Fudge

Fudge (pronounced fuhj)

(1) A soft candy (sweet) made of sugar, butter, milk (or cream), often including chocolate or nuts.

(2) A polite alternative for “fuck” when used as an expletive (sometimes as “Oh, fudge”).

(3) In euphemistic slang, fecal matter; feces.

(4) In printing, a small stereotype or a few lines of specially prepared type, bearing a newspaper bulletin, for replacing a detachable part of a page plate without the need to re-plate the entire page (often called the “fudge box”).

(5) The bulletin thus printed, often in color.

(6) A machine or attachment for printing such a bulletin.

(7) As a Middle English surname, a diminutive of Fulcher.

(8) Nonsense or foolishness; to talk nonsense (often used as an interjection indicating a mild exclamation of annoyance).  To waffle, equivocate or hedge.

(9) Figuratively, light or frothy nonsense.

(10) To cheat.

(11) To fail to fulfil an obligation (often as “fudged” or fudging”).

(12) To avoid coming to grips with a subject, issue etc; to evade or dodge (often as “fudged” or fudging”); an unsatisfactory compromise reached to evade a difficult problem or controversial issue.

(13) To tamper with, falsify or misrepresent something, in order to produce a desired result or allow leeway for error (often as “a bit of a fudge”).  As a method, in engineering & IT, this is sometimes called the “fudge factor” (a quantity introduced to compensate for uncertainty).

Pre 1750: The verb fudge in the sense of “put together clumsily or dishonestly” may have been in use in the seventeenth century and may have been an alteration of the mid-sixteenth century fadge (make suit, fit), a verb of unknown origin.  In the eighteenth century the verb became associated especially with the language of sailors and it appeared often is ships’ logs.  The romantic story of the etymology of fudge coming to mean “lies! nonsense!” is that there was a certain Captain Fudge, infamous for “always bringing home his owners a good cargo of lies” according to a citation dating from 1700 and published in 1791.  Captain Fudge (a la Donald Trump’s later label for Ted Cruz) was known in the commercial shipping trade as “Lying Fudge”, and it may be his name reinforced this form of fadge in the sense of “contrive without the necessary materials”.  The Middle English surname Fudge was from Fuche, a pet form of the masculine proper name Fulcher, from the Germanic and meaning literally “people-army”.  Fudge is a noun & verb, fudger is a noun, fudged is a verb & adjective, fudgelike & fudgy are adjectives and fudging is a verb; the noun plural is fudges.

The use to describe the candy is mysterious but it certainly emerged in the US in the late nineteenth century and it too may have been linked with fadge (to fit), the idea being that the ingredients “merged together”.  Etymologists note that’s wholly speculative but all agree the sweet treat was first so named in women’s colleges in the US, the earliest known reference being from 1895 and other suggestions for the origin of the use in this context includes the idea of the concoction being “insubstantial” or perhaps the early recipes were “fudged” in the sense they were a product of trial and error, based on the long-time use of “fudge” in schools and colleges to mean a “a made-up story”.  That was a sense-development from Captain Fudge’s lies and “fudgy” stories were those especially implausible or “frothy & insubstantial” and the early form of the candy may have been less dense than the modern recipes produce.  No etymologist appears to support the suggestion there was any connection with “fudging” (ie “breaking or bending”) the dormitory rules in women’s colleges.  Fudge in the 1670s was used to mean “clumsily to contrive” and it’s this use which is thought perhaps an expressive variant of fadge (to fit, agree, do) which was akin to the Middle English feien and the Old English fēgan (to fit together, join, bind).  From this ultimately can be traced the modern uses which relate to “nonsense; fakery etc” but there is the suggestion of a link with the provincial French fuche & feuche (an exclamation of contempt from Low German futsch (begone).  Some sources list fudge as a euphemism for "fuck" but it's really a "polite substitution" because it's an alternative not to a description of the sex act but "fuck" as an expletive (thus "oh fudge", "Fudge!" etc).  Some slang dictionaries have listed fudge in that euphemistic sense but there's scant evidence of use.  

Uranus Fudge Factory, 14400 State Hwy Z, St Robert, Missouri 65584, USA.

In idiomatic use, to fudge something is to alter its true state, usually to conceal or misrepresent something inconvenient or to disguise some flaw but “to fudge” is suggestive of something benign rather than anything dishonest.  The fudge is very much the “white lie” of untruths; one might fudge one’s age or height on Tinder (presumably, other stuff may be fudged on Grindr) and touching-up one’s photograph to look a little better is “fudging it”.  Apparently not widely used in the “G” & “B” factions of the LGBTQQIAAOP community, the various uses of the word based on it being euphemistic slang for fecal matter or feces, are all derogatory.  The “fudge tunnel” is the anus, a “fudge packer” a male homosexual who practices anal sex (either as a top or bottom) and during the act once can be said to be “packing fudge”.  The most infamous use of the gay slur came shortly after “closetgate”, controversy which ensued after the 2005 South Park episode Trapped in the Closet, a parody of the Church of Scientology in which the Scientologist film star Tom Cruise (b 1962) refuses to come out of a closet.  Not discouraged by the threat of writs, South Park later featured an episode in which the actor worked in a confectionery factory, as a fudge packer, packing fudge into cardboard cartons.

