Meme

Meme (pronounced meem)

(1) Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted orally or by repeated action (by imitation) from one mind to another, through generations, in a manner comparable to the transmission of genes; the synonym is culturgen

(2) On the internet, a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase etc, that is spread and often altered in a creative or humorous way.

(3) In Internet slang, a derogatory term to describe something not to be taken seriously (meme job, meme degree etc).

(4) To turn into a meme; to use a meme.

1976: From the Ancient Greek mīmeîsthai (to imitate, copy) and a shortening of mimeme, from the Ancient Greek μίμημα (mīmēma) (imitated thing) from μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeîsthai) (to imitate), from μῖμος (mimos) (imitation, copy; mime).  Structurally, the word was shortened (following the model of gene) from mimeme and anglicized to emulate the form of a noun derived from the Ancient Greek mīméomai with the deverbal suffix -μα (-ma), from μῖμος (mîmos).  The word was coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (b 1941) and used first in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.  The construct was m(ime) +‎ -eme and Dawkins apologized to classical scholars for what they would think a most improper form, explaining he wanted something monosyllabic and if they preferred they could think of it as related to the French word même (“same or alike” although the meaning does shift with the context of use).  Helpfully, he added it should be pronounced to rhyme with “cream”.  In the way English forms proliferate (often with short lives) on the internet, meme has been the source of many coining including dank meme, memeable, memedom, memesque, memeable, memed, memeplex, meme-pool, memescape, memetic, memeworthy, memey, memome & memeable.

Barack Obama & crooked Hillary Clinton.

The more widely used concept of “a cultural fragment distributed on the internet” was created by lawyer Michael Godwin (b 1956) of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and was first documented in 1994, use beginning to spike in 1997.  Godwin was the author also of Godwin's law (rule) which states that the longer an online exchange lasts, the greater the probability that some comparison with Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) or the Nazi regime will be invoked.  There’s some evidence suggesting the rule may not (statistically) operate as described but it remains a useful tool for determining the point at which a discussion has passed a certain threshold.  The concept of the meme is very old, examples noted in the graffiti of Antiquity and anthropologists have cited prehistoric example; the pre-internet exemplar in the modern age being "Kilroy was here" which proliferated with extraordinary rapidity during World War II (1939-1945).  Many languages have adopted meme, some in the original sense from biological science, most in the more recent application used on the internet but there are other meanings.  There was the French même and the Turkish meme was from the Ottoman Turkish ممه‎ (nipple, breast (and described by most dictionaries as “a childish term”)), following the Ancient Greek μᾰ́μμη (mámmē) and the Persian ممه‎ (mame).  Meme is a noun, verb & adjective and meamed & meaming are verbs;the noun plural is memes.

Looking over her shoulder: Donald & Melania Trump voting.

Dawkins coined meme to describe the concept of the intra- and trans-generational cultural spread of ideas and cultural phenomena, his construct being analogous with the agent of evolutionary biology, the gene.  He didn’t claim the idea was new, noting the earlier work of geneticists & ethologists and as early as 1904 German zoologist Richard Semon (1859-1918) had published The Mneme and mneme in which he included his theory which explored a vaguely similar idea although one which was later disproved as understandings of genetics improved.  Closer to the thoughts of Dawkins was La Vie des Termites (The Life of White Ants (1926)), an entomological book by Nobel laureate in literature Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) which remains controversial because of the extent of the author’s plagiarism although he would later acknowledge a debt to the nineteenth century work of English biologist TH Huxley (1825–1895).

Memes can be self-generated for purposes of ambush marketing.  Lindsay Lohan risked going straight to Hell by purloining Pope Frances to promote Xanax.

Dawkins' point was that evolution depended ultimately only a self-replicating unit of transmission which, in biological evolution, was the gene and by analogy, human behaviour and cultural evolution could helpfully be described, at least in part, by memes, subject as they were to the influences and pressures of evolution.  Also, just as genes don’t always replicate as exact duplicates, memes existed and replicated imperfectly, things being combined, refined and rejected, the interactions creating new memes and thus, over time, cultures in some ways stayed the same; in others, things changed.  The concept was well-received by cultural theorists and critics but less effusive were many scientists, some of whom felt the gene/meme analogy a bit strained because, unlike genetic material, memes couldn’t be studied by the scientific method nor reduced to mathematical description, there being nothing even vaguely similar to the DNA which is the definable code of the gene.

Brobdingnagian

Brobdingnagian (pronounced brob-ding-nag-ee-uhn)

(1) Of huge size; gigantic; tremendous.

(2) Larger than typical or expected.

(3) In medicine (psychiatry & clinical ophthalmology), as the noun “brobdingnagian vision”, a hallucination or visual disorder in which objects appear larger or nearer than they are (macropsia).  The companion (antonym) condition is “lilliputian vision”, a hallucination or visual disorder in which objects appear smaller or more distant than they are (micropsia).

