. suggested little more than the parlous state of the word being the fault of men, it was the task of women to repair the damage and this could be undertaken only if men were exterminated from the planet.  The internal logic was perfect. 

The use of S.C.U.M. as an acronym for Society for Cutting Up Men existed in printed form from 1967 (though not in the manifesto’s text) although Solanas later denied the connection, adding that S.C.U.M. never existed as an organization and was just “…a literary device”.  The latter does appear true, S.C.U.M. never having a structure or membership, operating more as Solanas’ catchy marketing label for her views.  Calling it a literary device might seem pretentious but, given her world-view, descending to the mercantile would have felt grubby.  That said, when selling the original manifesto, women were charged US$1, men US$2.

While perhaps not as elegant an opening passage as a Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) might have penned, Solanas’ words were certainly succinct.  "Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex.”  Ominously, “If S.C.U.M. ever strikes” she added, “it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.”  No ambiguity there, men would know what to expect.

On set, 1967, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) & Nico (1938-1988).

Author and work were still little-known outside anarchist circles when in 1968 Solanas attempted to murder Andy Warhol, firing three shots, one finding the target.  Despite her comments in the aftermath linking the manifesto to the shooting, her motive was a dispute between the two over copyright and money rather than anything political or artistic.  In hospital for months, Warhol never fully recovered; Solanas, although found to be a paranoid schizophrenic, was judged fit to stand trial and served three years for "reckless assault with intent to harm".  Warhol died in 1987, Solanas a few months later.  Her fame lasted beyond fifteen minutes and in certain feminist and anarchist circles she remains a cult figure although, it takes some intellectual gymnastics to trace a lineal path from her manifesto to the work of even the more radical of the later-wave feminists such as Andrea Dworkin (1946-2005), Susan Brownmiller (b 1935) and Catharine MacKinnon (b 1946).

Rendezvous: David Low's (1891-1963) famous take on the 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov (Nazi-Soviet) Pact.  Although Low at the time couldn't have known it, comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) was sensitive to public opinion and when presented with the draft text of the pact, decided the rather flowery preamble extoling German-Soviet friendship was just too absurd, telling the visiting delegation that "...after years of pouring buckets of shit over each-other...", it'd be more convincing were the document to be as formal as possible. 

Slut

Slut (pronounced sluht)

(1) A woman of loose virtue; one who seeks sexual partners to an extent thought wantonly excessive (vulgar and usually derogatory).

(2) By extension, a prostitute (now rare, presumably because as it came to be applied more widely, such use began to lack precision.

(3) By extension, someone who seeks attention through inappropriate means or to an excessive degree (vulgar, figuratively and usually derogatory) . 

(4) By analogy, a person with seemingly undiscriminating desires for or interests in something (coffee-slut, chocolate-slut etc).

(5) A kitchen maid or servant (obsolete).

(6) An slovenly, untidy person (historically usually applied to women and now rare).

(7) A bold, outspoken woman (always derogatory and now obsolete). 

(8) A female dog (obsolete, bitch the replacement although that's now sometimes avoided because of the way it's used offensively against women). 

(9) A rag soaked in a flammable substance and lit for illumination, tied or mounted usually to a long handle (obsolete).

Circa 1400: From the late Middle English slutte (a dirty, slovenly, careless, or untidy woman) which may be either derived from or related to "sloth" and the first known use in print was in the medieval "Coventry Mystery Plays"; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists it as "of doubtful origin" and though paired alliteratively with sloven (which also first appears there) both suggestive of "lewd, lascivious woman", this remains uncertain.  It’s thought likely cognate with the dialectal German Schlutt (slovenly woman), dialectal Swedish slata (idle woman) and Dutch slodde or slodder (a careless man) but the exact relationship of all these is obscure.  In dialectical Norwegian, there was slut (mud) and slutr sleet (dirty liquid) in which meaning, like future adoptions, tended to the impure.  It’s thought related also the Middle Dutch slore, the Modern Dutch slomp and the German schlampe, the latter enjoying some popularity in the English-speaking world.  Etymologists have also suggested the possibility of a link with the Old English (West Saxon) sliet & slyt, (sleet, slush) which may be compared to the Norwegian dialectal slutr (snow mixed with rain), the connection being the sense of "the impure or dirty".  Slut is a noun & verb; sluttish, slutty, sluttier & sluttiest are adjectives, sluttishness & sluttiness are nouns, the noun plural is sluts.