The BBC’s Dark Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients

300ml whole milk
350g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate, chopped
Optional toppings: chopped nuts, toffee pieces, mini chocolate buttons.

Method

(1) Line 180-200 mm (7-8 inch) square tin with greaseproof paper.

(2) Put the milk, sugar and butter in a heavy-based saucepan.  Heat gently, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon, until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted (should take about 7 minutes).

(3) Bring to the boil for 15-22 minutes, stirring the whole time.  The mixture will bubble up and when it does, remove from the heat and keep stirring it until it sinks back down. Then return it to the heat, repeating the process if necessary.

(4) Start to take the temperature after about 15 minutes (but continue to stir or the mix will burn on the bottom).  The time it takes to come up to temperature will vary, depending on ambient conditions.  Once it reaches 115^oC (240^oF) as measured by a probe) remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and a generous pinch of sea salt.  Leave the mix to cool for 5 minutes.

(5) Vigorously stir in the chopped chocolate and keep stirring until the chocolate has melted (initially it will split but keep stirring and it will come back together).  Quickly pour the mixture into the prepared tin, leaving it to set at room temperature.

(6) When the fudge has cooled to the point of being warm (rather than hot), the optional toppings (nuts, toffees, mini chocolate buttons et al) may carefully be place or scattered according to preference; gently press into the fudge until they stick.  The reason this can’t be done while the fudge is hot is the toppings will be prone to melting.  Once set, cut the fudge into small pieces and store in a sealed container.

Dark chocolate fudge (left) and Mamie Eisenhower's Chocolate Fudge (Million Dollar Fudge) (right). 

For those who prefer something sweeter, the classic choice is Mamie Eisenhower's (1896-1979) Chocolate Fudge, the recipe made famous by the First Lady of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961).  One of the few things about which Republicans and Democrats now agree is the creamy and sweet concoction is a fine thing and the recipe has a long history in the US as “Million Dollar Fudge” although despite the connotations in that, it’s attraction was it was quick and easy to prepare and the ingredients were readily available in any corner store in the country.

Getting fudged: Lindsay Lohan before (left) and after (right) the application of fudge.  Such results are not possible with all hair types but this does illustrate what fudge can achieve. 

Hair styling products (collectively called “product”) like fudge, wax, mousse, and gel are all used as a final finish to a hairstyle but serve different purposes, providing various levels of texture, hold and shine and the choice of which to use is dictated by the critical variables of hair length, thickness and the effect desired.  Fudge is thick & creamy to ensure a strong hold is achieved and it’s noted for providing a matte finish.  Fudge is ideal for defined, structured styles which need to remain in place and can work with short hair to achieve a look which is severe without being too spiky.  For the spiky look, the product of choice is either wax or gel.  Wax is thick and sticky product and can be hard to work with but does offer a medium to strong hold and (if properly applied), a natural finish.  Wax has the advantage of being versatile and can be used for a wide range of styles and is the best product for creating texture and separation in short to medium-length hair, especially if a textured, tousled look is desired; many hairdressers will use only wax when creating a JBF.  Gel is a thick, viscous substance which is the go-to product fort slicked-back or spiky styles where the need is for sleek, polished or wet-look hair which needs the maximum hold and control.  If someone’s hair looks like a helmet, that look has probably been attained with gel.  Mousse is different.  It’s lightweight, foamy and essentially allows a framework to be built-into the hair, adding volume although it provides only a light to medium hold and can’t withstand threats like strong breezes.  Mousse is good at adding body and bounce and, if well done, the increase in functional volume can be extraordinary and the dramatic styles applied to some models for static photo-shoots are usually mousse-heavy and despite the appearance, mousse usually leaves a soft, touchable finish.

Pisteology

Pisteology (pronounced pi-stol-uh-jee)

(1) In theology, the branch dealing with the place and authority of faith.

(2) In philosophy, a theory or science of faith.

Circa 1870s: From the German Pisteologie, the construct being the Ancient Greek πίστις (píst(is)) (faith) + -eo- (faith) (akin to peíthein to persuade) + -logie.  The English form is thus understood as píst(is) +-e-‎ + -ology.  The Ancient Greek noun πίστις (pístis) (faith) was from the Primitive Indo-European bheydhtis, the construct being πείθω (peíthō) (I persuade) +‎ -τις (-tis); πεῖσῐς (peîsis) was the later formation.  Although in English constructions it’s used as “faith” (in the theological sense), in the original Greek it could impart (1) trust in others, (2) a belief in a higher power, (3) the state of being persuaded of something: belief, confidence, assurance, (4) trust in a commercial sense (credit worthiness), (5) faithfulness, honesty, trustworthiness, fidelity, (6) that which gives assurance: treaty, oath, guarantee, (7) means of persuasion: argument, proof and (8) that which is entrusted.  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 alternative spellings are pistology & pistiology.  Pisteology is a noun and pisteological is an adjective; the noun plural is pisteologies.

