Lede

Lede (pronounced leed)

(1) In hot-print typesetting, a deliberate misspelling of “lead”, created to avoid the possibility “lead” being used as text rather than being understood as an instruction.

(2) In journalism, a short summary serving as an introduction to a news story, article or other copy.

(3) In journalism, the main and thus the news item thought most important.

(4) A man; a person (and many related meanings, all obsolete).

Mid twentieth century:  An altered spelling of lead (in the sense used in journalism: “short introductory summary”), used in the printing trades to distinguish it from the homograph lead (in the sense of the “thin strip of type metal for increasing the space between lines of type” which was made of lead (pronounced led (rhyming with “dead”)) and use in this context has always been was rare outside the US.  The historic plural form (Middle English) was lede but in modern use in journalism it’s always ledes.

The historic use has been obsolete since the late sixteenth century.  The Middle English lede & leode (variously: man; human being, person; lord, prince; God; sir; group, kind; race; a people, nation; human race; land, real property, the subjects of a lord or sovereign; persons collectively (and other forms)) were connected to three closely related words (1) the Old English lēod (man; chief, leader; (poetic) prince; a people, people group; nation), (2) the Old English lēoda (man; person; native of a country (and related to lēod)) and (3) the Old English lēode (men; people; the people of a country (which was originally the plural of lēod)).  Lēod was derived from the Proto-West Germanic liud & liudi, from the Proto-Germanic liudiz (man; person; men; people), from the primitive Indo-European hléwdis (man, people) from hlewd- (to grow; people).  The bafflingly large array of meanings of lede in the Middle English is perhaps best encapsulated in the phrase “in all lede” (all the world).  It was related too to the Northumbrian dialectical form lioda (men, people) and was cognate with the German Leute (nation, people) and the Old High German liut (person, people), from the primitive Indo-European root leudh- (people), the source also of the Old Church Slavonic ljudu and the Lithuanian liaudis (nation, people).  Care must be taken if using lede in Sweden.  In the Swedish, lede was from the nominal use (masculine inflection) of the adjective led (evil), used in the synonym den lede frestaren (the evil tempter), understood as “the evil one, the loathsome or disgusting one; the devil, Satan”.

In modern use, lede was a deliberate misspelling of lead, one of a number of words created so they could be used in the instructions given to printers while avoid the risk they might appear in the text being set.  Lede could thus be used to indicate which paragraphs constitute the lede while avoiding any confusion with the word “lead” which might be part of the text to appear in an article.  The other created forms were “dek” (subhead or sub-heading (modified from “deck”)), hed (headline (modified from head)) and kum (used as “lede to kum” or “lede 2 kum” (a placeholder for “lead to come”)).  The technical terms were of some significance when the hot-typesetting process was used for printing.

It’s not clear when lede came into use in the printing trades, the dictionaries which maintain a listing are not consistent and the origin is suggested to date from anywhere between 1950-1976.  The difficulty is determining the date of origin is that the documents on which the words (lede, dek, hed, kum) appeared were ephemeral, created to be used on the day and discarded.  Lede move from the print factory floor to the newsroom to become part of the jargon of journalism, used to describe the main idea in the first few lines of a story, a device to entice a reader to persist (the idea of click-bait nothing new).  In much of the English-speaking world, the word in this context is spelled “lead” but lede remains common in the US.  In either form, it’s entered the jargon, the phrase "to bury the lede" meaning “unwittingly to neglect to emphasize the very most important part of the story (about an editor’s most damning critique) and “if it bleeds it ledes” means a dramatic story, preferably with explicit images, will be on the front page or be the first item of a news bulletin.

