Infinitive

Infinitive (pronounced in-fin-i-tiv)

(1) In English grammar, the infinitive mood or mode (a grammatical mood).

(2) In English grammar, a non-finite verb form considered neutral with respect to inflection.

(3) In English grammar, a verbal noun formed from the infinitive of a verb.

1425–1475:  From the late Middle English, from the Middle French infinitif, the from Late Latin infinitivus (unlimited, indefinite), from the Latin infinitus (boundless, unlimited, endless (indefinite in the grammatical sense)), ivus being the Latin suffix forming adjectives).  In essence, the infinitive is a form of the verb not inflected for grammatical categories such as tense and person and used without an overt subject.  In English, the infinitive usually consists of the word “to”, followed by the verb.  Infinitive is a noun & adjective, infinitival is an adjective and infinitively an adverb; the noun plural is infinitives.

The most fastidious grammar Nazis condemn split infinitives.  In English, a split infinitive exists if an adverb sits between “to” and a verb: “to fully understand” is a split infinitive whereas “fully to understand” is not.  The “rule” exists, unfortunately, because of the influence, however misunderstood, of Classical Latin on the development of Modern English.  Infinitives appear to have been split since at least the 1400s, the practice increasingly common in Middle English before becoming rare in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  Shakespeare seems to have dabbled only twice and then probably as an artistic device, a syntactical inversion better to suit the rhythm of his prose.  Spenser, Dryden, Pope, and the King James Version of the Bible used none, and Dr Johnson, John Donne & Samuel Pepys were sparing.  Despite this timeline, no reason for the near extinction is known; there’s nothing in the documents of the era to suggest scholarly or other disapprobation.  They reappeared in the eighteenth century, became more common in the nineteenth and it was only then the label emerged to describe the construction; the earliest use of “splitting the infinitive" dating from 1887.

The Split Infinitive as a fetish

It was also in the nineteenth century the dispute began, some authorities condemning, others endorsing.  Objections fall into three categories:

(1) The descriptivist objection: Also known as linguistic snobbery, this (very English) view, first published in 1834, argued the split infinitive was a thing commonly used by uneducated persons but not by people "of the better classes".

(2) The argument from the full infinitive: It’s a very technical point.  That there are two parts to the infinitive is disputed with some linguists asserting the infinitive is a single-word verb form which may or may not be preceded by the particle “to”.  Some modern generative analysts classify “to” as a "peculiar" auxiliary verb; others as the infinitival subordinator.  However, even when the concept of the full infinitive is accepted, it does not necessarily follow that any two words belonging together grammatically need be adjacent to each other. It’s true they usually are, but exceptions are not uncommon, such as an adverb splitting a two-word finite verb ("will not do"; "has not done").

(3) The argument from classical languages: It’s a bit of a linguistic myth the prohibition is because the grammatical rules of Classical Latin were absorbed by Modern English.  An infinitive in Latin is never used with a marker equivalent to the English “to” so there’s thus no parallel for the construction.  Despite this, claims by those who disapprove that they are applying rules of Latin grammar to English has widely been asserted for over a century but they rely on a false analogy with Latin; Latin infinitives appear as a single word.  The rule which prohibits splitting hints at the deference to Latin at a time when it was fashionable to apply its rules to other languages.  It was another variation of snobbery.  As late as the Renaissance, particularly in the churches and universities, there was a reverence for the purity of the languages of antiquity and aspects of English which differed were regarded as inferior.  By the nineteenth century, with English increasingly a world-wide tongue, but for a few pedants such views had faded and there’s anyway the etymological point that there’s no precedent from antiquity because in Greek and Latin (and all romance languages), the infinitive is a single word impossible to sever.  In “educated English”, there has evolved a curious convention in the handling of split infinitives.  The accepted practice is they should be avoided in writing but in oral use are actually desirable if their adoption renders a more elegant sentence (which is almost always the case).  English has similar conventions for written and oral forms such as the use of verbal shorthand of foreign extraction such as inter-alia which appear thus in writing but which, when spoken, are translated into English.

Henry Fowler (1858–1933), whose A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) remains a reliable arbitrator of all things right and wrong in English, rules on the matter with his usual clarity. declaring: The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish.  These he reviewed and decided those who neither knew nor cared were the happy majority and should be envied by all the others.  Among the others may or may not have been George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950) who, after noticing a proofs-editor had "corrected" his infinitives, remarked: “I don’t care if he is made to go quickly, or to quickly go – but go he must!”

Some girls are so mean they'll correct even Captain Kirk.  William Shatner (b 1931) and Lindsay Lohan in Planet Fitness commercial played during Super Bowl 2022.

Emend & Amend

Emend (pronounced ih-mend)

(1) To edit or change a text by means of by critical editing.

(2) To free from faults or errors; to correct.