The early use of pisteology was in the context of theology and it appears in an 1880 essay on the matter of faith by the Congregational minister Alfred Cave (1847–1900).  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) refers to the word as exclusively theological but in later editions noted it was also used to mean “a theory or science of faith”, reflecting its adoption in academic philosophy although the embrace must have been tentative because pisteology was (and remains) “rare”, listed as such by those lexicographers who give it a mention though what is clear is that it seems never to have been cross-cultural, remaining implicitly a thing of Christendom.  In a sense, it’s surprising it hasn’t appeared more, especially in the troubled twentieth century when matters of “faith and doubt” were questioned and explored in a flurry of published works.  Perhaps it was a division of academic responsibility, the devoted studying belief and the scholars the institution, the pragmatic settling for the Vatican’s (unofficial) fudge: “You don’t have to believe it but you must accept it.”

Pondering cross-cultural pisteology: Lindsay Lohan carrying the Holy Qur'an (Koran), Brooklyn, New York, May 2015.

While clearly the universities got involved and the intersection between pisteology epistemology (the study of knowledge and belief) does seem obvious to the point when the former might be thought a fork of the latter, its roots and concerns remained theological and Christian, exploring how faith functions in religious traditions, doctrines, and human understanding of the divine and many famous thinkers have written works which may be thought pisteological landmarks.  Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) wrote so widely it’s probably possible to find something which tracks the path of some direction in Christianity but underling it all was his famous admission: “I believe in order to understand”, more than a subtle hint that faith is a prerequisite for true comprehension of divine truth.  Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) lived 800-odd year later and was better acquainted with the philosophers of the Classical age.  Aquinas is sometimes said to have “integrated” Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology and while this is misleading, he understood the spirit of reasoning from Antiquity was compelling and in a way that’s influential still, he argued faith and reason complement each other, defined faith as a virtue by which the intellect assents to divine truth under the influence of the will.  A central figure in Reformed theology, John Calvin (1509-1564) explored faith extensively in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. He described faith as a firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, founded on the promise of the gospel and revealed by the Holy Spirit.  Martin Luther (1483–1546) probably thought this not so much a fudge as a needless layer, arguing that it was faith alone (rather than a virtuous life of good works) by which one would on judgement day be judged.  Faith then was the cornerstone of salvation in his doctrine of sola fide (faith alone), a rigor which would have pleased John Calvin (1509–1564).  The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was not a theologian but his writings had an influence on theological thought and in a nod to Aquinas highlighted the paradox of faith and what he called “leap of faith” as essential to authentic religious life and although he never explicitly discussed the “You don’t have to believe it but you must accept it” school of thought, it does seem implicit in his paradox.

For the bedside table: Karl Barth’s Kirchliche Dogmatik.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is often styled “the father of modern liberal theology” and to him faith was an experiential relationship with the divine, rooted in a “feeling of absolute dependence.”  More conservative theologians didn’t much object to that notion but they probably thought of him something in the vein William Shakespeare (1564–1616) in Julius Caesar (1599) had Caesar say of Cassius: “He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”  John Henry Newman (1801–1890) was one of those conservatives (albeit something of a convert to the cause who had a strange path to Rome) and he wrote much about the development of doctrine and the role of faith in understanding divine truth but it was the Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth (1882-1968) whose Kirchliche Dogmatik (Church Dogmatics (in English translation a fourteen-volume work of some six-million words and published between 1932 and 1967) that appeared the modern world’s most ambitious attempt to recover the proclamation of the word of God as the place where God's message of salvation meets sinful man: faith as an act of trust and obedience to God's self-revelation.  Barth’s contribution to pisteology was a rejection of natural theology, emphasizing faith as a response to God's revelation in Jesus Christ; it wasn’t exactly Martin Luther without the anti-Semitism but the little monk’s ghost does loom over those fourteen volumes.  Pius XII (1879-1958; pope 1939-1958), a fair judge of such things, thought Barth the most important theologian since Aquinas.

Barth though was a formalist, writing for other theologians who breathed rarefied intellectual air and he didn’t make pisteology easy or accessible and although Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) claimed to have read all fourteen volumes while serving the twenty year sentence (he was lucky to receive) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, (he had more time than most to devote to the task), he did acknowledge the conceptual and textual difficulties.  Barth seems not to have done much for Speer’s faith in God but, being Speer, he took from the six million works what suited him and decided he was atoning for his sins: “There is much that I still cannot comprehend, chiefly because of the terminology and the subject.  But I have had a curious experience.  The uncomprehended passages exert a tranquilizing effect.  With Barth's help I feel in balance and actually, in spite of all that's oppressive, as if liberated.”  Speer continued: “I owe to Barth the insight that man’s responsibility is not relieved just because evil is part of his nature. Man is by nature evil and nevertheless responsible.  It seems to me there is a kind of complement to that idea in Plato’s statement that for a man who has committed a wrong ‘there is only one salvation: punishment.’  Plato continues: ‘Therefore it is better for him to suffer this punishment than to escape it; for it sustains man’s inward being.’”