Beyond journalism, lede is sometimes used.  An auction site might for example have a “lede photograph”, the one which is though the most tempting and this attract the biggest audience (ie more click-bait).  In general use, it’s probably not helpful and likely only to confuse.  Henry Fowler (1858-1933) would doubtless have included its general use among what in his Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) he derided as a “pride of knowledge”: “...a very un-amiable characteristic and the display of it should sedulously be avoided” and to illustrated his point he said such vanities included “didacticism, French words, Gallicisms, irrelevant allusions, literary critics’ words, novelty hunting, popularized technicalities, quotations, superiority & word patronage.”  Ones suspects that outside of the print-shop, little would Henry Fowler have tolerated lede.

Others agree, suggesting the old sense from Middle English is now used only as a literary or poetic device and it’s otherwise the sort of conscious archaism of which Henry Fowler disapproved, a thing used only to impress others and beyond that, the modern form should never travel beyond wherever as a form of jargon it makes sense.  Still, there were word nerds who though it might have a future.  The US author William Safire (1929–2009) seemed to find hope in its prospects and even coined “misledeing” which might be tempting for editors searching for novel words with which berate neophyte writers.

International

International (pronounced in-ter-nash-uh-nl)

(1) Between or among nations; involving two or more nations.

(2) Of or relating to two or more nations or their citizens.

(3) Pertaining to the relations between nations.

(4) Any of the four international socialist or communist organizations formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (with initial capital letter).

(5) A labor union having locals in two or more countries.

(6) An organization, enterprise, or group, especially a major business concern, having branches, dealings, or members in several countries (often styled as multi-national or multinational).

(7) An employee, especially an executive, assigned to work in a foreign country or countries by a business or organization that has branches or dealings in several countries.

(8) A casual term for sporting matches played between national teams in many sports (rugby, cricket, football eta al) and applied also to individuals selected for those contests.

1780: A compound word, inter + national, coined apparently by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham  (1748-1832) in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1870) and appears also in A Plan for a Universal and Perpetual Peace (1786–1789) which forms part IV of the Principles of International Law.  Inter was from the Latin inter (between, amid), a form of prepositional inter (between).  Nation existed in Middle English as nacioun and nacion, borrowed from Old French nation, nacion and nasion (nation), from the Latin nātiōnem, accusative of nātiō and gnātiō (nation, race, birth) from natus & gnatus, past participle stem of nasci & gnasci (to be born).  In displaced the native Middle English when it emerged as theode, thede (nation), from the Old English þēod, the Middle English burthe (birth, nation, race, nature) and the Middle English leod, leode, lede (people, race), all ultimately from the Old English root lēod.  Variations of nation exist in most European languages including the Saterland Frisian nation, the West Frisian naasje, the Dutch natie, the Middle Low German nacie and the German, Danish and Swedish nation.

The socialist hymn The Internationale was written in 1871 by French anarchist (and confessed freemason) Eugène Pottier (1816-1887) and the International Date Line (IDL) was first standardized in 1884 (although it's since been tinkered with for reasons reasons both administrative and opportunistic).  Multinational, in the sense of trans-national corporations was first noted in 1921 and is often used in a derogatory manner; when CEO of Ford Motor Company in the mid-1970s, Lee Iacocca (1924-2019) was sensitive to this and said he preferred the term internationalism.  That never caught on, probably because it had traditionally been a word associated with the left and fellow travelers with faith first in the League of Nations (LN; 1920-1946) and subsequently the United Nations (UN; 1945). 

The Internationals

The International Workingmen's Association (later known as the First International) was an international structure intended to unite a myriad of anarchist, socialist and communist political groups with the still embryonic trade union movements.  Essentially, it was meant to be a broad, left-wing, working-class organization devoted to bringing the class struggle to fruition.  Founded in 1864, it quickly gained a membership of millions but, by 1872, communist and anarchist factions had split the movement; it was dissolved in 1876.

