Lament

Lament (pronounced luh-ment)

(1) To feel or express sorrow or regret for.

(2) To mourn for or over.

(3) An expression of grief or sorrow.

(4) A formal expression of sorrow or mourning, especially in verse or song; an elegy or dirge.

1520-1530: Ultimately, the noun was from the Latin lāmentum (plaint) and the verb from the Latin lāmentārī (to wail, moan, weep, lament), a derivative of lāmentum (a wailing, moaning, weeping).  In English, lament was a backformation from lamentation or else from the fourteenth century Middle French lamenter (to moan, to bewail" or directly from the Latin lāmentārī (from lāmentum).  The other formation in Latin was lāmentor (I wail, I weep”), from lāmenta (wailings, laments, moanings), the construct being la- (thought likely imitative) + the formative –mentum in the sense of “to project”.  

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

The adjective lamented in the sense of "mourned for" is from 1610 and the use as a form of mourning or lyric poetry dates from the 1690s.  Given the nature of man, the adjective unlamented, attested since the 1590s, is often used.  Lament & lamenting are nouns & verbs, lamentations & lamenter are nouns, lamentable and (the unpleasingly rare) lamentful are adjectives, lamentingly is an adverb and lamented is a verb & adjective; the common forms of the noun plural are is laments & lamentations.

Destruction of Temple of Jerusalem (1867) by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882).

The Old Testament’s Book of Lamentations (from אֵיכָה‎, (‘Êykhôh) (how) in the Hebrew), written probably during the sixth century BC, commemorates in five poems the destruction in 586-587 BC of Jerusalem by the neo-Babylonians.  By this time, the language of lament already enjoyed a rich tradition in the writings of the Israelite religion, borrowing from a genre known in ancient Mesopotamian practices and continuing to late biblical times.  Lamentations is a bleak work which documents undeserved suffering and focuses on the dead and those who mourn their loss.  It seems clear that for those forsaken by God, hopes of redemption are scant although, despite it all, it’s clear that even if God has tired of Israel, the Israelites must keep the faith and hope one day for His grace.  There’s an exploration too of guilt, the Book of Lamentations drawing from ancient texts the teaching that the destruction of the holy city was God’s retribution for the sin and wickedness of the inhabitants.

The biblical message thus is: (1) There are consequences for sin and if repentance is refused even if offered time and again, God will deliver the appropriate judgment.  (2) Lamentation is the way to express grief and one good for the soul for in life there must be sadness. (3) Beyond despair there is always hope.  Although the people of Judah had defied God, committed idolatry, been adulterous and performed abominations and thereby deserved their just punishment, even in his judgment, God offers hope with the dawning of each new day.

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855).

Some anthologies include Charlotte Brontë’s poem Life (1846) among the laments but that may be the lingering effect of Elizabeth Gaskell's (1810–1865) 1857 biography, a very Victorian work which managed to portray the author of the deliciously depraved Jane Eyre (1847) as the doomed, saint-like victim of the circumstances which crushed her and the consumption which stalked her.  Gaskell’s crafted miserabilia of course created a legend of its own, a kind of death cult for those for whom victimhood isn’t quite enough so she’s long been on the emo reading list.  She deserves better.  Life is a poem which notes why one might lament the vicissitudes of existence but doesn’t long dwell on it and one suspects Charlotte Brontë found life on Earth enchanting.  As one might gather from Jane Eyre, she thought it better to better to lust for life than long lament losses.

Life (1846) by Charlotte Brontë

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.

Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly!

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway?

Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.

Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!

Threnody

Threnody (pronounced thren-uh-dee)

(1) A poem, speech, or song of lamentation for the dead; a dirge or funeral song.

(2) Any song or poem of lament (now an unfashionable use).

1615–1625: From the Ancient Greek the construct being θρηνῳδία ((thrēn)ōidía), (lamentation) + ᾠδή (-ōid(ḗ)) (song).  The Greek ōidḗ was ultimately from the primitive Indo-European root hweyd- (to sing) and was the source also of “ode”, “tragedy”, “comedy”, “parody”, “melody” & “rhapsody”.  The Greek θρῆνος (thrênos) (wailing) is often translated as “dirge”, the distinction perhaps of technical value to anthropologists of music.  The form in the New Latin was thrēnōdia.  The (rare) alternative spelling was threnedy and the commonly used synonyms included dirge, coronach, lament & elegy.  Threnody & threnodist are nouns, threnodial & threnodic are adjectives and threnodially is an adverb; the noun plural is threnodies.

