Pandemonium

Pandemonium (pronounced pan-duh-moh-nee-uhm)

(1) Wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.

(2) A place or scene of riotous uproar or utter chaos.

(3) Satan’s palace at the centre of Hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

(4) Following Milton, the abode of all the demons (often with initial capital letter).

1667: In John Milton’s (1608-1674) epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667-1674), Pandæmonium was the name of the palace in the centre of hell, "the high capital of Satan and all his peers”.  Milton coined the word as a construct of the Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân) (all; every (and equivalent to the English pan-)) + the Late Latin daemonium (evil spirit, demon), from the Ancient Greek δαιμόνιον (daimónion) (a diminutive form of δαίμων (daímōn) (“little deity”, “little spirit”, “little angel” or (as Christians interpreted it) “little daemon”, later modernized as “demon”).  Depending on one’s didactic or literary purpose, Pandæmonium may thus be translated variously as “All Demons” or, following Milton, as Pandemoneios (Παν-δαιμον-ειον) (the place of all demons).  The transferred sense of “a place of uproar” dates from 1779 while the general use meaning “wild, lawless confusion” has been in use since 1865.  The alternative spellings are pandaemonium & pandæmonium, the latter still in literary use.  Pandemonium is a noun, pandemoniacal, pandemonious, pandemonic & pandemonian are adjectives, pandemoniac is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is either pandemoniums or pandemonia.

There are special, technical uses of “pandemonium”.  In physics, a pandemonium describes a problem that leads to inaccurate results from high-resolution gamma ray detectors in cases of beta decay when the decay product has a large Q value because the decay product has too many possible energy excitation levels with too much variation in the amount of energy emitted by different levels.  Those who understand that doubtlessly visualize the phenomenon while the rest of us probably need something like a cartoon.  In cognitive science, a pandemonium is a conception of visual object recognition in the brain as a hierarchical system of detection and association by a metaphorical set of "demons" sending signals to each other.  No cartoons required.

Some who have inspired fandemonium: The anyway statuesque Taylor Swift, adding to the effect in 6 inch (150 mm) heels (2016, right), the mean girls of Mean Girls (2004, centre) and the more diminutive Lady Gaga (2023, right).

By way of portmanteau nouns, pandemonium has been an element in (1) pandemonium (panda + (pande)–monium) (the furor induced by the reaction of people to the sight of pandas) and (2) fandemonium (fan + -(pan)demonium) (in pop-culture, the furor caused by or involving fans).  In the matter fandemonium, Lady Gaga (b 1986) called her fans “little monsters” while devotees of the Taylor Swift (b 1989) cult are known as “Swifties” (apparently always with an initial capital).

Paradise Lost

Written in the epic tradition of starting in medias res (in the midst of things), John Milton’s Paradise Lost was published originally as a poem of some ten-thousand lines in ten books (1667) before the second edition (1674) was re-organized into twelve volumes, possibly a nod to the Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) whose epic work the Aeneid (circa 30-19 BC) was thus assembled.  The poem is an account of the biblical tale of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam & Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden and was structured in two narrative threads, one following Satan, the other about Adam and Eve, a depiction of the tragedy of human existence which can be transformed only by a pure will for redemption.  The second edition is easier to read because it includes chapter summaries.

Milton coined the name for the capital of Hell, “the High Capital, of Satan and his Peers”, built by the fallen angels at the suggestion of Mammon and it appears at the end of Book I of Paradise Lost (1667), noted as having been designed by the architect Mulciber (In Ancient Rome, Mulciber was another name for the Roman god Vulcan), the designer of palaces in Heaven before his fall.  Book II begins with the debate among the Stygian Council (known also as the Infernal Council and the grand gathering of the demons of the Inferno; apparently something like a Tory Party conference but with better catering) in the council-chamber of Pandæmonium.  In an example of free-market efficiency, the demons built the structure in little more than an hour though by far it surpassed in grandeur all human palaces and, being made from solid gold, it never tarnished.  Interestingly, it was Tardis-like, being both small yet with a vast and spacious hall which thronged with swarms of shape-shifting demons, a quality which may account for the spatial ambiguity in the account of the dimensions.

The Shepherd’s Dream (1793), from Paradise Lost, oil on canvas by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).

One mid-century critique was Milton's God (1965) by Sir William Empson (1906–1984), among the earliest published examples of the techniques of literary deconstructionism being applied to poetic text.   Milton noted his work was a way of “…justifying the ways of God to men” and Empson deconstructed those means, mapping them onto a framework of theological paradox.  While Milton’s God had a mixed reception, it was briefly influential as an early post-modern text although one of the problems inherent in deconstruction is it tempts others to reconstruct and there was a critic who deduced Empson had claimed “the poet felt an active hatred for the God of Christianity.”  That was a challenging notion given the book for so long sat on shelves next to the King James Bible (KJV 1611) and it seemed Epson’s subconscious was being probed.  Although in Milton’s God there was the observation Milton’s social judgment had told him that the Heaven he was imagining before the fall of the angels was already a horrible place, “against his overall intention”, it seems a quite a leap from that to a hatred of the God of the New Testament.

Empson explained what needed better to be understood (because, as he put it, modern Christianity has gone to extreme lengths “to hush it up”) was the moral character of God had become very hard to defend and that this was widely known by the time John Calvin (1509–1564) and Martin Luther (1483–1546) had trod the path of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).  Milton was struggling to defend God, noting that in the De doctrina Christiana (On Christian Teaching (397-426)), Aquinas himself had written there were many who believed God caused evil, practically making God the Devil and Milton would assert the relevant Bible texts must not be interpreted literally.  Milton certainly presents God at his worst but the Almighty is a agreeable figure by Book III although it remains clear his path for man will long and painful with many casualties but the poet's theme remained that there would be awful consequences if “the widespread hatred of God could no longer be contained” and this Empson understood.

