Nefandous

Nefandous (pronounced nef-and-us or nef-fandus)

(1) Not to be spoken of (archaic).

(2) Unspeakable, appalling; abominable, shocking to reasonable senses (rare).

1630s: From the Latin nefandus (unmentionable, impious, heinous), the construct being ne- (the negative particle: “not”) + fandus (to be spoken), gerundive of fārī (to speak), from the primitive Indo-European root bha (to speak, tell, say).  Nefandous is an adjective.  Although not obviously a word needing an intensifier, the comparative is “more nefandous” and the superlative “most nefandous”.

Google's ngrams trace the use of words but because of the way the data is harvested, the numbers represented by the ngrams are not of necessity accurate but, over decades, probably are broadly indicative.  While the numbers do bounce around a bit, it would seen that in British English (lower chart), use of "nefandous" was not infrequent in the nineteenth century while the most recent spike was during the 1930s; while politically and financially a troubled decade, any suggestion of a causal link with use would be speculative.  In US English (upper chart) use appears also to have declined after the nineteenth century, the most recent spike in the use of "nefandous" coinciding with the 2016 presidential campaign; again, to suggest any link with Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) or crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) would be speculative.  With the 2024 election threatening to be a re-run of 2020 (something quite a few seem to think variously unspeakable, unthinkable or unmentionable), there may be another revival of the word.   

The extinct nineteenth century formations were the noun nefandousness and the adverb nefandously; as an expression of character, nefandousness briefly found uses but the adverb was just silly.  Both seem to have followed the example of nefariousness & nefariously which is etymologically distant although in meaning there’s some overlap, those labelled nefandous often associated with things nefarious (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked).  Dating from the late sixteenth century, nefarious was from the Latin nefārius (execrable, abominable), from nefās (that which is contrary to divine law, an impious deed, a sin, crime), the construct being ne- (the negative particle: “not”) + fās (the dictates of religion, divine law), related to the Latin forms Latin forms meaning “I speak, I say” (thus the link with nefandous) and cognate with the Ancient Greek φημί (phēmí) (I say).

Unspeakable, unthinkable, unmentionable

Although the word "nefarious" is now rare, the idea is often expressed in the term "unspeakable", used to describe anything from crimes against fashion to mass murderers.  There was also the use use of "unmentionable" as a euphemism for a lady's underwear (usually in the plural as "her (or my) unmentionables") and although sometimes cited as an example of prudery in Victorian England, the evidence of use at the time suggests it was often something jocular or ironic.  However, there was also the notion of "unspeakable" a piece of literal positive law.  In Asia Minor (near present-day Selcuk, Türkiye), in a sacred grove not far from the city of Ephesus, stood the Great Temple of Artemis (also known as the Temple of Diana), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. During the evening of 21 July, 356 BC, Herostratus (also called Erostratus) of Ephesus saturated the timber and fabric furnishings of the temple with gallons of oil and when all was thoroughly soaked, he set fires in many places, inside and out.  Within minutes, as he had planned, the fire was uncontrollable and the temple doomed.  Coincidently, on the day the temple was razed, Alexander the Great (356-323 DC) was born.

St. Paul Preaching in Ephesus Before the Temple of Artemis (1885), by Adolf Pirsch (1858-1929).

Herostratus was apparently a wholly undistinguished and previously obscure citizen, different from others only in his desire to be famous and the lengths to which he was prepared to go to achieve that fame.  As shocked Ephesians rushed to the fire, Herostratus met them and proudly proclaimed his deed, telling them his name would for all eternity be remembered as the man who burned down the Great Temple of Artemis and razed one of the wonders of the world.  Herostratus was, as he expected, executed for his arson.  In an attempt to deny him the fame he craved, the Ephesians passed the damnatio memoriae law, making it a capital crime ever to speak of him or his deed.  However, it proved impossible to suppress the truth about such an event; the historian Theopompus (circa 380–circa 315 BC) relates the story in his Philippica and it later appears in the works of the historian Strabo (circa 64 BC–circa 24 AD).  His name thus became a metonym for someone who commits a criminal act in order to become noted.  Subsequent attempts to erase names from history by declaring them unspeakable (tried on a grand scale by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) and the Kim dynasty in the DPRK (North Korea)) seem always to fail.

It's unfortunate history didn't unfold so Android and iOS were available in 356 BC so  Herostratus could have played Lindsay Lohan's The Price of Fame instead of turning to arson.  The game was said to be "a parody on celebrity culture and paparazzi" and enabled players to become world famous celebrities by creating an avatar which could "purchase outfits, accessories, toys and even pets".  Played well, he could have entered a virtual herostratisphere and the temple might stand today.  As Ms Lohan would understand, the tale of Herostratus reminds all that for everything one does, there's a price to be paid. 