Although in the modern era music migrates effortless and instantly from one place to another, historically musical forms varied greatly between cultures but it seems songs of lament or other compositions used at funerals or in memory of the dead must have been close to a universal feature of all societies.  Of course not all used the same musical devices to denote mournfulness or summon the mood of sadness but it seems in some way to have been an essential part of the ritual.  Even in those cultures where the mood was less one of sadness and more a marking of a transition from one world to the next, some music was a part of the process.  The Greek-derived word "threnody" spread to a number of European languages and in some cases their colonial empires including the Bulgarian погреба́лна пе́сен (pogrebálna pésen), the Finnish surulaulu, the German Threnodie, the Hungarian gyászdal, gyászének, gyászköltemény, kesergő & elégia, the Japanese 悲歌 (hika) & 哀歌 (aika), the Latin nenia (feminine) & threnus (masculine), the Macedonian ре́дба (rédba), та́жалка (tážalka), по́гребна пе́сна (pógrebna pésna), the Norwegian Bokmål klagesang & Norwegian Nynorsk klagesong, the Polish tren, the Portuguese trenodia, the Russian эле́гия (elégija) & погреба́льная пе́снь (pogrebálʹnaja pésnʹ), the Serbo-Croatian елегија, жалопојка, the Spanish treno & canto fúnebre and the Vietnamese bài điếu.

Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father) from A Little More Personal (Raw) (2005).

Confessions of a Broken Heart was a lament and there was a time when it would have been regarded as a threnody because, as a synonym of elegy, it underwent the same extension of meaning.  Strictly speaking an elegy or threnody was a song or poem of mourning but because the ancient metre of such pieces was elegiacs, so named on that account, over time all that was written in elegiacs came to be called an elegy (and thus a threnody) and that extended to any short poem (regardless of the metre use) of the subjective kind (ie an expression of the author’s feelings).  As poetry has passed from a mass audience into the hands of critics, academics and a handful of dedicated readers, the original senses have been restored so threnodies & elegies are now again understood as works of mourning, the former particularly a wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to the dead.

Tren ofiarom Hiroszimy (Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima) is a composition for 52 string instruments composed in 1960 by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933) and first performed the following year.

An avant-garde piece, the work was originally called 8’37” (the duration of the performance) because length of the sound events of the piece are given in seconds, rather than the eighth notes of conventional notation, one of the several experimental aspects in the score which uses a variety of unorthodox notations to indicate how the music should be played.  As the title indicates, it’s a political piece but it was originally purely an experiment with musical ideas, an attempt to “develop a new musical language” and an example of sonorism (a Polish school of composition), focusing on texture, timbre & articulation to permit musicians some degree of “expressivity” in the use of their instruments.  Echoing a sentiment many twentieth century experimental composers would express, Penderecki admitted that for some time before any notes were written, “It existed only in my imagination, in a somewhat abstract way” and if was only when he heard it performed he was “…struck by the emotional charge of the work...” and was moved to dedicate it to the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945.  He thought his score “both solemn and catastrophic” and in 1964 wrote: “Let the Threnody express my firm belief that the sacrifice of Hiroshima will never be forgotten and lost.”  The political purpose of the threnody was encapsulated in the thoughts on nuclear weapons expressed in 1954 by General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) when the National Security Council suggested the French be assisted in Vietnam by use of A-Bombs: “You boys must be crazy. We can’t use those awful things against the Asians for the second time in ten years. My God.”

The musical legacy however was perhaps more notable.  So obvious was the emotional power the piece exerted it was used in a number of horror films including William Friedkin’s (1935–2023) The Exorcist (1973) and its motifs influenced a number of the European bands which experimented with the possibilities of electronic instrumentation in the 1970s and beyond, most notably the Berlin-based Tangerine Dream.  The unconventional string ensemble assembled (24 violins, ten violas, ten cellos, and eight double basses) was manipulated to produce tone clusters, faster and slower vibratos, slapping, playing on the tailpiece and behind the bridge; while the sound durations are dictated precisely in seconds, other aspects of the music are discordantly aleatoric, allowing the players a choice of techniques, the implication being no two performances would be quite the same to an extent beyond the differences extracted by one conductor or another.  Curiously, there are discrepancies between the events of that day in 1945 and the musical structure.  It’s suggested for example one of the early cacophonies of clusters was to suggest the screaming of residents as they look up and see the bomber above, knowing they’d be bombed, but not knowing the appallingly new nature of the horror they were about to experience.  In fact, the USAAF (US Army Air Force) had for some time been making over-flights to accustom the population to the sight of a Boeing B-29 (which the city's residents dubbed the "B san") and convince them there was no need to seek shelter.  This was the first use of the A-Bomb as a weapon and as well as a military-cum-political mission, it was also an experiment in nuclear ballistics, the planners wanting to know the effectiveness (ie the casualty-rate & death-toll) when used against an un-sheltered urban population.

