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.

Mean

Mean (pronounced meen)

(1) To have or convey a particular idea; connote, denote, import, intend, signify.

(2) To have in mind as a goal or purpose; aim, contemplate, design, intend, plan, project, propose, purpose, target.

(3) Characterized by intense ill will or spite; black, despiteful, evil, hateful, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, nasty, poisonous, spiteful, venomous, vicious, wicked, bitchy.

(4) Having or proceeding from low moral standards; base, ignoble, low, low-down, sordid, squalid, vile.

(5) Ungenerously or pettily reluctant to spend money; cheap, close, close-fisted, costive, hard-fisted, miserly, niggard, niggardly, parsimonious, penny-pinching, penurious, petty, pinching, stingy, tight, tight-fisted.

(6) Of low or lower quality; common, inferior, low-grade, low-quality, mediocre, second-class, second-rate, shabby, substandard.

(7) Of little distinction; humble, lowly, simple.

(8) Lacking high station or birth, baseborn, common, declassed, humble, ignoble, lowly, plebeian, unwashed, vulgar; base.

(9) Affected or tending to be affected with minor health problems; ailing indisposed, low, off-color, rocky, sickly; under the weather (now rare).

(10) So objectionable as to deserve condemnation; abhorrent, abominable, antipathetic, contemptible, despicable, detestable, disgusting, filthy, foul, infamous, loathsome, lousy, low, nasty, nefarious, obnoxious, odious, repugnant, rotten, shabby, vile, wretched.

(11) Having or showing a bad temper, cantankerous, crabbed, cranky, cross, disagreeable, fretful, grouchy, grumpy, ill-tempered, irascible, irritable, nasty, peevish, petulant, querulous, snappish, snappy, surly, testy, ugly, waspish.

(12) In mathematics, something, as a type, number, quantity, or degree that represents a midpoint between extremes on a scale of valuation; average, median, medium, norm, par.

(13) In the plural (as means), that by which something is accomplished or some end achieved.

(14) In the plural (as means) all things, such as money, property or goods having economic value.

(15) In statistics, the expected value (the mathematical expectation).

(16) In music, the middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music (or an alto instrument); now only of historic or academic interest.

As a verb:

Pre 900: From the Middle English mēnen (to intend; remember; lament; comfort), from the Old English mǣnan (to mean, signify; lament; intend to do something) from the Proto-West Germanic menjojanan & mainijan, from the Proto-Germanic mainijaną (to mean, think; lament), from the primitive Indo-European meyn- (to think), or alternatively perhaps from the primitive Indo-European meino- (opinion, intent) & meyno-, an extended form of the primitive Indo-European mey- (source also of Old Church Slavonic meniti (to think, have an opinion), the Old Irish mian (wish, desire) & the Welsh mwyn (enjoyment)).  It was related to the Old Saxon mēnian (to intend) and cognate with the West Frisian miene (to deem, think) the Old Frisian mēna (to signify), the Dutch menen (to believe, think, mean), the Middle Dutch menen (to think, intend), the German meinen (to think, mean, believe) and the Old Saxon mēnian.  The Indo-European cognates included the Old Irish mían (wish, desire) and the Polish mienić (to signify, believe).  It was related to the modern moan.  The present participle was meaning and the simple past and past participle was meant although the now obsolete meaned was once a standard spelling.

The transitive (to convey (a given sense); to signify, or indicate (an object or idea) or, of a word, symbol etc (to have reference to, to signify), was documented as early as the eighth century.  The transitive, usually in passive (to intend (something) for a given purpose or fate; to predestine was from the sixteenth century. The transitive (to have conviction in (something said or expressed) or to be sincere in (what one says) is from the eighteenth century.  The transitive (to cause or produce (a given result) or to bring about (a given result) is from the nineteenth century.  The synonyms included convey, signify & indicate.  The annoying (and frequently redundant) conversational question “You know what I mean?” is not recent, attested since 1834.

