Lilo

Lilo (pronounced lahy-loh)

(1) The trademark for a type of inflatable plastic or rubber mattress, often used when in lakes, swimming pools etc.

(2) As a generic term, any inflatable mattress, especially those used recreationally in lakes, swimming pools etc).

(3) The portmanteau slang synonym for Li(ndsay) Lo(han); it was also applied as the name of a dance Ms Lohan performed ad-hoc on the Greek island of Mykonos in 2018.

(4) As LILO, the acronym for Li(nux) Lo(ader), an early (1991-2015) boot loader for the Linux operating system.

(5) As LILO, in computing, organizational management, accountancy and behavioral science, as the acronym for L(ast) I(n), L(ast) O(ut), a companion unit descriptor to FIFO (First In, First Out) & FILO (First in Last Out), all methods with which to organize the manipulation of data structures.  Under LILO, the last object in a queue is the last object to leave the queue.

1944: The trademark name Lilo (originally Li-Lo) registered by the company which made inflatable air-mattresses of rubberized canvas dates from the 1940s (1944 in the UK; 1947 in the US) and was a sensational spelling based on the phonetic “lie low”.  Lilo also exists in other languages: In the Philippines, in the Cebuano language a lilo is a swirling body of water or a large and violent whirlpool (a maelstrom) while in Tagalog it’s an adjective meaning disloyal; unfaithful; traitorous; treacherous (the synonyms being taksil, sukab, mapagkanulo & traydor).  In Hawaiian, Lilo is a feminine given name meaning “generous one” although in some traditions in the islands it can be translated as “lost” so the song He Mele No Lilo translates (loosely) as “Lullaby of the Lost”.  Lilo is a noun, the noun plural is lilos.

The Li-Lo Kayak, 1960.  The car depicted is a stylized rendition of an early version of one from the Rootes Group's "Audax" range (1956–1967).

The technology of the lilo was adaptable and able to assume various shapes, the LiLo company dabbling in a number of market niches including furniture, packaging and inflatable canoes.  The Kayak however was complex in construction so its production was thus labor intensive so it never sold in the numbers required to achieve the economies of scale which could have lowered the price and at Stg£25 (over Stg£500 in 2022 values) it was too expensive to succeed.  The idea has however been revived in the twenty-first century and "lilo & inflatable kayak" adventure tourism is now a thing.

The Bravissimo Lilo

The joke which buyers took seriously: the Bravissimo Lilo.

Bravissimo's Lilo appeared originally in 2018 as an April Fools' prank but such was the demand it was put into production and is now Bravissimo part-number SW571, available exclusively in hot pink.  Although there have since the 1940s been improvements in materials (lilos are made usually from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or textile-reinforced urethane plastic or rubber), the innovation on Bravissimo's is the first structural change in design in seventy-five years.  Integrating what the manufacturer calls “cup holders” the unique feature is a one-size-fits-all lacuna at the appropriate position so the breasts may comfortably rest un-squished when a woman is supine, lying face-down

Room to move: One size fits all.

Even Bravissimo, an underwear company which specializes in the niche of bigger boobs, admits they really should have thought of this before, given the discomfort suffered by lilo-using women tends to increase in direct proportion to cup-size.  It’s available in-store in some Bravissimo outlets and on-line at Stg£28 (US$45).

No longer one size fits all: Crash test dummies (CTD) now more inclusive.

Perhaps Bravissimo being nudged into making available a lilo which took account of women's unique anatomical differences inspired others because, some fifty years after they came into use, Swedish engineers have at last developed a crash-test dummy (CTD; "seat evaluation tool" the technical term) representative of the body of a typical woman.  Until now, almost all CTDs have been based on the build and weight of a typical adult male.  In most markets however, women however have long represented about half of all drivers and passengers yet the CTD manufacturers and regulators used in testing as a proxy for women was a scaled-down version of the male one, roughly the size of a typical girl of twelve and at 1.49m (4', 8") and weighing 48kg (106 lb), in accord with only the smallest 5% of women by the standards of the mid-1970s.  The new CTD is a more representative 1.62 m (5', 3") tall, weighing in at 62kg (137 lb).

