Lunch

Lunch (pronounced luhnch)

(1) A light midday meal between breakfast and dinner; luncheon.

(2) Any light meal or snack.

(3) To eat lunch.

(4) In slang, as “out to lunch:, dim, vague, useless ineffectual.

(5) In slang as “lunchy”, old-fashioned; passé; out of style (obsolete).

(6) In slang as “eating their lunch”, outwitting an opponent.

(7) In Caribbean slang (among older folk), mid afternoon tea.

(8) In first-class and test-match cricket, the break in play between the first and second sessions.

(9) In Minnesota, USA, any small meal, especially one eaten at a social gathering.

1580:  It’s never been clear which came first: lunch or luncheon.  Origin of both is thought to lie in a dissimilated variant of nuncheon, the Middle English nonechenche (noon ling meal and drink), equivalent to none (noon) + schench (from the Old English scenc or scencan (to pour out, give drink)), cognate with the Dutch and German schenken.  Apparent unrelated, Old English had nonmete (afternoon meal, literally "noon-meat").  Nonechenche was possibly altered by the northern English dialect lunch (hunk of bread or cheese) from 1590 which may be from lump or the Spanish lonja (slice, literally “loin”).  Because dinner in the sense of the biggest or main meal of the day) could be eaten either at around noon, in the evening or at night, there was a need for a meal to fill the gap between breakfast and dinner.

A montage of a languid Lindsay Lohan lingering over lunch.

The idea of lunch as it’s now understood took a long time to evolve, to “take a lunch” in 1786 is recorded as eating a chunk of something (perhaps evolved from lump), carved sufficiently large to constitute a filling meal and as late as 1817, the US Webster’s Dictionary offered as the only definition of lunch "a large piece of food", a meaning long obsolete and in the 1820s, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) thought it either “a vulgarism or a fashionable affectation".   Nevertheless, lunch’s intrusion into the language in the nineteenth century does suggest some sort of social change was afoot, either in the type, style or timing of meals or at least the words used to describe them.  Lunch-money was attested from 1868; lunch-time from 1821; lunch hour from 1840 and the lunch-break from 1960.  The slang phrase out to lunch in the sense of “a bit vague, dim, clueless (but some way short of actually insane) was first recorded in recorded 1955, the notion of being "not there" and instead at lunch.

Receptacles in which to store one’s lunch for transport have a history.  The lunch-box is documented from 1864, the lunch-pail from 1891.  Those were descriptive nouns whereas lunch-bucket emerged in the 1990s as an adjective indicating working-class men or values, bucket presumably the best word because it was universally understood in the English-speaking world to an extent pail was not.  Lunch-bag seems never to have become a common form despite being widely used but in the 1970s, the verb brown-bag (and the related brown-bagging) referring to bringing lunch or liquor in a brown paper bag.  A long-time staple of a lunch-pail’s contents, lunch-meat (a processed form of meat-based protein produced in a size which, when sliced, was aligned with the slices of standard loaves of bread and thus convenient for making sandwiches) was first documented in 1931.  The lunch-counter (a long, elevated table or bench where customers eat standing or sitting on high stools) is an 1854 invention of US English.

The possible future of lunch: Grilled jellyfish.

The portmanteau word brunch dates from circa 1890, a British student slang merging of breakfast and lunch, according to the magazine Punch (1 August 1896).  It appeared in 1895 in the defunct Hunter's Weekly, but two years earlier, at the University of Oxford, the students had drawn what must at the time have seemed an important distinction: The combination-meal, when nearer the usual breakfast hour, is "brunch" and, when nearer luncheon, is "blunch".  That’s a linguistic curiosity in that the brunch survived while blunch did not yet the modern understanding of a brunch appears to be something taken closer to the time of lunch than breakfast.  It may be that brunch was just the more pleasingly attractive word, blunch not so well rolling off the tongue.

Several spellings of luncheon were noted in the decades after the 1640s, the now standardised form not widespread until 1706.  Of uncertain origin, in the 1580s was used to describe something like the northern English dialectal lunch (hunk of bread or cheese), though influenced by the Spanish lonja (a slice, literally "loin"), blended with or influenced by nuncheon, from the mid-fourteenth century Middle English nonechenche, (light mid-day meal), from none (noon) + schench (drink), from the Old English scenc, from scencan (pour out).

The possible future of lunch: Fishcakes.