As an adjective:

Pre 900: From the Middle English mēne (shared by all, common, general), a variant of imene & imeane (held or shared in common), from the Old English mǣne & gemǣne (common, public, general, universal, mutual), from the Proto-West Germanic gamainī, from the Proto-Germanic gamainiz (common; possessed jointly) and related to the Proto-West Germanic & the Old High German gimeini (common, mean, nasty) and the Latin commūnis (common (originally with no pejorative sense (as in shared, general))) from the Old Latin comoinem and cognate with the Danish gemen, the West Frisian mien (general, universal), the Gothic gamains, (common, unclean), the Dutch gemeen (common, mean), the German gemein (common), the Gothic gamains (in common) and the primitive Indo-European mey- (to change, exchange, share).  The comparative was meaner and the superlative, meanest

The sense of “common or general” is long obsolete.  What endured was “common or low origin, grade, or quality; low in quality or degree; inferior; poor; shabby; without dignity of mind; destitute of honor; low-minded; spiritless; base; of little value or worth; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.  The sense of parsimonious, ungenerous or stingy is known throughout the English-speaking world but tends to be less prevalent in the US because of the dominance of the other meaning.  The meaning “cruel or malicious has survived but is now less common.  The colloquial form meaning “accomplished with great skill; deft; well-executed is used also in the negative with the same effect: (1) She rolls a mean joint and (2) she’s no mean roller of a joint.  However, to say (3) she’s mean with the weed in her joints has the opposite meaning so in that context anyway, the meaning of mean needs carefully to be deconstructed.  This inverted sense of mean as "remarkably good" appears not to have existed prior to circa 1900.  The derived forms from the adjectival sense include (and some are less common than others) bemean, meandom, meanie, meanness, mean streak & meany.

The pejorative sense of "without dignity of mind, destitute of honor, low-minded" dates from the 1660s; the specific sense of "stingy, niggardly" noted since 1755 whereas the weaker sense of "disobliging, pettily offensive" didn’t emerge until 1839, originally as American English slang.  This evolution in meaning was influenced by the coincidence in form with mean in the sense of "middle, middling," which also was used in disparaging senses.

As a noun:

1300–1350: From the Middle English meene, mene & meine, from the Middle French meen & mean, a variant of meien, from the Old French moien & meien (from which French gained moyen), from the Latin mediānus (middle, in the middle; median (in context)) from the Latin medius (middle).It was cognate with mid, and in the musical sense, the cognate was the Italian mezzano.  A doublet of median and mizzen.

A specific meaning of mean (in the sense of middle) was “middling; intermediate; moderately good, tolerable” which is long obsolete.  The sense of “a method or course of action used to achieve some result”, now used almost exclusively in the plural, is from the fourteenth century.  The sense of something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values (a medium) is from the fourteenth century although the use of mean (in the singular) meaning “an intermediate step or intermediate steps” is obsolete.  Originally from the fifteenth century, the use in music is now of historical or academic interest.  It referred to the middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music (or an alto instrument).  In statistics, since the fifteenth century, mean is simply understood as the average of a set of values, calculated by summing them together and dividing by the number of terms (the arithmetic mean).  In mathematics a mean can be (1) any function of multiple variables that satisfies certain properties and yields a number representative of its arguments, (2) the number so yielded (a measure of central tendency) or (3) either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion.

In mathematics and statistics, the mean is what is informally called “the average”, the sum of a set of values divided by the number (count) of those values.  The median is the middle number in a set of values when those values are arranged from smallest to largest, while the mode of a set of values is the most frequently repeated value in the set.

Mean is one of those words which pepper English; one word, one spelling, one pronunciation, yet a dozen or more meanings.  Mean however doesn’t come close to the top ten words in English with the most meanings, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) list is below but the editors caution by the time the next edition of the OED is released in 2037, for some there could be more meanings still; the influencing of computing has apparently already added several dozen to “run”.

Run: 645 definitions

Set: 430 definitions

Go: 368 definitions

Take: 343 definitions

Stand: 334 definitions

Get: 289 definitions

Turn: 288 definitions

Put: 268 definitions

Fall: 264 definitions

Strike: 250 definitions

Kimberley Kitching (1970–2022) was an Australian Labor Party (ALP) Senator for Victoria (2016-2022) who died from a heart attack in March 2022 at the age of 52.  Her death gained instant attention because in the days prior, two prominent sportsmen had also suffered heart attacks at the same age (one of them fatal) and there was the inevitable speculation about the possible involvement of the mysterious long-COVID or vaccinations.  No connection with either has yet been established.  One connection quickly made was with a triumvirate of female politicians, the ALP’s senate leadership group who were quickly dubbed “the mean girls”, a reference to 2004 Lindsay Lohan movie in which the eponymous girls were the “plastics” three self-obsessed school students whose lives were consumed by material superficialities and plotting & scheming against others.  