The need for a range of CTD with characteristics covering most of the population was discussed in the 1960s when US regulators began to write the first standards for automotive safety but industry lobbyists did their work and ensured crash-testing would be done as cheaply as possible, hence the standard, one-size-fits-all male analogue.  Despite years of convincing research which confirmed women were disproportionately injured in crashes (height rather than weight apparently the critical variable in the interaction of their smaller frames with seat-belts and air-bags), it wasn't until 2011 that US federal regulators required manufacturers to use more petite CTDs in frontal automotive crash tests.  It's hoped the new, Swedish-developed CTD will improve outcomes and the data from physical testing will soon be available for use in the increasingly important computer emulations, a field in which artificial intelligence (AI) is proving useful.

Lindsay Lohan: Studies of Lilo lying low in three aspects.

Lindsay Lohan’s moniker LiLo is a blend, the construct being Li(ndsay) + Lo(han).  Being based on proper nouns, in linguistics this would by most be regarded a pure blend, although some would list it as a portmanteau which is a special type of blend in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word (and some insist that in true portmanteaus there must be some relationship between the source words and the result).

Moniker

Moniker (pronounced mon-i-ker)

(1) A personal name or nickname as an informal label, often drawing attention to a particular attribute; sometimes also used in commerce.

(2) In computing, an object (an instance of structured data) used to associate the name of an object with its location; many coders prefer “tag”.

1849: Moniker is perhaps from the Irish Shelta munik, munika &  mŭnnik (name), said to be a permutation and extension of Irish ainm (name).  Earlier scholars said it was originally a hobo term, dating it from 1851 and of uncertain origin, perhaps from monk (monks and nuns take new names with their vows) and noted British tramps of the period referred to themselves as “in the monkery”.  Monekeer is attested among the London underclass from 1851 and there were those who claimed to detect “a certain Coptic or Egyptian twang” but, given the uncertainty, all conclude the origin can be only uncertain and the ideas of it being (1) a back-slang of the Middle English ekename (the construct being eke (also, additionally) +‎ name), (2) a corruption of monogram (in the sense of “a signature”), (3) from monarch in the egotistical sense of “I, myself” or (4) from “monk” (monks and nuns take new names with their vows) are all speculative and there’s certainly no link with the primitive Indo-European root no-men (name).  The (rare) alternative forms were monacer, monicker & moniker. Moniker is a noun; the noun plural is monikers.

Lindsay Lohan doing the LiLo, Mykonos, Greece, 2018.

Lindsay Lohan’s moniker LiLo is a blend, the construct being Li(ndsay) + Lo(han).  Being based on proper nouns, in linguistics this would by most be regarded a pure blend, although some would list it as a portmanteau which is a special type of blend in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word (and some insist that in true portmanteaus there must be some relationship between the source words and the result).  As a proper noun in its own right, “Lilo” means “generous One” and its origin is Hawaiian although in some traditions in the islands it can be translated as “lost”.  The LiLo name was also adopted as the name of an impromptu dance Ms Lohan performed in 2018 at the Lohan Beach House on the Greek Island of Mykonos.

English has a tradition of accumulation many words to mean much the same thing and this can be handy because it allows nuances of use to emerge.  Moniker has as one of those words which, despite there being many better-known and probably better understood synonyms, offers variety, a linguistic flourish that doesn’t suffer the boring familiarity of “nickname” or the dubious connotations of “alias”.  The other related forms include epithet, byname, pseudonym, sobriquet pen-name & to-name.  By some typically strange process, in English the French nom de plume (pen-name) is common whereas among the French nom de guerre (literally, “name of war”, referring to the pseudonyms used during wars) is used for all purposes.  The more recent creation "nom de Web" was a humorous coining for those operating on the internet under a cloak of anonymity although for those who object to mixing linguistic sources for such things there was also nom de clavier, the construct being the French nom (name) + de (of) + clavier (keyboard).  Of course, even someone using a nom de clavier will be able to pay their monthly US$8 and attach to it a Twitter blue tick.