Plangent

Plangent (pronounced plan-juhnt)

(1) Resounding loudly with an expressively plaintive sound (associated especially with the chiming of bells).

(2) Any loud, reverberating sound (now rare and probably obsolete).

(3) Mournful music (regardless of volume).

(4) By extension, in literature and poetry, text which is plaintive, mournful, a lament etc (now used loosely).

(5) By extension, in casual use, a state of mind somewhat short of melancholy.

(6) Beating, dashing, as in the action of breaking waves (obsolete except (rarely) as a literary or poetic device).

1822: From the Latin verb plangent- (stem of plangēns), the present participle of plangere (to beat (in sorrow more than anger)) and third-person plural future active indicative of plangō (I beat (my breast); I lament), from the primitive Indo-European root plak- (to strike).  The origin of the idea was in the “breast-beating” a demonstrable form of grief noted by anthropologists in cultures far removed from European contact so apparently something which evolved independently and possibly inherited from our more distant ancestor species.  Plangent is an adjective, plangency is a noun and plangently is an adverb; the noun plural is plagencies.

Plangent was adopted in English to mean “a loud sound which echoes and is suggestive of a quality of mournfulness”.  It was originally most associated with the bells sounded during funerals or memorial ceremonies.  By the mid-late nineteenth century additional layers of meaning had been absorbed, notably (1) sorrowful or somber music and, (2) prose or poetic verse evocative of such feelings.  So it was linguistic mission creep rather than a meaning shift that saw “plangent” a word to use of sad songs and maudlin poetry.  In the technical sense, the original meaning still resonates; the “haunting peal of a church bell” can be called plangent and a poem which as text on the page may seem emotionless can be rendered startlingly plangent, if spoken in a certain tone and with a feeling for the pause.  In the jargon of some military bands, “the plangent” remains the instruction for the use of percussion to produce the slow, continuous and atonal beat used for funeral marches or somber commemorative ceremonies and this recalls the original use in English: “beating with a loud sound”, from the Latin plangere, (to strike or beat), the idea in antiquity an allusion to the “beating of the breast” associated with grief.  From this developed the general sense of “lament” which has survived and flourished.  The adjectival sense of anything “loud and resounding” is probably obsolete.

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

Suffering ranging from mild displeasure to dark despair being clearly an inescapable part of the human condition, the synonyms of plangent are legion, the choice dictated by the precise nuance one wishes to capture, the forms including: aching, agonized, anguished, bemoaning, bewailing, bitter, deploring, doleful, dolorous, funereal, grieving, heartbroken, lamentable, longing, lugubrious, mournful, plaintive, regretful, rueful, sorrowful, sorry, wailing, weeping & woeful.  Take your pick.

Long Distance II by Tony Harrison (b 1937)

 Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
 
You couldn't just drop in.  You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
 
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
 
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

Shortly before he died, the poet Stephen Spender (1909–1995) wrote that Tony Harrison’s series of elegies for his parents “...was the sort of poetry for which I've been waiting my whole life.”

Mourn

Mourn (pronounced mawrn or mohrn)

(1) To grieve or lament for the dead.

(2) To show the conventional or usual signs of sorrow over a person's death.

(3) To feel or express sorrow or grief over (misfortune, loss, or anything regretted); to deplore (now restricted mostly to literary or poetic use).

(4) To utter in a sorrowful manner.

(5) To observe the customs of mourning, as by wearing black garments (sables).

(6) In jousting, a ring fitted upon the head of a lance to prevent wounding an adversary in tilting (a charging with a lance).

