Indolent

Indolent (pronounced in-dl-uhnt)

(1) Having or showing a disposition to avoid exertion; slothful; disliking work or effort; lazy; idle.

(2) In pathology, causing little or no pain; inactive or relatively benign.

(3) In medicine (applied especially to painless ulcers), slow to heal.

1663: From either the French indolent or directly from the Medieval Latin indolentem, from the Latin indolent- (stem of indolēns), the construct being in- (not) + dolent- (stem of dolēns (pain)), present participle of dolēre (to be painful, be in pain) from dolēre (to grieve, to cause distress).  The sense of "living easily, slothful”, dates from 1710, a sense said (certainly by English etymologists) perhaps developed in French.  The synonyms for both meanings are many, typically words like slow, inactive, sluggish & torpid.  The meanings related to medical matters are now entirely technical and restricted to the profession, both generalized as “a slowly progressive medical condition associated with little or no pain” and specifically in conditions such as lowest of three grades of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), refractory corneal ulcers and a slow-growing carditis, a form of infective endocarditis that may also indicate rheumatic fever.  In general use, the word is now used exclusively to indicate degrees of idleness.  Indolent is an adjective (the occasional use as a noun remains non-standard), indolency & indolence are nouns and indolently is an adverb; the noun plural is indolences.

Living to almost 100, the mathematician & philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) lived a productive life and his output was prodigious.  However, although he admitted taking seriously being told in his youth “the devil makes work for idle hands” and spending his industriously, in 1932 he felt moved to publish an essay he called In Praise of Idleness, written at a time when many anxious to work were suffering from an imposed indolence: “I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”  Some five years earlier he’d delivered one of his more famous addresses, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), so it’s unlikely his thought owed much to scripture such as Matthew 6:28 (“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin” (King James Version (KJV, 1611)) which was about Christ telling His disciples to abandon anxiety and trust in God to provide.  Instead, he suggested, in what seems a very modern view, that “…a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by the belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work..”  He went on to review the evolution of the post-feudal economic models (in a kind of neo-Marxist analysis) and offered an alternative vision and, were he alive today to survey the scene, he would have been disappointed to realize had never been achieved:

“Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen instead to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines. In this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.”

An indolent Lindsay Lohan, Los Angeles, 2012.

Nor is it likely the Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) gave much thought to Matthew 6:28 while writing Ode on Indolence (1819).  There is some scriptural imagery in the poetry of Keats but the debt is more to the Bible as a literary work than anything overtly religious, Keats more influenced by classical mythology, nature, and the Romantic ideals of beauty and truth.

Ode on Indolence by John Keats

They toil not, neither do they spin.’
One morn before me were three figures seen,
    With bowèd necks, and joinèd hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp’d serene,
    In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
        They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn,
    When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
        Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
    And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.
 
How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
    How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?
Was it a silent deep-disguisèd plot
    To steal away, and leave without a task
        My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
    The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb’d my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
        Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower:
    O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?
 
A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d
    Each one the face a moment whiles to me;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d
    And ached for wings, because I knew the three;
        The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;
    The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
And ever watchful with fatiguèd eye;
        The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
    Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,—
I knew to be my demon Poesy.
 
They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:
    O folly! What is Love? and where is it?
And for that poor Ambition! it springs
    From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;
        For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—
    At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep’d in honey’d indolence;
        O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,
    That I may never know how change the moons,
Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!
 
And once more came they by:—alas! wherefore?
    My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams;
My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er
    With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:
        The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
    Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;
The open casement press’d a new-leaved vine,
    Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay;
        O Shadows! ’twas a time to bid farewell!
Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.
 
So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise
    My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
    A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
        Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
    In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;
Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,
    And for the day faint visions there is store;
Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,
    Into the clouds, and never more return!

Supine

Supine (pronounced soo-pahyn)

(1) Lying on the back, face or front upward.

(2) Inactive, passive, or inert, especially from indolence or indifference; displaying no interest or animation; lethargic, apathetic or passive towards something.

(3) Being reluctant to take action due to indifference or moral weakness

(4) Inclining or leaning backward; inclined, sloping (now probably obsolete except for poetic or historic use).

(5) Of the hand, forearm or foot, turned facing toward the body or upward: with the thumb outward (palm up), or with the big toe raised relative to the little toe.

(6) A technical rule in Latin; a noun form derived from verbs, appearing only in the accusative and the dative-ablative.  Often used to express purpose with verbs of motion

(7) A technical rule in English; the simple infinitive of a verb preceded by to.

(8) A descriptor (in English) for an analogous form in some other language.

(9) Inclining or leaning backward; inclined, sloping (now rare and used only as a literary or poetic device).