1375–1425: From the late Middle English emend, from the Middle French emender, from the Latin Latin ēmendāre (to correct), the construct being ē- (in the sense of “out”) + mend(um) (fault) + -āre (the infinitive suffix).  The adjective emendable (capable of being emended, corrigible) was from the Latin emendabilis (the comparative more emendable, the superlative most emendable).  Emendation was from the Middle English emendatioun, from the Latin emendationem (nominative ēmendātiō) (a correction, improvement), a noun of action from past-participle stem of emendare (to free from fault) and is the only form of emend to have survived to see occasional use in the twenty-first century, specialists finding three niches: (1) The act of altering for the better, or correcting what is erroneous or faulty; correction; improvement, (2) an alteration by editorial criticism, as of a text so as to give a better reading; removal of errors or corruptions from a document and (3), in zoology & taxonomy, an intentional change in the spelling of a scientific name (something usually proscribed).  The verb emend emerged probably simultaneously with the noun, the original sense being “remove faults from, alter for the better”.  Emend is a verb, emendation is a noun, emending & emended are verbs (historically emended was used as an adjective) and emendable is an adjective (eˈmendable the historic alternative spelling); the noun plural is emendations.  The derived forms included nonemendable, unemendable, unemended (all rare and historically rarely hyphenated).

Amend (pronounced uh-mend)

(1) To alter, modify, rephrase, or add to or subtract from (a motion, bill, constitution etc) by a formal procedure or device.

(2) To change something for the better; improve

(3) In the sense of “to amend one's ways”, to grow or become better by “reforming” one’s character or behavior oneself.

(4) In the sense of “to make amends”, an act of righting a wrong; compensation.

(5) To remove or correct faults in something; to rectify defects or in some way improve.

(6) To heal (someone sick); to cure (a disease etc) (obsolete).

(7) To be healed, to be cured, to recover (from an illness) (obsolete).

1175–1225: From the Middle English amenden (to free from faults, rectify), from the twelfth century Old French amender (correct, set right, make better, improve), from the Latin ēmendō (free from faults), the construct being ex- (from, out of) + mendum (fault), from ēmendāre (to correct), the construct being ē- (out of, from) + mend(a) (blemish) + -āre (the infinitive suffix).  The primitive Indo-European mend (physical defect, fault) was the source also of the Sanskrit minda (physical blemish), the Old Irish mennar (stain, blemish), the Welsh mann (sign, mark) and the Hittite mant- (something harming).  The parallel development of the words spelled with an initial “a” & “e” was not usual in English but happened also in Italian and Provençal and Italian.  The meaning “to add to legislation” (ostensibly to improve or correct) appears first in British parliamentary records in 1777.  The noun amendment (betterment, improvement) was in use by the late thirteenth century of persons to suggest their “correction or reformation”; it was from the Old French amendement (rectification, correction; advancement, improvement), from amender (to amend) and in the 1600s the use expanded to the law including “correction of error in a legal process” and later “alteration of a writ or bill to remove fault”.  The noun amends in the sense of “recompense, compensation for loss or injury” was a collective singular, from the Old French amendes “fine, penalty, reparation, compensation”, the plural of amende (reparation) from amender (to amend) and use began in the early 1300s.  The adjective amendable (capable of correction or repair) dates from the 1580s while the injunction “unamendable” came into use (often with an exclamation mark) in the early twentieth century, presumably as a punchier version of “not to be amended”.  Amend is a noun & verb, amender (aˈmender the historic alternative spelling), amendability, amendment & amendation are nouns, amending is a verb, amended is a verb & adjective, amendable (aˈmendable the historic alternative spelling) & amendful are adjectives; the common noun plural is amendments.  The derived forms included nonamendable, unamendable, reamend  & unamended (all except unamended now rare and sometimes hyphenated).

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

There is sometimes a quality of randomness in the way English evolves.  Amend & emend both once meant “to improve by correcting or by freeing from error” but amend is now a general term which can mean “correct (errors in content, spelling, punctuation, grammar” or “make a change” (which may have no substantive effect).  Emend however specifically refers to a conjectural correction of error in a manuscript or proof copy; it’s thus now a technical term from publishing describing the correction of a text in the process of editing or preparing for publication and at least implies improvement in the sense of greater accuracy.  There have however been a number of instances where “emendations” have been controversial, often in the transcription from original log or diary entries written contemporaneously to printed form for purposes of record or public consumption.  Examples include the sanitized version of the “Chronicle” (the so-called “Speer Chronik” or “Office Journal”), the diary of departmental activities undertaken under Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) and the “War Diary” of Field Marshal Douglas Haig (Earl Haig, 1861–1928; commander-in-chief of British Army forces on the Western Front 1915-1918).  So synonyms like change, augment, alter, enhance, modify, rectify, revise, remedy, better, ameliorate & correct can all be used of amend but only forms like correct, rectify or remedy really convey the modern sense of emend.

