Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia (pronounced on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh)

(1) The formation of words or names by imitation of natural sounds; the naming of something by a reproduction of the sound made by it or a sound associated with its referent.

(2) A word so formed.

(3) The use of imitative and naturally suggestive words for rhetorical, dramatic, or poetic effect.

1570s: From the Late Latin onomatopoeia, from the Ancient Greek ὀνοματοποιία (onomatopoeia) (the making of a name or word in imitation of a sound associated with the thing being named), from ὀνοματοποιέω (onomatopoiéō), from ὄνομα (ónoma) (genitive onomatos) (word, name) from the primitive Indo-European root no-men- (name) + a derivative of ποιέω (poiéō & poiein) (to make, to do, to produce; compose”), related to the Modern English poet.  Two of the adjectival forms, onomatopoeial (1670s) & onomatopoeous (1660s) are considered obsolete except in linguistic scholarship; only onomatopoetic (1825-1835) has survived in general use.

The adjective onomatopoeic (pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of onomatopoeia) was variously from the French onomatopoéique or else a construct of the noun onomatopoeia + -ic.  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically.  In English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Examples

Words Related to Water: Often begin with sp- or dr. Words that indicate a small amount of liquid often end in -le (sprinkle/drizzle): Splash, squirt, drip, drizzle.

Words Related to the Voice: Sounds that come from the back of the throat tend to start with a gr- sound whereas sounds that come out of the mouth through the lips, tongue and teeth begin with mu-: Giggle, growl, grunt, gurgle, mumble, murmur, chatter.

Words Related to Collisions: Collisions can occur between any two or more objects. Sounds that begin with cl- usually indicate collisions between metal or glass objects, and words that end in -ng are sounds that resonate. Words that begin with th- usually describe dull sounds like soft but heavy things hitting wood or earth: Bam, bang, clang, clank, clap, clatter, click, clink, ding, jingle, screech, slap, thud, thump.

Words Related to Air: Air doesn’t make a sound unless it blows through something so these words describe the sounds of air blowing through things or of things rushing through the air: Flutter, fist, fwoosh, gasp, swish, swoosh, whiff, whoosh, whizz, whip, whisper.

Animal Sounds: Literally imitative of the sounds made by animals: Arf, baa, bark, bray, buzz, cheep, chirp, chortle, cluck, cock-a-doodle-doo, cuckoo, hiss, meow, moo, neigh, oink, purr, quack, ribbit, tweet, warble.

Onomatopoeia by Todd Rundgren (b 1948), from The Hermit of Mink Hollow (1977).  It’s sometimes suggested the critics were “divided” on the merits of the song but the split appears to have been about 99:1 against.  Generally though, The Hermit of Mink Hollow seems to have been well-received.

Onomatopoeia by Todd Rundgren, © Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Onomatopoeia every time I see ya

My senses tell me hubba

And I just can't disagree

I get a feeling in my heart that I can't describe

It's sort of lub, dub, lub, dub

A sound in my head that I can't describe

It's sort of zoom, zip, hiccup, drip

Ding, dong, crunch, crack, bark, meow, whinnie, quack

Onomatopoeia in proximity ya

Rearrange my brain in a strange cacophony

I get a feeling somewhere that I can't describe

It's sort of uh, uh, uh, uh

A sound in my head that I can't describe

It's sort of whack, whir, wheeze, whine

Sputter, splat, squirt, scrape

Clink, clank, clunk, clatter

Crash, bang, beep, buzz

Ring, rip, roar, retch

Twang, toot, tinkle, thud

Pop, plop, plunk, pow

Snort, snuk, sniff, smack

Screech, splash, squish, squeek

Jingle, rattle, squeel, boing

Honk, hoot, hack, belch

Sunroof

Sunroof (pronounced suhn-roof)

(1) A section of an automobile roof (sometimes translucent and historically called a moonroof) which can be slid or lifted open.

(2) In obstetrics, a slang term used by surgeons to describe the Caesarean section.