Pre 900: From the Middle English mournen & mornen, from the Old English murnan (to feel or express sorrow, grief, or regret; bemoan, long after and also “be anxious about, be careful” (past tense: mearn, past participle: murnen), from the Proto-Germanic murnaną & murnan (sorrowfully to remember)  It was cognate with the Old High German mornēn (to be troubled), the Old Norse morna (to pine away. also “to dawn (become morning)”), the Greek mermeros (worried), the Gothic maurnan (to grieve) and the French morne (gloomy).  The proto-Germanic was the source also of the Old Saxon mornon and was probably a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root mer & smer- (to remember).  The use to mean “to lament the death of” emerged late in the thirteenth century while the sense of “display the conventional appearance of grieving for a period following the death of someone” was in use by the 1520s.  The noun mourning (feeling or expression of sorrow, sadness, or grief) was in use in the late twelfth century and was from the Old English murnung (complaint, grief, act of lamenting), a verbal noun from the verb mourn.  The meaning “customary dress or garment worn by mourners” dates from the 1650s although mourning habit was in use in the late fourteenth century.  The North American mourning dove was named in 1820 and was so-called because of its soulful call.  The adjective mournful (expressing sorrow; oppressed with grief) came into use in the early 1600s.  The spelling morne was used during the fourteenth & fifteenth centuries.  Mourn & mourned are verbs, mourning is a noun & verb, mourner & mournfulness are nouns, mournful is an adjective and mournfully is an adverb; the noun plural is mourners.

Comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953, far right) as chief mourner, carrying the coffin of comrade Sergei Kirov (1886–1934; Russian Bolshevik revolutionary & Soviet politician), Moscow 6 December 1934.

Although no documentary evidence has ever been found, most historians believe the execution was approved by comrade Stalin and in a nice touch, within a month, Kirov's assassins were convicted in a show trial and executed.  As the death toll from the purges of the 1930s accelerated, comrade Stalin stopped attending funerals; he just wouldn't have ben able to find the time.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) seems not to have appeared as a mourner at the funerals of any of those he’d ordered killed but he certainly issued statements mourning their passing.  Less ominously, UK Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 1830–1903; UK Prime Minister for thirteen years variously 1885-1902) remarked of the long, sad decline of Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) that the deceased had proved to be “chief mourner at his own protracted funeral”.

Political mourning is a special class of lament and when some politicians are buried, their erstwhile colleagues are among the mourners only because such events are a nice photo-opportunity and a useful place for a bit of networking.  The Australian politician Pat Kennelly (1900–1981; senator for Victoria (Australian Labor Party (ALP)) 1953-1971) (who had a chronic stutter) once attended the funeral of a member of parliament (MP).  It was well-attended event with many mourners and later he was heard to observe: “It w-w-w-a-as a v-v—very s-s-sa-ad occasion.  H-h-his w-w-wi-wife and f-f-f-family were there.  There was not a d-d-dry eye in the ce-ce-cemetery.  E-e-everyone w-a-was in t-t-t-tears.  As I w-w-w-watched them f-f-file out of th-th-the ce-ce-cemetery I th-th-thought h-h-how s-s—sad.  Th-th-three h-h—hundred m-m-mourners with a s-s-single th-th-thought: ‘Wh-h-ho’s g-g-oing to w-w-win the pre-pre-pre-selection f-f-for his s-s-seat?’”

Potential gig: Lindsay Lohan in mourning garments (sables), Sohu Fashion Achievement Awards Ceremony, Shanghai, China, January, 2014.  Acting is of course a good background for a professional mourner and the career part is sometimes available to even the well-known because their presence at a funeral would be an indicator of the wealth of the deceased.

Culturally, the mourners at one’s funeral can matter because their measure in both quantity & quality greatly can influence how one is remembered and to some (and certainly their surviving friends & family), greatly that matters.  While it’s true that once one is dead, that’s it, the memory others have of one is affected by whether one drank oneself to death, was struck by a meteorite or murdered by the Freemasons and the spectacle of one’s funeral also leaves a lasting impression.  A funeral with a scant few mourners presumably says much about the life of the deceased but for those facing that, there’s the ancient tradition of the professional mourners (known in some places as moirologists, sobbers, wailers, or criers.  In South Africa, those after greater drama can hire someone hysterically to cry and threaten to jump into the grave to join the departed forever wherever they’re going (it’s said this is an “extra-cost” service).

There is reference in both the Old and New Testaments to the profession: In 2 Samuel 14 it was recorded: “…and fetched thence a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign thyself to be a mourner, and put on now mourning apparel, and anoint not thyself with oil but as a woman that had a long time mourned the dead.”  It does seem the practice of paid mourning began in China or the Middle East but it was a thing also in ancient Egypt and Rome.  In Egypt, it was actually a formalized part of the ritual (at least for the urban wealthy) in that part of the order of service required the family to pay for the provision of “two professional women mourners”, there as representatives of the psychopomps ( conductors of souls to the afterworld) Isis (inter alia the guardian deity who protected her followers in life and in the afterlife) and her sister Nephtys (protector of the deceased and guardian of the dead).