(4) In mycology, of the brobdingnagia, a genus of fungi in the family Phyllachoraceae.

(5) Of or pertaining to the fictional land of Brobdingnag.

(5) An inhabitant or native of the fictional land of Brobdingnag.

1728 (in more frequent use by mid-century): An adjective to convey the sense of “enormous in size, huge, immense, gigantic etc, derived from the noun Brobdingnag (the land of the giants) the second of the exotic lands visited by the protagonist Lemuel Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels (1726 and titled Travels into several remote nations of the world for the first edition), written in the style of contemporary “travel guides” by the Anglo-Irish author & satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745).  The construct was Brobdingnag +‎ -ian.  The suffix -ian was a euphonic variant of –an & -n, from the Middle English -an, (regularly -ain, -ein & -en), from the Old French –ain & -ein (or before i, -en), the Modern French forms being –ain & -en (feminine -aine, -enne), from the Latin -iānus (the alternative forms were -ānus, -ēnus, -īnus & -ūnus), which formed adjectives of belonging or origin from a noun, being -nus (cognate with the Ancient Greek -νος (-nos)), preceded by a vowel, from the primitive Indo-European -nós.  It was cognate with the English -en.  Brobdingnagian is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is Brobdingnagians (initial upper case if used of the inhabitants or natives of the fictional land of Brobdingnag but not for other purposes (such as untypically large cosmic objects)).  To distinguish between big stuff, the comparative is “more brobdingnagian” and the superlative “most brobdingnagian”.

In constructing the name Brobdingnag for his fictional land of giants, Swift used a technique more subtle than some authors who use more obvious charactonyms.  In literature, a charactonym is a name given to a character that suggests something about their personality, behavior, or role in the story; these names almost always have some literal or symbolic meaning aligning with or hinting at the character’s traits and examples include:

Alfred Doolittle (lazy and opportunistic) in George Bernard Shaw’s (GBS; 1856-1950) Pygmalion (1913).

Miss Honey (sweet & gentle) in Roald Dahl’s (1916–1990) Matilda (1988) and Veruca Salt (harsh and unpleasant) in his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964).

Mr Bumble (noted for his bumbling inept incompetence) in Charles Dickens’ (1812–1870) Oliver Twist (1837).

Willy Loman (of low social status and beset with feelings of inadequacy) in Arthur Miller’s (1915–2005) Death of a Salesman (1949).

The use of blatant charactonyms is not always an example of linguistic brutishness and it’s often used in children's literarure or when it’s demanded by the rhythm of text or plat.  There are also “reverse charactonyms” when the traits of a characteristic become famously (or infamously) emblematic of something such as Shylock in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) The Merchant of Venice (1598) or Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens A Christmas Carol (1843).

A brobdingnagian on the beach; a Lindsay Lohan meme.  Although a Swiftian meme, the use of that term will now probably be more suggestive of a later Swift, certainly to Swifties (the devotees of the singer Taylor Swift (b 1989)).

As well as the meanings of words, Swift liked to use the sounds of language in fashioning fictional names which were both plausible and in some way suggestive of the association he wanted to summon.  Structurally, what he appears to have done is combine arbitrary syllables to create a word sounding foreign and exotic while still being pronounceable by the English-speaking audience for which he wrote; the technique is harder to master than it sounds although with modern generative AI, presumably it’s become easier.  As a literary trick, Brobdingnag works because of the elements in the construction (1) the multisyllabic length and (2) the use of “harsh” consonants (notably the “b” & “g” which lend a sense of bulk and largeness, appropriate for the “land of the giants”.  The other exotic land in Gulliver’s Travels was Lilliput, the place where the people are tiny.  Just as he intended Brobdingnag to invoke thoughts of something (or someone) clumsy and heavy, Lilliput and Lilliputian were meant to suggest “small, delicate”.

Map of Brobdingnag from the 1726 edition of Travels into several remote nations of the world (the original title of Gulliver's Travels).

Although since Swift, the adjective brobdingnagian has never gone away, it’s length and “unnatural” (for English) spelling has meant it’s only ever been a “niche” word”, used as a literary device and astronomers like it when writing of stars, galaxies, black holes and such which are of such dimensions that miles or kilometres are not c convenient measure, demanding instead terms like “light years” (the distance in which light travels in one Earth year” or “parsecs” (a unit of astronomical length, based on the distance from Earth at which a star would have a parallax of one second of arc which is equivalent to 206,265 times the distance from the earth to the sun or 3.26 light-years.  Its lineal equivalent is about 19.1 trillion miles (30.8 trillion km)).

The king of Brobdingnag and Gulliver, cartoon by James Gillray (1756-1815), published in London 10 February 1804 during the era of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815).  British Cartoon Prints Collection, Library of Congress, Washington DC.