1952: A compound word, the construct being sun + roof.  Sun was from the Middle English sonne & sunne, from the Old English sunne, from the Proto-West Germanic sunnā, from the Proto-Germanic sunnǭ, from the primitive Indo-European shwen-, oblique of sóhw (sun).  The other forms from the Germanic included the Saterland Frisian Sunne, the West Frisian sinne, the German Low German Sünn, the Dutch zon, the German Sonne and the Icelandic sunna.  The forms which emerged without Germanic influence included the Welsh huan, the Sanskrit स्वर् (svar) and the Avestan xᵛə̄ṇg.  The related forms were sol, Sol, Surya and Helios.  Roof was from the Middle English rof, from the Old English hrōf (roof, ceiling; top, summit; heaven, sky), from the Proto-Germanic hrōfą (roof).  Throughout the English-speaking world, roofs is now the standard plural form of roof.  Rooves does have some history but has long been thought archaic and the idea there would be something to be gained from maintaining rooves as the plural to avoid confusion with roof’s the possessive never received much support.  Despite all that, rooves does seem to appear more than might be expected, presumably because there’s much more tolerance extended to the irregular plural hooves but the lexicographers are unimpressed and insist the model to follow is poof (an onomatopoeia describing a very small explosion, accompanied usually by a puff of smoke), more than one poof correctly being “poofs”.  In use, a poof was understood as a small event but that's obviously a spectrum and some poofs would have been larger than others so it would have been a matter of judgement when something ceased to be a “big poof” and was classed an explosion proper.  Sunroof is a noun (sometimes hyphenated); the noun plural is sunroofs.

1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV with moonroof.

Sunroofs existed long before 1952 but that was the year the word was first adopted by manufacturers in Detroit.  The early sunroofs were folding fabric but metal units, increasingly electrically operated, were more prevalent by the early 1970s.  Ford, in 1973, introduced the word moonroof (which was used also as moon roof & moon-roof) to describe the sliding pane of one-way glass mounted in the roof panel over the passenger compartment of the Lincoln Continental Mark IV (1972-1976).  Moonroof soon came to describe any translucent roof panel, fixed or sliding though the term faded from use and all such things tend now to be called a sunroof.

Lindsay Lohan standing through a sunroof: Promotional photo-shoot for Herbie Fully Loaded (2005).

Manufacturers in the 1970s devoted sizeable resources to develop the sunroof because at the time, the industry’s assumption was the implications of US FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) 208 (roll-over protection, published 1970) fully would be realized, outlawing both convertibles and hardtops (certainly the four-doors) but the election of Ronald Reagan (1911–2004; US president 1981-1989) in 1980 changed the regulatory climate.  Reagan, not fond of dopey rules which impinged freedom, assured Detroit there’d be no ban and the first American convertibles since 1976 soon appeared, one consequence of which was legal action brought by some who had purchased (and stored with expectations of profit) 1976 Cadillac Eldorados, claiming they had been induced to buy because of the promotional campaign by General Motors (GM) using the phrase "the last American convertible”.  The cases were dismissed on the basis that GM's statements were “reasonable at the time, based on advice from government”.  No action was possible against the government on several grounds, including the doctrines of remoteness and unforeseeability.

Following Lindsay Lohan's example: President Xi standing through a sunroof, on parade in Hongqi L5 state limousine, Beijing, 2019.

The highlight of the ceremonies marking the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was the military parade, held in Beijing on 1 October 2019.  Claimed to be the largest military parade and mass pageant in China's 4,000-odd year history (and the last mass gathering in China prior to the outbreak in Wuhan of became the COVID-19 pandemic), the formations were reviewed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping (b 1953; paramount leader of the PRC since 2012).  The assembled crowd was said without exception to be “enthusiastic and happy” and the general secretary's conspicuously well-cut Mao suit was a nice nostalgic touch.

Two generals of the Belarus army take the salute standing in Honggi L5 Parade Convertibles, Minsk, Belarus, June 2017.

Independence Day in Belarus is celebrated annually on 3 June and there is always a significant military component.  Other than the PRC, Belarus is the only known operator of the Honqqi and the four-door convertible parade cars were apparently a "gift" (as opposed to foreign aid) from the Chinese government but the aspect of this photograph which attracted some comment was whether the hats worn by generals in Belarus were bigger than the famously imposing headwear of the army of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)); analysts of military millinery appeared to conclude the dimensions were similar.  Purists traditionally describe this style of coach-work as "four-door cabriolet" and it was "Cabriolet D" in the Daimler-Benz system but the "parade convertible" is a distinct breed and often includes features such as grab bars for those standing, microphones and loud-speakers so the “enthusiastic and happy” crowd don't miss a word.   

Hongqi L5 state limousine.