The mean girls (2022), left to right: Penny Wong (b 1968; cabinet minister in the Rudd / Gillard /Rudd governments 2007-2013, senator for South Australia since 2002), Katy Gallagher (b 1970; chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) 2011-2014, senator for the ACT 2015-2018 & since 2019) & Kristina Keneally (b 1968; premier of New South Wales 2009-2011, senator for New South Wales since February 2018).

The mean girls (2004), left to right: Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried (b 1985)), Regina George (Rachel McAdams (b 1978) & Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)).

Allegations the mean girls had bullied the late senator emerged just hours after her death and on social media there was little reluctance to link the events.  In a carefully-worded statement, Senators Gallagher, Keneally & Wong responded to what they described as “hurtful statements” denying they had bullied Senator Kitching and that other assertions were “similarly inaccurate” although they did concede “robust contests and interactions” were frequent in politics.  Senator Wong did admit to having made one unfortunate comment to Senator Kitching two years earlier and that, after it came to public attention, she had apologized.  Her office later expanded on this, issuing a statement saying “Senator Wong understood that apology was accepted.  The comments that have been reported do not reflect Senator Wong's views, as those who know her would understand, and she deeply regrets pain these reports have caused.”  Rather than discuss the suggestions of bullying, most (ie the usual suspects) focused on the use of a “gender-tainted lexicon”, sexist language clearly thought the greater sin.  Interestingly, the trio had previously been known as “the angels”, a reference to the 1970s television show Charlie's Angels which featured three admirably decorative young ladies being sent by their male controller to solve crimes; the implication of course being the “mean girls” tolerated as long as they did the bidding of the leader of the opposition.  “Misogyny, sexism, every day in every way...” as Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013) might have again remarked but at least the pop-culture reference was updated for later generations and it could have been worse: they might have been labelled "the good, the bad and the ugly".

In the thoughtful eulogy delivered at her funeral, Senator Kitching’s husband, Andrew Landeryou (b 1969; colorful ALP identity), referred on several occasions to the “unpleasantness” she had faced in the Senate, praising the moral courage his wife had displayed during her six years in the senate and her genuinely substantive contribution to public life, contrasting her with the “useful idiots, obedient nudniks and bland time-servers” so often seen sitting for decades on parliamentary benches.  “The simple truth of it is that Kimberley’s political and moral judgment was vastly superior to the small number who opposed her internally” he said, adding that “… of course, there’s a lot I could say about the unpleasantness of a cantankerous cabal - not all of them in parliament - that was aimed at Kimba, and the intensity of it did baffle and hurt her.”  Perhaps generously, he added he “…did not blame any one person or any one meeting for her death”, thought to be a reference to a recent meeting of the ALP’s Right faction at which her pre-selection for an electable Senate spot at the next election was reportedly threatened. 

Senators Gallagher, Keneally & Wong all attended the funeral as did the leader of the ALP and opposition leader Anthony Albanese (b 1963; leader of the opposition since 2019 and variously a minister or deputy prime-minister in the Rudd / Gillard / Rudd governments 2007-2013).  Mr Albanese rejected calls for an inquiry into claims of bullying, saying he had received “no complaints at any time” from Senator Kitching regarding bullies within the party and sought to shut down any further questions on the matter, saying they were disrespectful to Senator Kitching.  In saying that he certainly caught the spirit of the moment, none of the mainstream media making anything but the most oblique of references to the late senator’s colorful and sometimes controversial history as an ALP factional player and trade union operative but quite how long lasts the convention of not speaking ill of the dead will soon be revealed.

Mr Albanese wanting to kill the story is understandable and if he’s sure he has plausible deniability of prior knowledge it’s a reasonable tactic but it’s at least possible the best thing to do might have been to admit (1) all political parties have factions, (2) inter-faction bullying is the way business is done, (3) intra-faction bullying is endemic, (4) women and men are both victims and perpetrators but women tend to suffer more, (5) ‘twas ever thus and (6) it shall forever be thus.

Mr Albanese had used the “I know nothing” defense before and that too attracted a popular-culture comparison.  In 2013, ALP politician Craig Thomson (b 1964; former trade union official, member of parliament for the division of Dobell (NSW) 2007-2013, for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) until 2012, as an independent thereafter) was facing accusations of fraud, committed while a trade union official including the use of a union-issued credit card to pay for the services of prostitutes.  His legal problems have since worsened including further charges of fraud and domestic violence.