Like many of the tales from antiquity, the story of destruction by arson is doubted.  Various conjectures have been offered, some of which doubt the technical possibility of what Herostratus is said to have done, some claiming it was a kind of inside job by the temple’s priests who had their own reasons for wanting a new building and even a reference to the writings of Aristotle which offers a lightning strike as the catalyst for the conflagration.  However, whatever did or didn’t happen in 356 BC, the word herostatic, to describe one who seeks fame at any cost, has endured, the attempt to make his name unspeakable as doomed as the temple.

Nefarious

Nefarious (pronounced ni-fair-ee-uhs)

Extremely evil, wicked or villainous; iniquitous; sinful.

1595–1605: From the Latin nefārius (wicked, vile; execrable; abominable), the construct being nefās (something contrary to divine law, an impious deed, sin, crime) + -ius or –ious (the suffix from the Old Latin -ios, from the primitive Indo-European –yós and used to form adjectives from nouns.  The Middle English suffix –ous was borrowed from the Old French -ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in the unstressed position).  The construct of nefās was ne- (the negative prefix) + fās (law, right).  Nefarious is an adjective, nefariously is an adverb and nefariousness is a noun.

Crooked Hillary Clinton & Harvey Weinstein, Lincoln Centre, New York, April 2012.

Plot

Plot (pronounced plot)

A secret plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose, describes especially as such if for some hostile, unlawful, or evil purpose.

(2) In fiction, the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work (play, novel short story etc) (also called storyline or plotline and a plat may include a number of subplots).

(3) A small piece or area of ground (often with a modifier: garden plot; burial plot et al); a measured piece or parcel of land.

(4) A plan, map, diagram or other graphic representation, as of land, a building etc (in US use synonymous with a surveyor's map.

(5) A list, timetable, or scheme dealing with any of the various arrangements for the production of a play, motion picture etc.

(6) A chart showing the course of a craft (ship or airplane).

(7) In military use, a graphic representation of an individual or tactical setting that pinpoints an artillery target (as a point or points located on a map or chart (often as target plot)).

(8) To plan secretly, especially something hostile or evil.

(9) To mark on a plan, map, or chart, as the course of a ship or aircraft.

(10) To draw a plan or map of, as a tract of land or a building.

(11) To divide land into plots.

(12) To determine and mark (points), as on plotting paper, by means of measurements or coordinates; to describe curve by means of points so marked; to represent by means of such a curve; to make a calculation by means of a graph.

(13) To devise or construct the plot of a play, novel etc.

(14) To prepare a list, timetable, or scheme of production arrangements for a play, motion picture etc.

Pre 1100: From the Middle English plot & plotte, (piece of ground) in the sense of “small area, patch, stain, piece of ground” and was often associated with actual legal title to the defined area.  This was an inheritance from the Old English plot (piece of ground) which may (it’s contested among etymologists) be from the Proto-Germanic plataz & platjaz (a patch), the origin of which is unknown.  It was cognate with the Middle Low German plet (patch, strip of cloth, rags), the German Bletz (rags, bits, strip of land) and the Gothic plats (a patch, rags).

In the 1550s it gained the sense of “ground plan, outline, map, scheme”, a variant of the Middle English plat & platte (flat part of a sword; flat piece of ground, plot of ground), itself partly a variant of the Middle English & Old English plot.  The sense of a “secret plan” emerged in the 1580s by association with the Middle French complot (crowd-, plot (ie a combined plan)) of an unknown origin but the Oxford English Dictionary notes the speculation it may have been a back-formation from compeloter (to roll into a ball) from pelote (ball).  The verb was a derivative of the noun.  Plot in the sense “a storyline or main story of a fictional work” dates from the 1640s while the now familiar phrase “plot-line” (main features of a story) seems not to have appeared in print prior to the 1940s although it may earlier have been in oral use as theatre slang in the sense of “a sentence containing matter essential to the comprehension of the play's story” since early in the century.  The noun marplot (one who by officious interference defeats a design) was from 1708 and was the name of a character in Susanna Centlivre's (circa 1669-1723) comedy The busie body.  The phrase sub-plot dates from 1812.  The specific idea of a small piece of land in a cemetery (described variously as “burial plot” or “funeral plot”) was an invention of mid-nineteenth century US English.

HP DesignJet (24 inch (610 mm)) A1 Studio Plotter Printer (steel finish; HP part-number HPDJST24ST).