The car carrying President Xi was the Hongqi L5, the state limousine of the PRC, the coachwork styling a deliberately retro homage to the Hongqi CA770, the last in the line (dating from 1958) of large cars built almost exclusively for use by the upper echelons of the CCP.  Most of the earlier cars were built on the large platforms US manufacturers used in the 1960s and were powered by a variety of US-sourced V8 engines but the L5 was wholly an indigenous product, built with both a 6.0 litre (365 cubic inch) V12 and 4.0 litre (245 cubic inch) V8 although neither configuration is intended for high-performance.  Interestingly, although Hongqi L5 have produced a version of the L5 with four-door convertible coachwork as a formal parade car and they have been used both in the PRC and in Belarus, the general secretary conducted his review in a closed vehicle with a sunroof.

US President Richard Nixon (1913-1994, US president 1969-1974) with Anwar Sadat (1918–1981; President of Egypt 1970-1981) in a 1967 Cadillac convertible, Alexandria, Egypt, June 1974.  On that day, the motorcade was 180-strong and unlike the reception his appearance in the US now induced, the Egyptian crowd really did seem genuinely enthusiastic and happy.  Within two months, in disgrace because of his part in the Watergate Affair, Nixon would resign.

The CCP didn’t comment on the choice of a car with a sunroof and it may have been made on technical grounds, the provision of a microphone array presumably easier with the roof available as a mounting point and given the motorcade travelled a higher speed than a traditional parade, it would also have provided a more stable platform for the general secretary.  It’s not thought there was any concern about security, Xi Jinping (for a variety of reasons) safer in his capital than many leaders although heads of state and government became notably more reticent about travelling in open-topped vehicles after John Kennedy (1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) was assassinated in 1963.  Some, perhaps encouraged by Richard Nixon being greeted by cheering crowds in 1974 when driven through the streets of Alexandria (a potent reminder of how things have changed) in a Cadillac convertible, persisted but after the attempt on the life of John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) in 1981, there’s been a trend to roofs all the way, sometimes molded in translucent materials of increasing chemical complexity to afford some protection from assassins.

Military parade marking the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, Beijing, China, 1 October 2019.  Great set-piece military parades like those conducted by the PRC and DPRK (recalling the spectacles staged by both Nazi Germany (1933-1945) and the Soviet Union (1922-1991) are now packaged for television and distribution on streaming platforms and it may be Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) was hoping the "Grand Military Parade" he scheduled in 2025 for his 79^th birthday (ostensibly to celebrate 250 years since the formation of the US Army) would display the same impressive precision in chorography.     

Covering all possibilities during the 24 hour cycle.  US advertisement (1974) for the Renault 17 Gordini Coupe Convertible, the Gordini tag adopted as a "re-brand" of the top-of-the-range R17 (1971-1979).  Gordini was a French sports car producer and tuning house, absorbed by Renault in 1968, the name from time-to-time used for high-performance variants of various Renault models.

Renault over the decades made the occasional foray into the tempting US market but all ended badly in one way or another, their products, whatever their sometimes real virtues, tending not to be suited to US driving habits and conditions.  Sunroofs had long been popular in Europe and, noting (1) what was assumed to be the demise of the convertible and (2) Lincoln's coining of "moon roof", Renault decided Americans deserved a sunroof, moonroof & starroof, all in one.  Actually, they got even more because there was also a removable, fibreglass hardtop for the winter months, Renault correctly concluding there would be little demand for a rainroof.  Physically large as it had to be, unlike a targa top, the 17's panel was intended (like other hardtops) to be stored in a garage until the warmer months.  One quirk of the R17's nomenclature was in Italy, in deference to the national heptadecaphobia, the car was sold as the R177 but the Italians showed little more interest than the Americans.

Porsche, sunroofs, weight distribution and centres of gravity 

Porsche 917K, Le Mans, 1970.

Porsche in the early 1970s enjoyed great success in sports car racing with their extraordinary 917 but greatly innovation and speed disturb the clipboard-carriers at the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation) which is international sport's dopiest regulatory body.  Inclined instinctively to ban anything interesting, the FIA outlawed the 917 in sports car racing so Porsche turned its glance to the Can-Am (Canadian-American Challenge Cup) for unlimited displacement (Group 7) sports cars, then dominated by the McLarens powered by big-displacement Chevrolet V8s.  Unable to enlarge the 917's Flat-12 to match the power of the V8s and finding their prototype Flat-16 too bulky, Porsche resorted to forced aspiration and created what came to be known as the "TurboPanzer", a 917 which in qualifying trim took to the tracks with some 1,500 horsepower (HP).  There's since been nothing quite like it and for two years it dominated the Can-Am until the first oil shock in 1973 put an end to the fun.  However, the lessons learned about turbocharging the factory would soon put to good use.

The widow-maker: 1975 Porsche 930 with the rare and surprisingly desirable (for some) “sunroof delete” option.