The etymology of all these words is tangled and there are reasons to suspect the similar forms arose independently in different place rather than as forks of anything vaguely lineal, the OED discounting the notion of lunching, which dates from the 1650s, being derived from the verb lunch because that wasn’t to be attested for another century, the OED suggesting there may be some connection (by analogy) with words like truncheon etc to simulate a French origin which is speculative but such things are not unknown in ever class-conscious England.  Whatever the origin, it does seem to have been used to describe an early afternoon meal eaten by those who take dinner at noon.

Squiffy

Squiffy (pronounced skwiff-e)

An informal term describing someone somewhere on the spectrum of drunkenness, now used mostly of mild yet obvious intoxication.

Late 1800s: Based on the surname Asquith and coined because of habit of Herbert Henry Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime-minister 1908-1916) in appearing in the House of Commons, visibly affected by alcohol.  From this he earned (and richly deserved) the sobriquet “Squiffy".  Squiffy, squiffier, squiffiest & squiffed are adjectives, squiffiness & Squiffite are nouns and squiffily is an adverb; historically, the the most common noun plural was Squiffites.  The concocted noun squiffinessness is wholly jocular and sometimes appropriate. 

HH Asquith was brought up in a provincial household in the puritan tradition where alcohol was rarely served but, after a second marriage in which he took a socialite wife and began to move in the circles of London’s glittering society, his fondness grew for fine wines and spirits.  These tastes he took with him when he entered parliament in 1885 and his assumption of the premiership two decades later did little to diminish his thirst.

Henry & Venita.

Nor did it seem to affect his vitality.  In his early sixties he became quite besotted with Venetia Stanley (1887-1948), the twenty-five year old best friend of his daughter and between 1912-1915 he would spend much time in cabinet writing her love letters.  One would have thought a British prime-minister might have much else on his mind in during these years, but “old squiffy” seemed to fit it all in, Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923; UK prime-minister 1922-1923) admitting at the time that Asquith “when drunk could make a better speech than any of us sober”.  Sometimes though, even for him, it proved too much.  After one very long lunch left him more than usually squiffy, he fell asleep in the house, unable to be roused to speak in support of his bill dealing with the Church of Wales, leaving its carriage to the postmaster general Herbert Samuel (1870–1963) and attorney-general Sir Rufus Isaacs (1860–1935).  It prompted Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK prime-minister 1902-1905) to assure the good people of the Welsh Church that all would be well because the matters were in the hands of “…one drunken Christian and two sober Jews.”  The laws of of the nation have since sometimes been in less capable hands. 

Anti-squiffiness device: Lindsay Lohan wearing one of AMS's (Alcohol Monitoring Systems) SCRAMs (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring).

He led the government for eight-odd years, his first cabinet in 1908 probably the most lustrous of the century and his fall from office probably little to do with alcohol, his character simply not suited to lead a government during wartime.  In subsequent years, he retained a following that became a faction of the Liberal Party and which would be a notable factor in British politics; they were called the Squiffites, a formation easier on the tongue than Asquithite.  English has a rich vocabulary of synonyms for drunk including buzzed, inebriated, laced, lit, magoted, muddled, pissed, plastered, potted, sloshed, shit-faced, squiffy, stewed, tanked, tipsy, totaled, wasted, boozed, groggy, juiced, liquored, tight, under the influence & under-the-table; not all are used in every country and some overlap with descriptions of the effects of other drugs but it’s an impressively long list.  One interesting aspect of the use of squiffy is that it tends to be used with a modifier: the practice being to say “a bit squiffy” or “a little bit squiffy” and it seems now more applied to women.

There may on 4 August 2021 have been some sort of equipment malfunction somewhere in the apparatus used to record and broadcast parliamentary questions from the Australian House of Representatives because many viewers concluded the deputy prime-minister was a bit squiffy.  Question time is held at 2pm (just after lunch).  One constituent wrote to the speaker’s office to enquire and received an assurance from a staff member it’s not possible for a member to appear in the house while squiffy.  Her prompt response was helpful.

The Hon Barnaby Joyce MP (b 1967; thrice deputy prime-minister of Australia, 2016-date (the gaps due to "local difficulties")), House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia, 4 August 2021.  For observers of Mr Joyce who may be searching for the right word, when one is obviously affected by squiffiness, one may be said to be squiffed or squiffy; the comparative being squiffier and the superlative squiffiest.