Another of those English words with meanings changing over centuries, in 1402 slut meant roughly what one sense of slattern means today: a slovenly, untidy woman or girl.  It also meant kitchen maid although Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400) used sluttish to describe both them and the appearance of an untidy man but as early as the end of the fifteenth century the sense had emerged as a woman of loose virtue, though not (yet) a prostitute although in the 1660s there are examples of the use of the word to refer to "playful young women" without any suggestion of a sexual overtone.  By the mid-fifteenth century, slut had come to be used of "kitchen & scullery maids" and from this the meaning was transferred to the labors: as late as the eighteenth century the hard pieces of imperfectly kneaded dough were called slut's pennies and dust left to gather on a floor was slut's wool.  The meanings ran in parallel until the nineteenth century; Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) thought the main use of the word was to suggest untidiness and a Samuel Pepys' (1633–1703) diary note in 1664 uses it as a term of endearment to commend the cheerful efficiency of one of his kitchen maids.  By the late twentieth century, the modern meaning had subsumed all others and was applied almost always pejoratively.  However, there were some in the late 1990s who adopted slut in the names of websites with content broader than the more specialised in the genre, an example of which was the now sadly defunct literary discussion and book-review site, bookslut.com, edited by feminist critic and author Jessa Crispin (b 1978).  A newer site, https://www.thebookslut.com now exists, seeming to function as an all-purpose clearing house for all things literary.

Before the advent of modern science gave rise to the extraordinary proliferation of technical terms, probably no purpose in English was so productive in the manufacture of words than the need to insult or disparage women and as an element, "slut" did its bit to contribute.  Although there are no rules which dictate exact use, there are dirty sluts, total sluts, pub sluts, slum sluts, ugly sluts, supersluts and slutbags.  Those thought sluts form part of the sluthood and exist in a state of slutdom; if one sleeps with one on a casual basis, one has had a slut stand and when observing her among the others in a slutfest, one might have noticed her was styled in slutstrands (two strands of hair (left & right) pulled down around the face with the rest pulled back.  Surprisingly, although sluts wear certain sorts of shoes, they're described not a slut-shoes but as "fuck-me shoes" (which isn't too literal because "fuck-me shoes" can be boots).  Among adjectives, the common form is slutty, the comparative sluttier & the superlative sluttiest but the simpler form is simply that one slut "out-sluts" another; a judgment inherently subjective.  The male slut was often a term of (sometimes grudging) admiration and referred to a promiscuous man who could sometimes be said to be a slut-maker.  A job slut was someone who often switched occupations and that could be used either neutrally or in a derogatory sense although in politics, the term "political prostitute" became popular and "political slut" did not, presumably because the intended implication was that the switching of allegiances was venal.  As a self descriptor without a sexual connotation it was once widely used but has become less popular because of feminist criticism (which must be why there were Facebook sluts but not TikTok sluts although the latter may be applied in a different context).  Once, there were press sluts (also known as media tarts in the digital age), coffee-sluts, beer sluts, chocolate-sluts, party sluts and book sluts, the terms all indicating an indiscriminate consumption of or addition to whatever was referenced.  To confuse English speakers, in Swedish, a slutstation is not what people variously may imagine but a part of public transport infrastructure meaning a terminus (the end-station at which a service terminates); figuratively it's used to mean "a final destination".  English visitors, returning home from Sweden have been known to nickname nightclubs with a certain reputation "slutstations".

Slutwalk, Toronto, Canada, April 2011. 

In the twenty-first century, feminists sought to claim the word and began a campaign socially to construct slut-shaming as an unacceptable form of bullying or discrimination.  Just as overtly political have been the slut-walks, the first of which was held in Toronto, Canada in April 2011 in reaction to comments by a police officer suggesting women were at least partially complicit in sexual assault by dressing in certain ways and that in their own interest, they should “…avoid dressing like sluts".

The police hastened to issue a flurry of apologies but that was perceived as crisis management rather than any indication of cultural change and the slut-walk soon followed, since repeated in many cities world-wide, sometimes as regular events.  Despite that, expressions of “victim blaming” continue to be issued by figures of authority.  A stated aim at the time was to redefine "slut" to describe someone in control of their own sexuality, to rid the word of any negative connotations.  That seemed linguistically ambitious but, although there are in English words which over time have come to mean the exact opposite of what they once did, it’s wrong to describe this as part of the “reclaim the word” movement.  It’s more of an attempt at re-appropriation like the successful campaign which gained “gay” its new exclusivity.  From within feminism came a critique which thought the word slut a distraction, something which attracted too much of the news media’s focus at the expense of the substantive issues: (1) a right to choose one’s clothing without fear of harassment, (2) the right to inhabit public space on the same basis as men and (3) that consent to sexual activity must always be explicit and can never be deemed to be implied on the basis of clothing or other signal.  This view suggested the issue was not the right to self-label as a slut but the right for women actually safely to exist in a time and place on the basis of their choice.