The work depicts the king of Brobdingnag (George III (1738–1820; King of Great Britain and Ireland 1760-1820)) staring intently at a tank in which is sailing Gulliver (Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815).  Lord Salisbury (1748–1823) stands behind the king.  It was a time when Napoleon was planning to invade England, his Grande Armée transported in “flat-bottomed boats” which were a sort of early landing craft, a design which would emerge in specialized forks for various purposes (troops, tanks etc) during World War II (1939-1945).  It wasn’t until the Royal Navy prevailed in the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) that the threat of invasion was ended.  At the time of the cartoon’s publication, George III had for some years already been displaying signs of mental instability (thought now to be consistent with bipolar disorder (the old manic depression)) although it would be almost a decade before his condition deteriorated to such an extent a regent was appointed.

Brobdingnagian’s more familiar role is in literature where it depends for effect on rarity; twice in the one book is one too many  Tellingly (and unsurprisingly given the inherent clumsiness), it’s rare in poetry although some have made the effort, possibly just to prove it can be done, one anonymous poet leaving us The Awful Fate of Mr. Foster, believed to be a parody of the poetic style of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) “Brobdingnagian” interpolated possibly because Thackeray was wrote some acerbic critiques of Swift’s work:

He never more will rise again, or open those kind eyes again,
He lies beneath the sod;
Beneath the tall Brobdingnagian tomb, the popular concernment's doom,
Of an enormous god!

Kink

Kink (pronounced kingk)

(1) A twist or curl, as in a thread, rope, wire, or hair, caused by its doubling or bending upon itself.

(2) An expression describing muscular stiffness or soreness, as in the neck or back.

(3) A flaw or imperfection likely to hinder the successful operation of something, as a machine or plan (differs from a bug in that kinks or their consequences tend immediately to be obvious.

(4) A mental twist; notion; whim or crotchet (and in a pejorative sense an unreasonable notion; a crotchet; a whim; a caprice).

(5) In slang, a flaw or idiosyncrasy of personality; a quirk.

(6) In slang, bizarre or unconventional sexual preferences or behavior; a sexual deviation (Defined as paraphilia; the parameters of paraphilic disorders (essentially that which is non-normophilic) are (to some extent) defined in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) but the public perception of kinkiness varies greatly between and within cultures).

(7) In slang, a person characterized by such preferences or behavior (a kinkster).

(8) To form, or cause to form, a kink or kinks, as a rope or hairstyle or a physical construction like a road; to be formed into a kink or twist.

(9) Loudly to laugh; to gasp for breath as in a severe fit of coughing (now rare except in Scotland).

(10) In mathematics, a positive 1-soliton solution to the sine-Gordon equation.

(11) In the jargon of US railroad maintenance as “sun kink”, a buckle in railroad track caused by extremely hot weather, which could cause a derailment.

(12) In fandom slang as “kinkmeme” (or kink meme), an online space in which requests for fan fiction (generally involving a specific kink) are posted and fulfilled anonymously (a subset thus of the anon meme).

(13) In slang, as “kinkshame” (or kink-shame or kink shame), to mock, shame, or condemn someone (a kinker) for their sexual preferences or interests and fetishes.

1670–1680: From the Middle English kink (knot-like contraction or short twist in a rope, thread, hair, etc (originally a nautical term), from the Dutch kink (a twist or curl in a rope), from the Proto-Germanic kenk- & keng- (to bend, turn), from the primitive Indo-European geng- (to turn, wind, braid, weave) and related to the Middle Low German kinke (spiral screw, coil), the Old Norse kikna (to nod; to bend backwards, to sink at the knee as if under a burden”) and the , the Icelandic kengur (a bend or bight; a metal crook).  It’s thought related to the modern kick although a LCA (last common ancestor) has never been identified.  The intransitive verb emerged in the 1690s and the transitive by the early nineteenth century.  The adjective kinky (at that stage of physical objects such as ropes or hair full of kinks, twisted, curly) seems first to have been used in 1844.  Words with a similar meaning (depending on context) include crimp, wrinkle, flaw, hitch, imperfection, quirk, coil, corkscrew, crinkle, curl, curve, entanglement, frizz, knot, loop, tangle, cramp, crick, pain &, pang  The sense familiar in Scottish dialect use (a convulsive fit of coughing or laughter; a sonorous in-draft of breath; a whoop; a gasp of breath caused by laughing, coughing, or crying) was from the From Middle English kinken & kynken, from the Old English cincian (attested in cincung), from the Proto-West Germanic kinkōn, from the Proto-Germanic kinkōną (to laugh), from the primitive Indo-European gang- (to mock, jeer, deride), and related to the Old English canc (jeering, scorn, derision).  It was cognate with the Dutch kinken (to kink, to cough).  One curious adaptation was the (nineteenth century) use of kinker to describe circus performers, presumably on the basis of their antics (kinky in the sense of a twisted rope).  Kink is a noun & verb, kinkily is an adverb, kinkiness & kinkster are nouns, kinked is a verb & adjective, kinky and kinkier & kinkiest are adjectives; the noun plural is kinks.