In the context of (an often secret and for some unscrupulous purpose) plan or scheme, plot can be synonymous with conspiracy but while a plot can be devised by a single individual, a conspiracy by definition involves at least two.  To scheme is to plan (usually with an implication of subtlety) often craftily and typically for one's own advantage.  Words related to plot in this sense includes intrigue, cabal, conspiracy, brew, hatch, frame, design, maneuver, scam & trick.  In the sense of land it can be section, division, parcel, piece etc.  The meaning "to make a map or diagram of, lay down on paper according to scale" was a borrowing from the nefarious sense of scheming and dates from the 1580s while the intransitive sense of "to form a plan or device" is from circa 1600.  In the sense of the lines on a chart or map, there’s no exact synonym (although various shapes (lines, curves, arcs etc) may be describes as a part of a whole plot and the word was (as plotter) adopted as the name of the device (a plotter was previously an individual employed manually to draw) used to draw the lines and mark the points of plans, schematics, blueprints etc.  In idiomatic use, to “lose the plot” is to become confused or disorientated or (more commonly) to lose one's ability or judgment in a (usually stressful) situation.  Plot is really unique to English and other languages picked it up unaltered including French, Dutch, Albanian & Spanish while Czech gained it from the Old Czech which (like Serbo-Croatian), gained it from the Proto-Slavic plotъ; Indonesian picked it up from the Dutch.  Plot is a noun & verb, plotted is a verb, plotting is a noun & verb, plotful & plotless are adjectives and plotter is a noun; the noun plural is plots (the form often also used as a verb).  The verb outplot (to surpass in plotting or scheming) is rare, the derived forms being outplotted & outplotting.

A plot in progress: The Gunpowder Plotters (circa 1610), copperplate engraving conspiring by Crispijn van de Passe the Elder (circa 1564-1637)

Use of the word “plot” spiked suddenly once the “Gunpowder Plot” of 5 November 1605 became well-known.  The Gunpowder Plot was a conspiracy among English Roman Catholics to blow up the houses of parliament, killing, inter alia, King James (James Charles Stuart, 1566–1625; King of Scotland as James VI from 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I after the union of the Scottish and English in 1603 until 1625), his queen and eldest son.  Henry VIII’s (1491-1547; King of England 1509-1547) creation of the Church of England after breaking with Rome in 1534 meant the Roman Catholic Church vanished only in an institutional sense while many adherents to the denomination remained and in the years after Henry’s fiat, there had been many plots which aimed to restore Romish ways to the Isle.  The gunpowder plot was probably the most dramatic (and certainly the most explosive) and was induced by the anger of some zealous Roman Catholics (the most remembered of whom was Guy Fawkes (1570-1606) at the king’s refusal to extend more rights to Catholics.  Their probably not unreasonable assumption was that with the death of the senior royals and most of the members of the House of Commons and House of Lords, there would be such confusion the English Catholics would have their best chance to take back the government of the country and re-establish their Church.

The idea of killing the king was not new (England, like many of the nations of Europe enjoying something of a tradition of regicide) and prior to the Gunpowder Plot being put in train, there had been attempts to gain political and economic rights by negotiation but the authorities (thin-end-of-the-wedge theorists) remained intransigent and the Penal Laws (a body of laws with the practical effect of outlawing Roman Catholicism) remained in force.  Accordingly, the plotters assembled some dozens of barrels of gunpowder (an even now impressive 1½ tons (1400 kg)) and secured a lease on a vault which sat directly beneath the House of Lords, hiding the explosives beneath piles of sacks, coal and firewood.  The preparations in place, discussions were undertaken among the Catholic elite to allocate the positions in the government which would be formed once James’s daughter, the nine-year old Princess Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662) was installed as queen.  If that seems now a strange choice (and the plot included having her brought-up as a Roman Catholic and at some tender age married off to a suitably Romish groom) it doubtlessly reflected the view the (exclusively male) plotters held of women.  Confident of their success, emissaries were dispatched to foreign courts likely to be sympathetic which included the Holy See in Rome.

Up to this point, the gunpowder plot flawlessly had evolved because the most vital part (secrecy between the conspirators) had been maintained.  However, shortly before the fuse was to be lit, one of the plotters suffered pangs of conscience at the idea of mass murder (which would include not a few Roman Catholics) and sent an anonymous letter to one member of the Lords with whom he was acquainted:

My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care of your preservation, therefore I would advise you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift your attendance at this parliament, for God and man have concurred to punish the wickedness of this time, and think not slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this parliament and yet they shall not see who hurts them, this counsel is not to be condemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm, for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the letter and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.