The moniker in modern US politics

Monikers in politics are nothing new but Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination and subsequently the presidency then and in 2020 was an example of democratic politics adopting the techniques of reality television and his application of derisive monikers to his opponents proved quite effective in 2016.  The campaign team took the idea seriously from the start, workshopping the possibilities in focus groups to find which gained the best response.  It turned out, based on data from the focus groups there was nothing to choose between crooked Hillary and lying Hillary (as one might imagine) but this was just another big TV show so Trump picked the one he preferred.  Crooked Hillary’s loss was Ted Cruz’s gain: He became Lyin’ Ted which was remembered when, rather than sharing the cold with his those who he represents when Texas froze under a polar vortex, the flew off to sunny Mexico for a vacation.  He was immediately dubbed flyin’ Ted.  The monikers are also recycled “crazy” briefly tried for crooked Hillary, used for Bernie Sanders and later for Liz Chaney, the last use probably because of the attractiveness of the cadence.  The opposing campaign teams noted both phenomenon and effect but all decided they either didn’t wish to adopt the technique or it was too late and to come up with a dirty Donald or cheating Donald or whatever, would have seemed an unoriginal reaction.  They were probably right to resist temptation.

The class of 2016: (1) Tez Cruz: Lyin’ Ted, (2) Marco Rubio: Little Marco, (3) Elizabeth Elizabeth Warren: Pocahontas, (4) Pete Buttigieg: Alfred E Neuman, (5) Michael Bloomfield: Mini Mike, (6) Jeb Bush: Low Energy Jeb, (7), Hillary Clinton: Crooked Hillary, (8) Bernie Sanders: Crazy Bernie.

Some of the memorable monikers Mr Trump has deployed over the years include: Wacky Bill Cassidy, Sleepin' Bob Casey, Low-Polling Liz Cheney, Wacky Susan Collins, Leakin' James Comey, Shadey James Comey, Slimeball James Comey, Slippery James Comey, Ron DeSanctimonious (Ron DeSantis), Leaking Dianne Feinstein, Jeff Flakey, (Jeff Flake), Rejected Senator Jeff Flake, Al Frankenstein (Al Franken), Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Nasty Kamala (Kamala Harris) Phony Kamala Harris, Corrupt Kaine (Tim Kaine), Cryin' Adam Kinzinger, Senator Joe Munchkin (Joe Manchin), Broken Old Crow (Mitch McConnell), Evan McMuffin (Evan McMullin), Disaster from Alaska (Lisa Murkowski), Fat Jerry (Jerry Nadler), Eva Perón (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), Foul Mouthed Omar (Ilhan Omar), Dummy Beto (Beto O'Rourke), Truly weird Senator Rand Paul, Nancy Antoinette (Nancy Pelosi), Nervous Nancy Pelosi, The Nutty Professor (Bernie Sanders), Adam Schitt (Adam Schiff), Pencil Neck (Adam Schiff), Weirdo Tom Steyer, Goofy Elizabeth Warren, Low-IQ Maxine Waters, That woman from Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer) and Gretchen Half-Whitmer (Gretchen Whitmer).

Sleepy Joe and wife on the campaign trail, 2020.

Even Trump however probably had to reign in his worst instincts, of which there are many.  He must have been tempted to persist calling Joe Biden sleepy-creepy Joe because of the long history of hair-sniffing photographs but, given his own record of locker-room talk, perhaps thought an allusion to senility might be safer.  Sleepy Joe it became although he’d previously flirted with Corrupt Joe, Basement Biden, Beijing Biden, China Joe, Quid Pro Joe and Slow Joe.  Had it been twenty years earlier, he’d probably have dismissed Pete Buttigieg with the gay slur Mayor Buttplug but times have changed.  He actually struggled to find some way successfully to disparage Buttigieg, finally picking up a reference to the Mad Magazine character Alfred E Neuman.  Buttigieg successfully deflected that echo from the analogue age, claiming never to have heard of Alfred E Neuman and suggesting it might be a “generational thing”, the cultural moment having passed.  It may also have been a good tactic; Ronald Reagan’s campaign staff never cared if anyone said he was too ignorant to be president but worried greatly if anyone suggested he was too old.  All the same, between Buttigieg and Neuman, there is some resemblance.

The pot calling the kettle black: Donald Trump in action.