In Rome, it was more an expression of conspicuous consumption and the more rich or more illustrious a celebrity someone had been while walking the Earth, the better attended and more ostentatious would be the funeral procession, professional mourners making up usually a goodly proportion of the count.  They earned their money because the cultural expectation was they were expected to cry and wail, look distraught, tear at their hair and clothes and scratch their faces with their fingernails, the drawing of a little blood a sign of grief; the more professional mourners in a procession, the higher the implied status of the deceased.  Historically (and apparently cross-culturally), professional mourners have tended to be women because such displays of emotions from them were accepted in a way that wouldn’t have been accepted if exhibited by a man.

Mean

Mean (pronounced meen)

(1) To have or convey a particular idea; connote, denote, import, intend, signify.

(2) To have in mind as a goal or purpose; aim, contemplate, design, intend, plan, project, propose, purpose, target.

(3) Characterized by intense ill will or spite; black, despiteful, evil, hateful, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, nasty, poisonous, spiteful, venomous, vicious, wicked, bitchy.

(4) Having or proceeding from low moral standards; base, ignoble, low, low-down, sordid, squalid, vile.

(5) Ungenerously or pettily reluctant to spend money; cheap, close, close-fisted, costive, hard-fisted, miserly, niggard, niggardly, parsimonious, penny-pinching, penurious, petty, pinching, stingy, tight, tight-fisted.

(6) Of low or lower quality; common, inferior, low-grade, low-quality, mediocre, second-class, second-rate, shabby, substandard.

(7) Of little distinction; humble, lowly, simple.

(8) Lacking high station or birth, baseborn, common, declassed, humble, ignoble, lowly, plebeian, unwashed, vulgar; base.

(9) Affected or tending to be affected with minor health problems; ailing indisposed, low, off-color, rocky, sickly; under the weather (now rare).

(10) So objectionable as to deserve condemnation; abhorrent, abominable, antipathetic, contemptible, despicable, detestable, disgusting, filthy, foul, infamous, loathsome, lousy, low, nasty, nefarious, obnoxious, odious, repugnant, rotten, shabby, vile, wretched.

(11) Having or showing a bad temper, cantankerous, crabbed, cranky, cross, disagreeable, fretful, grouchy, grumpy, ill-tempered, irascible, irritable, nasty, peevish, petulant, querulous, snappish, snappy, surly, testy, ugly, waspish.

(12) In mathematics, something, as a type, number, quantity, or degree that represents a midpoint between extremes on a scale of valuation; average, median, medium, norm, par.

(13) In the plural (as means), that by which something is accomplished or some end achieved.

(14) In the plural (as means) all things, such as money, property or goods having economic value.

(15) In statistics, the expected value (the mathematical expectation).

(16) In music, the middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music (or an alto instrument); now only of historic or academic interest.

As a verb:

Pre 900: From the Middle English mēnen (to intend; remember; lament; comfort), from the Old English mǣnan (to mean, signify; lament; intend to do something) from the Proto-West Germanic menjojanan & mainijan, from the Proto-Germanic mainijaną (to mean, think; lament), from the primitive Indo-European meyn- (to think), or alternatively perhaps from the primitive Indo-European meino- (opinion, intent) & meyno-, an extended form of the primitive Indo-European mey- (source also of Old Church Slavonic meniti (to think, have an opinion), the Old Irish mian (wish, desire) & the Welsh mwyn (enjoyment)).  It was related to the Old Saxon mēnian (to intend) and cognate with the West Frisian miene (to deem, think) the Old Frisian mēna (to signify), the Dutch menen (to believe, think, mean), the Middle Dutch menen (to think, intend), the German meinen (to think, mean, believe) and the Old Saxon mēnian.  The Indo-European cognates included the Old Irish mían (wish, desire) and the Polish mienić (to signify, believe).  It was related to the modern moan.  The present participle was meaning and the simple past and past participle was meant although the now obsolete meaned was once a standard spelling.