In 2013, in the midst of the scandal, Mr Albanese, then deputy prime-minister, and Mr Thomson were photographed having a couple of beers at Sydney’s Bavarian Bier Café.  It attracted some attention, even from within the party, one ALP luminary thinking it strange an ALP deputy prime minister should meet for a drink with someone accused of fraud and who the party had expelled from membership, labeling the meeting as “completely indefensible."  It was of interest too to the Liberal Party opposition which floated the idea that what was discussed over a few beers was a deal in case the ALP needed Mr Thomson's vote in another hung parliament, one spokesman framing things as "Fake Kevin Rudd (Kevin Rudd. b 1957; prime minister of Australia 2007-2010 & 2013) says, on the one hand, we're cleaning things up and, on the other hand, he is doing secret deals to try and run a minority government now and into the future."

Like Mr Albanese, Mr Rudd claimed to know nothing about his deputy’s meeting with Mr Thomson or its purpose.  Asked to comment, Mr Rudd said it was not his business who his deputy decided to drink with, saying he did “many things in life but supervising the drinking activities of my ministerial colleagues is not one of them."  "And who they choose to sit down with" he added.  Later, detailed questions were sent to Mr Rudd’s office which declined to comment about whether Mr Rudd knew beforehand of the meeting or if he had asked what had been discussed.  A spokesman said Mr Rudd had “nothing further to add.”  Mr Thomson insisted it was an innocent drink after the two former party colleagues ran into each other and there was no discussion of any political deals or of Mr Thomson returning to the ALP. "I'm not wooable" Mr Thomson was quoted as saying adding, “It was a completely innocent beer.  There is no conspiracy theory here.”

Mr Albanese said Mr Thomson was not a close friend of his but added that he often ran into colleagues at bars and that it was just “…a personal chat, that's all. No big deal."  That didn’t impress the Liberal Party’s then leader in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania since 1994, minister in various Coalition governments 2001-2015) who questioned how the pair could drink together given Mr Thomson's legal team was suing the LP, claiming the NSW ALP state secretary Sam Dastyari (b 1983; senator for NSW 2013-2018 before resigning in the midst of a Chinese-related donations scandal) had pledged to pay his legal costs.  "What is the deputy prime minister doing consorting in a Sydney bar with disgraced MP Craig Thomson at the Mr Thomson's lawyer is suing the NSW ALP?” Senator Abetz asked, presumably rhetorically.

Sydney Daily Telegraph, front page, Thursday 8 August 2013.

The Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph took the “I know nothing” excuses of Albanese and Rudd to their front page, the trope being the Hogan’s Heroes TV show produced by US network CBS between 1965-1971, one of the signature lines from which was “I know nothing” by Kommandant Colonel Clink’s slow-witted but affable Sergeant of the Guard, Hans Schultz.  Technically it worked but tropes and memes do rely on the material used registering in the public consciousness and that can be difficult when using a forty year old TV show no longer in widespread syndication.  For the Telegraph’s readers, mostly of an older demographic, it probably did register but some research might have been necessary for younger people, many of whom receive news only through social media feeds. 

For the same reason Donald Trump was disappointed his jibe about Pete Buttigieg (b 1982; contender for Democratic Party nomination for 2020 US presidential election, US secretary of transportation since 2021) and the absurdity of imagining Americans would vote for “Alfred E Neuman”, didn’t resonate.  It was just too long ago and too few knew about Mad magazine.  While there was quite a resemblance, and decades before it would have been a good line, in 2020 Buttigieg could dismiss it a “...must be a generational thing”.  By contrast, the mean girls line worked as well as it did because the film it references is both much more recent and, having hardly dated, retains an ongoing appeal.

Bogus

Bogus (pronounced boh-guhs)

(1) Not genuine; counterfeit item; something spurious; a sham; based on false or misleading information or unjustified assumptions.

(2) In printing. a matter set (by union requirement) by a compositor and later discarded, duplicating the text of an advertisement for which a plate has been supplied or type set by another publisher.

(3) In computer programming, anything wrong, broken, unlinked, useless etc).

(4) In philately, a fictitious issue printed for exclusively for collectors, often issued as if from a non-existent territory or country (as opposed to a forgery, which is an illegitimate copy of a genuine stamp).

(5) As calibogus, a US dialectical word describing a liquor made from rum and molasses (sometimes rum and spruce beer).