Introduced in 1975, the 911 Turbo (930 the internal designation) had been intended purely as a homologation exercise (al la the earlier 911 RS Carrera) so the engine could be used in competition but so popular did it prove it was added to the list as a regular production model and one has been a permanent part of the catalogue almost continuously since.  The additional power and its sometimes sudden arrival meant the early versions were famously twitchy at the limit (and such was the power those limits were easily reached if not long explored), gaining the machine the nickname “widow-maker”.  There was plenty of advice available for drivers, the most useful probably the instruction not to use the same technique when cornering as one might in a front-engined car and a caution that even if one had had a Volkswagen Beetle while a student, that experience might not be enough to prepare one for a Porsche Turbo.  When stresses are extreme, the physics mean the location of small amounts of weight become subject to a multiplier-effect and the advice was those wishing to explore a 930's limits of adhesion should get one with the rare “sunroof delete” option, the lack of the additional weight up there slightly lowering the centre of gravity.  However, even that precaution may only have delayed the delaying the inevitable and possibly made the consequences worse, one travelling a little faster before the tail-heavy beast misbehaved.

Porsche 911 Carrera S, Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, June 2012.

Although it seems improbable, when in 2012 Lindsay Lohan crashed a sunroof-equipped Porsche 911 Carrera, it's not impossible the unfortunate event may have been related to the slight change in the car's centre of gravity when fitted with a sunroof.  She anyway had some bad luck when driving black German cars but clearly Ms Lohan should avoid Porsches with sunroofs.

The interaction of the weight of a 911’s roof (and thus the centre of gravity) and the rearward bias of the weight distribution was not a thing of urban myth or computer simulations.  In the February 1972 edition of the US magazine Car and Driver (C&D), a comparison test was run of the three flavours of the revised 911 (911T, 911E & 911S), using one of each of the available bodies: coupé, targa & sunroof coupé, the latter two with additional weight in the roof.  What the testers noted in the targa & sunroof-equipped 911s was a greater tendency to twitchiness in corners, something no doubt exacerbated in the latter because the sliding panel’s electric motor was installed in the engine bay.  C&D’s conclusion was: “If handling is your goal, it's best to stick with the plain coupe.”  

The Porsche 911 E series and the Ölklappe affair

1971 Porsche 911S (note the flap for the oil filler cap behind the passenger-side door (US market model and thus left-hand drive (LHD)).  The factory confirmed this car was built in July 1971, despite many references to E series production beginning in August.

Although in C&D's 1972 comparison test there was much focus on the rearward weight bias, the three 911s supplied actually had a slightly less tail-heavy weight distribution than either that season's predecessor or successor.  Porsche in 1971 began the build of its E series update (produced between July 1971-July 1972 and generally known as the “1972 models”) of the then almost decade-old 911 and in addition to the increase in the flat-six’s displacement from 2.2 litres (134 cubic inch) to 2.3 (143) (although always referred to as the “2.4”), there were a myriad of changes, some in response to US safety & emissions legislation while others were part of normal product development.  One of latter was the placing of the hinged-flap over the oil filler cap behind the right side door, something necessitated by the dry sump oil tank having been re-located from behind the right rear wheel to in front, one of a number of design changes undertaken to shift the weight distribution forward and improve the handling of the rear-engined machine’s inherently tail-heavy configuration.  In Germany, the addition was known variously as Ölklappe, Oil Klapper or Vierte Tür (fourth door, the fuel filler flap being the third).  Weight reduction (then becoming difficult in the increasingly strict regulatory environment), especially at the rear, was also a design imperative and the early-build E series cars were fitted with an aluminum engine lid and license-plate panel although these components were soon switched to steel because of production difficulties and durability concerns.

Where the troubles began:  The fuel filler flap on the left-front fender (left) and the oil filler flap on the right-rear fender (right).  Apparently, not even the “◀ Oil” sticker in red was sufficient warning.

For the E series 911s, Porsche recommended the use of a multigrade mineral oil (SAE 20W-50 or SAE 15W-40, depending on climate) but were aware those using their vehicles in competition sometimes used a high-viscosity SAE 50 monograde.  With the car’s 10 litre (10.6 US quarts, 8.8 Imperial quarts) oil tank, the fluid’s weight would be between 8.5-9.1 kg (18.7-20.0 lb) and the physics of motion meant that the more rearward the placement of that mass, the greater the effect on the 911’s handling characteristics.  It was thus a useful contribution to what would prove a decades-long quest to tame the behaviour of what, in the early versions, was a car regarded (not wholly unfairly) as handling like “a very fast Volkswagen Beetle” and ultimately the engineers succeeded, it being only at the speeds which should be restricted to race tracks the 911s of the 2020s sometimes reveal the implications of being rear-engined.