One of the more recent to emerge was Ron DeSanctimonious to describe Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who a well-regarded betting site currently lists as the $2.10 favorite for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 with Mr Trump at $3.10 and all others as outsiders.  Perhaps surprisingly, the Democrat field is more closely contested although Sleepy Joe remains the favorite though it’s a long way out and even Crooked Hillary Clinton is at only $26.00 which doesn’t seem long odds considering the history.  Ron DeSanctimonious has lots of syllables so isn’t as punchy as some of the earlier monikers but Mr Trump has a habit of trying them out to see how they catch on and replacing anything which doesn’t work and in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial election he confirmed he voted for DeSantis so there's that.  However, long words can work well if they roll easily off the tongue which is why Pocahontas gained resonance.  Donald Trump dubbed Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas because of her claim to Native American ancestry which proved dubious but others were more clever still, referring to her as Fauxcahontas.  That was actually an incorrect use necessitated by the need of rhyme and word formation; technically she was a Fakecahontas but as a word it doesn’t work as well.  People anyway seemed to get the point: as a Native American, she was fake, bogus, phoney.

Mr Trump in November 2022 announced he'd be seeking the Republican Party's nomination again in 2024 so monikers old and new might again be deployed although, gloating somewhat over the disappointing performance of Trump-aligned candidates in the mid-term elections, Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The New York Post ran the headline "Trumpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall".  The Trumpty Dumpty line wasn't original, memes and books having circulated for years, but, News Corp having given the lead, it'll be interesting to see if that starts a trend among what Mr Trump calls "the fake news media".       

Portmanteau

Portmanteau (pronounced pawrt-man-toh)

(1) A case or bag to carry clothing in while traveling, made usually from stiff leather, hinged at the back so as to open out into two compartments

(2) A word created by blending two or more existing words.

1580s (for the travelling case (flexible traveling case or bag for clothes and other necessaries)): From the Middle French portemanteau (travelling bag, literally "(it) carries (the) cloak").  The original meaning from the 1540s was “court official who carried a prince's mantle" from porte, (imperative of porter (to carry) + manteau (cloak)).  The correct plural is portmanteaux but in modern English use, portmanteaus (following the conventions for constructing plurals in English) is now more common.  In the nineteenth century, the word was sometimes Englished as portmantle, a use long extinct.  The notion of the portmanteau word (word blending the sound of two different words) was coined by Lewis Carroll (pen-name of Charles L. Dodgson; 1832-1898) in 1871 for the constructions he invented for Alice Through the Looking-Glass such as Jabberwocky, his poem about the fabulous beast the Jabberwock.  Portmanteau in this sense has existed as a noun since 1872.

Vintage Louis Vuitton Portmanteau, typically circa US$50-80,000 depending on condition.

A portmanteau word, a linguistic blend, differs from contractions and compounds.  Contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as do + not to make don't, whereas a portmanteau word is joins two or more words that relate to the one contractual theme.  A compound word is merely the joining for words in their original form (eg under + statement) without any truncation of the blended words.  Portmanteau words (eg breakfast & lunch to create brunch) always modifies at least one of the original stems.

Lindsay Lohan's handy moniker Lilo (the construct being Li(ndsay) + Lo(han) and it's used sometimes as LiLo) is a portmanteau word.

The word portmanteau was first used in this sense by Lewis Carroll in Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1871) where the concept is helpfully explained by Humpty Dumpty.  Less erudite but just as amusing was the creation of refudiate by Sarah Palin when she got confused and conflated refute and repudiate although it’s unclear whether she knew the meaning of either.  Even those created or used by more literate folk are not always accepted.  Irregardless (portmanteau of regardless and irrespective) seems to stir strong feelings of antipathy in pedants who generally won’t accept it even as a non-standard form and insist it’s simply wrong.  Other languages also create blended forms as needed.  The title of Emile Habibi’s 1974 novel was translated from Arabic utashaʔim (pessimist) + mutafaʔil (optimist) into English as The Pessoptimist.  Arabic linguistic traditions however prefer acronyms and compounds which sometimes overlap.  The group known variously as ISIL or ISIS (although they came to prefer "caliphate" or "Islamic State" (IS)) first adopted the name ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām (Islamic State if Iraq and the Levant) which is usually written as Daesh or Da'ish.  IS think this derogatory as it resembles the Arabic words daes (one who tramples underfoot) and dāhis (those who sows discord).  IS threatened to punish those who use Daesh or Da'ish with a public flogging; repeat offenders promised the cutting out of the tongue.

In the manufacture of big words, English is unlikely ever to match the Germans.  Until changes in EU regulations rendered it obsolete, the longest word in the Fourth Reich was rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz (law delegating beef label monitoring).  Currently, the longest word accepted by German dictionaries is kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung (automobile liability insurance), editors rejecting donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenswitwe (widow of a Danube steamboat company captain) because of rarity of use.