1827: An invention of US English, coined originally by the underworld to describe an apparatus for coining counterfeit currency.  The origin is unknown, etymologists noting the Hausa boko (to fake) and because bogus first appeared in the US, it’s possible the source arrived on a slave ship from West Africa.  An alternative speculation is it was a clipped form of the nineteenth century criminal slang tantrabogus (a menacing object), from a late eighteenth century colloquial Vermont word for any odd-looking object (which in the following century was used also in Protestant churches to mean "the devil").  The New England form may be connected to tantarabobs (a regionalism recorded in Devonshire name for the devil) although the most obvious link (for which there’s no evidence) is to bogy or bogey (in the sense of “the bogeyman”).  In this sense, bogus might thus be related to bogle (a traditional trickster from the Scottish Borders, noted for achieving acts of household trickery which sometimes operated at the level of petty crime.  The use of bogy & bogie by the military is thought unrelated because the evidence is it didn’t pre-date the use of radar (a bogie being an unidentified aircraft or missile, especially one detected as a blip on a radar display).

The noun came first, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) tracing the first use to describe the counterfeiting apparatus to Ohio in 1927, the products of the nefarious minting having also picked up the name by at least 1838, adjectival use (counterfeit, spurious, sham) adopted the following year.  Later, bogus came to be applied to anything of poor quality, even if not something misrepresenting a brand-name (ie bogus in intended function).  The adoption by computer programmers (apparently in the 1980s) to refer to anything wrong, broken, unlinked, useless etc was an example of English in action; they could have chosen any of bogus’s many synonyms but it was the word of choice and hackers use it too.  Bogus is an adjective and (an occasional) noun, bogotic is an adjective, bogusly is an adverb and bogusness a noun.

From the nerdy humor of programmers came the related bogon, the construct being bog(us) (fake, phony) + -on (the suffix used to form names of elementary particles or fundamental units) (the noun plural being bogons).  To programmers, the bogon was the the imaginary elementary particle of bogosity; the anti-particle to the cluon (the construct being clue (idea, notion, inkling) + -on (the plural being cluons) which was the imaginary elementary particle of cluefulness and thus the anti-particle to the bogon.  The slightly less nerdy network engineers adopted bogan to refer to an invalid Internet Protocol (IP) packet, especially one sent from an address not in use.  Clutron proved useful, a clutron an especially clever or well-informed nerd although it was also picked-up in the misogynistic word of on-line gaming where a slutron was a highly skilled female player a combination where meant she attracted hatred rather than admiration a make would usually enjoy.

The surname Bogus was borrowed from the Polish (masculine & feminine) forms Bogus & Boguś, or the Romanian Boguș (the plural of the proper noun being Boguses).  In the British Isles it was initially most common in Scotland before spreading south and is thought ultimately related to other named beginning with Bog- (Bogumił, Bogusław, Bogdan et al).  In Polish, Boguś is also a given name and listed as a back-formation (as a diminutive) from either Bogusław, Bogdan, Bogumił or Bogusław (+ -uś).

A real Ferrari 1963 250 GTO (left) and Temporoa's superbly made replica of a 1962 model (right).  US$70 million vs US$1.2 million. 

The synonyms can include fraudulent, pseudo, fake, faux, phony, false, fictitious, forged, fraudulent, sham, spurious, artificial, dummy, ersatz, imitation, pretended, pseudo, simulated, counterfeit but bogus is what’s known as a “loaded word”.  Bogus implies fake (and less commonly “of poor quality”) but just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it need be thought bogus.  Ferrari made only 39 (it can also be calculated at 36 or 41 depending on definitions) 250 GTOs and one has sold for US$70 million but it’s possible for experts to create an almost exact replica (indeed one of higher quality than an original although given the standard of some of the welding done in the factory in those years that's really not surprising) but it will only ever be worth a fraction of the real thing (a fine example offered for US$1.2 million).  Whether such a thing should be regarded as a replica, recreation, clone or whatever is something about which there's debate but few would dismiss such a work as bogus.  It really hangs on disclosure and representation.  With only so many 250 GTOs on the planet, all with well-documented provenance, it’s not possible to claim a replica is authentic but there are cars which have been produced in the hundreds or even thousands which some try to pass off as genuine; in these cases, they have created something as bogus as knock-off handbags.  One popular use of bogus is to describe various members of royal families who parade themselves in the dress military uniforms of generals or admirals, despite often having never served on been near a combat zone.

Ferrari 250 GTB production count, 1961-1964.  

With something digital, just about anyone can create an exact duplicate, indistinguishable from the source, hence the attraction of the non-fungible token (NFT) which, thus far, can’t be forged.  NFTs have been linked to real-world objects, as a sort of proof of ownership which seems strange given that actual possession or some physical certificate is usually sufficient, certainly for those with a 250 GTO in the garage but there are implications for the property conveyancing industry, NFTs possibly a way for real-estate transactions to be handled more efficiently.  For those producing items which attract bogus items (running shoes, handbags etc), there’s interest in attaching NFTs as a method of verification.