For those who want to explore Christocentric pisteology, Barth’s Kirchliche Dogmatik really isn’t a good place to start because his texts are difficult and that’s not a consequence of the English translation; those who have read the original in German make the same point.  Nor will those tempted by his reputation to try one of his shorter works be likely to find an easier path because his style was always one of dense prose littered with words obscure in meaning to all but those who had spent time in divinity departments.  When writing of German Lutheran theologian Isaak August Dorner (1809–1884) in Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century (1946) he wrote: “The assertion of a receptivity in man, the Catholic-type conception of the gratia preveniens which runs alongside this receptivity, the mystical culmination of this pisteology, are all elements of a speculative basic approach which can even be seen here, in Dorner.”  Is it any wonder some might confuse pisteology with piscatology (the study of fishing)?

Gate

Gate (pronunced geyt)

(1) A movable barrier, usually on hinges, closing an opening in a fence, wall, or other enclosure.

(2) An opening permitting passage through an enclosure.

(3) A tower, architectural setting, etc., for defending or adorning such an opening or for providing a monumental entrance to a street, park etc.

(4) Any means of access or entrance.

(5) A mountain pass.

(6) Any movable barrier, as at a tollbooth or a road or railroad crossing.

(7) A sliding barrier for regulating the passage of water, steam, or the like, as in a dam or pipe; valve.

(8) In skiing, an obstacle in a slalom race, consisting of two upright poles anchored in the snow a certain distance apart.

(9) The total number of persons who pay for admission to an athletic contest, a performance, an exhibition or the total revenue from such admissions.

(10) In cell biology, a temporary channel in a cell membrane through which substances diffuse into or out of a cell; in flow cytometry, a line separating particle type-clusters on two-dimensional dot plots.

(11) A sash or frame for a saw or gang of saws.

(12) In metallurgy, (1) a channel or opening in a mold through which molten metal is poured into the mold cavity (also called ingate) or (2), the waste metal left in such a channel after hardening; (written also as geat and git).

(13) In electronics, a signal that makes an electronic circuit operative or inoperative either for a certain time interval or until another signal is received, also called logic gate; a circuit with one output that is activated only by certain combinations of two or more inputs.

(14) In historic British university use, to punish by confining to the college grounds (largely archaic).

(15) In Scots and northern English use, a habitual manner or way of acting (largely archaic).

(16) A path (largely archaic but endures in historic references).

(17) As a suffix (-gate), a combining form extracted from Watergate, occurring as the final element in journalistic coinages, usually nonce words, that name scandals resulting from concealed crime or other alleged improprieties in government or business.

(18) In cricket, the gap between a batsman's bat and pad, used usually as “bowled through the gate”.

(19) In computing and electronics, a logical pathway made up of switches which turn on or off; the controlling terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).

(20) In airport or seaport design, a (usually numerically differentiated) passageway or assembly point with a physical door or gate through which passengers embark or disembark.

(21) In a lock tumbler, the opening for the stump of the bolt to pass through or into.

(22) In pre-digital cinematography, a mechanism, in a film camera and projector, that holds each frame momentarily stationary behind the aperture.

(23) A tally mark consisting of four vertical bars crossed by a diagonal, representing a count of five.

Pre 900:  From the Middle English gate, gat, ȝate & ȝeat, from the Old English gæt, gat & ġeat (a gate, door), from the Proto-Germanic gatą (hole, opening).  It was cognate with the Low German and Dutch gat (hole or breach), the Low German Gatt, gat & Gööt, the Old Norse gata (path) and was related to the Old High German gazza (road, street).  Yate was a dialectical form which was an alternative spelling until the seventeenth century; the plural is gates.  Many European languages picked up variations of the Old Norse to describe both paths and what is now understood as a gate.  The Old English geat (plural geatu) was used to mean "gate, door, opening, passage, hinged framework barrier", as was Proto-Germanic gatan, and the Dutch gat; in Modern German, it emerged as gasse meaning “street”; the Finnish katu, and the Lettish gatua (street) are Germanic loan-words.  Interestingly, scholars trace the ultimate source as the Primitive European ǵed (to defecate).

The meaning "money from selling tickets" dates from 1896, a contraction of 1820’s gate-money.  The first reference to uninvited gate-crashers is from 1927 and gated community appears in 1989; that was Emerald Bay, Laguna Beach, California although conceptually similar defensive structures had for millennia been built in many places.

G Gordon Liddy (1930–2021) was the CREEP lawyer convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping for his role in the Watergate Affair.  Receiving a twenty-year sentence, he served over four, paroled after Jimmy Carter (b 1924; US President 1977-1981) commuted the term to eight years.  He was one of the great characters of the affair.