Prandial

Prandial (pronounced pran-dee-uhl)

Of or relating to a meal, especially dinner (sometimes affected, jocose or facetious).

1810-1820: From the Late Latin prandialis or the Classical Latin prandium (late breakfast; lunch), perhaps from the primitive Indo-European pr̥hemós (first), from prehe- + -edere (to eat) + the Latin -ium (the suffix forming nouns), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -yós (suffix forming adjectives from noun stems) +‎ -al (the suffix forming adjectives).  The primitive Indo-European ed- root (to eat) meant originally "to bite".  It’s never been clear why the meaning shift from the Classical Latin meaning (late breakfast; lunch) to the later (dinner) happened.  Now, prandial is used almost exclusively as (a usually jocular or affected) pre-prandial or post-prandial (often plural), a reference to before or after-dinner drinks.  The adverb is prandially.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying a pre-pradial.

The first use of the adjective postprandial (now usually as post-prandial) seems to have been by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) in 1820 to convey the meaning "happening, said, done etc; after dinner".  The first known instance of preprandial (also pre-prandial) (before dinner) is in a letter of 1822 by the poet Charles Lamb (1775–1834) to Coleridge: “Why you should refuse twenty guineas per sheet for Blackwood’s or any other magazine passes my poor comprehension. But, as Strap says, you know best.  I have no quarrel with you about præprandial avocations—so don’t imagine one.”

Modal

Modal (pronounced mohd-l)

(1) Of, relating to or characteristic of mode, manner, or form.

(2) In music, pertaining to mode, as distinguished from key; based on a scale other than major or minor; of, relating to, or composed in the musical modi by which an octave is divided, associated with emotional moods in Ancient and medieval ecclesiastical music

(3) In transportation logistics, as single-modal, pertaining to or suitable for transportation involving only one form of a carrier, as truck, rail, or ship; related forms are bimodal, intermodal and multi-modal (can also be used figuratively or analogously).

(4) In grammar (of a verb or auxiliary verb form), expressing a distinction of mood, such as between possibility and actuality.

(5) In philosophy & metaphysics, pertaining to a mode of a thing, as distinguished from one of its basic attributes or from its substance or matter; relating to analogous qualifications such as that of rules as obligatory or permissive.

(6) In formal logic, exhibiting or expressing some phase of modality; qualifying or expressing a qualification of the truth of some statement, for example, as necessary or contingent.

(7) In computing, having separate modes in which user input has different effects, as in a graphical user interface (GUI) requiring immediate user interaction and thus presented so that it cannot be closed or interacted behind until a decision is made; used also to indicate different modes operating systems may implement hardware abstraction layers (HAL) such as the real, standard and enhanced modes in early versions of MS-Windows.

(8) In industrial production, a textile made from spun cellulose fiber.

(9) In molecular engineering, a type of analysis used in the study of the dynamic properties of structures under vibrational excitation.

(10) In telecommunications, a measure of bandwidth referencing the signaling rate per distance unit.

(11) In genetics, an ancestral haplotype derived from the DNA test results of a specific group of people.

(12) In linear algebra, a matrix, used in the diagonalization process involving eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

1560-1570: From the Middle French modal (pertaining to or affected by a mode), from the Medieval Latin modālis (of or pertaining to a mode), from the Classical Latin modus (measure, extent, quantity; proper measure, rhythm, song; a way, manner, fashion, style (in Late Latin also "mood" in grammar and logic)) and thus a doublet of mode; the Latin root also supplied the modern modal in French, Spanish & Portuguese and the Italian modale.  The Latin modus is from the primitive Indo-European modos (measure) from med- (to measure; take appropriate measures).  The use in music was first adopted in the 1590s and the word became part of formal grammar in 1798.  Modal is the adjective; modally the adverb.

The modal verbs shall & will

A modal verb is a type of verb used to indicate modality (likelihood, ability, permission, request, capacity, suggestions, order, obligation, or advice) and modal verbs always accompany the base (infinitive) form of another verb having semantic content.  In English, the modal verbs most commonly used are can, could, may, might, must, will, would, shall, should, ought, need & dare.

Regarding the use of shall and will when speaking of the future, there’s no definitive rule, just conventions, which, in a manner not unfamiliar in English, are subject to another contradictory convention.  From that, English speakers are left to make of things what they can.

Will is used:

(1) To describe the future: “The flight will be delayed because of fog.”