1490-1500: From the Latin supīnus (bent backwards, thrown backwards, lying on the back (and figuratively "inactive, indolent"), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European sup & up.  It was cognate with the Catalan supí, the Italian supino (on one's back), the Old French sovin, the Middle French souvin, supin & supin, the Anglo-Norman supin (which persists in modern French as supin), the Old Occitan sobin & sopin, the Portuguese supino and the Spanish supino.  The verb supinate dates from 1831 in the sense of "to place the hand so that the palm is turned upward" and was from the Latin supinatus, past participle of supinare (to bend back) and related to supinus (the related forms being supinated, supinating & supinators.  The adjective was from the Latin supīnus, the construct being sup- (in the sense of “under”) + -īnus (of or pertaining to).  The noun came later, from the Late Middle English supin (as in “supine of a Latin verb”) or the Middle French supin ((grammar) supine) all from the Latin supīnum (short for supīnum verbum (supine verb)) from supīnus.  It partially displaced the Old English upweard (upward, supine), from which Modern English gained "upward".  The now rarely used sense of "morally or mentally inert, negligent, listless, heedless" was in use in English by the early seventeenth century and the noun supinity is used in this context.  Supine is a noun & adjective, supination, supinator, supinity & supineness are nouns, supinate is a verb, supinated is a verb & adjective and supinely is an adverb; the noun plural is supines.

Lindsay Lohan supine from a photo-shoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for Love Magazine (2012).

The technical rule in Latin grammar: "the verbal noun formed from the past participle stem" is from the Late Latin supinum verbum (supine verb), the origin of which is undocumented but thought so called because, though furnished with a noun case ending, it "falls back" on the verb.  In Latin grammar, supine is best thought of as a practice rather than a rule and it’s observed rather than understood or applied.  The verbal noun is used in only a few syntactic constructions and occurs in only two cases, an accusative in -tum or -sum and an ablative in -tū or –sū although the accusative form is sometimes listed by scholars as the fourth principal part of the Latin verb, a fine distinction only they understand.

Although there was a war going on, the misuse of "supine" and "prone" (by fellow  physicians!) so disturbed Dr Edwin H Shepard MD of Syracuse, NY he wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which was published in the edition of 27 May 1944.  Eighty years on, Very Well Health advises doctors the trick to remember the difference between supine and prone is: "supine contains the word "up", reminding you you are face up in this position while prone contains the word "on" which you can use to remember you are lying on your face or stomach."

So, strictly speaking, "supine" means lying face upwards while the words for lying face downwards are "prostrate" or "prone" but these have long been used loosely (probably increasingly so) for lying flat in any position.  Thus, the antonym correctly is "nonsupine" (or "non-supine") but "prone" is sometimes used, doubtlessly leaving many baffled, including, clearly, some physicians.  The synonym resupine is rare and may be functionally extinct.

Velleity

Velleity (pronounced vuh-lee-i-tee)

(1) Volition or desire in its weakest form.

(2) A mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it.

1610-1620: From the Medieval Latin stem velleitās, from the Latin velle (wish, will), the construct being velle + ity.  (It Italian, velle is a learned borrowing from Latin velle, present active infinitive of volō (I want)).  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's descriptions.  Velleity is a noun and velleitary is an adjective (velleitistic doesn't exist but probably should);the noun plural is velleities.

Velleities are volition in their weakest form; an indolent or inactive wish, in private life associated with good intensions like intending to give up smoking, something not infrequently said while lighting-up another.  It’s memorably illustrated by Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) who, in the second edition of his autobiographical Confessiones in which he documented his seedy life in Carthage, recalled praying to God to “give me chastity and temperance, but not yet!”  Written between 397-400, Confessiones was an autobiographical work in thirteen volumes which traces Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity by Saint Ambrose.  A mix of emotional sharing, a deconstruction of an intellectual journey and serious theology, it’s seems now a very modern approach to text and has been influential for a thousand years.  The lesson mean modern readers seem to take from it is that velleities between sinners in their cell and God in his Heaven are matters of private morality and consequences are limited.

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

Velleities however also are uttered by those administering public policy where consequences can be severe and global.  Alain Prost (b 1955; four-time Formula One Drivers' Champion) once observed of the driving style of Ayrton Senna (1960–1994; three time Formula One World Drivers' Champion) that “Ayrton has a small problem, he thinks he can’t kill himself, because he believes in God and I think that’s pretty dangerous for other drivers.”  When prime-minister of Australia Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022), a Pentecostal Christian who certainly believes in God, actually boasted of believing in miracles although, on election night 2019 when famously he repeated statement, he was being perhaps too modest, his victory very much a personal achievement against the odds although an opposition which seemed to have misplaced the script helped.  Still, maybe God helped and Scott Morrison, being closer to the Lord than most, may have been thought a deserved recipient.

Unfortunately, a cursory reading of his government’s climate-change policy suggested he expected God to deliver another miracle; there seemed no other way to account for the gaps in his government’s policy (The Plan to Deliver Net Zero: The Australian Way), the suggestion being that some 15% of the reduction was to be achieved through technology which didn't then exist and hadn’t yet been speculated upon, even conceptually; miracles clearly might be needed.  The breakdown of the sources of abatement in the plan was:

(1) Reductions already made up to 2020:    20%.
(2) The technology investment roadmap:    40%.
(3) Global technology trends:                     15%
(4) International & domestic offsets:           10-20%.
(5) Further technology breakthroughs:        15%.

Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021; US Secretary of Defense 1975-1977 & 2001-2006).