The practice of using -gate as a suffix appended to a word to indicate a "scandal involving," is a use abstracted from Watergate, the building complex in Washington DC, which, in 1972, housed the national headquarters of the Democratic Party.  On 17 June, it was burgled by operatives found later to be associated with Richard Nixon's (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) Campaign to Re-elect the President committee (CREEP).  Since Watergate, there have been at least dozens of –gates.

Notable Post-Watergate Gates

Billygate: In 1980, US President Jimmy Carter's brother, Billy (1937-1988), was found to have represented the Libyan government as a foreign agent.  Cynics noted that, unlike his brother, Billy at least had a foreign policy.  Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) has provided the lexicon many "-gates".

A marvelous linguistic coincidence gave us Whitewatergate, a confusing package of real estate deals later found technically to be lawful and Futuregate was a reference to some still inexplicable (and profitable) dabbles in her name in the futures markets.  Servergate was the mail server affair which featured mutually contradictory defenses to various allegations, the Benghazi affair and more.  There was also a minor matter but one which remains emblematic of character.  Crooked Hillary Clinton, after years of fudging, was forced to admit she “misspoke” when claiming that to avoid sniper-fire, she and her entourage “…just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base” when landing at a Bosnian airport in 1996.  She admitted she “misspoke” only after a video was released of her walking down the airplane’s stairs to be greeted by a little girl who presented her with a bouquet of flowers.  Even her admission was constructed with weasel words: “…if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement”.  That seemed to clear things up and the matter is now recorded in the long history of crooked Hillary Clinton's untruthfulness as Snipergate.  Most bizarre was Pizzagate, a conspiracy theory that circulated during the 2016 US presidential campaign, sparked by WikiLeaks publishing a tranche of emails from within the Democrat Party machine.  According to some, encoded in the text of the emails was a series of messages between highly-placed members of the party who were involved in a pedophile ring, even detailing crooked Hillary Clinton’s part in the ritualistic sexual abuse of children in the basement of a certain pizzeria in Washington DC.  Among the Hillarygates, pizzagate was unusual in that she was innocent of every allegation made; not even the pizzeria's basement existed.

Closetgate: References the controversy following the 2005 South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet", a parody of the Church of Scientology in which the Scientologist film star Tom Cruise (b 1962) refuses to come out of a closet.  Not discouraged by the threat of writs, South Park later featured an episode in which the actor worked in a confectionery factory packing fudge. 

Grangegate: In Australia in 2014, while giving evidence to the state's Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), Barry O'Farrell (b 1959; Premier of New South Wales 2011-2014) forget he’d been given a Aus$3,000 bottle of Penfolds Grange (which he drank without disclosing the gift as the rules required).  He felt compelled to resign.

Perhaps counterintuitively, there seems never to have been a Lindsaygate or Lohangate.  In that sense, Lindsay Lohan may be said to have lived a scandal-free life.

Irangate: Sometimes called contragate, this was the big scandal of Ronald Reagan's (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) second term.  As a back channel operation, the administration had sold weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran and diverted the profits to fund the Contra rebels opposing the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.  Congress had earlier cut the funding.

Nipplegate: Sometimes called boobgate, this was a reaction to singer Janet Jackson’s (b 1966) description of what happened at the conclusion of her 2004 Superbowl performance as a “wardrobe malfunction”.  In Europe, they just didn't get what all the fuss was about.

Monicagate: The most celebrated scandal of President Bill Clinton’s (b 1946; US President 1993-2001) second term.  Named after White House intern Monica Lewinsky (b 1973), with whom the president “…did not have sexual relations…”.

1973 Pontiac Trans-Am SD 455.

Dieselgate: In 2015, Volkswagen was caught cheating on emissions tests used to certify for sale some eleven-million VW diesel vehicles by programming them to enable emissions controls during testing, but not during real-world driving.  Manufacturers had been known to do this.  In 1973 Pontiac tried to certify their 455 Super Duty  engine with a not dissimilar trick but the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) weren’t fooled which is why the production 455SD was rated at 290 horsepower rather than 310.  Later, manufacturers in the Fourth Reich turned out to be just as guilty and, in that handy phrase from German historiography "they all knew".  Including the fines thus far levied, legal fees and the costs associated with product recalls, the affair is estimated so far to have cost VW some US$27 billion but the full accounting won't be complete for some time.  Other German manufacturers were also affected but Daimler (maker of Mercedes-Benz) avoided a penalty by snitching on the others. 

In Australia, Utegate was a 2009 campaign run by opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018) and his then (they're no longer on speaking terms) henchman, Eric Abetz (b 1958, Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022), which accused Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013) of receiving a backhander from a car dealer, the matters in question revolving around an old and battered ute (pick-up).  Based on documents forged by Treasury official Godwin Grech (b 1967), it led to the (first) downfall of Turnbull.  Abetz went on to bigger things but Turnbull neither forgot nor forgave, sacking Abetz during his second coming (which started well but ended badly).  Abetz however proved he still has the numbers which matter, gaining preselection and in 2024 winning a seat in the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly (the state's lower house).  He now serves as minister for business, industry & resources and minister for transport as well as leader of the house in the minority Liberal Party government.  