(2) To make a prediction: “Italy will one day win the Six Nations.”

(3) To express a decision made at the time: “I will have a G&T”.

(4) To make a request: “Will you get me a G&T?”

(5) To make promises and offers: “I will buy you a G&T.”

(6) To describe the consequence of a conditional phrase: “If it is raining, I will put an umbrella in my bag.”

Historically, “shall” (including other spellings), was often used as an alternative to “will” but, in modern English, “will’ tends now to be preferred for affirmative and negative sentences although “shall” still is used to form questions with “I” & “we”, a practice less common in North America than the rest of the English-speaking world.

Sentences with “shall” are formed in the same way as those built with “will”, the negative form created by adding “not”; the question is made by inverting the subject and “shall”, a universal form although “shall” appears usually only in questions containing “I” & “we”.  As a point of use, some suggest the contraction “shan’t”, commonly used in spoken English, should never appear in the written except in transcription but there’s no historic or etymological basis for this.

Shall is used:

(1) To make offers using I or we: “Shall I make us some lunch?”

(2) To make suggestions using I or we: “Shall we go on a picnic?”

(3) To express formal obligations: “The accused shall plead guilty or not guilty.”

(4) To make a promise: “I shall not be late for lunch.”

(5) To describe the future in a formal manner: “We shall fight them on the beaches…”

So, the convention is to use “will” for affirmative and negative sentences about the future or to make requests.  To make an offer or suggestion with “I” or “we”, use “shall” in the question form.  However, if it’s wished to impart a sense of formality, use “shall” instead of “will”.  So, “will” and “shall” can be interchangeable, adoption depending on context.

Lindsay Lohan will star in Netflix's upcoming film Falling For Christmas which will be available on the platform from 10 November 2022.  The film is the first of her two picture creative partnership with the streamer, the romantic comedy Irish Wish currently in production.  It's predicted most Lohanics swiftly shall stream both.

Noon

Noon (pronounced noon)

(1) Midday; twelve o'clock in the daytime or the time or point at which the sun crosses the local meridian (the time of day when the sun is in its zenith).

(2) Figuratively (usually in literary or poetic use), the highest, brightest, or finest point or part; culmination; capstone; apex.

(3) The corresponding time in the middle of the night; midnight (archaic but historic use means old documents with the word must be read with care, entries appearing as both “noon” & “noon of the night”).

(4) Three o’clock in the afternoon (archaic).

(5) To relax or sleep around midday (as “to noon” “nooning” or “nooned”) (archaic).

(6) The letter ن in Arabic script.

(7) Midday meal (archaic).

Pre 900: From the Middle English noen, none & non, from the Old English nōn (the ninth hour), from a Germanic borrowing of the Classical Latin nōna (ninth hour) (short for nōna hōra), the feminine. singular of nonus (ninth), contracted from novenos, from novem (nine).  It was cognate with the Dutch noen, the (obsolete) German non and the Norwegian non.  Synonyms (some archaic) include apex, capstone, meridian, midday, noontide, noonday, noontime, nones (the ninth hour of daylight), midpoint (of the day), & twelve.  Descendants include the Modern English none and the Scots nane (none), Noon the proper noun enduring as a surname.  Noun is a noun and noons, nooning & nooned are verbs; the noun plural is noons.

Although derived from the Latin word for the number nine, the English word noon refers to midday, the time when the sun reaches the meridian.  The Romans however counted the hours of the day from sunrise which, for consistency, was declared for this purpose to be 06:00; the ninth hour (nona hora) was thus 15:00.  The early Christians adopted Jewish customs of praying at certain hours and when Christian monastic orders formed, the ecclesiastical reckoning of the daily timetable was structured around the hours for prayer.  In the earliest schedules, the monks prayed at three-hour intervals: 6-9 pm, 9 pm-midnight, midnight-3 am and 3-6 am.  The prayers are known as the Divine Office and the times at which they are to be recited are the canonical hours:

Vigils: night
Matins: dawn
Lauds: dawn
Prime: 6 am (first hour)
Terce: 9 am (third hour)
Sext: noon (sixth hour)
None: 3 pm (ninth hour)
Vespers: sunset
Compline: before bed

The shift in the common meaning of noon from 3 pm to 12 noon began in the twelfth century when the prayers said at the ninth hour were set back to the sixth, the reasoning practical rather theological, the unreliability of medieval time-keeping devices and the seasonal elasticity of the hours of daylight in northern regions meaning it was easier to standardise on an earlier hour.  Additionally, in monasteries and on holy days, fasting ended at nones, which perhaps offered another administrative incentive to nudge it up the clock.  An alternative explanation offered by social historians is that it was simply the abbots deciding to align their noon meal with those taken in the towns and villages, the Old English word non having assumed the meaning “midday” or “midday meal” by circa 1140.  Whatever the reason, the meaning shift from "ninth hour" to "sixth hour" seems to have been complete by the fourteenth century, the same path of evolution as the Dutch noen).  Noon is an example of what etymologists call a fossil word, one which that embeds customs of former ages.