Bridge with kinks: Lucky knot bridge, Dragon King Harbor River in Meixi Lake District, Changsha, China.  The design was inspired by the Möbius strip although the structure is not a true representation of a Möbius.

Kink appears to have entered English in the 1670 from the interaction of English & Dutch seafarers, the first use of the word being nautical, French & Swedish gaining it in a similar manner.  The figurative sense of “an odd notion, a mental twist, a whim, a capricious act” was first noted in US English in 1803 in the writings of Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; US president 1801-1809).  It was one of the many terms applied to those thought “sexually abnormal”, the first use noted in 1965 (although the adjective kinky had been so applied as early as 1959) and the use as a synonym for “a sexual perversion, fetish, paraphilia” is thought by most etymologists to have become established by the early 1970s.  The slang, “kinkshame” means “to mock, shame, or condemn someone (a kinker) for their sexual preferences or interests and fetishes”.  Dictionaries tend to list this only as a verb (ie that directed at another) but it would seem also a noun (a feeling of kinkshame), such as that suffered by Umberto Nicola Tommaso Giovanni Maria di Savoia (1904–1983; the last King of Italy (May-June 1946) who, while heir to the throne (and styled Prince of Piedmont), Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) secret police discovered the prince was a sincere and committed Roman Catholic but one unable to resist his “satanic homosexual urges” and his biographer agreed, noting he was “forever rushing between chapel and brothel, confessional and steam bath” often spending hours “praying for divine forgiveness.”  He would seem to have been suffering kinkshame.

Lindsay Lohan with kinked hair. 

Car & Driver "Fastest American Car" comparison test, April 1976.

Although the word kinky had by then for some time been in use to describe sexual proclivities beyond the conventional, in April 1976, when the US magazine Car & Driver chose to describe a pickup truck as “kinky” it was using the word in the sense of “quirky” or “different” and certainly not in a pejorative way.  While testing the Chevrolet C-10 stepside in an attempt to find the fastest American built “car”, the editors noted that although the phenomenon hadn’t yet travelled south of the Mason-Dixon Line. “…kinky pickups are one of the more recent West Coast fascinations”.  A few years earlier, it would have been absurd to include a pickup in a top-speed contest but the universe had shifted and ownership of the fast machines of the pre-1972 muscle car era had been rendered unviable by the insurance industry before being banned by the legislators; by earlier standards, high-performance was no longer high.  Some demand for speed however remained and General Motors found a loophole: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn't impose power-sapping exhaust emission controls on anything with a gross vehicle weight rating above 6000 pounds (2722 kg).  Thus emerged Chevrolet’s combination of the heavy-duty version of the pickup chassis (F44) with the big-block, 454 cubic inch (7.4 litre) V8, a detuned edition of the engine which half-a-decade earlier had been offered with the highest horsepower rating Detroit had ever advertised.  Power and brutish enjoyment was ensured but the aerodynamic qualities of the pickup were such it could manage only third place in Car & Driver’s comparison, its 110 (177 km/h) mph terminal velocity shaded by the Pontiac Trans Am (118/190) and the Chevrolet Corvette (125/201) which won although both were slow compared with what recently had been possible.  The pickup did however outrun Ford’s Mustang Mach 1 which certainly looked the part but on the road prove anaemic, 106 mph (171 km/h) as fast as it could be persuaded to go.  In second place was what turned out to be the surprise package, the anonymous-looking Dodge Dart which, although an old design, was powered by a version of the Chrysler LA small-block V8, one of the best of the era and clean enough to eschew the crippling catalysts most engines by then required.  Its 122 mph (196 km/h) capability made it the fastest American sedan.

Kinkiness in 1964-1965: 1965 Dodge D-100 with 426 Street Wedge V8.

The kinky pickup however was a harbinger for where went California, so followed the other forty-nine.  The idea of the kinky pickup had actually begun in 1964 when Chrysler quietly slipped onto the market a high-performance version of the the Dodge D-100, a handful of which were built with a 413 (6.7 litre) cubic inch V8 but with little more fanfare, the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Street Wedge was next year added to the option list which, rated at 365 horsepower, was more than twice as powerful than the competition.  Ahead of its time, the big-power in the engines D-100 were withdrawn in 1966 but it was the first muscle truck and the spiritual ancestor of the C-10 which a decade later was faster than the hottest Mustang, damning with faint praise though that may be.  The trend continued and Dodge early in the twenty-first century even sold pickups with an 8.3 litre (505 cubic inch) V10.  The market has since shown little sign of losing its desire for fast pickups and the new generation of electric vehicles are likely to be faster still.