Terpsichore

Terpsichore (pronounced turp-sik-uh-ree)

(1) In Classical Mythology, the goddess of dancing and choral song and one of the nine Muses who were daughters of Zeus (god of sky and thunder) & Mnemosyne (the goddess of memory).

(2) In choreography; the art of dancing (should always be lowercase).

(3) In astronomy (as 81 Terpsichore), a main belt asteroid.

Circa 1760: From the Classical Latin Terpsichorē from the Ancient Greek Τερψιχόρη (Terpsikhórē) (literally “enjoyment of dance”), noun use of the feminine of terpsíchoros (delighting in the dance), the construct being τέρψις (térpsis; térpein) (to delight; enjoyment) + χορός (khorós) (dance; chorus); it’s from terpsíchoros that English gained chorus.  The Greek was térpein was from the primitive Indo-European root terp- (to satisfy) source also of Sanskrit trpyati (takes one's fill) and the Lithuanian tarpstu & tarpti (to thrive, prosper).

The adjective terpsichorean (pertaining to dancing (literally “of Terpsichore”)) dates from 1869, and was from the Latinized form of the Greek noun terpsikhore (Muse of dancing and dramatic chorus).  From this came the theatrical slang terp (stage dancer, chorus girl) noted since 1937.  The adjectival form terpsichorean often appears with an initial capital letter because of its etymology from a proper noun.  Either is acceptable but the conventions of Modern English tend eventually to prevail which suggests use of the capital T will reduce with time but, given the rarity of the word except in a few technical and historical disciplines, the classic form is likely to endure among those few who enjoy its use.

In the mythology of Ancient Greece, nine goddesses ruled over art and literature.  The Greeks called them Muses and the Muse of dance and choral music was Terpsichore.  Of late she’s been of interest to astronomers who adopted her as a metaphor for the rhythm and ordered movement in the universe, such as mechanical oscillations.  In Archaic Greece, there were but three Muses, all associated with song and dance; it was only in the classical period they became nine and assigned to distinct spheres: Calliope of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Erato of love poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Polyhymnia of hymns, Thalia of comedy, Urania of astronomy, and Terpsichore of dance and choral music.  The daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, they dwelt in the land of Pieria in the foothills of Mount Olympus.  In later mythology, writers tended to compare the Muses to the sirens but while both were young nymphs famous for their beautiful songs, the Muses sang to enrich men’s souls while the sirens were chthonic and sang to lure them to their deaths.

The Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484-425 BC) wrote his Ἱστορίαι (historíai̯; in the West styled variously as The History or The Histories of Herodotus)) as an account of the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BC).  Although there was once some doubt about the veracity as a historical document (reflecting more the scepticism about medieval editors and translators than the original texts), modern research has concluded the work is one of the most reliable histories from antiquity.  Herodotus was called “The Father of History” by the Roman orator Cicero (103-46 BC) because of the quality of his writing but he's also now acknowledged as the father of historiography's modern structural form.  Written histories had existed prior to Herodotus but he was the first to adopt a recognizably modern thematic form.  At some unknown time, one or more editors reorganized The History into nine chapters, each name after a Muse, one of which was Terpsichore:  Book I (Clio), Book II (Euterpe), Book III (Thalia), Book IIII (Melpomene), Book V (Terpsichore), Book VI (Erato), Book VII (Polymnia), Book VIII (Urania) & Book IX (Calliope).

The Muse Terpsichore In Ancient & Modern Greece.  Allegory of the Muse Terpsichore playing a harp, from the Florentine School of the eighteenth century, oil on canvas by an unknown artist (left) and Lindsay Lohan dancing The Lilo, Lohan Beach House, Mykonos, Greece, 2018 (right).

Despite the similarity, there’s no verified connection between khorós (dance; chorus) and χώρᾱς (khṓrās), inflection of χώρᾱ (khṓrā) (location, place, spot; the proper place; one's place in life; piece of land: tract, land, field; country (as opposed to a city or town), countryside; country, nation.  The origin of khôra is unknown and it may be from a Pre-Greek substrate or other regional language although speculative links have been suggested including χᾰ́ος (kháos) (empty space, abyss, chasm) and χατέω (khatéō) (to lack, miss, need, desire) but few etymologists have supported either and the lack of cognates beyond the Greek rendered research a dead end.  Khōra had been adopted as the ancient name for the land lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers north of Babylon (modern-day Iraq), from the Greek mesopotamia (khōra (literally "a country between two rivers)), from the feminine of mesopotamos, the construct being mesos (middle), from the primitive Indo-European root medhyo- (middle") + potamos (river).  That use borrowed directly from the discussions from Antiquity.