The use as a synonym for midnight existed between the seventeenth & nineteenth centuries, apparently because the poetic phrase “noon of the night” entered popular use.  The noun forenoon (the morning (ie (be)fore + noon)) applied especially the latter part of it, those hours “when business is done”, the word emerging circa 1500.  The noun noonday (middle of the day) was first used by Myles Coverdale (1488–1569), the English cleric and ecclesiastical reformer remembered for his printed translation of the Bible into English (1535) and it was used as an adjective from 1650s.  In the Old English there had been non tid (noon-tide, midday, noon) and non-tima (noon, noon-time, midday).  The noun afternoon (part of the day from noon to evening) dates from circa 1300 and it was subject to an interesting shift in grammatical form.  In the fifteenth & sixteenth centuries it was used as “at afternoon” but from circa 1600 this shifted to “in the afternoon”; it emerged as an adjective from the 1570s.  In the Middle English there had been the mid-fourteenth century aftermete (afternoon, part of the day following the noon meal).

Lindsay Lohan at nuncheon, Scott's Restaurant, Mayfair, London, 2015.

The noun nuncheon was from the mid-fourteenth century nōn-schench (slight refreshment of food (with or without liquor) taken at midday, the name shifting with the meal, nuncheon taken originally in the afternoon (ie notionally the three o’clock meal), the construct being none (noon) + shench (draught, cup), from the Old English scenc, related to scencan (to pour out, to give to drink) and cognate with the Old Frisian skenka (to give to drink) and the German & Dutch schenken (to give).  The most obvious descendent of nuncheon is luncheon (and thus lunch).

Lāhainā Noon is the solar phenomenon (known only in the tropics) when the Sun culminates at the zenith at solar noon, passing directly overhead, thus meaning objects underneath cast no shadow, creating a effect something like the primitive graphics in some video games.  The name Lāhainā Noon (Lāhainā Noons the plural) was the winner in a contest organised by Hawai'i's Bishop Museum in 1990, the museum noting the word lāhainā (originally lā hainā) may be translated into English as “cruel sun” but makes reference also to the severe droughts experienced in that part of the island of Maui.  The old Hawai'ian name for the event was the much more pleasing kau ka lā i ka lolo (the sun rests on the brains).

Bride

Bride (pronounced brahyd)

(1) A woman on her wedding day, both before and after the ceremony of marriage.

(2) In needlework, a connection consisting of a thread or a number of threads for joining various solid parts of a design in needlepoint lace (also called a bar, leg or tie).

(3) An ornamental string used to tie a bonnet.

(4) Figuratively, an object ardently loved (obsolete).

(5) In theology, an expression to describe a woman who has devoted her life to some calling (eg “a bride of Christ”) which precludes marriage.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English bride, from the Old English brȳd (bride, betrothed or newly married woman), from the Proto-Germanic brūdiz (bride; woman being married).  It was cognate with the Old High German brūt, the Old Norse brūthr, the Gothic brūths (daughter-in-law), the Saterland Frisian breid & bräid (bride), the West Frisian breid (bride), the German & Low German Bruut (bride), the Dutch bruid (bride), the German Braut (bride), the Danish brud (bride), the Swedish brud (bride).  The use to describe the bonnet tie dates from 1865-1870, from the French bride (bonnet-string (literally “bridle”)), from the Middle French bride, from the Old French bride (rein, bridle), from the Middle High German brīdel (rein, bridle), from the Old High German brīdil (rein, bridle) and related to the Old High German brittil (rein, strap) and the French bretelle (from the Proto-Germanic brigdilaz (bridle)), the Spanish brida and the Italian briglia.  Restricted almost exclusively to needlework, the present participle is briding and the past participle brided; the noun plural is brides.  The spellings brid, bryd, bryde & brude persisted in English but are all long obsolete.