Nolle

Nolle (pronounced nol-ee)

In law, an oral and verbal shorthand for nolle prosequi (pronounced nol-ee pros-i-kwahy or nol-ee pros-i-kwee): an entry (historically a certificate) made upon the records of a court when the plaintiff or prosecutor will proceed no further in a suit or action. The official abbreviation is nol. pros.

1681:  From the Latin, the construct being nolle (unwilling) + prosequi (to pursue), literally “unwilling to pursue” which, in the context of legal proceedings, is a formal notice of discontinuance by a prosecutor or plaintiff.  Nolle was the present active infinitive of nōlō (I do not wish; I refuse), a formation based on ne- (not) +‎ volō (I want) or velle (will).  Prosequi was the present active infinitive of prōsequor (I escort, I pursue, I describe), the construct being prō- (forward direction, action) +‎ sequor (follow).  As a verb, nolle-pross is attested from 1880.

No-billing

The legal shorthand is “to nolle” but the more common expression is now “no-bill”.  The nolle prosequi is most familiar in criminal cases when it’s used by the state to discontinue prosecutions but some jurisdictions maintain the device in civil matters where it may used as a declaration by a plaintiff voluntarily withdrawing a claim although a retraxit (a motion for voluntary dismissal) is now a more commonly used procedure,

A nolle prosequi is not the same as a verdict of not guilty; it merely terminates the existing case and, as a general principle, doesn't disbar continuation of the case at a later date, if a prosecutor so empowered wishes.  However, the common law position has been modified in some jurisdictions to provide that if the attorney- general issues a certificate of nolle prosequi, no-one may prosecute the charges.  That exemption aside, anyone whose prosecution has been subject to a nolle prosequi is not “found not guilty” and therefore cannot plead autreufois acquit (a peremptory plea made before the commencement of a trial in which a defendant asserts they were earlier tried for the same crime under same facts of the case) in respect of the relevant offence at any subsequent resumption; as a general principle, double jeopardy cannot apply.

Attorneys-general in Australia have been reluctant to intervene in matters if they regard a request as political rather than technical or procedural.  In 1977, Bob Ellicott QC (b 1927), attorney-general in the second (1975-1980) Fraser administration, resigned rather than accede to the prime-minister’s request he take over a (somewhat bizarre) politically-inspired case and close down the prosecution (although in resigning he also cited the matter of costs).  In 2022 however, the new Australian Labor Party (ALP) attorney-general Mark Dreyfus (b 1956; Attorney-General of Australia 2013 & since June 2022) announced he had directed Commonwealth prosecutors to nolle the prosecution of lawyer Bernard Collaery (b 1944), prosecuted for his part in exposing a bugging operation undertaken by agents of the Australian Security Intelligence Service (ASIS; the overseas intelligence organization) against Timor-Leste during negotiations over the ownership of oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.

One must be sympathetic to any attorney-general who is expected to reconcile matters involving international relations (probably always somewhere within the rubric of “national security”) with legal or democratic principles.  The attorney sits atop the legal system in Australia, representing a government which insists all who appear in the nations courts must always speak the truth and imposes sometimes severe punishment on those who do not yet he was in the position of considering whether to continue the prosecution of someone who would be brought before one of those courts and accused of telling the truth.  It’s true that historically one has been able to fall foul of the law for telling the truth (such as in matters of defamation) but as a general principle courts do insist on hearing and protecting the truth.  National security matters are however a special case and there are also laws imposed on those working from agencies such as ASIS which prevent public or other disclosures, truthful or otherwise.

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

Bugging the government of another nation, perhaps especially an ally and close neighbor when the intelligence sought was essentially commercial, does raise ethical issues and also of note was that “Witness K” (who revealed the bugging) actually used proper channels to report what he regarded an inappropriate action he had been ordered to execute although, interestingly, a judge would during the course of the proceedings rule that it was not relevant whether or not the action undertaken by ASIS was lawful.  That may sound strange but in the context of national security matters and the details of the charges actually presented, it’s undoubtedly the correct ruling.  The competing principles displayed in the long tale illustrate why, in matters of national security, it pays not to be too bothered by (sometimes shifting) principles and focus instead on the essentially un-shifting interest of national security and there are precedents from the UK which support this view.  Everybody spies on everybody else and it’s usually the best course that these things remain secret; we have a right not to know.  No-billing the prosecution was surely the best thing to do but really, those who find distasteful the idea of bugging other people’s offices perhaps shouldn’t go into the spying business.

Party comrade Jacob Zuma in court.

Certificate of nolle prosequi issued by the office of the South African Director of Public Prosecutions (KwaZulu-Natal Division) in response to complaint made by Jacob Zuma.