VDO instruments in 1971 Porsche 911S.  In home market cars, the oil pressure gauge (to the left of the centrally mounted tachometer) was labelled DRUCK.

However, when in August 1972 the revised F series entered production, the oil tank was back behind the rear wheel and the filler under the engine lid, the retrogressive move taken because there had been instances of gas (petrol) station attendants (they really used to exist) assuming the oil filler flap was the access point for the gas cap and, to be fair, it was in a location used for gas on many front-engined cars (a majority of the passenger-car fleet in most markets where Porsche had a presence).  Quite how often this happened isn’t known but it must have been frequent enough for the story to become part of the 911 legend and the consequences could have been severe and rectification expensive.  The factory paid much attention to oil and also ensured drivers could monitor the status of the critical fluid; all air-cooled 911s ran hot and the more highly tuned the model (in 1971-1972 the 911T, E & S in increasing potency), the hotter they got.  As well as being a lubricant, engine oil functions also as a coolant and the VDO instrumentation included gauges for oil level, oil temperature, and oil pressure; for all three to appear in a road car was unusual but being air-cooled and thus with no conventional fluid coolant, the oil's dynamics were most important.

Fumblerule

Fumblerule (pronounced fumm-bull-roule)

A rule of language or linguistic style, written in a way that violates the rule; technically a form of self-reference which relies on the inherent contradiction for the humor.

1979: A portmanteau word, the construct being fumble + rule.  In the context of fumblerule, “fumble” is used in the sense of “a blunder; awkwardly to seek”.  The mid-fifteenth century fumble (the obsolete English famble & fimble had much the same meaning) was from the Late Middle English, possibly from either the Low German fommeln or the Dutch fommelen, the alternative etymology being a Scandinavian or North Germanic source and there’s likely some relationship with the Old Norse fálma (to fumble, grope), the Swedish fumla, the Danish fumle and the German fummeln.  The history is certainly murky and the ultimate source could even be onomatopoeia (imitative of sounds associated with someone fumbling (bumble or stumble) or from the primitive Indo-European pal- (to shake, swing) from which Classical Latin gained palpo (I pat, touch softly) or (entirely speculatively) the Proto-West Germanic fōlijan (to feel).  The intransitive sense "do or seek awkwardly" was from the 1530s and the noun dates from the 1640s.

In the context of fumblerule, “rule” is used in the sense of “a regulation, law or guideline”.  The noun in the sense of “measure; measurement” dates from circa 1175, the verb first noted circa 1200 from the Middle English riwlen, reulen & rewellen from the Old French riuler, rieuler & ruler from the Late Latin rēgulāre (derivative of rēgula).  The sense of "principle or maxim governing conduct, formula to which conduct must be conformed" is from the Old French riule & the Norman reule (rule, custom, (religious) order) which, in Modern French, has been partially re-Latinized as règle.  The meaning "regulation governing play of a game” is from 1690s. The notion of a rule of law (supremacy of impartial and well-defined laws to any individual's power), as a phrase, emerged surprisingly recently, dating only from 1883.  The sense "to control, guide, direct" came from the Old French riuler (impose rule) from the Latin regulare (to control by rule, direct) from the Latin regula (rule, straight piece of wood) from the primitive Indo-European root reg- (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line," thus "to lead, rule."  The legal sense "establish by decision" is recorded from the early fifteenth century.

Fumblerule was coined by right-wing US commentator Bill Safire (1929-2009) in a November 1979 edition of his column On Language in the New York Times.  Safire extended this in the later book Fumblerules: A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage (1990) (ISBN 0-440-21010-0), which, in 2005, was re-printed as How Not to Write: The Essential Misrules of Grammar.  Physicist George L Trigg (1925-2014) also published a list of these rules.

Bill Safire (right) on Air Force Two with Spiro Agnew, November 1972 (US presidential election campaign).