The first Nutellagate arose at Columbia University early in 2013 with allegations of organized, large-scale theft by students of the Nutella provided in the dining halls. Apparently students, unable to resist the temptation of the newly available nutty spread, were (1) consuming vast quantities, (2) pilfering it using containers secreted in back-packs and (3) actually purloining entire jars from the tables.

In the spirit of the investigative journalism which ultimately brought down President Nixon, the Columbia Daily Spectator, breaking the story, reported that, based on a leak from their deep throat in the catering department, the crime was costing some US$5,000 per week, the hungry students said ravenously to be munching their way through around 100 pounds (37 or 45 KG (deep throat not specific whether the losses were weighed on the avoirdupois or troy scale)) of Nutella every seven days.  The newspaper noted the heist was on such a scale that, unless addressed, the cost to the university would be US$250,000 a year, enough to buy seven jars for every undergraduate student.

The national media picked up the story noting, apart from the criminality, there were concerns about the relationship between the wastage of food, excessively expensive student services, the exorbitant cost of tuition fees and a rampant consumer culture.  It seemed a minor moral panic might ensue until the student newspaper (now a blog) deconstructed the Spectator’s numbers and worked out the caterers must be paying 70% more for Nutella than that quoted by local wholesalers, casting some doubt on the matter.  The university authorities responded within days, issuing a press release headed “Nutellagate Exposed: It's a Smear!"  Their audit revealed that the accounting system had booked US$2,500 against Nutella purchases in the first week of term but that was the usual practice when stocking inventory and that consumption was around the budgeted US$450 in subsequent weeks.  Deep throat (Nutella edition) lost face and was discredited.

Nutellagate II broke in 2017 when a consumer protection organization released a report noting the recipe had, without warning, been changed, the spread now having more sugar and milk powder but less cocoa and, as a result, was now of a lighter hue.  Ferrero’s crisis-management operative responded on twitter, tweeting “our recipe underwent a fine-tuning and continues to deliver the Nutella fans know and love with high quality ingredients,”… adding “…sugar, like other ingredients, can be enjoyed in moderation as part of a balanced diet.”

#Nutellagate soon trended and users expressed displeasure, many invoking the memory of New Coke or the IBM PS/2, two other products which appeared also to try to fix something not broken.  The twitterstorm soon subsided, the speculation being that, because it contained more sugar, consumers would become more addicted and soon forget the fuss.  So it proved, sales remaining strong.  Nutella though remains controversial because of the sugar content and the use of palm oil, a product harvested from vast monocultural plantations and associated with social and environmental damage.  Ferrero has now and again suggested they may be ceasing production but the user base has proved resistant although, recent movements in the hazelnut price may test the elasticity of demand.

Open-Gate Ferraris

The much admired but now almost extinct open-gate shifters were originally purely functional before becoming fetishized.  At a time when more primitive transmissions and shifter assemblies were built with linkages and cables which operated with much less precision than would come later, the open-gates served as a guidance mechanism, making the throws more uniform and ensuring the correct movement of the controlling lever.  Improvements in design actually made open-gates redundant decades ago but they'd become so associated with cars such as Ferraris and Lamborghinis that they'd become part of the expectations of many buyers and it wasn't hard to persuade the engineers to persist, even though the things had descended to be matters purely of style.  A gimmick they may have become but, cut from stainless steel and often secured with exposed screw-heads, they were among the coolest of nostalgia pieces.  

Reality eventually bit when modern, fast electronics meant automatic transmissions both shifted faster and were programmed always to change ratios at the optimal point and no driver however skilled could match that combination.  Once essential to quick, clear shifts, by the late 1990s, the open-gate had actually become a hindrance to the process and while there were a few who still relished the clicky, tactile experience, such folk were slowly dying off and with sales in rapid decline, manufacturers became increasingly unwilling to indulge them with what had become a low-volume, unprofitable option.  

Not all the Ferraris with manual gearboxes used the open-gate fitting, some of the grand-touring cars using concealing leather boots but both are now relics, the factory recently retiring the manual gearbox because of a lack of demand.  The 599 GTB Fiorano was made between 2006-2012 and included the option but of the 3200-odd made, only 30 buyers specified the manual.  That run of 30 was however mass-production compared with the California (2009-2014) which was both the first Ferrari equipped with a dual-clutch transmission and the last to offer a manual, ending the tradition of open gate-shifters which stretched back 65 years.  Testing the market, a six-speed manual option had been added to the hard-top convertible in 2010 and the market spoke, the factory dropping it from the order sheet in 2012 after selling just three cars in three years.  The rarity has however created collectables; on the rare occasions an open gate 599 or California is offered at auction, they attract quite a premium and there's now an after-market converting Ferraris to open gate manuals.  It's said to cost up to US$40,000 depending on the model and, predictably, the most highly regarded are those converted using "verified factory parts".