William (Billy) Downer (b 1956) is a retired South African prosecutor.  In an echo of the case (Sankey v Whitlam & Others, (1978) 142 CLR 1, (1978) HCA 43) which in 1977 Bob Ellicott declined to nolle, Mr Downer is privately prosecuting the former President of South Africa, party comrade Jacob Zuma (b 1942; President of South Africa 2009-2018) on charges of fraud and corruption.  Mr Zuma objected to Downer’s involvement in his case and claimed that the retired prosecutor acted unlawfully by leaking information to the media.  Despite a request from Mr Zuma, the Director of Public Prosecutions declined to prosecute Mr Downer, issuing a no-bill while noting this did not preclude the former president initiating a private prosecution; this, Mr Zuma has undertaken.  The first hearing of Mr Downer's case against Mr Zuma has been set down for August 2022.

Cynophagia

Cynophagia (pronounced)

The practice of eating dog meat.

Late 1700-early 1800s: The construct was cyno- + phagia.  Cyno was a combining form of the Ancient Greek κύων (kúōn or kýon) (dog) and the suffix –phagia was from the Ancient Greek -φαγία (-phagía) (and related to -φαγος (-phagos) (eater)), corresponding to φαγεῖν (phageîn) (to eat), infinitive of ἔφαγον (éphagon) (I eat), which serves as infinitive aorist for the defective verb ἐσθίω (esthíō) (I eat).  In English, use is now most frequent in mental health to reference the consumption of untypical items.  Being a cynophagist (a person who engages in cynophagia) is not synonymous with being a cynophile (a person who loves canines) although it’s not impossible there may be some overlap in the predilections.  The construct was cyno- +‎ -phile.  The –phile suffix was from the Latin -phila, from the Ancient Greek φίλος (phílos). (dear, beloved) and was used to forms noun & adjectives to convey the meanings “loving”, “friendly”, “admirer” or “friend”.  In the context of metal health, the condition would be described as cynophilia.  The -philia suffix was from the Ancient Greek φιλία (philía) (fraternal) love).  It was used to form nouns conveying a liking or love for something and in clinical use was applied often to an abnormal or obsessive interest, especially if it came to interfere with other aspects of life (the general term is paraphilia).  The companion suffix is the antonym -phobia. The related forms are the prefixes phil- & philo- and the suffixes -philiac, -philic, -phile & -phily.  Cynophagia, cynophagy, cynophagism & cynophagist are nouns and cynophagic is an adjective; the noun plural is cynophagists.

The word cynophagia was coined as part of the movement in European scholarship in the late eighteenth & early nineteenth centuries which used words from classical languages (Ancient Greek & Latin) as elements to create the lexicon of “modern” science & medicine, reflecting the academic & professional reverence for the supposed purity of the Ancient world.  The reason there was a cynophagia but not a “ailourphagia” (which would have meant “the practice of eating cat meat”) is probably because while the reports from European explorers & colonial administrators would have sent from the orient many reports of the eating of dogs, there were likely few accounts of felines as food.  The construct of “ailourphagia” would have been ailour-, from the Ancient Greek αἴλουρος (aílouros) (cat) + phagia.  The Greek elements of ailouros were aiolos (quick-moving or nimble) & oura (tail), the allusion respectively to the agility of cats and their characteristic tail movements.  There are of course ailurophiles (one especially fond of cats), notably the "childless cat ladies" and disturbingly, there's also paedophage (child eater). 

Historically, east of Suez, consuming dog meat was not uncommon and in some cultures it was a significant contribution to regional protein intake while in other places it was either unlawful of taboo.  Carnivorism (the practice of eating meat) is an almost universal human practice but what is acceptable varies between cultures.  Some foods are proscribed (such as shellfish or pig-meat) and while it’s clear the origin of this was as a kind of “public heath” measure (the rules created in hot climates in the pre-refrigeration age) but the observance became a pillar of religious observance.  Sometimes, a similar rule seems originally to have had an economic imperative such as the Hindu restriction on the killing of cattle for consumption, thus the phrase “sacred cow”, the original rationale being the calculation the live beasts made an economic contribution which much outweighed their utility as a protein source.  So, what is thought acceptable and not is a cultural construct and that varies from place-to-place, the Western aversion to eating cats & dogs attributable to the sentimental view of them which has evolved because of the role for millennia as domestic pets.  Over history, it’s likely every animal in the world has at some point been used as a food source, some an acquired taste such as the “deep fried tarantula” which, long a tasty snack in parts of Cambodia, became a novelty item in Cambodian restaurants in the West.  There are though probably some creatures which taste so awful they’re never eaten, such as parrots which ate the seeds of tobacco plants, lending their flesh a “distinctive flavor”.  The recipe for their preparation was:

(1) Place plucked parrot and an old boot in vat of salted water and slow-cook for 24 hours.
(2) After 24 hours remove parrot & boot.
(3) Throw away parrot and eat old boot.