Lindsay Lohan in costume as a bride for an episode of the TV series Two Broke Girls, 2014.  It was in June 2022 confirmed that Lindsay Lohan had married Bader Shammas who works for Credit Suisse, the couple based in Dubai.  Describing herself as the "...luckiest woman in the world", she added she was "...stunned that this is my husband. My life and my everything.  Every woman should feel like this every day".  Although the details haven't be finalized, it seems that to mark the event, there will be a ceremony in the United States.

The Gothic cognate bruþs meant "daughter-in-law" and the form of the word borrowed from the Old High German into Medieval Latin (bruta) and Old French (bruy) had only this sense.  In ancient Indo-European custom, a married woman would live with husband's family so the only "newly wedded” female in such a household would have been the daughter-in-law.  In a similar structralist analysis, some etymologists linked the word to the primitive Indo-European verbal root bhreu-, from which are derived words for cooking and brewing, the basis for this the (not wholly unfounded) speculation that such would be the household tasks of the daughter-in-law job.  In what may be a similar vein was the Old Frisian fletieve (bride (but literally "house-gift”)) but it may have been used in the sense of welcoming a new family member rather noting the addition of an economic unit.

In praise of older men

Wedding day of actors Johnny Depp (b 1963) and Amber Heard (b 1986), Bahamas, 2015.  Ms Heard filed for divorce in May 2016.

The noun bridesmaid (young girl or unmarried woman who attends on a bride at her wedding) began in the 1550s as the construct bridemaid (bride + maid). The interpolated “s” is thought un-etymological but emerged in the late eighteenth century and in succeeding decades became the standard form, the “s” presumably indicating a possessive although it may have evolved simply because that’s how the word had come to be pronounced; bridemaid & bridemaids less kind to the tongue.  A bridesman was in the early nineteenth century a "male attendant on a bridegroom at his wedding" although the modern practice is for a groom to be attended by a best man and several groomsmen, matching the bride’s entourage of a maid or matron of honor (the difference being a maid of honor is unmarried while a matron of honor (even if for whatever reason legally single) has already had a wedding of her own (and matron of honor supplanted the earlier bridematron)) and bridesmaids.  Done properly, the numbers should align; the maid of honor and best man acting as chiefs of staff; the groomsmen and bridesmaids paired-off for ceremonial purposes.

Wedding day of Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) and Jerry Hall (1956), London, 2016.  It was recently announced the couple are to divorce.

Brideman & bridegroom (man newly married or about to be) date from the early seventeenth century although the short form groom later prevailed.  The noun bridegroom was from the Old English brydguma (suitor), the construct being from bryd (bride) + guma (man (though also used to mean “boy”)), from the Proto-Germanic gumon- (source also of the Old Norse gumi and the Old High German gomo), literally "an earthling, an earthly being" (as opposed to “of the gods”), from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root dhghem- (earth).  In the sixteenth century, the ending was altered by folk etymology, the noun groom (boy, lad) preferred, a hint at the youthfulness which then characterized marriage.  Bridegroom was also a common compound in Germanic languages including the Old Saxon brudigumo, the Old Norse bruðgumi, the Old High German brutigomo and the German Bräutigam.  However, in Gothic, it was bruþsfaþs, literally "bride's lord", the possessive sense of which presumably worked either way depending on the dynamics of the marriage.

The phrase “give away the bride”, whereby the father of the bride “gives away” his daughter to the groom persists and seems, surprisingly, to have escaped serious feminist criticism; perhaps they really are romantics at heart.  The meaning was once literal in that at common law, the bride and all her worldly goods (save for her paraphernalia) passed upon marriage to her husband as real property or mere chattels, the legal significance of “give away” being that the father’s ownership of daughter and goods was at that point unconditionally sundered.  Legislative reform has done away with all that but the ceremonial tradition endures, as does the phrase “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” a lament for one for whom spinsterhood seems a fate.  Other constructions include "war bride" (which can mean either a woman who marries someone going away to war or one who marries (in a variety of circumstances) during a conflict and “bride of the sea” “bride of the fields” etc, on the model of “bride of Christ” and suggesting an exclusive attachment to something or (more commonly) the idea of sharing the attention of a husband with their vocation (seafaring, farming etc).