The adjective "kinky" evolved from the noun but a linguistic quirk in the use of "kink" in the gay community is that etymologically it was technically a back-formation from "kinky".  In the LGBTQQIAAOP movement, there is some debate whether displays of “kink” should be part of “pride” events such as public parade.  One faction thinks group rights trumps all else and there can be no acceptance of any restrictions whereas others think the PR cost too high.  One implication of some representation of this or that kink being included in pride parades is that presumably, once accepted as a part of public displays, it ceases to be kinky and becomes just another place on the spectrum of normality.  Kinky stuff surely should be what goes on only behind closed doors; if in public it can even be hinted at, it can't truly be a kink because a kink must be something seriously twisted.  

1962 BMW 1500 (Neue Klasse, left), the incomparable BMW E9 (1968-1975, centre) and the 2023 BMW 760i (G70, right).

In automotive design, the “Hoffmeister kink” is a description of the forward bend in the C-pillar (D-pillar on SUVs) and it’s associated almost exclusively with BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) vehicles built since the early 1960s.  The kink is named after Wilhelm Hofmeister (1912–1978; BMW design chief 1955-1970) who used the shape on the BMW Neue Klasse (The “New Class”, the first of which was the 1500 and in various forms was in production 1962-1975) although the BMW 3200 CS (1962-1965) which was styled by Giuseppe "Nuccio" Bertone (1914–1997) also used the lines and design work of both began in 1960.  However, the name “Hoffmeister kink” stuck not because it originated with Herr Hoffmeister but because BMW has for decades stuck with it so it’s now perhaps even more of an identifiable motif than their double-kidney grill which is now less recognizable than once it was.  Herr Hoffmeister deserves to be remembered because the work of his successors has been notably less impressive and none has matched his E9 coupe (1968-1975) although it gained as much infamy for its propensity to rust as admiration for its elegance.

Some of the pre-Hoffmeister kinks:  1949 Buick Super Sedanette (left), 1951 Kaiser Deluxe (centre) and 1958 Lancia Flaminia Sport Zagato (right).

Attaché

Attaché (pronounced a-ta-shey, at-uh-shey or uh-tash-ey)

(1) A diplomatic official attached to an embassy or legation, especially in a technical capacity (often as a commercial attaché, cultural attaché etc).

(2) A military officer who is assigned to a diplomatic post in a foreign country in order to gather military information (historically usually as air attaché; army attaché; naval attaché, military attaché).

(3) As attaché case, a type of briefcase intended for carrying documents.

1825–1835: From the French attaché (plural attachés, feminine attachée), (junior officer attached to the staff of an ambassador (literally “attached”)), noun use of the past participle of attacher (to attach), from the Old French atachier, a variant of estachier (bind), from estache (stick), from the Frankish stakka (stick) (which was cognate with the Old Occitan estacha, the Italian stacca and the Spanish estaca, from the Gothic stakka).  The attaché case (small leather case for carrying papers) dates from circa 1900.  English, typically, picked up attaché unaltered from the French (although the spelling attache is now common) as did German, Polish and Swedish but other languages adapted as was suited by tradition or pronunciation including Georgian (ატაშე (aṭaše)), Russian (атташе́ (attašé)), Serbo-Croatian (ataše) and Turkish (ataşe).  In sardonic diplomatic humor, attaché was long regarded as a euphemism for “spy” and that, the humor and the practice, remains afoot.  Attaché is a noun and the noun plural is attachés (use in attaché case is not adjectival).

The attaché case and the briefcase.

Meme of Lindsay Lohan in court, Los Angeles, 2013.

A Lindsay Lohan court appearance in Los Angeles in 2013 attracted the usual commentary (choice of hairstyle, clothes, shoes etc) but the attaché case carried by her lawyer inspired the meme community to create a spoof Louis Vuitton advertisement.  The mock-up, which appeared on the now defunct danielpianetti.com, used a courtroom image in which Ms Lohan’s seemed transfixed, eyes focused on the attaché case recumbent on the defense table.

Lawyer Mark Jay Heller with attaché case and rabbit’s foot.

Ms Lohan was represented by celebrity lawyer Mark Jay Heller (b 1945) who gained fame from representing “Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz (b 1953) before becoming a staple of the paparazzi business and he recently resigned from the New York bar due to professional misconduct.  In 2013, his attaché case was notable for the white rabbit's foot key chain attached to the handle which Mr Heller said brought him good luck.  On 17 March 2022, a New York state appeals court accepted his resignation from the bar after he admitted several counts of misconduct including failing to communicate with one client and neglecting another.  The subject of a disciplinary investigation, he acknowledged to the court he had no defense to offer.  Luck had run out.  Mr Heller’s attaché case was a Louis Vuitton Serviette Conseiller Monogram Robusto, fabricated with a cross grain calf leather interior & a natural cowhide handle (part-number M53331).  It's no longer available but a similar item, suitable for tablets and smaller laptops is the Porte-Documents Voyage PM Monogram Macassar Canvas (part-number M52005) at US$1950.