Analysts had expected “more of the same” from Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) in his debate with Kamala Harris (b 1964; US vice president since 2021): the southern border, illegal immigrants, inflation et al.  What none predicted was that so much of the post-debate traffic would be about Mr Trump’s assertion Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio (one of literally dozens of localities in the country so named, one factor which influenced it becoming the name of the town in the Fox cartoon series The Simpsons) were eating the pets of the residents (ie their cats & dogs).  As racist tropes go, it followed the script in terms of the “otherness, barbarism, incompatibility” etc of “outsiders in our midst” although there seemed to be nothing to suggest there was any tradition of such consumption in Haiti.  Still, at least it was something novel and it wasn’t the first time pet cats had been mentioned in the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr Trump’s choice of running mate as JD Vance (b 1984; US senator (Republican-Ohio) since 2023) bring renewed attention to the latter’s 2021 interview then Fox News host Tucker Carlson (b 1969) in which he observed the US had fallen into the hands of corporate oligarchs. Radical Democratic Party politicians and “…a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

Eventually, that would be answered by the childless cat ladies, notably the most famous: the singer Taylor Swift who posted an endorsement of Kamala Harris, posing with Benjamin Button, the Ragdoll she adopted in 2019.  Benjamin Button was no stranger to fame, the seemingly nonplussed puss appearing of the cover announcing Ms Swift as Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year.

Childless cat lady Taylor Swift with ragdoll Benjamin Button (as stole).  Ragdoll cats make good stoles because (apparently because of a genetic mutation), they tend to "go limp" when picked up.  

Ms Swift is of course a song-writer so well accustomed to crafting text to achieve the desired effect and one word nerd lawyer quickly deconstructed, much taken by the first three paragraphs which interlaced the first person (“I” & “me/my”) and the “you” while avoiding starting any sentence with “I” (a technique taught as a way of conveying “objectivity”) until the she announces her conclusion:

 “Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.”

“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”

“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”

So, a classic example of a technique which might be used by someone disinterested: two premises which lead to a conclusion, the rhythm of the lyric being “I, I, you, you, you.”  Then, after the “you, you, you” of the “discussion” has made it clear where her focus is, every sentence in the third paragraph begins with “I”, emulation a cadence which might appear in a musical track: “I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make.”  One can see why her songs are said to be so catchy.

The intervention of Ms Swift and Benjamin Button produced reactions. 

Newspapers haven’t always been effective in changing voting intentions or nudging governments in particular public policy directions.  During the inter-war years the Beaverbrook (the Daily & Sunday Express and the less disreputable Evening Standard) press in the UK ran a long and ineffective campaign promoting “empire free trade” and the evidence suggests the editorial position a publication adopted to advocate its readers vote one way or the other was more likely to reflect than shift public opinion.  One reason is that in the West, while politics is very interested in the people, the people tend not to be interested in politics and most thoughtful editorials are barely read.  People are however rabid consumers of popular culture and one opposition leader would later claim an interview a woman’s magazine conducted with his (abandoned) ex-wife did him more political damage than anything written by political or economics reporters, however critical.  With 283 million followers on Instagram (Ms Harris has 18 million), Ms Swift’s intervention may prove decisive if she shifts just a few votes in the famous “battleground states”.

Celebrity endorsements are not unusual; some successful, some not.  In 2016, Lindsay Lohan endorsed crooked Hillary Clinton (who did win the popular vote so there was that).

Whether Ms Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris will shift many opinions isn’t known (many analysts concluding the electorate long ago coalesced into “Trump” & “anti-Trump” factions) but the indications are she may have been remarkably effective in persuading to vote those who may not otherwise have bothered, the assumption being most of these converts to participation will follow her lead and it’s long been understood that to win elections in the US, the theory is simple: get those who don’t vote to vote for you.  In practice, that has been difficult to achieve at scale (the best executions in recent years by the campaign teams of George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) in 2004 and Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) in 2008.

However, in including a custom URL which directed people to vote.gov where they could register to vote produced a spike in voter registration, the US General Services Administration (GSA) revealing an “unprecedented” 338,000-odd unique visits to their portal in the hours after Ms Swift’s post.  Although the “shape” of the hits isn’t known, most seem to be assuming that (as well as some childless cat ladies), those who may be voting for the first time will tend to be (1) young and (2) female, reflecting the collective profile of Ms Swift’s “Swifties”.  They are the demographic the Democratic Party wants.  The GSA called it the “Swift effect” and added that while in the past there had been events which produced smaller spikes, they were brief in duration unlike the Swifties woh for days kept up the traffic, the aggregate numbers dwarfing even the “intensity and enthusiasm” in the wake of the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) overturning Roe v Wade (1973) prior to the 2022 mid-term congressional elections.

In an interview with JD Vance, Fox News asked what he thought might be the significance of Ms Swift mobilizing the childless cat lady vote and he responded: “We admire Taylor Swift’s music. But I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music, or are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most people.  When grocery prices go up by 20 per cent, it hurts most Americans. It doesn’t hurt Taylor Swift. When housing prices become unaffordable, it doesn’t affect Taylor Swift, or any other billionaire.”  Fox News choose not to pursue the matter of whether self-described “billionaire celebrity” Donald Trump could be said to be “…fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most people.”