The RHS

The cocktails called the Red-Headed Slut (RHS) or the Ginger Bitch are identical.  Although variations exist, the original is served on the rocks, poured over ice, either in a old fashioned (rocks) glass or a highball.  Quantities of ingredients can vary but the alcohol components should always be equal.

Ingredients

(1) One part Jägermeister
(2) One part peach schnapps
(3) Cranberry juice

Instructions

Combine Jägermeister and schnapps in glass full of cubed or crushed ice. Add cranberry juice to fill glass. Stir as preferred.

It may be served as a shooter, chilled and shaken but without ice.   One popular derivative includes equal parts Jägermeister, Schnapps, Crown Royal, and cranberry-flavored vodka.  Some substitute Chambord for the cranberry juice, and sometimes Southern Comfort for the schnapps.  For a sweeter taste, apricot brandy can be used instead of schnapps and best of all, there’s the Angry Red-Headed Slut which adds rum (over-proof or two shots to increase the degree of anger).

Lindsay Lohan enjoying an eponymous: Surely an affectionate homage, the Lindsay Lohan is a variation, the Lohanic version taking a classic RHS and adding a dash of Coca-Cola (usually expressed as "coke").  It should be served in a highball or other tall glass.

Sapphism

Sapphism (pronounced saf-iz-uhm)

A less frequently used word for lesbianism; often in poetic or literary use.

1885-1890: Named after Sappho (Ψάπφω Psáppho in the Aeolic Greek) (circa 630-570 BC), a poet of the isle of Lesbos, the construct being Sapph(o) + -ism.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Sapphism & sapphist are nouns and sapphic is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is sapphists.  Sapphistry is a quasi-jocular literary term meaning "a seductive style said to be associated with women writing for a female audience" and presumably modelled on "sophistry".  Sapphistry is said to differ from "chick-lit" (an often derogatory (or at least dismissive) term describing literature aimed at younger women which focuses on the dilemmas of post second-wave feminism romance) in that it contains at least hints of the lesbionic.

Sappho

Remembered for her lyric poetry, Sappho lived on the Greek island of Lesbos, from which is derived the word lesbian, the meaning of which has shifted over time.  Prior to the late nineteenth century, it was used to describe things of or relating to the island, including a local wine.  First extended by poets and critics in the 1870s to allude to erotic relationships between women, it entered medical literature in the 1890s, gradually supplanting sapphist and sapphism and become the standard descriptor early in the twentieth century.

American Sapphic, Lindsay Lohan & former special friend Samantha Ronson by Ben Tegel after American Gothic (1930) by Grant Wood (1891-1942).

Sappho is known to written thousands of lines, but for the complete Ode to Aphrodite, only fragments survive, some discovered as recently as 2014.  The poetry has been influential for two millennia, during which it has been read by critics searching for hints of Sappho’s own sexuality, their judgements colored often by the social mores prevailing at the time.  Surviving mostly in fragmentary pieces, Sappho's text is often a challenge for translators who face having to render verse into English when it can't be certain what a word in the original actually meant, one smudged letter shifting a meaning or disguising whether it be verb or noun.  Translators' notes are thus helpful.

Sappho And Erinna In A Garden At Mytilene, (1864) by Simeon Solomon (1840-1905) watercolour on paper, Tate Britain.

Ode to Aphrodite by Sappho

Aphrodite, subtle of soul and deathless,

Daughter of God, weaver of wiles, I pray thee

Neither with care, dread Mistress, nor with anguish,

            Slay thou my spirit!

But in pity hasten, come now if ever

From afar of old when my voice implored thee,

Thou hast deigned to listen, leaving the golden

            House of thy father

With thy chariot yoked; and with doves that drew thee,

Fair and fleet around the dark earth from heaven,

Dipping vibrant wings down he azure distance,

            Through the mid-ether;

Very swift they came; and thou, gracious Vision,

Leaned with face that smiled in immortal beauty,

Leaned to me and asked, "What misfortune threatened?

            Why I had called thee?"

"What my frenzied heart craved in utter yearning,

Whom its wild desire would persuade to passion?

What disdainful charms, madly worshipped, slight thee?

            Who wrongs thee, Sappho?"

"She that fain would fly, she shall quickly follow,

She that now rejects, yet with gifts shall woo thee,

She that heeds thee not, soon shall love to madness,

            Love thee, the loth one!"

Come to me now thus, Goddess, and release me

From distress and pain; and all my distracted

Heart would seek, do thou, once again fulfilling,

            Still be my ally!