Alarmed, his lordship alerted the authorities and the decision was taken to search the premises but to wait until closer to the day when the members were due to convene so the plotters might reveal themselves.  At this point the plot was unraveling because the nature of the warning letter became known to the plotters but, upon discovering their gunpowder undisturbed, they assumed it had been dismissed as fake news and resolved to continue, placing a lookout to watch over the vault.  It was to no avail because on 4 November, a search was undertaken and the stash uncovered.  Guy Fawkes, linked to the lease taken on the vault was arrested and, under the torture for which the Stuarts were justly famous, named his fellow plotters and the extent of their participation.  The planned insurrection quickly collapsed and while a few of the plotters made good their escape to the continent, most were either killed while fleeing or captured and executed.

Guy Fawkes in effigy burning on a 5 November bonfire.

Their planed act of terrorism caused such revulsion in England that the cause of Catholic emancipation was set back centuries and laws against them were strengthened and to add insult to injury, in January 1606 the parliament established November 5 as a day of public thanksgiving.  Known as Guy Fawkes Day, it was a popular public festival celebrated throughout the land, the highlight of which was the creation of huge bonfires upon which sat an effigy called "a guy" which had been paraded through the streets.  It's from this use that the word "guy" evolved into the present form, losing gradually the negative connotations (especially in the US) and late in the twentieth century also the exclusively male identity (the male proper name originally the French and related to the Italian Guido.).  Guy Fawkes day is still celebrated in England with bonfires and fireworks but in most of the Commonwealth, where “cracker night” had also been a fond tradition, it has suffered the fate of much in the nanny state, the humorous bureaucrats thinking fun must be had without the annual toll of eyes and fingers for which Guy Fawkes nights had become noted, the injuries increasing as fireworks became more powerful.  Australians and others might be surprised if wandering Amsterdam’s streets on new year’s eve, children happily launching some quite impressive ordnance across the canals without apparent ill-effect.

Lindsay Lohan (with body double) on location in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, for the shooting of Irish Wish.  Lindsay Lohan has (an admittedly remote) connection with the Irish, the surname Lohan an anglicization of the Irish Ó Leocháin, from Middle Irish uí Leochain, from the Old Irish úa Lothcháin (the modern alternative forms being O'Lohan, Loughan, Loghan & Logan).  Car is a Triumph TR4A (1965-1967).  Netflix have released the plotline of the upcoming Irish Wish (release slated for 2024):

When the love of her life gets engaged to her best friend, Maddie puts her feelings aside to be a bridesmaid at their wedding in Ireland. Days before the pair are set to marry, Maddie makes a spontaneous wish for true love, only to wake up as the bride-to-be. With her dream seeming to come true, Maddie soon realizes that her real soulmate is someone else entirely.

Planter

Planter (pronounced plahn-tah (U) or plan-ter (non-U))

(1) A person who plants (usually seedlings, shrubs etc).

(2) An implement or machine for planting seeds, seedlings etc in the soil.

(3) The owner or manager of a plantation.

(4) In historical use, during the era of European colonialism, a colonist or new settler.

(5) In historical use, any of the early English or Scottish settlers, given the lands of the dispossessed Irish populace during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).

(6) A decorative container, in a variety of sizes and shapes, used usually for growing flowers or ornamental plants.

(7) In the slang of law enforcement and the criminal class, an individual (from either group) who “plants” incriminating evidence for various purposes.

1350–1400: From the late fourteenth century Middle English plaunter (one who sows seeds), an agent noun from the verb plant, the construct being plant + -er.  Plant was from the Middle English plante, from the Old English plante (young tree or shrub, herb newly planted), from the Latin planta (sprout, shoot, cutting) while the broader sense of “any vegetable life, vegetation generally” was from the Old French plante.  The verb was from the Middle English planten, from the Old English plantian (to plant), from the Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter.  Similar European forms meaning “to plant” included the Dutch planten, the German pflanzen, the Swedish plantera and the Icelandic planta.  The use of “plant” to describe heavy machinery and equipment emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, based on the ideas of something being “planted” in place and immovable (like a planted tree).  As technology evolved, use extended to non-static equipment such as heavy earth moving vehicles but the exact definition now differs between jurisdictions, based variously on purchase price, function etc although the aspect of most practical significance is often the threshold to qualify for certain taxation advantages such as accelerated depreciation.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Planter is a noun; the noun plural is planters.

Planters (with plants) at the main entryway to Lindsay Lohan's house, Venice, Los Angeles, California, 2013.