Humble beginnings: Publicity shot for the 1960 Ford Falcon.

When Ford released the Falcon in 1960, it was modest in just about every way except the expectations the company had that it successfully would counter the intrusion of the increasingly popular smaller cars which, worryingly, many buyers seemed to prefer to the increasingly large offerings from Detroit.  A success in its own right, the Falcon would provide the platform for the Mustang, the Fairlane, the Mercury Cougar and other variations which, collectively, sold in numbers which would dwarf those achieved by the original; it was one of the more profitable and enduring platforms of the twentieth century.  In the US, it was retired after a truncated appearance in 1970 but it lived on in South America and Australia, the nameplate in the latter market lasting until 2016, a run of over half a century during which the platform had been offered in seven generations in configurations as diverse as sedans, vans & pick-ups (utes), hardtop coupés, 4WDs, station wagons and long wheelbase executive cars.

Ford Falcon GTHO Phase I leading three Holden Monaro (HT) GTS 350s, Bathurst 1969.

Most memorably however, between 1969-1972, it was also the basis of a number of thinly disguised racing cars, production of which was limited to not much more than was required by the rules of the time to homologate the strengthened or high-performance parts needed for use in competition.  The Falcon GT had been introduced in 1967 and had proved effective but the next year faced competition from General Motors’ (GM) Holden Monaro GTS which, with a 327 cubic inch (5.3 litre) Chevrolet V8 out-performed the Ford which had by then had benefited from an increase in displacement from 289 cubic inches (4.7 litres) to 302 (4.9) which proved not enough.  The conclusion reached by both Ford & GM was of course to increase power so for 1969 the Falcon and Monaro appears with 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) and 350 (5.7) V8s; the power race was on.  Ford however decided to make sure of things and developed homologation-special with more power, some modification to improve durability and, with endurance racing in mind, a 36 (imperial) gallon (164 litre) fuel tank, quickly (and inexpensively) fabricated by welding together two standard tanks.  The car was called the GTHO (written variously in documents as also as G*T*H*O, GT-HO & G.T.H.O. (and as GT·HO on the glovebox lid)), HO apparently understood by the Ford engineers to mean “high output” but presented to the public as “handling options”, the company not wishing to frighten the horses with fears of racing cars being sold for use on the streets (and such a furore did ensue in 1972 which proved the GTHO’s death knell.

1970 Falcon GTHO Phase II.

If the 1967 GT had been something beyond what Ford in 1960 thought the Falcon might become, the GTHO would have been beyond their wildest imaginings.  Still usable as a road car, it also worked on the circuits although, because of a bad choice of tyre which was unsuited to the techniques of the drivers, it failed to win the annual Bathurst 500, then (as now), the race which really mattered.  Determined to win the 500, a revised GTHO was prepared and, in a novel move, was known as the Phase II (the original retrospectively re-christened the Phase I), the most obvious highlight of the revised specification a switch to Ford’s new Cleveland 351 V8 which, heavier and more powerful, replaced the Windsor 351.  Underneath however, there were changes which were just as significant with the suspension re-calibrated to suit both racing tyres and the driving style used in competition.  Said to have been developed with “a bucket of Ford’s money in one hand and a relief map of the Bathurst circuit in the other”, the Phase II drove like a real racer and probably few cars sold to the public have deliberately been engineered to produce so much oversteer.  On the track it worked and victory at Bathurst followed, something which drew attention from the early unreliability of the Cleveland 351, the implications of it’s less elaborate lubrication system not for some months appreciated.

1971 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III (Clone).

The Phase III followed in 1971 with increased power, the propensity to oversteer toned down and it proved even more successful, the legacy due to be continued by a Phase IV with four-wheel disk brakes (something probably more helpful than more power) but the project was abandoned after a moral panic induced by a Sydney newspaper which ran a front page which alleged “160mph (257 km/h) supercars” were about to fall into the hands of teenagers to use on city streets and highways.  That certainly frightened the horses and politicians, always susceptible to anything which appears in a tabloid, vowed to act and prevailed on the manufacturers to abandon the homologation specials.  Thus ended the era of the GTHO and also the similar machines being prepared by GM and Chrysler, the handful of Phase IV GTHOs built quietly sold off, never to see a race track although one did, most improbably, enjoy a brief, doomed career as a rally car.