So, as constructed, the plan conformed to the government’s “Technology not Taxes” slogan although there was no discussion of the details relating to how much tax revenue was expected to be allocated to technology known or otherwise.  The 15% said to be solved by the invention of “further technology breakthroughs” was understood as part of the framework of knowledge made famous by the late Donald Rumsfeld who drew an often derided but actually useful framework of knowledge:

(1) Known unknowns.
(2) Known knowns.
(3) Unknown unknowns.
(4) (most intriguingly) Unknown knowns.

While the new technology could come from everywhere, the government was at least hinting miracles from (3) & (4) may be delivered.  Rumsfeld may or may not have been evil but his mind could sparkle and his marvellously reductionist principles can be helpful.  He reminded us there are only three possible answers to any question:

(1) I know and I’m going to tell you.
(2) I know and I’m not going to tell you.
(3) Don’t know.

There is a cultural reluctance to saying “don’t know” but really, sometimes it is best.  There was an argument it was wholly unreasonable to expect governments to offer a detailed plan to reach net zero carbon emissions in thirty-odd years and that for anything beyond a certain point it would be preferable to say “don’t know” because it has the priceless virtue of truth, although, as Mr Morrison (and, at least at some point in his life, Saint Augustine too) knew, if God really cared about folk telling lies, he'd have issued an eleventh commandant.

Stubborn

Stubborn (pronounced stuhb-ern)

(1) Unreasonably obstinate; obstinately unmoving.

(2) Fixed or set in purpose or opinion; resolute; obstinately maintaining a course of action regardless of circumstances.

(3) Something difficult to manage or suppress.

(4) An object which is hard, tough, or stiff (stone, timber etc) or wood and thus difficult to shape or work; an object such (as a tightly fastened bolt) which is difficult to move; any problems which prove resistant to attempts to secure a solution.

(5) In the slang of the citrus industry, as stubbornness, a disease of citrus trees characterized by stunted growth and misshapen fruit, caused by Spiroplasma citri.

1350–1400: From the Middle English stiborn, stiborne, styborne, stuborn & stoborne, of obscure origin; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noting the earliest known form as stiborn.  Stubborn is an adjective, stubbornly an adverb and stubbornness a noun.

Stubborn is one of a remarkably large number of words in English with an unknown origin and is thus self referential, itself unreasonably obstinate in an unwillingness to disclose its source.  Deconstruction (stub + born) is no help because the spelling seems to have evolved merely to respect the pronunciation (something which in English can’t always be relied upon) and however tempting might seem a link with “stub” (a short, projecting part or remaining piece) (from the Middle English stubbe (tree stump), from the Old English stybb, stobb & stubb (tree stump), from the Proto-West Germanic stubb, from the Proto-Germanic stunjaz& stubbaz and related to the Middle Dutch stubbe, the Old Norse stubbr and the Faroese stubbi (stub), from the primitive Indo-European steu (to push, stick, knock, beat) & stew- (sharp slope)), a thing often immovable and unyielding, there’s simply no evidence.

More correctly, there’s simply no verified evidence.  As modern English coalesced during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, lexicography became more industry than art and there was great interest (and competition) in the production of dictionaries, some of which included etymological detail in their entries.  At this time, it was thought the origin of stubborn was known, the accepted method of the time being to look for similar constructions in Hebrew, Latin and Greek on the basis it was supposedly from these ancient tongues that the words of modern languages were derived.  That supposition wasn’t entirely accurate but was true enough for many of the words in English at the time fully to be understood.  Because the Greek adjective στι-βαρóς (obstinate, stubborn) enjoyed such a similarity of sound with stubborn, that was thought conclusive, hence the entries in early dictionaries.  However, later scholarship proved the two words unrelated and no research has ever offered a plausible alternative.

According to the manufacturers of detergents, the most recalcitrant stains are "stubborn stains".

That stubbornness is a frequently encountered part of the human condition is perhaps indicated by the numbers of words and phrases (most famously “stubborn as a mule”) in English associated with the idea including adamant, determined, dogged, headstrong, inflexible, intractable, ornery, persistent, perverse, relentless, rigid, single-minded, steadfast, tenacious, tough, unshakable, willful, balky, bloody-minded, bullheaded, contrary, refractory, unyielding, obdurate, wayward, obstinate, disobedient, insubordinate, undisciplined & rebellious.

In the interview which accompanied her 2011 Playboy photo-shoot (and Playboy once commissioned research to prove people really did read the text), Lindsay Lohan admitted she “…should have listened to her advisers” and had she done so she would likely have avoided the “problems” so well documented by the tabloid press.  “My stubbornness at 18 and 19-years old got in the way” she added, acknowledging that “…ultimately we are responsible for ourselves and our own actions.”  She returned to the theme in a Vogue interview in 2022 discussing her roles in The Parent Trap (1998) revealing one consequence of her stubbornness complicated things for the production crew.  Her (clearly non-negotiable) demand was that she had to wear a certain nail polish while playing the part of one of the identical twins and that was “Hard Candy” in blue.  Ms Lohan said at the time it was “a big deal” and when it comes to fashion, pre-teen girls are an opinionated and uncompromising lot.  It was of course not a good idea because, with the one actor playing both twins, the distinctive enamel had to be removed with each switch of character.  “It was a nightmare for everyone” she admitted.