The figurative sense of “one who introduces, establishes, or sets up” dates from the 1630s, picked up a decade later to refer to “one who owns a plantation, the proprietor of a cultivated estate in West Indies or southern colonies of North America” although in the latter case it was literally the “planting of seeds” for cropping rather than the idea of planting the “seeds of civilization”, a notion which for centuries appealed to the defenders of European colonialism and echoes of this attitude are heard still today.  The mechanical sense of a “tool or machine for planting seeds” is by 1850 dates from the 1850s.  The “planter’s punch” was a cocktail mixed with Jamaican rum, lime juice and sugar cane juice; first mentioned in the late nineteenth century it fulfilled a similar role to the gin & tonic (G&T) under the Raj.  The now familiar use to describe a “pot for growing plants” is a surprisingly late creation, apparently named only in 1959 although such devices obviously had been in use for centuries, such as the “window box” attached to the sills outside windows in which folk grew either something decorative (flowers) or useful (herbs or miniature vegetables).  The form “window box planter” is now used in commerce; something which seems a needless addition.  A church planter (also as churchplanter) describes a missionary, preacher or organization which travels to establish a church in a place where no congregations of the relevant denomination exist.  The tactic is most associated with Evangelical Christianity.  In Cebuano (an Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippines), as a back-formation from planteran, planter is used as a noun to mean “a frame-up; a false incrimination of an innocent person”.  The Cebuano verb planteran was also from the English plant and was used to mean “to arrange fraudulent evidence to falsely implicate someone in the commission of a crime”.  An often un-mentioned aspect in the career of Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940) was his early career as a planter.  Dispatched by his father Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) to establish a sisal plantation on Andros Island in the Bahamas, the younger Neville proved a tough imperial pioneer, toiling for some six years in the Caribbean but the climate was uncooperative and the soil proved no more receptive to Neville's attempts at appeasement than would Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) two generations later.  The sisal project ended in failure with the family fortune suffering a loss equivalent (in 2024 values) to some US$8-9 million.

Bollards, raw and disguised.

Dealing with terrorism is of necessity a reactive business and in Western cities, bollards appeared sometimes within hours of news of the use of motor vehicles somewhere as an instrument of murder, either as a delivery system for explosives or brute-force device to run down pedestrians.  Because of the haste with which the things were deemed needed, it wasn’t uncommon for bollards initially to be nothing but re-purposed concrete blocks (left), often not even painted, the stark functionality of purpose limited to preventing vehicular access which permitting those on foot to pass with minimal disruption.  They’ve since become a fixture in the built environment, often is stylized shapes (centre & right) and urban designers have been inventive, many objects which function as bollards not recognizably bollardesque, being integrated into structures such as city furniture or bus shelters.

Bollards disguised as planters.

Urban planners have however responded and the large-scale planter box, which had for some time been a familiar sight in cityscapes, has proved adaptable, able to be shaped and placed in a way which obviates the need for conventionally shaped bollards.  Where the space is available, even small green spaces can be installed and, with integrated drip-feed irrigation systems, maintenance is low, an additional benefit being the lowering of temperature in the immediate environment, the foliage reducing radiated heat.  One popular feature of the big planter boxes in many cities is that they include built-in benches on which people can sit, something seen in squares, malls and plazas.  Not all support this however.  Retailers think people should be in such places only to shop and giving them somewhere to sit makes them for the time they spend unproductively inert not able to go to shops and spend money.  There’s also the view such things attract an anti-social element who loiter with nefarious intent and there is still a view by some in authority (based apparently on some English case-law from the 1960s) that in public spaces, while people have the right to walk up and down, there’s no right to stay in the one place, sitting or standing.  So, planters with seating presumably are provided on a case-by-case basis: in nice respectable suburbs which are well-policed, planters have comfortable seats in the shade while in low income areas where the police appear only to respond to murders, serious assaults, armed robbery etc, the built environment is designed in such as way that to sit anywhere is either uncomfortable or impossible.

Planters with an integrated bench on which people can sit are a feature of the street architecture in Canberra, Australia.  Pictured here are several on Lonsdale Street, Braddon.

However, even when planters offer a comfortable spot on which to rest, dangers lurk, especially if one is at the time tired and emotional or at least a bit squiffy.  Shortly before midnight on 8 February 2024, the honourable Barnaby Joyce MP (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) was observed sprawled on the sidewalk mumbling obscenities into his phone, having fallen from the planter where he’d paused to gather his thoughts.  The planter sits on Lonsdale Street in the Canberra suburb of Braddon, a short distance from a bar popular with politicians.  The Daily Mail published footage of the remarkable scene, the highlight in some ways being the conversation the former deputy prime-minister was having with his wife, the lucky soul who captured the scene reporting the uttering of “dead fucking cunt” (the phrase a not infrequently ejaculated part of idiomatic Australian English).

Vikki Campion (b 1985) and Barnaby Joyce (b 1967) on their wedding day, 11 November 2023.  In a nice touch, the couple's two children were able to witness the ceremony.