Safire was also a White House speech writer for Richard Nixon (1913–1994; US president 1969-1974 & Spiro Agnew (1918–1996; US vice president 1969-1973).  Impressionistically, it would seem right-wingers tend to outnumber the left in the authorship of texts lamenting the decline in standards of English writing and it is one of the theatres of the culture wars.  In English, although there are the plenty of pedants and not a few of the infamous grammar Nazis still obsessing over stuff like a split infinitive, it’s not the sort of language which needs pointless “rules” to be enforced, many of which were never rules in the first place.  English spelling and grammar evolves usually according to a practical imperative: the transmission of meaning in an economical, precise and elegant way.  Criticism from the (notional) left is more political than linguistic: their objections to “correct” English is essentially that it’s just another way of maintaining white privilege and that all dialects within English are of equal cultural value and none should be regarded as “incorrect” or spoken by the “uneducated”.

Some of Bill Safire’s fumblerules

Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.

Don't use no double negatives.

Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.

Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.

Do not put statements in the negative form.

Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

No sentence fragments.

Remember to never split an infinitive.

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Avoid commas, that are not necessary.

If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.

A writer must not shift your point of view.

Eschew dialect, irregardless.

And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!

Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.

Writers should always hyphenate between syllables and avoid un-necessary hyph-ens.

Write all adverbial forms correct.

Don't use contractions in formal writing.

Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.

It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.

Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.

Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.

Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Always pick on the correct idiom.

"Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'"

The adverb always follows the verb.

Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

Swish

Swish (pronounced swish)

(1) Something smart or stylish (mostly UK & Commonwealth use and said historically to be most applied to things with shiny surfaces such as leather); sophisticated; fashionable; (figuratively) smooth.

(2) To move with or make a sibilant sound, as a slender rod cutting sharply through the air or as small waves washing on the shore.

(3) To rustle (especially of flowing fabrics, on the model of the sound made by moving silk).

(4) To move or behave in an exaggerated manner (often described as “effeminate” or “mincing”).

(5) To flourish, whisk, etc with a swishing movement or sound.

(6) To bring, take, cut, etc with such a movement or sound.

(7) To flog or whip (now rare).

(8) A movement (and sometimes (though not necessarily) the sound) of liquid flowing inside a container.

(9) In mathematics (as swish function), a mathematical activation function in data analysis.

(10) A stock or rod used for flogging or the stroke of such a device (now rare).

(11) A contemptuous term used to refer to an effeminate gay man (regarded as an offensive slur and now rare).

(12) A form of table tennis (ping-pong) able to be played both by people who are blind or vision impaired and by those who are sighted.

(13) A building material used mainly in West Africa and composed originally of mortar and mud or laterite; of late it has been made with a xix of earth & cement.

(14) In basketball, a successful shot that does not touch the rim or backboard.

(15) In slang (in and outside prisons), an alcoholic drink made (1) by fermenting whatever ingredients are available or (2) adding small quantities of water to “empty” bottles to obtain whatever alcohol content remains.

(16) As an interjection, a hissing or whistling sound, imitative or suggestive of something travelling quickly through the air.

1756: Of imitative origin, an onomatopoeia covering a range of sounds.  The intransitive verb in the sense of “move with a swish or flourish or with a sound like swish” was the first form, the transitive verb, used in the sense of “cause to swish” (hence “flourish, brandish”) in use by 1799.  Etymologists conclude it was almost certainly imitative of the sound made by something brushing against or through something else (the “rustle” of silk the classic example).  The most attractive derived form is probably the adjective swishity (characteristic of swish or swishing).  The swish noun emerged in the 1820s (as in “with a swish”) was expressive of the sound of something moving through the air, a development from the verb.  The use as a slur directed at “a particularly effeminate homosexual” was a creation of 1930s US slang, based presumably the idea of the stereotypical “mincing motion”.  The slang use meaning “to flog or last” (the noun swish later adapted to describe the whip) was in use by at least 1856 and despite citations, there little to suggest the origin was in the Royal Navy, that institution already having a rich lexicon of slang related to flogging.  Although the British Army formerly abolished flogging in 1881, it the navy it was only ever “suspended” although it's said no sentences have been imposed since 1879.  In idiomatic use, the noun swish-swash is now used to describe “a repeated swishing action or sound, going back and forth”.  An obsolete meaning, dating from the 1540s was “a weak, wishy-washy drink” although it’s documented that by the 1580s, a swish-swash was a “violent or swaggering person”.  From the connection to the weak drink came the use of swish to describe “an alcoholic beverage obtained by filling an (empty) cask from a distillery with water to leech out the residual liquor”.  Swish is a noun, verb & adjective, swisher is a noun & adjective, swishing is a noun & verb, swishness & swishiness are nouns, swished is a verb, swishest & swishity are adjectives and swishingly is an adverb; the noun plural is swishes.