The attaché case and briefcase have not dissimilar histories.  In the diplomatic establishment, attachés were originally junior members of staff (their dual role as covers for spying swiftly a parallel career path) who fulfilled administrative duties which included carrying the ambassador’s papers in as slim case which came to be known as an attaché case.  In the legal community, a brief was a summary of facts and legal positions supporting arguments in judicial proceedings, prepared by a solicitor and provided to the advocate who was to appear in court.  The “brief case” was originally a wooden box in the chambers of barristers in which the bound briefs were deposited but by the early twentieth century it had come to be used to describe the small, rigid bags which had become the usual device used by lawyers to carry stuff to court.  These quickly became an almost obligatory accessory for businessmen either successful or wishing to appear so and they remained part of the informal uniform until the 1990s when laptops and later tablets & smartphones began to supplant paper.  The look remains admired however and high-end laptop bags use many of the design cues from the briefcase, even down to that signature touch of the 1970s, the dual combination locks.

Between manufacturers, there’s no agreement on when the attaché case ends and the briefcase begins but it seems the attaché case is a small, slender suitcase which opens into two distinct and usually symmetrical compartments, made from leather or metal and definitely without a shoulder strap.  By contrast, a briefcase is a flat, rectangular container which opens to reveal one large compartment although the “lid” is likely to have pockets or gussets that expand to accommodate pens, phones and such, generating flexible storage functionality.  Historically a briefcase would not include a shoulder strap but many are now so equipped suggesting the laptop bag is a descendent of the briefcase rather than the attaché case.  For that reason, the attaché case would seem to be thought something slim and stylish while a briefcase must be bigger to accommodate not only documents but also the electronic devices of the modern age including accessories such as charges, power cords and cables.  Other manufactures however claim an attaché case is actually bigger than a briefcase and always includes a shoulder strap but this view seems unfashionable and may relate more to their product differentiation and naming conventions.  However, for those not bothered by fine distinctions in such matters, using the terms interchangeably will likely confuse few.

Although probably thought by many to be something which exists only in the imagination of spy novels, briefcase guns really have been a thing and along with other innovations like the poison-tipped umbrella, there are documented cases of them being used by Warsaw Pact counter-intelligence services.  Remarkably, though unsurprisingly, briefcase guns are available for purchase in the US and can in some jurisdictions lawfully be carried (being luggage this is most literal) provided it’s first registered under the National Firearms Act as an Any Other Weapon (AOW), the relevant clause being 26 U.S.C. § 5845(E): Any weapon or device capable of being concealed on the person from which a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosive.

In this example, the weapon is a Heckler & Koch MP5 (Maschinenpistole 5), a 9x19mm Parabellum submachine gun, developed in the 1960s and there have been dozens of versions, both automatic and semi-automatic.  Widely used around the world by both the military and in law enforcement, the MP5 has survived the introduction of its supposed successor (the UMP) and remain popular, a familiar tale in military hardware.  The MP5K (the K stands for kurz (short)) is locked into a claw mount with the muzzle connected to a tubular firing port.  Loading a magazine is said to be a clumsy operation with the MP5 in place but is possible although it’s noted the recommended 30-round clip is a tight fit, barely clearing the bottom of the case.  The trigger is conveniently located in the handle and connected with a mechanical linkage.  There’s a knurled button on the handle which functions as a kind of external safety catch because the fire mode is set prior to closing the case and spent shells are deflected downward so they can’t cause a malfunction by bouncing into the action.  Within, there’s a holder for a spare magazine and the briefcase is lockable (which seems a sensible feature).  It’s said to take some practice to achieve anything like the accuracy one could attain with a conventionally held MP5 but for the section of the target market which wants a sudden, rapid fire over a wide field, it’s presumably ideal.

Dictator

Dictator (pronounced dik-tey-ter)

(1) A person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who (at least ostensibly) has absolute control (ie effectively not restricted by a constitution, laws, recognized opposition, etc) in a government (and officially without hereditary succession); applied particularly to those exercising tyrannical rule.

(2) In republican ancient Rome, a person vested by the senate with supreme authority during a crisis, the regular magistracy being subordinated to him until the crisis was met (typically by conducting a war).

(3) A person who makes pronouncements, as on conduct, fashion etc, which are regarded as authoritative.

(4) A person who dictates text to someone or some sort or mechanical or electronic recording device.

(5) In Ancient Rome (during certain periods), an elected chief magistrate.