However, khôra did attract the interest of those scourges of late twentieth century linguistics: the French deconstructionists.  Their attention seems to have been excited by the concept of khôra in the sense of “the territory of the Ancient Greek polis which lay beyond the city proper”.  The philosophers of Antiquity, noting the idea of khôra simultaneously as (1) the physical space between city & the wilderness, (2) the time it takes to transverse the space and (3) one’s state of mind while in the space.  It was very much a concept of the indeterminate, a triton genos (third kind), being neither civilization nor the state of nature and city nor wilderness and few things so appealed to the deconstructionists as the indeterminate.

Of course, one attraction of deconstruction was that it was in itself a layer of indeterminacy and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), post-modernism’s most famous explorer of khôra in the context of apophatism or negative theology, was interested not how the word had been understood in the traditions of metaphysics & metaphorics but what meaning could be constructed for something which is neither present or absent, passive or active.  The findings from khôra’s time on post-modernism’s autopsy table did illustrate why deconstruction gained a special role in language because there was surely no other way that Plato’s entirely cosmological concept could become psycho-linguistic and produce, in all seriousness, the idea of khôra as “container of the uncontainable”.  Plato (circa 425-circa 347 BC) had imagined khôra as that space through which something could pass but in which nothing could remain so thus to a French deconstructionist the very essence of tout autre (fully other) and from there it wasn’t very far to the idea of khôra also as time and space interacting.  At that point, in the tradition of post-modernism, khôra meant whatever the observer decided it meant.

The Terpsichore in Modern Greece: Lindsay Lohan dancing The Lilo, Lohan Beach House, Mykonos, Greece, 2018.

Manhattan

Manhattan (pronounced man-hat-n or muhn-hat-n)

(1) An island in New York City (NYC) surrounded by the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers, 13½ miles (22 km) in length, 2½ miles (4 km) across at its widest and 22¼ square miles (58 km² in area).  Technically, it’s an ellipsis of Manhattan Island and in certain legal documents, cartography and for formal purposes it’s described also as Manhattan Island.

(2) One of the five boroughs of New York City, approximately co-extensive with Manhattan Island and coterminous with New York County.  It contains the business district of NYC, its financial centre (Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) etc and many of the businesses associated with the fashion industry (Fifth Avenue and environs) and the art business (Greenwich Village).

(3) A cocktail drink consisting of four parts whisky, one part vermouth, and a dash of bitters.

Pre 1600: From the earlier Manna-hata (recorded by Dutch settlers & military personnel), from its name in Unami, the Algonquian language of the Lenape people (self-described as Lenni-Lenape (the original people)) who were the island’s inhabitants when European settlement began.  The research by linguistic anthropologists was inconclusive and there are a number of suggestions regarding the origin of the name: (1) a compound of the Unami mënatay (island) or the Munsee munahan + another element; (2) because the island was once a wooded area with Hickory trees yielding timber suitable for making bows, the early forms Manna-hatta & Mannahachtink were spellings of manaháhtaan (place for gathering the wood to make bows) with the related locative form being manaháhteenk, the construct thus Munsee manah- (gather) + -aht (bow) + -aan (place); (3) the “island of many hills” & (4) “the island where we all became intoxicated”.  Manhattan is a noun & proper noun, manhattanite & manhattanese are adjectives, manhattanism is a noun, manhattanize manhattanizing & manhattanized are verbs and manhattanism & manhattanism are nouns; the noun plural is manhattans.  Modern style guides suggest that even when forms are derived from the proper noun, there’s no need for an initial capital although traditionalists will insist.