In “damage-limitation” mode, the Trump campaign mobilized generative AI in an attempt to re-capture the childless cat lady vote.  After the debate, Mr Trump had added geese to the alleged diet of Springfield’s Haitian residents.

Mr Trump may have himself to blame for Ms Swift’s annoying endorsement because he’d earlier posted fake, AI-generated images on his social media platform, Truth Social, suggesting she’d urged her the Swifties to vote for him.  Such things were of course not foreseen by the visionary AI (artificial intelligence) researchers of the 1950s, the genie is out of the bottle and given that upholding the “freedom of speech” guaranteed by the First Amendment to the constitution is one of the few things on which the SCOTUS factions agree, the genie is not going back.

The meme-makers have really taken to generative AI.

So while generative AI doesn’t allow mean the meme makers can suddenly create images once impossible, it does mean they can be produced by those without artistic skills or specialized resources and the whole matter of the culinary preferences of Haitians in Ohio is another blow for the state.  It was only in May 2024 that a number of schools in issued a ban on Gen Alpha slang terms including:

Ohio: It means “bad” with all that implies (dull, boring, ugly, poor etc).  Because of the way language evolves, it may also come to mean “people who eat pet cats & dogs”.  The implication is it’s embarrassing to be from Ohio.

Skibidi: A reference to a viral meme of a person’s head coming out of a toilet; it implies the subject so described is “weird”.

Sigma: Unrelated to the 18^th letter of the Greek alphabet, it’s been re-purposed as a rung on the male social hierarchy somewhat below the “alpha-male”.

Rizz: This one has a respectable pedigree, being the the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2023 word of the year.  It’s said technically to be a “Gen Z word”, short for “charisma”.  It has been banned because Gen Alpha like to use it in the negative (ie “lacking rizz”; “no rizz” etc).

Mewing: A retort or exclamation used to interrupt someone who is complaining about something trivial.  Gen Alpha are using it whenever their teachers say something they prefer not discuss.

Gyatt: A woman with a big butt, said originally based on the expression “goddam your ass thick.”

Bussin’: “Good, delicious, high quality” etc.

Baddie: A tough, bolshie girl who “doesn’t take shit form no one”.  It’s a similar adaptation of meaning to a term like “filth” which means “very attractive”.

Fumblerule

Fumblerule (pronounced fumm-bull-roule)

A rule of language or linguistic style, written in a way that violates the rule; technically a form of self-reference which relies on the inherent contradiction for the humor.

1979: A portmanteau word, the construct being fumble + rule.  In the context of fumblerule, “fumble” is used in the sense of “a blunder; awkwardly to seek”.  The mid-fifteenth century fumble (the obsolete English famble & fimble had much the same meaning) was from the Late Middle English, possibly from either the Low German fommeln or the Dutch fommelen, the alternative etymology being a Scandinavian or North Germanic source and there’s likely some relationship with the Old Norse fálma (to fumble, grope), the Swedish fumla, the Danish fumle and the German fummeln.  The history is certainly murky and the ultimate source could even be onomatopoeia (imitative of sounds associated with someone fumbling (bumble or stumble) or from the primitive Indo-European pal- (to shake, swing) from which Classical Latin gained palpo (I pat, touch softly) or (entirely speculatively) the Proto-West Germanic fōlijan (to feel).  The intransitive sense "do or seek awkwardly" was from the 1530s and the noun dates from the 1640s.

In the context of fumblerule, “rule” is used in the sense of “a regulation, law or guideline”.  The noun in the sense of “measure; measurement” dates from circa 1175, the verb first noted circa 1200 from the Middle English riwlen, reulen & rewellen from the Old French riuler, rieuler & ruler from the Late Latin rēgulāre (derivative of rēgula).  The sense of "principle or maxim governing conduct, formula to which conduct must be conformed" is from the Old French riule & the Norman reule (rule, custom, (religious) order) which, in Modern French, has been partially re-Latinized as règle.  The meaning "regulation governing play of a game” is from 1690s. The notion of a rule of law (supremacy of impartial and well-defined laws to any individual's power), as a phrase, emerged surprisingly recently, dating only from 1883.  The sense "to control, guide, direct" came from the Old French riuler (impose rule) from the Latin regulare (to control by rule, direct) from the Latin regula (rule, straight piece of wood) from the primitive Indo-European root reg- (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line," thus "to lead, rule."  The legal sense "establish by decision" is recorded from the early fifteenth century.

Fumblerule was coined by right-wing US commentator Bill Safire (1929-2009) in a November 1979 edition of his column On Language in the New York Times.  Safire extended this in the later book Fumblerules: A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage (1990) (ISBN 0-440-21010-0), which, in 2005, was re-printed as How Not to Write: The Essential Misrules of Grammar.  Physicist George L Trigg (1925-2014) also published a list of these rules.