Wedding day of Boris Johnson (b 1964) and Carrie Symonds (b 1988), London 2021.  Although it was his third marriage, Mr Johnson was married by the Roman Catholic Church, the ceremony conducted at no less than Westminster Cathedral.  Although a  baptized Catholic, the history meant a few eyebrows were raised but under canon law, it was an uncontroversial matter, both previous marriages invalid by reason of lack of canonical form.  The wedding was private but a ceremony of some description has been planned for Chequers in September 2022, the country house of the prime-minister in Buckinghamshire, the invitations said to have been posted before the events of early July which compelled Mr Johnson to announce he'd be leaving office "when the party has elected a successor".  Chequers in early autumn sounds a charming place for a party so it's hoped the Tories don't too quickly find their next leader.  

A “bride price” was money or other valuables paid in some cultures by a bridegroom or on his behalf) to the family of the bride.  Technically, it was the same idea the dowry (from the Middle English dowarye & dowerie, from the Anglo-Norman dowarie & douarie, from the Old French douaire, from the Medieval Latin dōtārium, from the Classical Latin dōs (from the Proto-Italic dōtis, from the primitive Indo-European déh₃tis, from deh₃- (give) and a doublet of dosis.  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek δόσις (dósis) & the Sanskrit दिति (díti)) and was paid to the family of the groom although dowry became a generalized term for the transaction irrespective of the direction.  In some cultures the dowry remains an important component of the structure of society although the practice is not free from controversy.

Remembering the laughter: Bill Clinton (b 1946) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947) at the wedding of Donald Trump (b 1946) and Melanija Knavs (b 1970), Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, 2005.

The adjective bridal (belonging to a bride or a wedding) appeared circa 1200, derived from the noun bridal (wedding feast), from the Old English brydealo (marriage feast), from bryd ealu, (literally "bride ale"), the evolution an example of an imperfect echoic, the second element later (especially after circa 1600) confused with the adjectival suffix –al.  Similar forms were the mid thirteenth century Middle English scythe-ale (drinking celebration for mowers, as compensation for a particular job) and constructions in a similar vein in Scotland.  The first bridal-suite was advertised in 1857, offered as part of a package deal when hiring a venue for a wedding reception.

Cutting the cake: Silvio Berlusconi (b 1936) and Marta Fascina (b 1990) at their "symbolic" wedding ceremony, Lesmo, Italy, March 1922.

Wedding planners estimated Mr Berlusconi's "symbolic" wedding would have cost some €400,000 (US$415,000) the bride's lace gown by Antonio Riva said to have absorbed some 5% of the budget.  Although it certainly looked like a wedding, it actually had no status before Church or state, apparently because of what was described as "an inheritance row between the families" a reference to objections said to have been raised by the groom's five adult children, concerned by the possibility Ms Fascina might gain a right of claim against the 85-year-old's reputed billions of Euros.  The reception was held over lunch at the Da Vittorio restaurant, the menu including veal mondeghili with lemon, ricotta gnocchi and potatoes with saffron and paccheri 'alla Vittorio' as well as sliced ​​beef in red wine with dark potato and cinnamon flavored carrot cream, the entertainment provided by Mr Berlusconi himself who reprised his early career as a cruise ship singer, accompanied by a friend on piano.

Although not verified, reports in the Italian press suggested the "bride" was "offended and very angry about not having a proper wedding", having already had his initials tattooed somewhere (undisclosed).  Mr Berlusconi seemed however delighted with what had been styled a "festival of love" rather than a wedding, telling Ms Fascina she was "a gift from the heavens" and that "You complete me, I couldn't live without you, you fill my life".

Hegemony

Hegemony (pronounced hi-jem-uh-nee or hej-uh-moh-nee)

(1) Leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation.

(2) Aggression or expansionism by large nations in an effort to achieve world domination (especially among smaller nations).

(3) As cultural hegemony, ascendancy or domination of one (class, ethnic, linguistic etc) group over others.

1560–1570: From the Ancient Greek ἡγεμονία (hēgemonía) (leadership, authority, supremacy), the construct being ἡγεμών (hēgemon-) (stem of hēgemṓn) (leader) + -ia (the suffix forming abstract nouns of feminine gender, from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin -ia and the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia)); the rarer form was ἡγέομαι (hēgeisthai) (to lead).  The root of hēgeisthai is unknown but a link has been suggested to "to track down," from the primitive Indo-European sag-eyo- from the root sag- (to seek out, track down, trace).  The forms antihegemonic & counterhegemonic were creations in political science to describe the tactics and strategies adopted to oppose a hegemon.  Hegemony, hegemon, hegemonization & hegemonist are nouns, hegemonized, hegemonizing & hegemonize are verbs, hegemonic is an adjective and hegemonically is an adverb; the noun plural is hegemonies.