The Second International was formed in 1889 as a grouping of the newly-created socialist and labour political parties.  Although emblematic of the utopian spirit in the workers’ parties of the pre-1914 world, the Second International did attempt to construct coherent platforms and was in some way a precursor of the march through the institutions approach three generations later.  They attempted to exclude from their councils the anarcho-syndicalists and unionists who had splintered the First International but in this had limited success.  The Second International was dissolved in 1916 amid much rancor, both about (1) the way leaders of labour parties seemed anxious to collaborate with the capitalists becoming, in effect, a stratum above the working class and (2) the way, on nationalist grounds, they supported their own bourgeois in the bloody slaughter of the First World War.

The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International was formed in 1919 as an outgrowth of the creation of the Soviet Union and, in its original formation, advocated world communism.  This was to be achieved by “…all available means, including armed force” and aimed to overthrow the international bourgeoisie to be replaced by an international soviet republic as a transitional phase before the “…complete abolition of the state".  The vicissitudes of history gradually wore this down to the point where Soviet practice, if not orthodoxy, had become “socialism in one state”.  Ostensibly to improve relations with London and Washington (although his motives were influenced more by a desire to weaken parts of the communist movement), Comrade Stalin unexpectedly dissolved the Third International in 1943.

Comrade Stalin & Comrade Trotsky.

The Fourth International was founded in 1938 by Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), directly to oppose what Soviet communism had become under Comrade Stalin (1878-1953) which Comrade Trotsky considered counter-revolutionary and essentially a fascist state under the control of a bureaucratic elite directed by Stalin.  The Fourth International suffered its own splits and, despite attempts at re-unification, no longer exists as a single trans-national grouping.  However, with its inherently anti-authoritarian core, the doctrines of the Fourth International retain a popular, almost romantic following and around the planet there exist Trotskyite groups for those attracted by the defense of workers' internationalism.  Comrade Stalin had Comrade Trotsky assassinated in 1940; the murder weapon an ice-axe.  In the way of these things, calls for a fifth international were heard only months after the formation of the Fourth.  Indeed, in response to the increasingly plaintive cries, over the decades, several were announced but all soon withered away.  Still longed for by a handful, the movements seem never to have progressed beyond the stage of running lamington drives.

Lindsay Lohan with former special friend Samantha Ronson, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), 2008.

Scrofulous

Scrofulous (pronounced skrof-yuh-luhs)

(1) In pathology, pertaining to, resembling, of the nature of, or affected with scrofula.

(2) In figurative use, degraded, morally tainted or degenerate.

(3) In figurative use, Having an unkempt, unhealthy appearance.

1605–1615: The construct was scroful(a) + -ous.  Scrofula (primary tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, especially those of the neck) dates from 1350–1400, from the Middle English scrofula (the plural), from the Medieval Latin scrophulosus & scrōfulae (swollen glands in the neck (literally “little sows”)), the construct being scrōf(a) (a sow) + -ulae (the plural suffix), the derivation explained by the belief breeding sows were particularly susceptible to the disease.  Scrofula is most common in children and is usually spread by unpasteurized milk from infected cows; No longer in technical use, scrofula was also known as “the king’s evil”; as part of the mystique of monarchy, the kings of England and France long pretended to possess the power of curing scrofula by touching the sore, a belief which endured and as late as the eighteenth century, there were still doctors who believed the only cure was to be touched by a member of a royal family.  Improvements in social conditions and treatment meant scrofula became a less common disease in adults by mid- twentieth century although it persisted in children.  With the spread of HIV-AIDS reaching critical mass in the 1980s, there was a resurgence in scrofula and it’s been linked also with monkeypox.  Despite the similarity is spelling, the word scruff is unrelated, being an Old English term for dandruff, the generalized sense of someone who is “rough and dirty” (and thus scruffy) dates from 1871.  Scrofulous is an adjective, scrofulously is an adverb and scrofulousness & scrofuloderma are nouns

The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Scott Morrison's five other jobs

Prime-Minister Scott Morrison in parliament while also holding five ministerial appointments.