Bill Safire (right) on Air Force Two with Spiro Agnew, November 1972 (US presidential election campaign).

Safire was also a White House speech writer for Richard Nixon (1913–1994; US president 1969-1974 & Spiro Agnew (1918–1996; US vice president 1969-1973).  Impressionistically, it would seem right-wingers tend to outnumber the left in the authorship of texts lamenting the decline in standards of English writing and it is one of the theatres of the culture wars.  In English, although there are the plenty of pedants and not a few of the infamous grammar Nazis still obsessing over stuff like a split infinitive, it’s not the sort of language which needs pointless “rules” to be enforced, many of which were never rules in the first place.  English spelling and grammar evolves usually according to a practical imperative: the transmission of meaning in an economical, precise and elegant way.  Criticism from the (notional) left is more political than linguistic: their objections to “correct” English is essentially that it’s just another way of maintaining white privilege and that all dialects within English are of equal cultural value and none should be regarded as “incorrect” or spoken by the “uneducated”.

Some of Bill Safire’s fumblerules

Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.

Don't use no double negatives.

Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.

Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.

Do not put statements in the negative form.

Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

No sentence fragments.

Remember to never split an infinitive.

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Avoid commas, that are not necessary.

If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.

A writer must not shift your point of view.

Eschew dialect, irregardless.

And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!

Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.

Writers should always hyphenate between syllables and avoid un-necessary hyph-ens.

Write all adverbial forms correct.

Don't use contractions in formal writing.

Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.

It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.

Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.

Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.

Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Always pick on the correct idiom.

"Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'"

The adverb always follows the verb.

Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

Strumpet

Strumpet (pronounced struhm-pit)

A woman of loose virtue (archaic).

1300–1350: From the Middle English strumpet and its variations, strompet & strumpet (harlot; bold, lascivious woman) of uncertain origin.  Some etymologists suggest a connection with the Latin stuprata, the feminine past participle of stuprare (have illicit sexual relations with) from stupere, present active infinitive of stupeo, (violation) or stuprare (to violate) or the Late Latin stuprum, (genitive stuprī) (dishonor, disgrace, shame, violation, defilement, debauchery, lewdness).  The meanings in Latin and the word structure certainly appears compelling but there is no documentary evidence and others ponder a relationship with the Middle Dutch strompe (a stocking (as the verbal shorthand for a prostitute)) or strompen (to stride, to stalk (in the sense suggestive of the manner in which a prostitute might approach a customer).  Again, it’s entirely speculative and the spelling streppett (in same sense) was noted in the 1450s.  In the late eighteen century, strumpet came to be abbreviated as strum and also used as a verb, which meant lexicographers could amuse themselves with wording the juxtaposition of strum’s definitions, Francis Grose (circa 1730-1791) in his A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) settling on (1) to have carnal knowledge of a woman & (2) to play badly on the harpsichord or any other stringed instrument.  As a term in musical performance, strum is now merely descriptive.

Even before the twentieth century, among those seeking to disparage women (and there are usually a few), strumpet had fallen from favour and by the 1920s was thought archaic to the point where it was little used except as a device by authors of historical fiction.  Depending on the emphasis it was wished to impart, the preferred substitutes which ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years included tramp, harlot, hussy, jezebel (sometimes capitalized), jade, tart, slut, minx, wench, trollop, hooker, whore, bimbo, floozie (or floozy) and (less commonly) slattern skeezer & malkin.

There’s something about trollop which is hard to resist but it has fallen victim to modern standards and it now can’t be flung even at white, hetrosexual Christian males (a usually unprotected species) because of the historic association.  Again the origin is obscure with most etymologists concluding it was connected with the Middle English trollen (to go about, stroll, roll from side to side).  It was used as a synonym for strumpet but often with the particular connotation of some debasement of class or social standing (the the speculated link with trollen in the sense of “moving to the other (bad) side”) so a trollop was a “fallen woman”.  Otherwise it described (1) a woman of a vulgar and discourteous disposition or (2) to act in a sluggish or slovenly manner.  North of the border it tended to the neutral, in Scotland meaning to dangle soggily; become bedraggled while in an equestrian content it described a horse moving with a gait between a trot and a gallop (a canter).  For those still brave enough to dare, the present participle is trolloping and the past participle trolloped while the noun plural (the breed often operating in pars or a pack) is trollops.

Floozie (the alternative spellings floozy, floosy & floosie still seen although floogy is obsolete) was originally a corruption of flossy, fancy or frilly in the sense of “showy” and dates only from the turn of the twentieth century.  Although it was sometimes used to describe a prostitute or at least someone promiscuous, it was more often applied in the sense of an often gaudily or provocatively dressed temptress although the net seems to have been cast wide, disapproving mothers often describing as floozies friendly girls who just like to get to know young men.