The transitive (to convey (a given sense); to signify, or indicate (an object or idea) or, of a word, symbol etc (to have reference to, to signify), was documented as early as the eighth century.  The transitive, usually in passive (to intend (something) for a given purpose or fate; to predestine was from the sixteenth century. The transitive (to have conviction in (something said or expressed) or to be sincere in (what one says) is from the eighteenth century.  The transitive (to cause or produce (a given result) or to bring about (a given result) is from the nineteenth century.  The synonyms included convey, signify & indicate.  The annoying (and frequently redundant) conversational question “You know what I mean?” is not recent, attested since 1834.

As an adjective:

Pre 900: From the Middle English mēne (shared by all, common, general), a variant of imene & imeane (held or shared in common), from the Old English mǣne & gemǣne (common, public, general, universal, mutual), from the Proto-West Germanic gamainī, from the Proto-Germanic gamainiz (common; possessed jointly) and related to the Proto-West Germanic & the Old High German gimeini (common, mean, nasty) and the Latin commūnis (common (originally with no pejorative sense (as in shared, general))) from the Old Latin comoinem and cognate with the Danish gemen, the West Frisian mien (general, universal), the Gothic gamains, (common, unclean), the Dutch gemeen (common, mean), the German gemein (common), the Gothic gamains (in common) and the primitive Indo-European mey- (to change, exchange, share).  The comparative was meaner and the superlative, meanest

The sense of “common or general” is long obsolete.  What endured was “common or low origin, grade, or quality; low in quality or degree; inferior; poor; shabby; without dignity of mind; destitute of honor; low-minded; spiritless; base; of little value or worth; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.  The sense of parsimonious, ungenerous or stingy is known throughout the English-speaking world but tends to be less prevalent in the US because of the dominance of the other meaning.  The meaning “cruel or malicious has survived but is now less common.  The colloquial form meaning “accomplished with great skill; deft; well-executed is used also in the negative with the same effect: (1) She rolls a mean joint and (2) she’s no mean roller of a joint.  However, to say (3) she’s mean with the weed in her joints has the opposite meaning so in that context anyway, the meaning of mean needs carefully to be deconstructed.  This inverted sense of mean as "remarkably good" appears not to have existed prior to circa 1900.  The derived forms from the adjectival sense include (and some are less common than others) bemean, meandom, meanie, meanness, mean streak & meany.

The pejorative sense of "without dignity of mind, destitute of honor, low-minded" dates from the 1660s; the specific sense of "stingy, niggardly" noted since 1755 whereas the weaker sense of "disobliging, pettily offensive" didn’t emerge until 1839, originally as American English slang.  This evolution in meaning was influenced by the coincidence in form with mean in the sense of "middle, middling," which also was used in disparaging senses.

As a noun:

1300–1350: From the Middle English meene, mene & meine, from the Middle French meen & mean, a variant of meien, from the Old French moien & meien (from which French gained moyen), from the Latin mediānus (middle, in the middle; median (in context)) from the Latin medius (middle).It was cognate with mid, and in the musical sense, the cognate was the Italian mezzano.  A doublet of median and mizzen.

A specific meaning of mean (in the sense of middle) was “middling; intermediate; moderately good, tolerable” which is long obsolete.  The sense of “a method or course of action used to achieve some result”, now used almost exclusively in the plural, is from the fourteenth century.  The sense of something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values (a medium) is from the fourteenth century although the use of mean (in the singular) meaning “an intermediate step or intermediate steps” is obsolete.  Originally from the fifteenth century, the use in music is now of historical or academic interest.  It referred to the middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music (or an alto instrument).  In statistics, since the fifteenth century, mean is simply understood as the average of a set of values, calculated by summing them together and dividing by the number of terms (the arithmetic mean).  In mathematics a mean can be (1) any function of multiple variables that satisfies certain properties and yields a number representative of its arguments, (2) the number so yielded (a measure of central tendency) or (3) either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion.

In mathematics and statistics, the mean is what is informally called “the average”, the sum of a set of values divided by the number (count) of those values.  The median is the middle number in a set of values when those values are arranged from smallest to largest, while the mode of a set of values is the most frequently repeated value in the set.

Mean is one of those words which pepper English; one word, one spelling, one pronunciation, yet a dozen or more meanings.  Mean however doesn’t come close to the top ten words in English with the most meanings, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) list is below but the editors caution by the time the next edition of the OED is released in 2037, for some there could be more meanings still; the influencing of computing has apparently already added several dozen to “run”.