1350–1400: From the Middle English dictatour, from the Old French dictator, from the Latin dictātor (genitive dictātōris), (Roman chief magistrate with absolute authority) the construct being dictā(re) (inflection of dictō (I repeat, say often; I dictate (to someone for writing))), frequentative of dicere (to say, speak); I compose, express in writing; I prescribe, recommend, order, dictate)) frequentative of dicere (to say, speak)" (from the primitive Indo-European root deik- (to show (also "solemnly to pronounce") (and related to dīcō (say, speak) + -tor (from the Proto-Italic -tōr, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr from -tor-s; the suffix added to the fourth principal part of a verb to create a third-declension masculine form of an agent noun).  The feminine forms were dictatress or dictatrix, both probably now obsolete except in historic reference or as a jocular form; the old alternative spelling dictatour is obsolete.  Some European languages (including Dutch and Romanian) were like English and borrowed directly the Latin spelling while others used variations including Catalan (dictador), French (dictateur) Italian (dittatore), Piedmontese (ditator), Polish (dyktator), Portuguese (ditador), Russian (дикта́тор (diktátor)), Sicilian (dittaturi), Spanish (dictador) and German (Diktator).  Dictator is a noun, dictatorially is an adverb and dictatorial is an adjective; the noun plural is dictators.

The noun dictatorship (office or term of a (Roman) dictator) came into use in the 1610s to describe the historically specific terms of office the Roman senate sometimes granted individuals in extraordinary and reprehensible circumstances while the now familiar general sense of "a ruler exercising absolute authority" evolved by the late seventeenth century.  The noun dictator had already proceeded along this path, the historical sense being the first used in English circa 1600, the extension to “one who has absolute power or authority" (in any context and not just political power) noted by the 1690s.  The nasty and not infrequently genocidal nature of some of the dictators of the twentieth century and beyond certainly influenced the understanding of the word which, as late as the 1800s could be used neutrally, effectively as a synonym for president.

The adjective dictatorial (pertaining to a dictator; absolute, unlimited), dating from 1901 evolved also to enjoy use outside of descriptors of absolute government and by 1704 had acquired the general sense of "imperious, overbearing", usefully (and often applied as required to husbands, mothers-in-law, parish priests et al; the related for was the adverb dictatorially.  In that vein, to convey the notion of "pertaining to a dictator" there had been dictatorian (1640s) & dictator-like (1580s).  Etymologists insist the dictatorial’s historic duality of implication (1) a disposition to rule and (2) a sharp insistence upon having one's orders accepted or carried out has survived in modern use but instances of the former are now probably rare.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 and of state 1934-1945) is of course the dictator who for decades has loomed over the word and “Hitler” was used figuratively for "a dictator" from as early as 1934, a use which has persisted despite there being no shortage of dictatorial tyrants in the years since his assumption of power.  One amusing variation emerged in England in the early years of the Second World War (1939-1945), a “little Hitler” being someone appointed to a minor post (archetypically someone employed to walk the streets during a “black-out” telling folk to extinguish their lights) and, cloaked in this brief, unaccustomed authority, soon intoxicated by their power.  In post-revolutionary (1979-) Iran, the regime encouraged a similar put-down aimed at opponents, the US being شيطان بزرگ (Shaytân-e Bozorg (the great Satan)) and Israel شیطان کوچک, (Shaytân-e Kuchak (the little Satan)) and it’s even worse than it sounds because “great” is not the perfect translation, the idea of the great Satan being one of derision rather than awe.  When the Ayatollahs are in a bad mood (which does happens), sometimes the UK is also described as a “little Satan”.

Lindsay Lohan never forgave dictator Hosni Mubarak (1928–2020; president of Egypt 1981-2011) for shouting at Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001).  When told in 2011 he’d fallen from power as one of the victims of the Arab Spring, she responded: “Cool.”  When told it was brought about by a military coup she replied: “Gross!”  Lindsay Lohan doesn’t approve of coups d'état and believes soldiers should "stay in the barracks", allowing due constitutional process to be followed.   

Because of the evil of Hitler and his many spiritual successors in this century and the last, dictator really doesn’t cry out for synonyms but autocrat, despot, tyrant, absolutist, authoritarian, oppressor & totalitarian all tend in the direction.  Historically, the closest is probably the noun generalissimo (supreme military commander), dating from the 1620s and a borrowing of the Italian generalissimo, superlative of generale, from a sense development similar to the French general.  However, despite the title being used by the dictators comrade Stalin and General Franco, it’s never come into use as a general descriptor in the manner of dictator.

1935 Studebaker Dictator phaeton (left) & 1936 Studebaker Dictator sedan (right).

The Studebaker Dictator was produced between 1927-1937 and was part of a naming scheme which used titles from government service to indicate a car’s place in the hierarchy, the Dictator replacing the Standard Six as the entry-level model, the progressively more expensive being the Commander and President.  Briefly (only for 1927) there was also the Chancellor but, presumably because it wasn’t a title which much resonated in the American imagination, it was short- lived.  Other manufacturers have adopted a similar idea, Opal once also merging admiralty and political ranks, offering the Kapitän, Commodore, Admiral & Diplomat.  