Strum and trollop weren’t the only words in this vein to have more than one meaning.  Harlot was from the Middle English harlot, from Old French harlot, herlot & arlot (vagabond; tramp), of uncertain origin but probably from a Germanic source, either a derivation of harjaz (army; camp; warrior; military leader) or from a diminutive of karilaz (man; fellow).  It was an exclusively derogatory and offensive form which meant (1) a female prostitute, (2) a woman thought promiscuous woman and (3) a churl; a common person (male or female), of low birth, especially who leading an unsavoury life or given to low conduct.

Lord Beaverbrook (1950), oil on canvas by Graham Sutherland (1903–1980).  It’s been interesting to note that as the years pass, Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) more and more resembles Beaverbrook.

Increasing sensitivity to the way language can reinforce the misogyny which has probably always characterized politics (in the West it’s now more of an undercurrent) means words like harlot which once added a colorful robustness to political rhetoric are now rarely heard.  One of the celebrated instances of use came in 1937 when Stanley Baldwin’s (1867–1947; leader of the UK’s Tory Party and thrice prime-minister 1923 to 1937) hold on the party leadership was threatened by Lord Rothermere (1868-1940) and Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964), two very rich newspaper proprietors (the sort of folk Mr Trump would now call the “fake news media”).  Whether he would prevail depended on his preferred candidate winning a by-election and three days prior to the poll, on 17 March 1931, Baldwin attacked the press barons in a public address:

“The newspapers attacking me are not newspapers in the ordinary sense; they are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal vices, personal likes and dislikes of the two men.  What are their methods?  Their methods are direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker's meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context and what the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

The harlot line overnight became a famous quotation and in one of the ironies of history, Baldwin borrowed it from his cousin, the writer Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) who had used it during a discussion with the same Lord Beaverbrook.  Like a good many (including his biographer AJP Taylor (1906-1990) who should have known better), Kipling had been attracted by Beaverbrook’s energy and charm but found the inconsistency of his newspapers puzzling, finally asking him to explain his strategy.  He replied “What I want is power. Kiss ‘em one day and kick ‘em the next’ and so on”.  “I see” replied Kipling, “Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”  Baldwin received his cousin’s permission to recycle the phrase in public.

While not exactly respectable but having not descended to prostitution, there was also the hussy (the alternative spellings hussif, hussiv & even hussy all obsolete).  Hussy was a Middle English word from the earlier hussive & hussif, an unexceptional evolution of the Middle English houswyf (housewife) and the Modern English housewife is a restoration of the compound (which for centuries had been extinct) after its component parts had become unrecognisable through phonetic change.  The idea of hussy as a housewife or housekeeper is long obsolete (taking with it the related (and parallel) sense of “a case or bag for needles, thread etc” which as late as the eighteenth century was mention in judgements in English common law courts when discussing as woman’s paraphernalia).  It’s enduring use is to describe women of loose virtue but it can be used either in a derogatory or affectionate sense (something like a minx), the former seemingly often modified with the adjective “shameless”, probably to the point of becoming clichéd.

“An IMG Comrade, Subverts, Perverts & Extroverts: A Brief Pull-Out Guide”, The Oxford Strumpet, 10 October 1975.   

Reflecting the left’s shift in emphasis as the process of decolonization unfolded and various civil rights movements gained critical mass in sections of white society, anti-racist activism became a core issue for collectives such as the International Marxist Group.  Self-described as “the British section of the Fourth International”, by the 1970s their political position was explicitly anti-colonial, anti-racist, and trans-national, expressed as: “We believe that the fight for socialism necessitates the abolition of all forms of oppression, class, racial, sexual and imperialist, and the construction of socialism on a world wide scale”.  Not everything published in The Oxford Strumpet was in the (evolved) tradition of the Fourth International and it promoted a wide range of leftist and progressive student movements.

Lindsay Lohan in rather fetching, strumpet-red underwear.

The Oxford Strumpet was an alternative left newspaper published within the University of Oxford and sold locally.  It had a focus on university politics and events but also included comment and analysis of national and international politics.  With a typically undergraduate sense of humor, the name was chosen to (1) convey something of the anti-establishment editorial attitude and (2) allude to the color red, long identified with the left (the red-blue thing in recent US politics is a historical accident which dates from a choice by the directors of the coverage of election results on color television broadcasts).  However, by 1975, feminist criticism of the use of "Strumpet" persuaded the editors to change the name to "Red Herring" and edition 130 was the final Strumpet.  Red Herring did not survive the decline of the left after the demise of the Soviet Union and was unrelated to the Red Herring media company which during the turn-of-the-century dot-com era published both print and digital editions of a tech-oriented magazine.  Red Herring still operates as a player in the technology news business and also hosts events, its business model the creation of “top 100” lists which can be awarded to individuals or representatives of companies who have paid the fee to attend.  Before it changed ownership and switched its focus exclusively to the tech ecosystem, Red Herring magazine had circulated within the venture capital community and the name had been a playful in-joke, a “red herring” being bankers slang for a prospectus issued with IPO (initial public offering) stock offers.