Run: 645 definitions

Set: 430 definitions

Go: 368 definitions

Take: 343 definitions

Stand: 334 definitions

Get: 289 definitions

Turn: 288 definitions

Put: 268 definitions

Fall: 264 definitions

Strike: 250 definitions

Kimberley Kitching (1970–2022) was an Australian Labor Party (ALP) Senator for Victoria (2016-2022) who died from a heart attack in March 2022 at the age of 52.  Her death gained instant attention because in the days prior, two prominent sportsmen had also suffered heart attacks at the same age (one of them fatal) and there was the inevitable speculation about the possible involvement of the mysterious long-COVID or vaccinations.  No connection with either has yet been established.  One connection quickly made was with a triumvirate of female politicians, the ALP’s senate leadership group who were quickly dubbed “the mean girls”, a reference to 2004 Lindsay Lohan movie in which the eponymous girls were the “plastics” three self-obsessed school students whose lives were consumed by material superficialities and plotting & scheming against others.  

The mean girls (2022), left to right: Penny Wong (b 1968; cabinet minister in the Rudd / Gillard /Rudd governments 2007-2013, senator for South Australia since 2002), Katy Gallagher (b 1970; chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) 2011-2014, senator for the ACT 2015-2018 & since 2019) & Kristina Keneally (b 1968; premier of New South Wales 2009-2011, senator for New South Wales since February 2018).

The mean girls (2004), left to right: Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried (b 1985)), Regina George (Rachel McAdams (b 1978) & Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)).

Allegations the mean girls had bullied the late senator emerged just hours after her death and on social media there was little reluctance to link the events.  In a carefully-worded statement, Senators Gallagher, Keneally & Wong responded to what they described as “hurtful statements” denying they had bullied Senator Kitching and that other assertions were “similarly inaccurate” although they did concede “robust contests and interactions” were frequent in politics.  Senator Wong did admit to having made one unfortunate comment to Senator Kitching two years earlier and that, after it came to public attention, she had apologized.  Her office later expanded on this, issuing a statement saying “Senator Wong understood that apology was accepted.  The comments that have been reported do not reflect Senator Wong's views, as those who know her would understand, and she deeply regrets pain these reports have caused.”  Rather than discuss the suggestions of bullying, most (ie the usual suspects) focused on the use of a “gender-tainted lexicon”, sexist language clearly thought the greater sin.  Interestingly, the trio had previously been known as “the angels”, a reference to the 1970s television show Charlie's Angels which featured three admirably decorative young ladies being sent by their male controller to solve crimes; the implication of course being the “mean girls” tolerated as long as they did the bidding of the leader of the opposition.  “Misogyny, sexism, every day in every way...” as Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013) might have again remarked but at least the pop-culture reference was updated for later generations and it could have been worse: they might have been labelled "the good, the bad and the ugly".

In the thoughtful eulogy delivered at her funeral, Senator Kitching’s husband, Andrew Landeryou (b 1969; colorful ALP identity), referred on several occasions to the “unpleasantness” she had faced in the Senate, praising the moral courage his wife had displayed during her six years in the senate and her genuinely substantive contribution to public life, contrasting her with the “useful idiots, obedient nudniks and bland time-servers” so often seen sitting for decades on parliamentary benches.  “The simple truth of it is that Kimberley’s political and moral judgment was vastly superior to the small number who opposed her internally” he said, adding that “… of course, there’s a lot I could say about the unpleasantness of a cantankerous cabal - not all of them in parliament - that was aimed at Kimba, and the intensity of it did baffle and hurt her.”  Perhaps generously, he added he “…did not blame any one person or any one meeting for her death”, thought to be a reference to a recent meeting of the ALP’s Right faction at which her pre-selection for an electable Senate spot at the next election was reportedly threatened. 

Senators Gallagher, Keneally & Wong all attended the funeral as did the leader of the ALP and opposition leader Anthony Albanese (b 1963; leader of the opposition since 2019 and variously a minister or deputy prime-minister in the Rudd / Gillard / Rudd governments 2007-2013).  Mr Albanese rejected calls for an inquiry into claims of bullying, saying he had received “no complaints at any time” from Senator Kitching regarding bullies within the party and sought to shut down any further questions on the matter, saying they were disrespectful to Senator Kitching.  In saying that he certainly caught the spirit of the moment, none of the mainstream media making anything but the most oblique of references to the late senator’s colorful and sometimes controversial history as an ALP factional player and trade union operative but quite how long lasts the convention of not speaking ill of the dead will soon be revealed.