Swishy Ping-Pong (VITT)

Swish is a form of ping-pong which permits people who are blind or vision impaired to compete with the sighted on close to equal terms; the preferred description of Swish is VITT (Vision Impaired Table Tennis).  Played at both a recreational and competitive level, the idea is similar to mainstream ping-pong except that rather than the ball having to be hit over a low net, it must travel along the table’s surface with the net replaced by a screen of a height sufficient to ensure players with varying degrees of sight don’t enjoy an advantage over the totally blind.  Like “blind cricket”, the ball has a bell inside to make it audible and is roughly the size of a tennis ball, the construction of plastic with holes to amplify the sound.  The bats are rectangular with a handle (something like a cricket bat in miniature) with one of the long edges positioned flat against the table.  Like ping-pong, the game can be played either as singles or doubles with a variety of rules in competition ranging from single games to matches of up to eleven.  Some competitions exist for “mixed” teams (sighted and not) and there are "handicap" events in which the sighed competitors wear eye-masks, rendering the totally blind.

The swishy skirt

Lindsay Lohan in three dresses illustrating the possibilities offered by the swishy skirt: thigh high (mini, left), calf length (midi, centre) and ankle length (maxi, right).

A successful design is one in which the fabric "swishes around" when walking and, as a general principle, swishiness increases with length but with heavier fabrics the the law of diminishing returns can operate as the hemline approaches the ankles, weight mitigating against swish.  What this means is the qualities of swishy, swishier & swishiest are an interplay of fabric, cut & volume, not merely length.  The movement of a swishy skirt tends to exaggerate the perception of the volume of fabric used and this can convey the impression of something intricately constructed and while elaborate underpinnings are possible, most are simply an A-line skirt, made with vertical seams, a waistband and hem, the ensemble typically secured with a zipper.  The design does however offer wide scope, not only in terms of length but the bulk of fabric used makes the style highly suited to the provision of pockets, a feature designers often resist including in women’s clothing because if used, they can spoil the line.  In a swishy skirt, the pockets can be both larger and located lower (in the “swish zone”), meaning that unless really stuffed with stuff, the very presence of a pocket can often be imperceptible.

How swishy is done:  The basic A-Line pattern (left) and a swishy skirt with pockets (right).

Designers however caution pockets must be done with some precision; they need to be sufficiently deep and wide to accommodate the hand with the weight of anything put in the pocket to be borne by the waistband and not the less robust side seam.  As a general principle, the pockets should be folded toward the front of the skirt although, anyone tempted to try the more challenging asymmetric pocket might prefer to make them a feature and reverse the geometry.  However it’s done, what matters is any weight introduced into a pocket should not distort the silhouette.  A signature trick used in the making of swishy skirts is the “Hong Kong Finished waistband” (HKFW), achieved by sewing a piece of fabric around the raw edge of another, the advantage being the edge does not then need to be turned under for a finish.  To do this neatly, dressmakers' recommended trick is to use bias tape or a seam binding product to wrap the raw edges of the seam allowances before pressing open the seams.  The HKFW is used on a wide variety of garments but it’s often the technique of choice with swishy skirts because it removes a layer from what is the bulkiest part of the construction.

Palindrome

Palindrome (pronounced pal-in-drohm)

(1) A word, line, verse, number, sentence, etc, reading the same backward as forward.

(2) In biochemistry, a region of DNA in which the sequence of nucleotides is identical with an inverted sequence in the complementary strand.

1638: From the Ancient Greek παλίνδρομος (palindromos) (running back again; recurring, literally “literally "a running back”) the construct being πάλιν (pálin) (again, back) + δρόμος (dromos) (direction, running, race, racecourse).  Pálin was from the primitive Indo-European kwle-i-, a suffixed form of the root kwel- (revolve, move round) (kw- becomes the Greek p- before some vowels.  The word palindrome was first published by Henry Peacham (1578-circa 1645) in The Truth of Our Times (1638).  Although derived from the Greek root palin + dromos, the Greek language uses καρκινικός (carcinic, literally “crab-like”) to refer to letter-by-letter reversible writing.  The related palinal (directed or moved backward, characterized by or involving backward motion) dates from 1888.  Palindrome & palindromist are nouns, palindromically is an adverb and palindromic an adjective.

The noun palinode (poetical recantation, poem in which the poet retracts invective contained in a former satire) dates from the 1590s and was from either the sixteenth century French palinod or the Late Latin palinodia, from the Greek palinōidia (poetic retraction), again from pálin; the related form were palinodical & palinodial.  The word palinode was sometimes applied to the apologia artists and others in the Soviet Union were compelled to publish, were they accused of formalism or something just as heinous.