What is now New York’s borough of Manhattan was in 1626 named New Amsterdam by colonists from the Dutch Republic who, two years earlier, had established a trading post (in what is now Lower Manhattan).  After some of the squabbles and negotiations during which Europeans re-drew the maps which reflect their arrangements even today, the territory and its surroundings in 1664 came under English control in 1664 and the city, based on Manhattan, was the capital of the United States between 1785-1790.  Although the exact date on which “Manhattan” became the common descriptor for the island among Europeans, the consensus is it would have been sometime in the mid-seventeenth century.  The cocktail named Manhattan was certainly being served in the 1870s but why it gained the name or just when the first was mixed isn’t known although there are a number of imaginative tales, none supported by evidence.  What is thought most likely is that it was either served in an establishment in the locality or somewhere close seeking to trade of the association with the name.

Lilo in Soho: The Manhattan apartment where Lindsay Lohan lived in 2013, Mercer Street, Soho.

The standard adjective is Manhattanite (of or from, Manhattan) which replaced the earlier Manhattanese which, although obsolete, is sometime still used as a jocular term (to describe a certain style of speck thought associated with financial traders although it was a hardly distinct form).  The noun Manhattanism (the style of architecture and urban design associated with skyscrapers to enable high population densities in a limited space) was a coining of architectural criticism, the companion verbs being Manhattanize, Manhattanizing & Manhattanized; the process was Manhattanization.  In architectural criticism, Manhattanization was something neither wholly good or bad and depended for its reception on where it was used.  Where it was appropriate and added to urban utility, it would be praised if done well but where it destroyed something of social or architectural value, it was derided.

The Manhattan Project's second detonation of an atomic bomb: the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, 6 August 1945.

The Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic weapons was so-named because the army component of the operation was under the control of the engineering branch and it was the army which was most involved in the initial planning stages which involved the acquisition of land and the physical building of the facilities which would house the research and production staff.  The army’s original project name was “Manhattan Engineer District” simply because that was where their offices were located and, apparently because the US Postal Service used the same name for the workshops of its telephone technicians, it was decided was “Manhattan Engineer District” would be a suitably vague codename and one unlikely to attract attention.  It thus replaced the earlier US A-bomb code name (Development of Substitute Materials) and absorbed the earlier British research project (Tube Alloys).

The Manhattan cocktail

Some cocktails are intimidating not because of what they are but because of what’s involved in their preparation, thus the attraction of the Manhattan cocktail which is easy-to-make drink and needs but three ingredients: whiskey, sweet Vermouth and aromatic bitters.

Ingredients

(1) 2 oz Whiskey: A Manhattan can be made with either Rye or Bourbon, most historically preferring Rye Whiskey because it’s thought to be “spicier”.

(2) 1 oz Sweet Vermouth: Vermouth has something of an aura because it’s vital to both Manhattans and Martinis but it’s just a flavored and fortified wine and it’s the harmonious interaction Rye and Sweet Vermouth which accounts for most choosing Rye.  The garnishing of a Manhattan with a brandied or Maraschino cherry is optional.

(3) 2 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters: A timeless classic and an aromatic, alcoholic infusions of various herbs and spices, neither the recipe or the distinctive oversized label have changed for well over a century.  One drop is so potent it can alter the character of anything to which it’s added and some even recommend a dash in fruit salad (the other faction advocating a few drops of Tabasco sauce for “sharpness”).

Instructions

(1) Chill a champagne coupe, martin glass or a lowball in the freezer or fill it with ice.

(2) Add all ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice and stir until the drink is chilled. Typically, that takes no more than 20-30 seconds depending on the temperature of the ingredients and the nature of the ice.  A Manhattan must only ever be stirred; they are never shaken.

(3) Strain the drink into the chilled (and empty) Nick & Nora glass and (optionally) garnish the drink with a Maraschino cherry speared on a cocktail stick.

Purists like to stick to the classics but variations of the Manhattan have over the years been concocted:

A Black Manhattan replaces the Sweet Vermouth with Averna Amaro, a complex liqueur which delivers an aromatic experience.  It’s one of those drinks which need to be breathed in for some time before drinking.

In a Dry Manhattan, Dry Vermouth is used.  Most find it an acquired taste and described it as a “harder” drink,

The Rob Roy is known by some as the Scotch Manhattan and obviously, instead of Bourbon or Rye, it’s made on a Scotch Whisky base.  The aficionados of this kink seem all to recommend a blended Scotch rather than a pure malt.

The “perfect” in a Perfect Manhattan uses the word in its mathematical sense, the recipe calling for a 50/50 split between Dry & Sweet Vermouth.  The difference is said to be “very nuanced” and the choice of whiskey will notably change the experience.