In answer to enquiries from the Daily Mail (past masters at identifying those “tired and emotional”), Mr Joyce’s wife confirmed she was the interlocutor and her husband was referring not to her as a “dead fucking cunt” but was “…calling himself one.”  “He likes to self flagellate” she added.  She further observed it was disappointing that rather than offering assistance to someone sprawled on the ground in the dead of night, someone would instead film the scene but the witness confirmed Mr Joyce seemed “relaxed & happy”, in no obvious distress and conducting his phone call calmly, using the wide vocabulary which has helped make him a politician of such renown.  Responding later to an enquiry from the Daily Mail, Mr Joyce admitted the incident was “very embarrassing” and that had he known “…someone was there with a camera, I would have got up quicker.”  Explaining the event, he told the newspaper: “I was walking back to my accommodation after parliament rose at 10 pm.  While on the phone I sat on the edge of a planter box, fell over, kept talking on the phone, and very animatedly was referring to myself for having fallen over.  I got up and walked home.”  Commendably, Mr Joyce seems to have made no attempt to blame the planter box for what happened but a Murdoch outlet did report that "...privately he was telling friends he was taking medication you cannot drink alcohol with and that was the cause of the incident".  Left unexplored by Sky News was whether that implied (1) knowing that, he hadn't taken any alcohol that day and the episode was induced by a reaction to the medicine or (2) he had taken a quantity of alcohol and the episode was induced by the combination of strong drink and the pharmaceuticals.  He later clarified things, confirming the latter, after which he announced he was "giving up alcohol for Lent".

The honourable Barnaby Joyce MP, Lonsdale Street, Canberra ACT, February 2024.

The morning after the night before, the planter box's 15 minutes of fame was marked in an appropriately ephemeral way, a chalk outline added where the recumbent Mr Joyce continued his phone call.

Mr Joyce should be given the benefit of the doubt.  Perhaps recalling Lyndon Johnson’s (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) observation of Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977) as someone “so dumb he can’t fart and walk at the same time” (sanitized by the press for publication as “chew gum and walk at the same time”), Mr Joyce may have thought it wise to sit on the planter while making his call.  Unfortunately, when one is tired and emotional, the challenge of using one’s phone, even if one sits a planter, can be too much and one topples to the ground, a salutatory lesson for all phone users.  

Dr Rudd sitting in a pew during the ecumenical church service marking the start of the parliamentary year, Canberra, February, 2008.

Among serious & cynical observers of politics (the adjectival tautology acknowledged), the consensus seems to be this latest incident in Mr Joyce's eventful life will prove beneficial and he'll likely increase his majority at the next election, the rationale for that being politicians tend to benefit from being seen as “authentic” and few things seem more authentically Australian than going to a bar, spending a few hours giving it a nudge, then falling off a planter box on the way home.  People can identify with that in a way something like the essay discussing "faith in politics" and the example set by anti-Nazi preacher Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) which Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013) published in The Monthly (October 2006), just doesn't "cut through".  The essay was politely received as “earnest”, “thoughtful” and “worthy”, few apparently prepared to risk retribution by pointing out it was also derivative, taking 5000-odd words to say what had many times over the years already been said (which, in fairness, can be said of many works).  Still, it was shorter than might have been expected so there was that.  The sanctimony in the text would have surprised nobody but it was only after he was defenestrated by his colleagues that some, musing on the the policies his government implemented, decided to point out the hypocrisy of him asserting Christianity “must always take the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed” and that politicians should uphold “the values of decency, fairness and compassion that are still etched deep into our national soul”.  Mr Joyce's many and varied sins are (mostly) well documented and “ordinary Australians” (as politicians like to call us) seem still willing to extend to him the Christian virtue of forgiveness.  Of Dr Rudd, they probably prefer to try to forget.

Hood

Hood (pronounced hood)

(1) A soft or flexible covering for the head and neck, either separate or attached to a cloak, coat and similar garments.

(2) Something resembling or suggestive of such a covering (especially in shape) and used in botany to describe certain petals or sepals.

(3) In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence, the (usually) hinged, movable part of an automobile body covering the engine (the bonnet in the UK and most of the old British Empire).  Despite geographical spread, the phrase “under the hood” is now close to universal, referring to (1) the engine of an automobile & (2) by extension, the inner workings or technical aspects of anything (a computer’s specifications etc).

(4) In the UK and most of the old British Empire, the roof of a carriage or automobile, able to be lowered or removed (ie on a convertible, cabriolet, roadster, drophead coupé (DHC) et al).  In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence such things tend variously to be called soft-tops or convertible tops.

(5) A metal cover or canopy for a stove, fitted usually with a ventilation system (a flue or extractor fan).