Pierre Laval (1883–1945), the palindromic Prime Minister of France 1931-1932, 1935-1936 & de facto prime minister in the Vichy Government 1942-1944.  He was executed by a French firing squad in 1945.

Perhaps surprisingly, the longest known palindromic word is not German despite their fondness for lengthy compounds.  According to the Guinness Book of World Records the record is held by the 19 character saippuakivikauppias which is Finnish for “a travelling salesman who sells lye (caustic soda)”.  It’s said not often to come up in conversation and seems to exist only a curiosity used to list the world’s longest known palindrome.  In English, palindromes of a few characters are common but examples with more than seven letters are rare.  Tattarrattat, as it’s usually spelled, has 12 characters but it’s a bit of a fudge because it’s also an onomatopoeia so some lexicographers insist it doesn’t count.  Tattarrattat is the sound made by knocking on a door.  Also cheating but clever is the 11 letter aibohphobia meaning a fear of palindromes, the construct being the suffix -phobia + its reverse.  Adding to the charm is that it’s doubtless a non-existent condition, but it’s suspected there are a few of those in the literature of psychiatry.  From India, there's kinnikinnik, a smoking mixture of bark & leaves (but no tobacco.  English’s longest “real” palindrome appears to be detartrated, the past participle of detartrate (to remove tartrates (salts of tartaric acid), especially from fruit juices and wines, in order to reduce tartness or sourness).  Not only is it a real word but it describes a common process in the industrial production of foods and beverages.

Announced on an auspicious date.

On 2 February 2020, Lindsay Lohan (b 1986), in a now deleted Instagram post, for the first time publicly acknowledged her relationship with Bader Shammas (b 1987), a group photograph from Dubai, including the couple and her sister Aliana, captioned: "@aliana lovely night with sister and my boyfriend bader💗".  The couple would later marry.  2 February 2020 (02-02-2020) was the twenty-first century’s only eight-digit global palindrome (ie it works with either the MM-DD-YYYY or DD-MM-YYYY convention).  The last eight-digit global palindrome happened 908 years earlier on the even more numerically symmetrical 11 November 1111 (11-11-1111) and the next one will be 908 years hence on 3 March 3030 (03-03-3030).  Six and seven digit palindromes are more common.

Palindromic sentences are often created and these are judged not by length but by their elegance.  Leigh Mercer (1893–1977) was a word nerd and recreational mathematician who devised the classic "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!" and this approach was in the 1980s taken to its logical extreme in two novels, Satire: Veritas (1980, 58,795 letters) by David Stephens and Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo (1986, 31,954 words) by Lawrence Levine, both said to be palindromically perfect and wholly nonsensical.  Shorter but of admirable clarity are the many baptismal fonts in Greece and Turkey which bear the circular 25-letter inscription NIYON ANOMHMATA MH MONAN OYIN (Wash (my) sins, not only (my) face).  This appears also in several English churches.

Sixteenth century German "oath skull" on which defendants swore their oaths in the Vehmic courts (the Vehmgericht, Holy Vehme or Vehm, the alternative spellings being Feme, Vehmegericht & Fehmgericht), a tribunal system established in Westphalia during the late Middle Ages.

Created essentially because of the inadequacies of the official justice system, they're now often referred to as "proto-vigilante" courts but for centuries they filled a niche before they came increasingly to be associated with injustice and corruption before finally being abolished in 1811, a half-decade after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the source of their original authority.

The pattern on the skull was based on a multi-directional palindromic grid created by some word nerds in Ancient Rome.  Later re-discovered etched onto a wall in the doomed city of Herculaneum, it reads Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas (The sower, Arepo, makes the wheel work) and it works whether read vertically, horizontally, or in the diagonal.  These types of palindromic squares are called pentacles and the SATOR was the most commonly found in the Western Esotericism of late antiquity.  They were used by Kabbalists, Gnostics, alchemists and other pre-medieval mystics in the creation of magic spells, amulets, potions etc and were thus often seen in the shops of apothecaries.

sator: sower/planter
tenet: he/she/they/it holds/has/grasps/possesses
opera: work/exertion/service
rotās: wheels

There has been speculation about the the meaning of this pentacle, some a little fanciful, but the consensus is things were made up just to fit, rather as "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" was coined to use each letter in the alphabet and "DICK HOOD DID EXCEED" serves no purpose other than to appear the same if inverted and viewed in a mirror.  The truly palindromic “never odd or even” spelled backwards remains “never odd or even”.