Some of the opposition to crooked Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016 accused her of wanting to turn the US into a dictatorship.  That was hyperbolic because, although it may have been what she wanted, the US constitution would make it almost impossible to achieve.  The meme makers responded with agitprop.

It probably now seems strange a US manufacturer would call one of its products the Dictator but in 1927 the Nazis were years from power and Mussolini, in office since 1922 was far from the tainted character he would later become and the public perception of his rule was still at the stage of admiring him for “making the trains run on time” (although it’s thought unlikely any improvements in punctuality were noted by many).  Studebaker anyway had always explained the name as suggesting “a fine car at a moderate price” that would “dictate the standards” in the vital mid-priced field.  That was fair enough but with the benefit of post-Nazi hindsight, when the option of a straight-eight engine was offered as an upgrade from the straight-six, Studebaker probably would not to have used the marketing slogan “a brilliant example of excess power”.  By 1937, the use of excess power by the Third Reich’s dictator was becoming obvious and Studebaker quietly dropped the Dictator name for 1938, re-positioning the Commander as the base model, the cars exported to the Europe, the UK and the British Empire having early been renamed Director.  Of those changes, probably just about everyone except Henry Ford (1863-1947) approved.

So Studebaker’s tale is an example of how the shifting meaning of words can influence many things.  Still, if in 1937 any association with Hitler had become distasteful for a US corporation, even by 1940, some two years after the Nazi’s most publicized pogrom against the Jews (Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)), Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) released his satirical comedy The Great Dictator which parodied both dictators (Hitler and Mussolini), his argument being that however controversial it might be, “…Hitler must be laughed at."  He later admitted that had he known in 1940 what would later be understood, he’d never have produced the film.

The Hijab Police

Of the many “morality police” forces which have existed in countries with a majority Islamic population, the best known was Afghanistan's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice which actually pre-dated the Taliban takeover in 1996 but they certainly deployed it with an enthusiasm which went much beyond it functioning as “burka police” and in one form or another, it actually operated for most of the (first) post-Taliban era.  When the Taliban regained power in 2021, immediately they created the "Ministry of Invitation, Guidance and Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" and, in a nice touch, allocated as its headquarters the building formerly used by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

The institution is infamous also in Iran.  In the West, it’s usually referred to as the “morality police” and among women the sardonic slang is “hijab police” but technically, the instrument of the Islamic Republic of Iran which enforces, inter alia, the laws governing the wearing of the hijab is گشت ارشاد (Gašt-e Eršād (Guidance Patrol)).  On 16 September 2022, the hijab police arrested Mahsa Amini (b 2001) because she was wearing her hijab in “an un-Islamic way”.  While in custody, Ms Amini suffered a medical event, dying two days later without recovering consciousness, the hijab police claiming the cause of death was heart failure, induced by pre-existing conditions.  Her family dispute this, saying the evidence suggests she was severely beaten and many witnesses have confirmed she was tortured in the back of a van before arriving at a hijab police office.

Handy guide for the hijab police.  Not only must hijab must be worn correctly but clothing must also be (1) not brightly colored, (2) not patterned with extravagant designs or shapes and (3) be loose enough that the shape of the body is not discernable.

Her death triggered waves of protests in Iran, which, on the basis of footage seen in the West, seem dominated by school girls and young women which, in the context of political protest, is historically unusual.  With protest signs and banners rendered in YouTube & TikTok friendly English, the headline issue is of course the matter of the hijab and whether women should be beaten to death for letting a lock of hair slip from beneath but the women and girls are making clear they're protesting about corruption (noting the poverty of most while the clerical elite have become very rich), the structure of the state, the economy and the very question of whether the republic should be an Islamic theocracy.  The Ayatollahs are no doubt well aware that the standard calculation in political science is that if 3½% of the population can be mobilized to revolt, regimes can be toppled and most recently, the Afghan Taliban did it with a fraction of that.  For many reasons, Afghanistan may be a special case and the Iranian state, on paper, is much better equipped to suppress internal dissent but then the security apparatuses around Hosni Mubarak (1928-2020; Egyptian dictator 1981-2011) and Muammar Gaddafi (circa 1942–2011; Libyan dictator 1969-2011) both looked impregnable until the volume of the protesters reached critical mass.  These things are however hard to judge from afar, Bashar al-Assad (b 1965; Syria dictator since 2000) looked vulnerable long before Gaddafi and Mubarak fell yet today he sits still as dictator in Damascus.  The Ayatollahs are of course watching things with concern but so will individuals in the Kremlin, aware their security apparatus has proved inadequate to execute the battle plan of the recent special military action (war) in Ukraine and, in a nice echo of the 1979 revolution, the protesters are again chanting the cry once spat against the Shah: “Death to the Dictator!”.