2012 Ferrari California (top) and 2012 Cadillac CTS-V sedan.

So the last decade at Maranello has been automatic (technically “automated manual transmission”) all the way and although a consequence of the quest for ultimate performance, it wasn’t anything dictatorial and had customer demand existed at a sustainable level, the factory would have continued to supply manual transmissions.  There is however an alternative, Cadillac since 2004 offering some models with manual transmission for the first time since the 1953 Series 75 (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of except in the phrase "the unpleasantness of 1982" ) and by 2013, while one could buy a Cadillac with a clutch pedal, one could not buy such a Ferrari.  For most of the second half of the twentieth century, few would have thought that anything but improbable or unthinkable.

Ferrari open-gate shifter porn 

1965 250 LM

1967 330 GTC

1968 275 GTS/4 NART Spyder

1969 365 GTC

1972 365 GTB/4

1988 Testarossa

1991 Mondial-T Cabriolet

1994 348 Spider

2011 599 GTB Fiorano

2012 California

Closet

Closet (pronounced kloz-it)

(1) A small room, enclosed recess, cupboard or cabinet for storing clothing, food, utensils etc.

(2) A small private room, especially one used for prayer, meditation etc.

(3) A state or condition of secrecy or carefully guarded privacy.

(4) A clipping of “closet of ease” and later “water closet” (WC), early names for the flushing loo (toilet; lavatory; privy with a waste-pipe and means to carry off the discharge by a flush of water).

(5) Of or pertaining to that which is private; secluded or concealed; undertaken unobserved and in isolation.

(6) To shut up in a private room for some purpose.

(7) A private room used by women to groom and dress themselves (obsolete).

(8) A private room used for prayer or other devotions (archaic).

(9) A place of (usually either fanciful or figurative in that typically it referred to the state of thought rather than where it took place) contemplation and theorizing (archaic).

(10) The private residence or private council chamber of a monarch accompanied by a staff establishment (page of the chamber; clerk of the closet et al) and related to the bedchamber (archaic).

(11) In a church, a pew or side-chapel reserved for a monarch or feudal lord (regarded as obsolete but the concept endures in that the order of precedence is often used when seating is allocated for ceremonial events conducted in churches).

(12) In heraldry, an ordinary similar to a bar but half the width.

(13) A sewer (Scots dialectical, now obsolete).

1300-1350: From the Middle English closet (a small private room for study or prayer), from the Old French closet (small enclosure, private room), the construct being clos (private space; enclosure) +‎ -et (the suffix used to form diminutives), from the Latin clausum (closed space, enclosure, confinement), the neuter past participle of claudere (to shut).  In French, it tended to be applied to small, open-air enclosures.  The suffix –et was from the Middle English -et, from the Old French –et & its feminine variant -ette, from the Late Latin -ittus (and the other gender forms -itta & -ittum).  It was used to form diminutives, loosely construed.  Some European languages picked up the Old French spelling while others used variations including Czech (klozet) & Spanish (clóset).  Closets can be tiny or fair-sized rooms so the appropriate synonym depends on context and architecture and might include: cabinet, container, locker, room, vault, wardrobe, bin, buffet, depository, receptacle, recess, repository, safe, sideboard, walk-in, ambry, chest of drawers & cold storage.  Closet is a noun, verb & adjective, closeting is a verb (which some dispute) & adjective (plural closets) and closeting is a noun & verb.  The noun plural is closets.

The adjective dates from the 1680s in the sense of “private, done in seclusion”, extended by 1782 as "fitted only for scholarly seclusion, not adapted to the conditions of practical life" (ie in the sense of the “ivory tower”).  The meaning "secret, not public, unknown" was first applied to alcoholism in the early 1950s but by the 1970s had come to be used principally of homosexuality.  This, and the earlier forms (closet anarchist, closet alcoholic, closet Freemason, closet smoker et al) were all based on the idiomatic “skeleton in the closet” (which existed also as “skeleton in the cupboard”), describing some undisclosed fact which, if revealed would cause reputational damage (or worse) to a person.  Literally, the imagery summoned was of someone with a human corpse secreted in a closet in their house, one which had sat there so long the flesh had decomposed to the bone.  The earliest known appearance in print was in 1816 but it’s not known how long it’d been in oral use and it usually implied culpability for some serious offence though not necessarily anything involving a corpse.

Lindsay Lohan's walk-in closet.  To optimize space utilization, the hangers are very thin and covered with black velvet to ensure no fabrics are marked.  In a well-organized closet, items can be arranged in a number of ways such as color, season or type and Ms Lohan does it by manufacturer, the name of the label printed on rail-tags.