In use, stubborn, dogged, obstinate & persistent imply some fixity of purpose or condition and resistance to change, regardless of changing circumstances or compelling evidence.  There are however nuances, stubborn and obstinate both imply resistance to advice or force but stubborn is more suggestive of an innate quality and is used almost exclusively when referring to inanimate things; by convention, to be obstinate seems to demand there be some process of thought or at least character (mules presumably difficult in nature rather than in any way thoughtful).  One who is dogged might be both obstinate and stubborn but dogged can also imply tenacity, a pertinacity and grimness of purpose in doing something, especially in the face of difficulties which seem insurmountable and one who persists in seeking to solve an apparently insoluble problem can be lauded for their, dogged, stubborn determination.  Persistent implies having a resoluteness of purpose, one who perseveres despite setbacks and discouragement.  Some insist stubborn describes an extreme degree of passive obstinacy and while that tends to be true when the word is used of objects, among the sentient, stubbornness can manifest as anything but passive.

In the Bible there are passages which suggest stubbornness in the doing of God's work is a virtue but the trait was sometimes clearly a sin.  In the Book of Deuteronomy (21:18-21 as part of the Deuteronomic Code), the penalty of death by stoning is specified as a punishment for a stubborn and delinquent son.  The text is an interesting example of the usefulness of the Bible as a historic document, the inclusion in the Deuteronomic Code an attempt to reform the breakdown in family life characteristic of an era in which the absolute power parents had once exercised over their children had dissipated, hence the notion that the authority of a village's elders must be both invoked and exercised.  As a solution (though perhaps without the executions), it sounds like many modern suggestions to solve the problem of youth crime and juvenile delinquency.  

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (King James Version (KJV 1611))

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

The 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 (it's an myth spread by Gore Vidal (1925–2012) that the Kennedys drove only Buicks) driven by Senator Ted Kennedy (1932-2009) in which Mary Jo Kopechne (1940-1969) died.  The accident happened at close to midnight, the pair having left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the east coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Kennedy survived, having left the scene of the crash in circumstances never satisfactorily explained.  The car in which he left the young lady to die belonged to his mother.  By the the time of the accident, Oldsmobile had ceased to use the Delmont name which was offered only in the 1967 & 1968 model years. 

As recent events and judicial decisions illustrate, in the United States there is a tension created by the dynamics which existed from the first days of white settlement, the competing lust to live free from oppression versus the undercurrent of a muscular, puritanical religiosity.  The Old Testament force of the latter in November 1646 prevailed upon the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, inspiring a law providing, inter alia, for the capital punishment of male children found disobedient to their parents.  Although the death penalty was later removed (though punishment for recalcitrant daughters was added in an early example of gender equality), the law was not repealed until 1973 although, as the troubled life of Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy might suggest, enforcement had by then long fallen into disuse.  Similar laws were enacted in Connecticut in 1650, Rhode Island in 1688, and New Hampshire in 1679.

The Massachusetts statute: "If a man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient years and understanding sixteen years of age, which will not obey the voice of his Father, or the voice of his Mother, and that when they have chastened him will not harken unto them: then shall his Father and Mother being his natural parents, lay hold on him, and bring him to the Magistrates assembled in Court and testify unto them, that their son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death."

King Manuel II (standing, third from left) in May 1910, European royalty gathered in London for the funeral of Edward VII and among the mourners were nine reigning sovereigns, the image colorized from a sepia-toned original.  Dom Manuel II ("The Unfortunate" 1889–1932) reigned as the last King of Portugal and the Algarve 1908-1910, his brief tenure occasioned by the Lisbon regicide of 1908 in which his father and elder brother were murdered.

Counter-intuitively, considering the blood-soaked histories of Europe’s squabbling dynasties, of all the hundreds of cognomina (names appended before or after the person's name which are applied to identify their nature) attached to kings and princes, it seems only to have been Louis X of France (1289–1316; King of France 1314-1316 & King of Navarre (as Louis I) 1305-1316) who was informally styled "The Stubborn" (Louis le Hutin), although, just to stress the point, he was known also as "Louis the Quarrelsome" & "Louis the Headstrong".  Because in royalty names are so often recycled (John, Frederick, Louis, Charles etc), cognomina are genuinely helpful to historians and are for readers, probably more mnemonic that Roman numbering (Louis XI, XII, XIII etc).  While there has been much use of the usual suspects (the Brave, Great, Good, Bad, Cruel, Victorious etc) and some have been merely descriptive (the Fat, Bald, Tall, Hairy etc (although some of these were ironic)), some were evocative:

There was the Abandoned (John I of Aragon), the Accursed (Sviatopolk I of Kiev), the Affable (Charles VIII of France), the Alchemist (John, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach), the Apostate (Julian, Emperor of Rome, the Arab (Phillip I, Emperor of Rome), the Astrologer (Alfonso X of Castile), the Bad (applied to many but famously associated with Emund of Sweden), the Bastard (of which there have been many more than those to whom the sobriquet was attached, the best known being William I (better known as the Conqueror)), the Beer Jug (John George I, Elector of Saxony), the Bewitched (Charles II of Spain), the Bloodaxe (Eric I of Norway), the Bloodthirsty (doubtless a widely used adjective but the most cited seems Ismail of Morocco), Bloody (Mary I of England (and the well known Vodka cocktail)), the Cabbage (Ivaylo of Bulgaria), the Crosseyed (Vasili Kosoi, a Muscovian usurper), the Devil (Robert I, Duke of Normandy), the Indolent (Louis V of France (also the Sluggard which in this context imparts much the same meaning)), the Drunkard, (Michael III, Byzantine Emperor although one suspects he was one of many), the Dung-Named (Constantine V, Byzantine Emperor), the Executioner (Mehmed I of the Ottoman Empire, again one of many), the Fat (most associated with Charles III, Holy Roman Emperor), the Fowler (Henry I of Germany, a notable figure of the First Reich), the Hairy (Wilfred I of Urgel), the Impaler (the infamous Vlad III of Wallachia (Basarab Ţepeluş cel Tânăr of Wallachia was the Little Impaler)), the Impotent (Henry IV of Castile), the Mad (of which there should have been more than there are and associated (fairly or not) with Lorenzo de' Medici of the Florentine Republic), Minus-a-Quarter (Michael VII Dukas, Byzantine Emperor (and apparently the only regal sobriquet derived from monetary policy)), the Priest Hater (Eric II of Norway), the She-Wolf (Isabella of France), the Be-shitten (James II (of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland)), the Stammerer (Louis II of France), the Terrible (a popular one but best remembered for Ivan IV of Russia), the Unfortunate (which could fairly be applied to many but seems linked only with Manuel II of Portugal and the Algarve (who was unfortunate (o Desaventurado) but it could have been worse (he survived to see out his years in Twickenham) and he was known also as the Patriot (o Patriota)).

Sinecure

Sinecure (pronounced sahy-ni-kyoor or sin-i-kyoor)

(1) An office or paid position requiring little or no work, often one with no formal duties (historically sometimes as sinecure post).

(2) An ecclesiastical benefice without cure of souls (a clerical appointment to which no spiritual or pastoral charge was attached (obsolete)).

(3) Figuratively, something having the appearance of functionality without being of any actual use or purpose.

1655–1665: From the Medieval Latin phrase beneficium sine cūrā (a benefice granted without cure of souls (care of parishioners), the construct being benefices + sine (without) + cūra (care).  The construct of the Latin benefium (beneficent) was bene- (well, good) +‎ -ficus (the suffix denoting making) + -ium.  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, it was the standard suffix appended when forming names for chemical elements.  The derived forms include sinecureship, sinecurism, sinecural & sinecurist; the noun plural is sinecures.

The sinecure was a creation of medieval ecclesiastical law and referred to a situation in which the rector (with an emolument) of a parish neither resided in nor undertook the liturgical and pastoral functions of a cleric in the benefice but had a vicar serving under him, endowed and charged with the cure (pastoral care) of the parishioners.  From this the secular world borrowed the word to refer to an office or appointment which yields a revenue to the incumbent, but makes little or no demand upon their time or attention.  In ecclesiastical usage a sinecure was (1) a benefice of pecuniary value, a rectory, or vicarage, in which there is neither church nor population, (2) a benefice in which the rector receives the tithes, though the cure of souls, legally and ecclesiastically, belongs to some clerk or (3) a benefice in which there are both rector and vicar, in which case the duty commonly rests with the vicar, and the rectory is called a sinecure; but no church in which there is but one incumbent is properly a sinecure.  Presumably to avoid any clerical rorting of the system, as a technical point, ecclesiastical law noted that were a church to cease to exist or a parish become destitute of parishioners, a sinecure would not be created because the incumbent remained under obligation to perform divine service if the church should be rebuilt or the parish become inhabited.

Sinecures were for centuries a feature of the operation of Church and State in England and, as a useful form of patronage (and sometimes blatant corruption), they lasted until abolished by parliament in 1840.  They’d any way by then substantially fallen into disuse, few existing after the reform acts of the 1830s although they remained a favorite of novelists who enjoyed the possibilities their absurdity offered as a literary device, Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) in Barchester Towers (1857) memorably recounting the tale of the prebendary Dr Vesey Stanhope who spent a dozen years in Italy recovering from a sore throat, his time absorbed in catching butterflies.  Although sinecures vanished from ecclesiastical law, they remained an aspect of ecclesiastical life, under-employed clerics sometimes the subject of the same acerbic comments indolent tenured professors attract in campus fiction. 