The noun hegemonism dates from 1965 and refers to a policy of political domination, based to some extent on the model of imperialism.  The noun hegemonist was first used in 1898 in a discussion of the particular role of Prussia in the German (con)federation (the joke of the time being that while there were many states with an army, Prussia was an army with a state).  The noun hegemon had been used a year earlier, describing the unique position of Great Britain in the world as a maritime power with a far-flung world-wide empire, quite distinct historically from the models of the previous two millennia which had tended to be continental or at least contiguous.  The adjective hegemonic had emerged as early as the 1650s and was older still, noted in oral use in the 1610s.

Gramsci's legacy

Hegemons at lunch.

Mean Girls (2004) has been analysed as a series of case-studies deconstructing the ways an individual or group can asset a cultural hegemony but it's also been subject to the critique that as a piece of cinema, it's emblematic of the way the industry reinforces white supremacy and white privilege.  The original sense of hegemony, dating from the 1560s, was in reference to the predominance of one city state over another in Ancient Greece and was used also to mean the literal authority or sovereignty of one city-state over a number of others, as Athens in Attica or Thebes in Boeotia and generally to the Hellenic League (338 BC), a federation of Greek city–states created by Philip II of Macedon (382–336 BC; king (basileus) of Macedonia 359-336) to facilitate his access to and use of Greek armies against the Persian empire.  It was first used in a modern sense in geo-politics during the 1850s to describe the position of Prussia in relation to other German states and came to be applied, sometime misleadingly, to the European colonialism imposed upon the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australasia.  In the twentieth century, political scientists (not only those from the left although the idea was most developed by neo-Marxists) extended the denotation of hegemony to include cultural imperialism, the domination, by a ruling class (or culture), in a socially stratified society.  The core of the theory was that by manipulating cultural values and mores, thereby constructing a dominant ideology, the ruling class intellectually can dominate the other classes by imposing a worldview (Weltanschauung) that, ideologically and structurally, justifies the social, political, and economic status quo to the point where it’s viewed as normal, inevitable and perpetual, with no possible alternative.

Antonio Gramsci

It was Italian politician and Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s (1891–1937) discussions in the 1920s of the nature of hegemony which provided the framework upon which others built their theories.  Gramsci was interested in the survival, indeed the flourishing of the capitalist state in the most advanced Western countries, despite the social and economic convulsions which earlier theorists had suggested should have threatened the system’s survival.  Gramsci understood the supremacy of a class and that the reproduction of its associated mode of production could be obtained by brute domination or coercion but his key observation was that in advanced capitalist societies, the perpetuation of class rule was achieved largely through consensual means.  A hegemonic class is thus one able to attain the consent of other social forces, and the retention of this consent is an ongoing project.  His work continues to underpin most critical analysis of apparently disparate systems such as The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US, systems in which tiny ruling classes (the Communist Party (CCP) in the former and the (somewhat misleadingly named) one percent in the latter), maintain and enhance a system entirely in their own interest with support from the masses ranging mostly from resigned acquiescence to actual enthusiasm.  In the CCP, this manifests as most of the population supporting the suppression of their political rights; in the US, they’re convinced to act against their own economic interests.  Under capitalism (ie the system used by both PRC and the US), Gramsci observed the relentless contribution of the institutions of civil society to the shaping of mass cognitions.

Gramsci wasn’t a theorist only of structures but was interested also in revolutionary strategy.  He noted the acquisition of consent prior to gaining power as an obvious implication but this he refined by offering a distinction a war of manoeuvre (the full frontal assault on the bourgeois state) and one of position (engagement with and subversion of the mechanisms of bourgeois ideological domination).  Others were taken with the concept, notably German-American political theorist Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) of the Frankfurt School of critical theory and German Marxist sociologist Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979), best remembered for the idea, inspired by Gramsci, of a “long march through the institutions”.  The strategy was inspired, the tactics flawed.  The institutions through which the revolutionaries were allowed (some say encouraged) to march turned out to be art galleries, theatre trusts and other structures on the margins.  The institutions which controlled the economy and the security of the state remained under the control of the hegemon.