(6) In falconry, a cover for the entire head of a hawk or other bird, used when not in pursuit of game.

(7) On academic gowns, judicial robes etc, an ornamental ruffle or fold on the back of the shoulders (in ecclesiastical garments, and in cults such as the Freemasons, also used as a mark of one’s place in the hierarchy).

(8) In nautical use, as hooding ends, one of the endmost planks (or, one of the ends of the planks) in a ship’s bottom at bow or stern which fits into the stem and sternpost rabbets.  When fitted into a rabbet, these resemble a hood (covering).

(9) In zoology, a crest or band of color on the head of certain birds and other animals (such as the fold of skin on the head of a cobra, that covers or appears to cover the head or some similar part).

(10) In anatomy (the human hand), over the extensor digitorum, an expansion of the extensor tendon over the metacarpophalangeal joint (the extensor hood (dorsal hood or lateral hood).

(11) In colloquial use in palaeontology, the osseous or cartilaginous marginal extension behind the back of many dinosaurs (also known as the “frill”).

(12) As the suffix –hood, a native English suffix denoting state, condition, character, nature, etc, or a body of persons of a particular character or class, formerly used in the formation of nouns: childhood; likelihood; knighthood; priesthood and of lad appended as required (Twitterhood, Instahood etc, subsets of Twitterverse & Instaverse respectively).

(13) In slang, a clipping of hoodlum.

(14) In slang, a clipping of neighborhood, especially an urban neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socioeconomic status (a part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and adopted also by LatinX) although use in these communities does now transcend economic status.

(15) To furnish with or fit a hood; to cover with or as if with a hood.

(16) In medieval armor, a range of protective cloakings or coverings

Pre 900: From the Middle English hode, hod, hude, hudde & hoode (hoodes apparently the most common plural), from the Old English hōd, from the Proto-Germanic hōdaz, (related to the Old High German huot (hat), the Middle Dutch hoet and the Latin cassis helmet) and cognate with the Saterland Frisian Houd, the Old Frisian hōde, the West Frisian & Dutch hoed, the Proto-Iranian xawdaH (hat), the German Low German Hood and the German Hut (hat).  The Old English hād was cognate with German –heit and was a special use used to convey qualities such as order, quality, rank (the sense surviving academic, judicial & ecclesiastical garments).  The ultimate source is uncertain but most etymologists seem to support the primitive Indo-European kad & kadh (to cover).  Hood is modified as required (chemical hood, clitoral hood, un-hood, de-hood, fume hood, hood-shy, hood unit, hoodwink, range hood, riding hood etc) and something thought hood-shaped is sometimes described as cuculliform.  Hood is a noun & verb, hooded & hooding are verbs, hoodless hoodesque & hoodlike are adjectives; the noun plural is hoods.

Hooded: Lindsay Lohan in hoodie, JFK Airport, New York City, NYC April 2013. The bag is a Goyard Saint Louis Tote (coated canvas in black).

Hood as clipping of hoodlum (gangster, thug, criminal etc) dates from the late 1920s and would influence the later use of “hoodie” as a slur to refer to those wearing the garment of the same name, the inference being it was worn with nefarious intent (concealing identity, hiding from CCTV etc.  Hood as a clipping of neighborhood (originally especially an urban (inner-city) neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socio-economic status) dates from circa 1965 and became part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and was adopted also by LatinX) although use in all communities does now transcend economic status.  It was an alternative to ghetto (a word with a very different tradition) and encapsulated both the negative (crime, violence, poverty) & positive (group identity, sense of community) aspects of the low-income inner city experience.  Although a part of AAVE, it never formed part of Ebonics because its meaning was obvious and, to an extent, integrated into general US vernacular English.  The phrase “all good in the hood” is an example of the use of the clipping.

Blu-Ray & DVD package art for Red Riding Hood (2006).  In US use, "alternate" seems to have been accepted as a synonym for "alternative".  Few seem to mind.

The verb hood in the sense of “to put a hood” & “to furnish with a hood” on dates from circa 1400 while although hooded & hooding aren’t attested until decades later, it’s possible the use emerged at much the same time.  The Old English hod was typically "a soft covering for the head" which extended usually over the back of the neck but only in some cases did it (permanently or ad-hoc) attach to some other garment.  The modern spelling emerged early in the fifteenth century and indicated a “long vowel” although that pronunciation is long extinct.  The word was picked up in medicine, botany & zoology in the seventeenth century while the use to describe the “foldable or removable covers on a carriage which protects the occupants from the elements” was documented since 1826 and that was used in a similar context by the manufacturers of prams and baby-carriages by at least 1866.  The meaning “hinged cover for an automobile engine” was in use in the US by 1905 while across the Atlantic, the British stuck to “bonnet”.  The fairy tale (some read it as a cautionary tale) Little Red Riding Hood (1729) was a translation of Charles Perrault's (1628-1703) Petit Chaperon Rouge which appeared in his book Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales from Past Times (1697)).