In politics, sinecures evolved along three forks.  The first was as a formal device to allow political formations to coalesce, sinecures (the most obvious of which is the seemingly mysterious “minister without portfolio”) handy appointments when the need existed to pad out a ministry to fulfil the agreements entered into to form the coalitions necessary to secure a majority.  The second use of sinecures some claim are actually a form of corruption.  There are appointments made for base political reasons such as a means of disposing of someone suddenly inconvenient or as payment for political favors; such “jobs for the boys” (a few of which are “given” to women and the gender-neutral form “jobs for mates” is now preferred) are an integral part of modern politics.  In the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), one premier was actually compelled to resign after an enquiry found one such appointment constituted corruption (a finding later overturned but many found the somewhat expanded definition of what actually constituted corruption to be compellingly convincing).  The sinecure also has a technical use in the operation of the UK parliament.  For historical reasons, members are not allowed to resign from the House of Commons but nor are members allowed simultaneously to hold what is termed “an office of profit under the Crown” and the conflictual interaction of these two provisions provide the mechanism by which a member may depart, the hollow shell of an ancient sinecure maintained for the purpose; once a member is appointed to the sinecure, their seat in parliament is declared vacant.

John Barilaro (b 1971) member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (Monaro) 2011-2021; cabinet minister 2014-2021 and Leader of the National Party (ex-Country Party) and thus deputy premier of NSW 2016-2021).  Mr Barilaro is pictured here with his family, May 2020.

In June 2022, Dominic Perrottet (b 1982, premier of NSW (Liberal) since 2021) announced the appointment of former deputy premier John Barilaro as NSW trade commissioner to the Americas, based in the US.  Responding to criticism this was another case of "jobs for mates", Mr Perrottet said Mr Bartilaro’s background and experience made him ideal for the role and he’d been selected not by the government but by recruitment firm NGS Global which conducted a "rigorous global talent search".  He was “…by far the most outstanding candidate" Mr Perrottet added.  Mr Barilaro seemed to agree, saying he would “…continue to build on what had already been achieved”.  One achievement of note was that the position of trade commissioner (believed to include an annual salary of Aus$400,000 and an expense account of a further Aus$100,000) was created while Mr Barilaro while a member of the NSW government although he insists this was entirely an inititive of the NSW Treasury.

Whether Mr Barilaro's appointment should be thought an example of horizontal or vertical integration attracted some interest but it certainly provides inspiration for politicians pondering their retirement planning (a task some suspect constitutes the bulk of most parliamentary careers): (1) create a number of highly paid statutory appointments (ie in the gift of a minister with no need to advertise the vacancy), (2) ensure the jobs don't require any skills or qualifications, (3) make sure at least some are based in a pleasant city in a first-world country, (4) design a job description that is vague and has no measure of success or failure & (5) arrange one's own appointment to the most desirable (methods will vary according to factional arrangements, favors owed etc).  Some probably consider this a plan B retirement scheme but it can be a lower-profile alternative to plan A which is (1) do some deal by which public assets are (sold, leased or in some advantageous way) made available to a corporation, individual, national entity etc & (2) do so in secret exchange for a lucrative (and especially undemanding) sinecure after retirement from politics.           

The reaction to the premier’s statement does illustrate the way the perception of a job can be changed according to circumstances of the appointment.  A job such as a trade commissioner would nominally be regarded as a conventional public service role, had it been filled by someone with an appropriate academic background or experience in trade or foreign relations but if given to an ex-politician, it can look like a sinecure, a nice retirement package with no expectation that KPIs or any of the other fashionable metrics of performance measurement will be much analyzed, either in New York or Sydney.

Still, Mr Barilaro has shown a flair for media management which would be handy in any foray into international relations.  In October 2021 he announced his separation from his wife of 26 years and it later transpired he was in a relationship with his former media adviser, such couplings apparently a bit of a National Party thing.  A few weeks later he concluded his valedictory speech in the NSW Parliament with the words "…one piece of advice: Be kind to each other. If we have learned anything over the past two years it is to be kind to each other."

On 30 June, following interesting revelations at a parliamentary enquiry convened to examine the processes which secured his appointment, Mr Barilaro announced he would not be taking the job.  "It is clear that my taking up this role is now not tenable with the amount of media attention this appointment has gained." he said in a written statement, adding "I believe my appointment will continue to be a distraction and not allow this important role to achieve what it was designed to do, and thus my decision."  In conclusion, he stated "I stress, that I have always maintained that I followed the process and look forward to the results of the review."

To the extent possible, he followed the politician's three-step playbook of how to try to extricate one's self from a tricky situation of one's own making: (1) blame the unfair media coverage, (2) assert there's been no wrong-doing but to avoid becoming a distraction for the party (usually expressed as "the government", "the state" etc) I am (withdrawing, resigning, standing aside etc) & (3) I am looking forward to spending more time with my family.  In the circumstances, he chose not to invoke step (3), that perhaps a bit much, even for Mr Barilaro.  The parliamentary enquiry however remains afoot (as does an internal review which may have a different agenda) and its findings should make interesting reading, students of the manufacture of sausages expected to be amused, if not surprised.

Debunk

Debunk (pronounced dih-buhngk)

(1) To expose or excoriate (a claim, assertion, sentiment, etc.) as being pretentious, false, or exaggerated.

(2) To disparage, ridicule, lampoon.