Mr Albanese wanting to kill the story is understandable and if he’s sure he has plausible deniability of prior knowledge it’s a reasonable tactic but it’s at least possible the best thing to do might have been to admit (1) all political parties have factions, (2) inter-faction bullying is the way business is done, (3) intra-faction bullying is endemic, (4) women and men are both victims and perpetrators but women tend to suffer more, (5) ‘twas ever thus and (6) it shall forever be thus.

Mr Albanese had used the “I know nothing” defense before and that too attracted a popular-culture comparison.  In 2013, ALP politician Craig Thomson (b 1964; former trade union official, member of parliament for the division of Dobell (NSW) 2007-2013, for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) until 2012, as an independent thereafter) was facing accusations of fraud, committed while a trade union official including the use of a union-issued credit card to pay for the services of prostitutes.  His legal problems have since worsened including further charges of fraud and domestic violence.

In 2013, in the midst of the scandal, Mr Albanese, then deputy prime-minister, and Mr Thomson were photographed having a couple of beers at Sydney’s Bavarian Bier Café.  It attracted some attention, even from within the party, one ALP luminary thinking it strange an ALP deputy prime minister should meet for a drink with someone accused of fraud and who the party had expelled from membership, labeling the meeting as “completely indefensible."  It was of interest too to the Liberal Party opposition which floated the idea that what was discussed over a few beers was a deal in case the ALP needed Mr Thomson's vote in another hung parliament, one spokesman framing things as "Fake Kevin Rudd (Kevin Rudd. b 1957; prime minister of Australia 2007-2010 & 2013) says, on the one hand, we're cleaning things up and, on the other hand, he is doing secret deals to try and run a minority government now and into the future."

Like Mr Albanese, Mr Rudd claimed to know nothing about his deputy’s meeting with Mr Thomson or its purpose.  Asked to comment, Mr Rudd said it was not his business who his deputy decided to drink with, saying he did “many things in life but supervising the drinking activities of my ministerial colleagues is not one of them."  "And who they choose to sit down with" he added.  Later, detailed questions were sent to Mr Rudd’s office which declined to comment about whether Mr Rudd knew beforehand of the meeting or if he had asked what had been discussed.  A spokesman said Mr Rudd had “nothing further to add.”  Mr Thomson insisted it was an innocent drink after the two former party colleagues ran into each other and there was no discussion of any political deals or of Mr Thomson returning to the ALP. "I'm not wooable" Mr Thomson was quoted as saying adding, “It was a completely innocent beer.  There is no conspiracy theory here.”

Mr Albanese said Mr Thomson was not a close friend of his but added that he often ran into colleagues at bars and that it was just “…a personal chat, that's all. No big deal."  That didn’t impress the Liberal Party’s then leader in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania since 1994, minister in various Coalition governments 2001-2015) who questioned how the pair could drink together given Mr Thomson's legal team was suing the LP, claiming the NSW ALP state secretary Sam Dastyari (b 1983; senator for NSW 2013-2018 before resigning in the midst of a Chinese-related donations scandal) had pledged to pay his legal costs.  "What is the deputy prime minister doing consorting in a Sydney bar with disgraced MP Craig Thomson at the Mr Thomson's lawyer is suing the NSW ALP?” Senator Abetz asked, presumably rhetorically.

Sydney Daily Telegraph, front page, Thursday 8 August 2013.

The Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph took the “I know nothing” excuses of Albanese and Rudd to their front page, the trope being the Hogan’s Heroes TV show produced by US network CBS between 1965-1971, one of the signature lines from which was “I know nothing” by Kommandant Colonel Clink’s slow-witted but affable Sergeant of the Guard, Hans Schultz.  Technically it worked but tropes and memes do rely on the material used registering in the public consciousness and that can be difficult when using a forty year old TV show no longer in widespread syndication.  For the Telegraph’s readers, mostly of an older demographic, it probably did register but some research might have been necessary for younger people, many of whom receive news only through social media feeds. 

For the same reason Donald Trump was disappointed his jibe about Pete Buttigieg (b 1982; contender for Democratic Party nomination for 2020 US presidential election, US secretary of transportation since 2021) and the absurdity of imagining Americans would vote for “Alfred E Neuman”, didn’t resonate.  It was just too long ago and too few knew about Mad magazine.  While there was quite a resemblance, and decades before it would have been a good line, in 2020 Buttigieg could dismiss it a “...must be a generational thing”.  By contrast, the mean girls line worked as well as it did because the film it references is both much more recent and, having hardly dated, retains an ongoing appeal.