The suffix -hood (a word-forming element meaning “state or condition of being”) was an evolution of the Old English -had (condition, quality, position) which was used to construct forms such as cildhad (childhood), preosthad (priesthood) & werhad (manhood); it was cognate with German –heit & -keit, the Dutch -heid, the Old Frisian & Old Saxon -hed, all from the Proto-Germanic haidus (manner, quality (literally “bright appearance”, from the primitive Indo-European skai & kai- (bright, shining) which was cognate with the Sanskrit ketu (brightness, appearance).  It was originally a free-standing word but in Modern English survives only in this suffix.

HMS Hood in March 1924.  The last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy, it was 860 feet (262 metres) in length, displaced 47,000 tons and had a main armament of eight 15 inch (380 mm) guns.

HMS Hood (1918-1941) was a Royal Navy battlecruiser named after Admiral Samuel Hood, first Viscount (1724–1816), one of five admirals the family would provide.  Although the Battle of Jutland (1916) had exposed the inherent limitations of the battlecruiser concept and the particular flaws in the British designs, the building of the Hood anyway continued and the revisions made in the light of the Jutland experience in some way exacerbated the ship’s problems; weight was added without fully affording the additional protection required.  The Admiralty was aware of this and of the four battlecruisers of her class planned, Hood was the only one completed as the Navy embarked on a re-design but the naval disarmament agreed between the major powers in the aftermath of World War I (1914-1918) meant none were built (indeed no navy would launch a new battlecruiser until the 1980s and even then the notion was thought strange) and for almost two decades Hood remained the largest warship in the world.

Naval architecture, fire control ballistics and aviation had however moved on in those years and although the biggest warship afloat (the “Mighty Hood” in the public imagination), Hood was outmoded but as late as the early 1930s this mattered little because the prospect of war between the big powers seemed not only remote but absurd.  Hood is still thought one of the most elegant warships ever and it spent those years touring the empire and other foreign ports, her fine lines and apparent might impressing many although the Admiralty was well aware the days of Pax Britannica were over.  Much comment has been made about the design flaw which resulted in the Hood sinking in minutes after a shell from the German battleship Bismarck, fired from a range of some ten miles (16,000 m), penetrated the deck (some modern analysts contest this because of technical details relating to the angle of fire available to the German gunners), causing the magazine to explode, essentially splitting the hull in two.  In fairness to the Kriegsmarine (the German navy), it was a good shot but at that range, it was also lucky, that essential element in many a battle.

In structural linguistics, the term “Americanisms” is used to describe several sub-sets of innovations in English attributed to those (and their descendents) who settled in North America.  They include (1) spellings (color vs colour), most of which make more sense than the originals, (2) simplification of use (check used for cheque as well as its other meanings), (3) coinings (sockdolager (decisive blow or remark), a nineteenth century American original of contested origin) and (4) alternatives (suspenders vs braces).  Hood was one word where used differed in the US.  In the UK, the hood was the (traditionally leather but latterly a variety of fabrics) folding top which began life on horse-drawn carriages and later migrated to cars which eventually were, inter alia, called cabriolets, drophead coupés or roadsters.  In the US the same coachwork was used but there the folding tops came to be called “soft tops”, one reason being the hood was the (usually) hinged panel which covered the engine.  In the UK, that was called a bonnet (from the Middle English bonet, from the Middle French bonet (which endures as the Modern French bonnet), from the Old French bonet (material from which hats are made), from the Frankish bunni (that which is bound), from the Proto-Germanic bundiją (bundle), from the primitive Indo-European bend- (to tie).  The origins of the use of bonnet and hood as engine coverings were essentially the same: the words were in the nineteenth century both used on both sides of the Atlantic to describe cowls or coverings which protected machinery from the elements, impacts etc (the idea based on the familiar garments) and it was only chance that one use prevailed in one place and one in the other.  There were other differences too: what the British called the boot the Americans said was the trunk which on the early automobiles, like many of the stage coaches they replaced, indeed it was.

Unhinged: Not all hoods were hinged.  In 1969, some Plymouth Road Runners (left) and Dodge Super Bees (right) could be ordered with a lightweight, fibreglass hood held in place by four locking pins.  Known as the "lift-off hood", it need two conveniently to remove the thing so it wasn't the most practical option Detroit ever offered but to the target market, it was very cool.