1920–1925: An invention of US English, the construct being de- + bunk.  The de- prefix was from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from (the Old English æf- was a similar prefix)).  It imparted the sense of (1) reversal, undoing, removing, (2) intensification and (3) from, off.  Like dis-, the de- prefix was used to form a complex verb with the sense of undoing the action of a simple one and the handy device has been most productive, English gaining such useful words as demob, degauss and, of course, the dreaded deconstruct & the lamentable decaffeinate.  It’s obviously valuable but the more fastidious guardians of English were of course moved to caution it shouldn’t be used because one was too indolent to find the existing antonym although it was conceded that some coinings were necessary to convey some special sense such as “decontaminate”, needed in those situations when something like “cleanse” is inadequate.  Bunk in this context was etymologically un-related to other forms of “bunk” and was a and was a clipping of bunkum (pronounced buhng-kuhm) which meant (1) insincere speechmaking by a politician intended merely to please local constituents and (2) insincere talk; claptrap; humbug.  Debunk is (a transitive) verb and debunker is a noun.

Although the exact date in unclear, during sittings of the sixteenth United States Congress (1819-1821), a long, torturous debate ensued on the difficult matter of the Missouri Compromise, something which would later return to haunt the nation.  Well into discussions, Felix Walker (1753–1828; representative (Democratic-Republican (sic)) for North Carolina 1817-1823), rose and began what was apparently, even by the standards of the House of Representatives, a long, dull and irrelevant speech which, after quite some time, induced such boredom that many members walked from the chamber and other attempted to end his delivery by moving that the question be put.  Noting the reaction, Representative Walker felt compelled to explain, telling his colleagues “I’m talking for Buncombe”, referring to his constituents in Buncombe County.  Delivered phonetically, the phrase entered the political lexicon as “talking to (or for) Bunkum” and this was soon clipped to “bunk” meaning “speech of empty thoughts expressed with inflated or pretentious language”.  Later, the sense of bunk was extended to mean “anything wrong or worthless”.

Bunk in the sense of “wrong, worthless” probably gained its popularity from the phrase “history is bunk”, attributed to Henry Ford (1863–1947), famous for being founder of the Ford Motor Company and infamous for some of his more odious opinions.  His words first appeared in print in an interview, publishing in 1916, the context being his opposition to US involvement in the war in Europe:

"History is more or less bunk.  It is tradition.  We don’t want tradition.  We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.  That’s the trouble with the world.  We’re living in books and history and tradition.  We want to get away from that and take care of today.  We’ve done too much looking back.  What we want to do and do it quick is to make just history right now."

Quite what Mr Ford meant has been much discussed over the years and the man himself did latter discuss it, although there are inconsistencies in his explanations.  Historians have concluded he was expressing scepticism at the value of history as it is taught in schools and other educational institutions; his feeling being there was too much emphasis on kings & emperors, wars & empires, politics & philosophy and entirely too little on the lives of ordinary people who, in a sense, actually “made the history”.  Ironically, given his critique of what’s known as the “great man” school of history, he is regarded as one of the great men whenever histories are written of the early automobile and the development of assembly-line mass-production.

The verb “debunk” actually emerged from a work of what would now be called popular revisionist history.  In 1923, novelist William Woodward (1874-1950) published the best-selling Bunk, the blurb suggesting his purpose being to “take the bunk out of things” and debunk was soon adopted by academic historians who in the 1920s made something of an industry in writing books and papers debunking the myths and puff-pieces the propaganda of World War I (1914-1918) produced in abundance.  An obviously useful word, it was soon in vogue throughout North America and quickly made its way across the Atlantic and to the rest of the English-speaking world.  Pedants in England, rarely happy with anything new, of course objected to a short punchy word intruding where they might use a paragraph but debunk made itself at home and never left.

A more recent coining was "prebunk", used as both noun and verb.  The act of prebunking involves issuing warnings about disinformation or misinformation before dissemination and once done, the fake news is said to have been prebunked (in political warfare it's a pre-emptive strike and thus differs from something like an injunction which is preventive).  Very much a word of the era of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013), "prebunk" seems not to have been used until 2017, sometime after a spokesperson for the Trump administration formalized the concept of "alternative facts".  "Alternative facts" was not something new and had been part of the language of government probably as long as there have been governments but the Trump White House was the first blatantly to admit use.  Mothers with young children are familiar with "alternative facts" such as "Santa Claus" or "the tooth fairy" and the idea worked so well under Trump it became a core part of the Biden administration's media management although, if coming from Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) himself, it can be hard to tell where "alternative facts" end and senility begins.

Servergate, the scandal about crooked Hillary Clinton's home-brew mail server was as much about the cover-up which was her attempt to debunk the facts as it was about her initial wrongdoings.  For cartoonists, crooked Hillary was the gift which kept giving.   

Conspiracy theories have probably been around as long as human societies have existed but as means of communications have expanded, their spread has both extended and accelerated, social media just the latest and most effective vector of transmission.  Debunking conspiracy theories is also a thing although in this, there’s doubtlessly an element of preaching to the converted, the already convinced dismissing the debunkers as part of the conspiracy.  However, debunking can in itself be something of a conspiracy such as the wholly unconvincing stories concocted to try to explain away the curious business surrounding crooked Hillary Clinton’s home-brew mail server.  Trying to dismiss concerns about that as the stuff of conspiracy theorists was less a debunking than a cover-up.

Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998).

A more conventional debunking was published by Nicki Swift who detailed the truly bizarre conspiracy theories about Lindsay Lohan’s “twin sister”.  It began after the release of the 1998 film The Parent Trap in which twins Hallie Parker and Annie James meet at summer camp after being separated at birth and, having been re-united, the pair embark upon a series of adventures in an attempt to bring back together their divorced parents.  Lindsay Lohan played both parts including many scenes in which the twins appeared together and while there had been advances in technology since Hayley Mills (b 1946) undertook the role in the 1961 original, the film was thought an impressive achievement in editing and stage direction, the body-double being Erin Mackey (b 1986, about a fortnight before Lindsay Lohan).

The conspiracy theory is that Lindsay Lohan didn’t play both parts and that she actually had a co-star: her twin sister Kelsey Lohan, variations of the explanation for the now absent spouse including that she was murdered immediately prior to the film’s debut while others say she was killed in 2001 after a mysterious (and well-concealed) disappearance.  BuzzFeed included an entry about this in one of their pieces about celebrity conspiracies, documenting the story of how after Kelsey died in a car accident (which, given her “sister’s” driving habits when young, was at least plausible) the Disney corporation “covered their tracks” by saying Lindsay portrayed the twins, her family corroborating this due to their obsession with celebrity.  Whether there was an intention to suggest Disney was in some was involved in the “death” wasn’t made clear but the wording certainly hints at the implication.

Mandii Vee, for whom the truth is out there.

The idea of the Walt Disney Company as somehow evil has been around for decades and was the undercurrent in the helpful video posted on Mandii Vee’s YouTube channel, her explanation for the scandal being that Kelsey "mysteriously died" prior to the film's release and that put Disney in a predicament because they didn't want to release a movie starring a now dead girl.  Such things have been done before and sometimes with notable commercial success but according to Mandii Vee, Disney thought it would bring “bad juju” (a noun or adjective meaning “something cursed or haunted by a dark aura”).  Disney’s solution was said to be a high-finance version of comrade Stalin’s (1878-1953) “un-personing” or the techniques of erasure George Orwell (1903-1950) detailed in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), paying Lindsay Lohan's parents millions in hush money to keep the secret, never speaking of the unfortunate Kelsey again and denying she ever existed.  At that point, Disney would have pulped and re-printed all the film’s promotional collateral, re-shot the credits and publicized the story that Lindsay Lohan played both roles.  Finding the idea one actor could do both at the same time improbable, Mandii Vee delved a bit into physics and pondered whether such things were technically even possible.

1958 Edsel Citation convertible.

Debunking one possibly mythical part of the Edsel tale.  The name “Edsel” has become a byword for commercial failure, based on the sad story of the Edsel car, a brand introduced in 1958 by the Ford Motor Company and so poorly received that the whole Edsel division was shuttered within three years.  The Edsel is said to have failed because:

(1) It was just another variation of the existing large cars sold by the corporation under the Ford and Mercury brands while the increasing public appetite was for smaller, imported models (and within a few years Ford’s own and smaller Falcon, Fairlane & Mustang).

(2) It was introduced into a market where automobile sales were in decline because of the brief but sharp recession of 1958, the mid-price sector where sat the Edsel especially affected.

(3) It had for more than two years been over-hyped as something genuinely innovative whereas it was little different from a 1958 Ford or Mercury.

(4) The build quality was patchy, as was the factory’s support for dealers.

(5) The styling was judged unattractive, especially the large, gaping grill, the vertical orientation of which was out of step with the trend towards the horizontal.  Some also found in the grill some resemblance to female genitalia which was thought variously disturbing or amusing but certainly not attractive.

1959 Edsel Corsair four-door hardtop.

The failure is a matter of record but one figure that has often puzzled analysts is that Ford booked a loss of over U$250 million on the programme at a time when a million dollars was still a lot of money and, depending on how the conversion is done, that would in 2022 dollars equate to between 2-3 billion.  The extent of the loss would be understandable if the Edsel had been as genuinely new as claimed but it’s difficult to see where all the money went given that all the expensive components were borrowed from the existing Ford and Mercury line up:

(1) The engines, although some were of a unique displacement, were just variations of the existing corporate line-up used in Ford, Mercury & Lincoln models (the Mileage-maker six and the Y-Block, FE (Ford-Edsel) & MEL (Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln) V8s).

(2) The platform, transmissions and suspensions were shared with Ford & Mercury, the wheelbase the only difference.

(3) No dedicated factories were built for the Edsel, the cars assembled on the same assembly lines used by Ford and Mercury.

So the costs involved in the development were relatively less expensive endeavors such as body panels and interior trim.  The marketing expenses were presumably high and there were costs associated with the dealer network but the suspicion has long been that the infamous quarter-billion dollar loss was Ford taking advantage of accounting rules, perhaps booking against the Edsel most of the development costs of things like the FE engine, something which would remain in production until 1976.  That the Edsel was a big failure is disputed by nobody but financially, the losses may have been both over-stated and to some extent transferred to the taxpayer.