The revelation former Australian prime-minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; prime minister of Australia 2018-2022), in much secrecy, had himself appointed himself to five ministerial roles in addition to being the head of government attracted some interest.  The public reaction was muted given the rather arcane administrative mechanisms involved but the usual suspects (journalists and political commentators) seemed to think it a great scandal, an opinion loudly and repeatedly expressed by Her Majesty’s loyal opposition who seemed most interested of all.  Others who had their attention stirred were those of his former colleagues (including the Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)) who were unaware they were job-sharing with the prime-minister until they read about it in the Murdoch press.

Between March 2020 and May 2021, Mr Morrison, on paper, appeared to centralize power in his office by becoming Australia's minister of health, finance, resources, home affairs and the treasury.  In practice, the powers accrued seem to have been exercised only once but that was in a way which appears to violate the agreement between the Liberal and National parties which provides the parameters for the coalition arrangements maintained in government.  Even that, whatever the political implications, doesn’t seem to suggest anything unlawful and the general conclusion which has emerged is that the additional appointments were constitutional.  Whether there are technical reasons which operate to mean the parliament should have been informed is a matter for debate but unarguably, to do so is at least a convention.

Minister for Health #1 & Minister for Health #2 (#2 a replica rather than a fake or imitation).

The This uncertainty and the opposition’s inability to cite specific unlawfulness is why the attack on Mr Morrison was received, outside of the usual suspects, with such indifference, the suggestion of a general moral scrofulousness hardly the same thing as a smoking gun.  What the strange tale did provide was an opportunity for the amateur psychoanalysts to ponder Mr Morrison’s motives and map them onto his well-known world view which is that of an evangelical, born-again Christian.  In justifying his actions because the COVID-19 pandemic meant “these were unprecedented times which required extraordinary measures” and that “no prime-minister… had faced the same circumstances” and added that "there was a clear expectation established in the public's mind, certainly in the media's mind, and absolutely in the mind of the opposition… that I, as Prime Minister, was responsible pretty much for every single thing that was going on".  It was an interesting observation given that almost immediately the pandemic was declared an ad-hoc “national cabinet” was convened, consisting of the prime-minister and the eight premiers & chief-ministers and there was at least as much focus on that eight as there was on the prime-minister.

That was of course inevitable because of the way the Australian constitutions divides the heads of power between the Commonwealth and the states and Mr Morrison, during the pandemic, showed little hesitation in ascribing responsibility for many unpopular measures to the premiers.  In that he was quite correct and there is little to suggest there was a public perception focused wholly on him.  Indeed, what the operations of governments during the pandemic did illustrate was just how extensive are the residual powers of the states, despite a century or more of centralization of power by the actions of the Commonwealth and decision of the High Court.  Still, Mr Morrison says he felt the way he did and was presumably content to be the savior of the nation at its moment of need, an intoxicating prospect for any politician.

Despite the frequency with which it’s used, no edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has ever used the term "messiah complex" (a desire and compulsion to redeem or save others or the world, a form of megalomania in which the individual experiences delusions of grandeur) although other diagnosis are listed which contain at least some of the elements which are understood as being identified with the syndrome.  Of course, there was also the matter of him not trusting some of his ministers to be sufficiently competent to deal with a genuine crisis and it has to be admitted some of his more average ministers (some of them very average) didn’t inspire confidence.

In the chair: Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference.  A Peace Conference at the Quai d’Orsay (1919), oil on canvas by William Orpen (1878–1931).

Those who believe in God, miracles, and that divine providence has chosen them for a special role probably don’t often trouble themselves with tiresome details, something the British diplomat Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) noted of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924; US president 1913-1921) at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920): “That spiritual arrogance which seems inseparable from the harder form of religion had eaten deep into his soul”.  “This intellectual disability rendered him blindly impervious, not merely to human character, but also shades of difference.  He possessed no gift for differentiation, no capacity for adjustment to circumstances.  It was his spiritual and mental rigidity which proved his undoing.  It rendered him as incapable of withstanding criticism as of absorbing advice.  It rendered him blind to all realities which did not accord with his own preconceived theory, even to the realities of his own decisions”.