1972 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IV.

Over the decades, as used cars, the surviving GTHOs (many destroyed in accidents on and off the track) have become collectable and of the 1222 made (including circa 115 of the (unofficial) Phase 1.5 with a milder (hydraulic valve lifters) Cleveland engine), it’s the Phase III (300 built) which is the most coveted at auction (the handful of Phase IVs seem to change hands mostly in private sales and the record is said to be circa Aus$2 million) and while the prices achieved track the state of the economy, the current record is believed to be Aus$1.3 million.  Based on what was essentially a taxicab which was produced in the hundreds of thousands, there’s an after-market ecosystem which produces all the parts required for one exactly (except for tags and serial numbers) to create one’s own GTHO at considerably less than what a real one now costs so it’s no surprise there are many acknowledged replicas (also described as clones, tributes etc) but the odd bogus example has also been unearthed.

Ford Falcon GTHO Phase IVs being prepared for racing, Melbourne, 1972.

Quite how many of the 287 Phase IIs survive isn’t known and the prices are high so it’s little surprise some have been tempted to misrepresent a bogus example as something real and there are legal implications to this, both criminal and civil.  There are even examples of the less desirable Falcon GTs and in 2011, in a judgment handed down in the District Court of Queensland (Sammut v De Rome [2011] QDC 294), a couple was ordered to pay the plaintiff AU$108,394.04 (US$107,200 at the then favorable exchange rate).  The defendants had sold to the plaintiff what they advertised as a 1969 Ford Falcon GT, a vehicle they had in 2006 purchased for Aus$18,000.  The plaintiff undertook due diligence, inspecting the car in person and in the company of a expert in bodywork before verifying with Ford Australia that the VIN (vehicle identification number) was legitimate car.  Once the VIN had been confirmed as belonging to a 1969 Falcon GT, a sale price of Aus$90,000 was agreed and the sale executed, the buyer having the car transported by trailer to Sydney.

Bogus & blotchy: Lindsay Lohan with fake tan.

Two years later, when the plaintiff attempted to sell the car, a detailed inspection revealed it was a bogus GT, a real GT’s VIN having been used to replace the one mounted on an ordinary 1969 Falcon, an x-ray examination of the firewall confirming the cutting and welding associated with the swap.  It was never determined who was responsible for creating the bogus GT and expert testimony given to the court confirmed that then, a non-GT Falcon of this year and condition was worth between Aus$10-15,000 while the value of an authentic GT was between Aus$65-70,000.  Accordingly, the plaintiff sued for breach of contract, requesting to be compensated to the extent of the difference between what he paid for the car and its current value, plus associated matters such as transport, interest and court costs.  The court found for the plaintiff in the sum of Aus$108,394.04 although the trial judge did note that the defendants likely didn't know the car was bogus, thereby opening for them the possibility of commencing action against the party from whom they purchased the thing, his honor mentioned that because of the civil statute of limitations, they had less than a month in which to file suit.  It's to be hoped they kept the car because in 2022, well-executed replicas of XW Falcon GTs are being advertised at more than Aus$125,000.

Thug

Thug (pronounced thuhg)

(1) A cruel or vicious ruffian or robber; a violent, lawless person (applied almost always to men).

(2) One of a former group of professional robbers and murderers in India, known as the Thuggee, who strangled their victims; one of a band of assassins formerly active in northern India who worshipped Kali and offered their victims to her (sometimes initial capital letter).

(3) In domestic horticulture, an over-vigorous plant that spreads and dominates the flowerbed.

(4) A wooden bat used in the game of miniten, fitting around the player's hand. 

1810: From the Hindi ठग (thag) (used variously to mean swindler; fraud; rogue; cheat; thief), from the Ashokan Prakrit & Marathi ṭhagg & thak (cheat; swindler), from the Sanskrit स्थग (sthaga) (cunning, fraudulent, to cover, to conceal) hence स्थगति (sthagati) (he/she/it covers, he/she/it conceals) from the Proto-Indo-Aryan sthagáti from the primitive Indo-European (s)teg (to cover with a roof).  Thug is a noun & verb, thuggery, thuggism, thuggishness & thugness are nouns, thuggish & thuglike are adjectives and thuggishly is an adverb; the noun plural is thugs.