The phrase “come out of the closet” (admit something openly) was first recorded 1963 and the use rapidly became exclusive to homosexuals and lent a new meaning to the word “out”.  This meaning itself became nuanced: “To come out” (openly avowing one's homosexuality) emerged as a phrase in the 1960s and was an overtly political statement (obviously different from the earlier “a confessed homosexual” whereas “outing” and “outed” came to be used in the 1970s to refer to people making the homosexuality of others public knowledge.  Outing became controversial because of the argument (made sometimes by those within the gay community) that it was justified if exposing hypocrisy (usually a conservative politician who publicly condemned homosexuality while in private indulging in the practice).  In Spanish use (most notably in Latin America) the noun clóset is used to refer to the state of being secretly gay (from salir del clóset), the plural being clósets.

Lindsay Lohan in another part of her walk-in closet, here choosing what to pack for an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, May 2014.

The verb closet (shut up as in a closet) was originally usually for purposes of concealment or private consultation and dates from the 1680s.  The water closet (WC and described also in the delightful phrase “closet of ease”) was the ancestor of the familiar modern loo (toilet; lavatory; privy with a waste-pipe and means to carry off the discharge by a flush of water), the term first used in 1755 and later perfected by the famous plumber, Mr Thomas Crapper.  The phrase “walk-in” was used first in the 1890s as a slang term by hotel check-in clerks to refer to those arriving without a reservation (it’s now a standard statistical category in hotels) and by 1928 was used in many forms of commerce to mean “customer who arrived without an appointment”.  The “walk-in closet” was first advertised in the US in 1946 where it described a built-in wardrobe large enough to walk into, some equipped with mirrors, tables, chairs etc).

The Gay Bob Doll

Gay Bob with man-bag.

There’s evidence that for much of human existence, homosexuality has been at least widely tolerated and often accepted but in the West, under the influence of the Christian churches, it came to attract much disapprobation though even in the nineteenth century there were those who (without much success) campaigned for legislative and social change, the odd self-declared homosexual sometimes urging others to out themselves.  However, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the still embryonic “gay liberation” movement understood that “coming out en masse” was of importance because with critical mass came political influence.  Social attitudes did change and it was perhaps an indication of acceptance that in 2005 the cartoon show South Park could run an episode called Trapped in the Closet in which the Scientologist film star Tom Cruise (b 1962) refuses to come out of a closet.  Not discouraged by the threat of writs, South Park later featured an episode in which the actor worked in a confectionery factory packing fudge.  Attitudes and legislative changes didn't always move in unison and things unfolded gradually but that process was still incomplete when, in 1977, the Gay Bob doll was released.

Clothes and accessories were available, including those for dressing the “gay farmer”.

The winds of change were clearly blowing by 1977 because in that year Harvey Milk (1930–1978; member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, 1978) became the first openly gay man elected to public office in California (and it’ll never be known how many of his predecessors were still in the closet).  However, if Milk was out of the closet, Gab Bob came neatly packaged in his own (cardboard) closet buyers able to out him and put him back as required.  Designed to look like popular film stars of the era, Gay Bob’s creator described the doll as perfect for “…an executive’s desk, dash board ornament, the attaché case, the bathtub rim or a health club gym bag”, a notable feature was the doll’s “anatomical correctness”, presumably a sales feature but one which necessitated production being out-sourced to Hong-Kong because US manufacturers declined the contract. 

Gay Bob stepping out of the closet.

Just so there were no misunderstandings, Gay Bob was supplied with a fashion catalog which contained an explanation:  Hi boys, girls and grownups, I’m Gay Bob, the world’s first gay doll.  I bet you are wondering why I come packed in a closet. “Coming out of the closet” is an expression which means that you admit the truth about yourself and are no longer ashamed of what you are.  Gay people are no different than straight people.  If everyone came out of their closets, there wouldn’t be so many angry, frustrated, frightened people.  It’s not easy to be honest about what you are, in fact it takes a great deal of courage.  But remember, if Gay Bob has the courage to come out of his closet, so can you!

Popular since the nineteenth century, mail-order was the on-line shopping of the analogue era.

Conservative activists were of course appalled by Gay Bob, his anatomical correctness and his threateningly optimistic message, describing it all as “a threat to family values” and more “…evidence of the desperation the homosexual campaign has reached in its effort to put homosexual lifestyle, which is a death style, across to the American people”.  The forces of capitalism either agreed or were unwilling to risk a backlash because attempts have the big department stores stock Gay Bob on their shelves were unsuccessful so the doll was sold via mail order, advertisements placed in gay magazines.  One doll cost US$19.50 (including shipping and handling within the US) while a pair could be purchased at a discounted US$35 (and to take advantage of the anatomical correctness, buying a brace was presumably in vogue.  Over two thousand were sold within months and in liberal New York and San Francisco, some boutiques would later carry the product.  Something of a footnote to the LGBTQQIAAOP timeline, Gay Bob is a now a collector’s item, examples in good condition realizing over US$200 at on-line auction sites and of course, those with a pristine, un-violated closet will command a premium.