Most interesting perhaps is that the revelation of this matter is a story in itself and one which seems to confirm Mr Morrison’s sincerity of purpose in originally having himself created minister of this and that.  Because, in constitutional theory, ministers exercise the powers of the sovereign and many of those powers are limited to a particular minister, in a time of crisis, it can make things worse if a minister is unavailable.  Mr Morrison says he thought at the time the pandemic was declared, the information from overseas was dire and it wasn’t impossible that were the virus to take hold in Australia, it was not impossible ministers might drop dead (the Lord forbid, obviously) and it was thus a sensible precaution to have a backup for ministers serving in critical areas.  Not wishing to burden others, he assumed the duties himself.

Prime-ministerial intrusions into matters beyond their remit have over the years been a thread in a number of memoirs by members of cabinets who at times felt usurped but Mr Morrison's actually cloning and in parallel assuming another's constitutional authority was most unusual.  Some however were interested in other fields and, responding to accusations prime-minister Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) was too activist in the conduct of the war and too inclined to interfere in military tactics and strategy, the political cartoonist David Low (1891-1963) in 1942 commented by depicting the PM as a politician-cum-general-cum-admiral-cum-air-marshal.  There was something in the criticism in that much like Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and others not professional soldiers, Churchill was interested in grand strategy and the minutiae of detail like the calibre of shells but not the vast logistical & organizational operations which tend ultimately to determine success or failure.  Churchill certainly tried to exert influence on his military advisors in favor of his pet projects (of which there were many) and while some were inspired and (especially in the early stages of US involvement in the conflict) wise, the war effort was undoubtedly aided by the chiefs of staff resisting some of his more Napoleonic visions of battle, ensuring Quixotic ventures in the Baltic or the Far East never proceeded.                 

The multiple ministries Mr Morrison discussed some two years ago, in a matter-of-fact manner, with two journalists writing a book about the pandemic.  That this wasn’t revealed for two years seems to be simply because it was a good, juicy bit of the book which the authors didn’t wish to reveal in advance.  When it was published, it was mentioned just as an interesting aspect of pandemic management with not a hint it might be thought improper or even unusual, the secrecy mentioned but only in the sense of it be just one of the many things governments keep secret, so as not to frighten the horses.  It made the front page of the national daily but not as the headline, only a “color” piece rather than the lede, the details on page 2 while the main story was within, a discussion of the book.  Intriguingly for students for media management and the generation of moral panics, the media essentially ignored the story for two days before joining the opposition’s bandwagon attempting to paint the former prime-minister as morally scrofulous.  At that point it did get more interesting, Mr Morrison having appointed himself to five portfolios rather than the two he mentioned and that he’d actually once exercised the powers secretly vested and in a matter which had nothing to do with the pandemic.  What may be of interest is what's not (yet) known.  Whether the power Mr Morrison enjoyed as being minister of this and that was exercised to allocate public money for some purpose isn't known but if such allocations did in secret happen would be a matter pursue.  If the appointments were lawful (as all assume) there presumably any exercise of ministerial power would presumably also be lawful, however politically toxic it may retrospectively prove.  Case law will be of no guide because there have never been, as far as is known, any such cases.    

A quizzical look.  Mr Morrison, who still can't see what all the fuss is about.

Mr Morrison did call a press conference and there the evasive answers and obfuscation began.  His response to his actual exercise of one minister’s nominal authority was so carefully lawyered it should be a model answer for any law student explaining what a minister must do to conform with the demands of administrative law and in claiming he would publicly have advised of his appointment(s) had he exercised the power(s) was simply an untruth.  When asked why he’d vetoed something within the remit of the resources minister, he’d responded that it was within his power as prime-minister.  Still, however economical with the truth he may have been, all appears to have been lawful and presumably if God was that concerned about lying, he’d have added an eleventh commandant.