Thugs under the Raj

Like much colonialism, the Raj was a pretty thuggish business so the antics of the thuggees should at least have been recognizable to the British.  Although known since 1810 as the Thuggees (soon clipped by the colonial administrators to "thugs"), there had been marauding gangs of thieves and murderers who plied their trade along the transport corridors between Indian towns for centuries, the correct Indian name for which was phanseegur (from phansi (noose)), their nefarious activities described in English as early as circa 1665 (and in Hindi texts, from the thirteenth century).

Depiction of Raj-era Thuggees enjoying their work.

The Thuggees roamed the country in bands of a few to some dozens, often disguised as peddlers or pilgrims, gaining the confidence of other travelers who, opportunistically, they would strangle with a scarf, an unwound turban or a noosed cord; the shedding of blood was rare.  While the motive of many was mere plunder, some practiced a certain religious fanaticism, the victims hidden in graves dug with consecrated tools, a third of the spoils devoted to the goddess Kali, worshiped by the gangs.  Under the Raj, the Thuggees were regarded a threat to internal security and from the early 1830s were subject to crackdowns by civil and military authorities; by the century's end, they’d ceased to exist.  Thug’s meaning-shift to the generalized sense of "ruffian, cutthroat, violent lowbrow" began in 1839 and was in use throughout the English-speaking world by the early twentieth century.  In the US, thug became associated with racism, used as a racist epithet applied specifically to African American men to portray them as violent criminals and when used thus, substituted for other racist slurs even by the 1930s were (at least outside the South) becoming socially unacceptable.  However, in what’s became known as "linguistic reclamation" a sub-set of the African American community adopted the word as an identifier, especially in some forms of popular music.

Peter Dutton, who has never denied being a Freemason.

In politics, the label "political thuggery" is liberally applied and while it’s usually a figurative reference, it’s not impossible Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018) was thinking literally when he described Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) as “a thug”.  Such use isn’t new, the left-wing press in the UK fond of calling former Conservative Party cabinet minister Norman Tebbit (b 1931) a “Tory thug” which was a little unfair although his demeanour did little to discourage such an appellation.  It’s not always figurative and “political thuggery” can be used of the aggressive or violent tactics employed to secure some political end and this can extend to killings, in some places at scale.  One popular form is to “outsource” the dirty work by having mobs attack opposition rallies or meetings as well as the disruption effect this can provoke the impression one’s opponents are associated with violence, something especially easy to engender if there’s a compliant media anxious to support the campaign.  However, if some prominent figure is murdered, this tends to be called a “political assassination” and because of the potentially bad publicity, it’s a last resort; political thuggery is best when it stops short of murder.  Less bloody but still within the thuggish rubric are electoral dirty tricks including branch-stacking, ballot stuffing, electoral tampering or any amount of deceptive advertising although it’s debatable if all forms of disinformation can truly be called political thuggery because propaganda can mislead while still being truthful.  Usually as clandestine as any operation is the practice of unlawful surveillance or espionage which can extend to wiretapping (including the modern digital equivalent) or infiltration of the organizational structures of one’s opponents and this can require some finesse so thuggery sometimes is a delicate business.  Delicate too is corruption and bribery which is practiced as widely as it is because few tactics are as effective.

Enjoying her work, Lindsay Lohan swings the hammer, New York, 2014.  In 2025, her technique was adopted by some of those attacking random Teslas, the targets apparently thought a satisfactory proxy for Elon Musk (b 1971).  Impressionistically (and predictably), it appears the panels of the Tesla Cybertruck (sold since 2023), most made with a stainless steel alloy, are more resistant to impacts than the company's other models which use a thinner gauge and softer aluminium-alloy.   

In March 2014, Lindsay Lohan was part of a stunt staged as a protest against the cancellation of the CBS sitcom (situation comedy) How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014 and HIMYM to the fans), the concept to destroy a car (decorated in a “HIMYM theme”) using sledge hammers.  The car used was a first generation Volvo V70 Station Wagon (1996–2000 and a companion model to the S70 Sedan) and it’s not clear if there was any significance in the choice of a Volvo or it was just within the project’s budget but it was wise not to have used one of the earlier 140 (1966-1974), 164 (1969-1975) or 240/260 (1974-1993) series Volvos which looked something like the stonework Freemasons would once have rendered when they worked with masonry rather than plotting and scheming; taking to any of those with a sledgehammer would be as likely to damage the tool as the car.  As it was, the less sturdy V70 suffered badly and given the enthusiasm with which Lindsay swung her sledgehammer, it was obviously a task she relished.  Thanks to the Murdoch press, we now know visiting excessive violence upon a Volvo can constitute “thuggery”.