Shemozzle

Shemozzle (pronounced sch-moz-il)

(1) In slang, a state of chaos or confusion (especially if noisy); an uproar.

(2) In slang, a quarrel (especially if noisy).

(3) In slang, to run away; to flee; to scarper (rare).

Late 1800s (in English and some sources cite 1889 as the first known instance of use): From the Yiddish שלימזל (shlimazl) (bad luck; difficulty; misfortune), the construct being shlim (bad, ill), from the Middle High German slimp (awry, not right) + the Hebrew מַזָּל (mazzāl), from the Late Hebrew mazāl (luck, fate, (one’s) star) and cognate with the US English schlimazel (an unlucky person).  There are many variations of the German joke (such things really exist, even in Prussia) to explain the related nouns shlemiel & shimazl but all are in the flavor of: “A shlemiel is the fellow who climbs to the top of a ladder with a bucket of paint and then drops it and a shimazl is the fellow on whose head the bucket falls.”  The colloquial German noun Schlamassel (plural Schlamassel) (trouble, difficult situation, misfortune) was from the same Yiddish source.  The gender of Schlamassel is usually masculine in Germany except in the southern state of Bavaria where, like the neighboring Austria it can also be neuter, this prevalent in the latter.  Because from the ninth century Yiddish evolved from its West-Germanic origins as a vernacular tongue which a number of forks & parallel streams in Europe, the Middle East and North America before being (sort of) standardized in the mid-twentieth century in “Western” and “Eastern” variants, many words spread by oral use and the a variety of spellings was not unusual and other spellings of shemozzle included: chemozzle, chermozzle, chimozzle, schemozzle, schimozzle, schlemozzle, schmozzle, shamozzle, shimozzel, shimozzle, shlemozel & shlemozzle.  The modern alternative spelling is schmozzle.  Schmozzle is a noun & verb and shemozzled & shemozzling are verbs; the noun plural is schmozzles (which is sometimes used also as a singular).  In humorous use, shemozzle is used also as a collective noun.

Because there’s rarely been reluctance by English-speakers to adopt words from other languages if they’re useful, better than what’s in use or just an attractive alternative, there no compelling reason to use shemozzle because there are so many other words and phrases to describe states of noisy chaos or confusion.  Obvious candidates include frenzy, mess, fiasco, snafu, chaos, clusterfuck (often sanitized as the clipped “cluster”), commotion, hubbub, kerfuffle, débacle, disarray, confusion, turmoil, ado, affray, altercation, argument, battle, bickering, brawl, brouhaha, bust-up, bustle, clash, combat, commotion, competition, conflict, contention, controversy, debate, discord, dispute, muddle, dissension, disturbance, dustup, fracas, quarrel, row, ruction, scandal, strife, struggle, tiff, tumult, uproar, wrangle, disorganized, disorder, mayhem, pandemonium, uproar, havoc & bedlam.  That the list is long suggests shemozzles are a significant and not infrequent feature of human interaction and the choice of which to use is one of nuance, the connotation one wishes, some of the words emphasizing the chaos, some the conflict.  Shemozzle is an attractive choice because (1) most know what it means, (2) it’s not commonly heard so has some novelty value and (3) it's a "fun" word to say.

A media shemozzle snapping Lindsay Lohan walking into LA Superior Court, Los Angeles, February 2011.

A shemozzle can be used to illustrate chaos theory, a conceptual model of the phenomenon of an event’s ultimate trigger being something distant and apparently unconnected with its consequences.  Physicists illustrate the idea by speculating that waving one’s hands in the air might, some billions of years hence, alter the Earth’s speed of rotation and the most commonly quoted thought experiment is the metaphor for the behavior: “Can a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas?”  It’s an intriguing topic for those building big-machine models which can both explore and reveal patterns in what was once thought randomness.

The shemozzle of reporters and photographers clustered when Lindsay Lohan in February 2011 walked to one of the well-publicized (and not infrequent) court appearances of her “troubled Hollywood starlet” phase wasn’t unexpected and nor would she have found it an unfamiliar environment, the yellow & black plastic “Police Line: DO NOT CROSS” tape strung between the bollards vaguely reminiscent of the velvet rope & stanchions which define the limits for photographers at red-carpet events.  What was unpredicted was the almost immediate effect in commerce, the white Kimberly Ovitz (b 1983) Glavis Albino bandage dress from the houses pre-fall collection reported as “sold out worldwide” within hours of the images appearing on-line, a reasonable achievement for a piece listed at US$575 made in a run of a few hundred.

The matter before the court raised no novel legal points and thus attracted little analysis but the re-purposing of the walk to the arraignment as an impromptu catwalk strut triggered a shemozzle of its own as women around the world clamoured to buy their own Glavis Albino and media companies sought comment from Kimberly Ovitz, anxious to learn if the appearance was some sort of “sponsored promotion”.  A representative from the company was soon quoted as saying “Kimberly had no role in Lindsay Lohan wearing the dress” which Ms Lohan had purchased.  Apparently disappointed, the journalists resorted to dutifully noting her “signature Chanel 5182 sunglasses.”

Ms Lohan that evening tweeted: “What I wear to court shouldn’t be front page news. It’s just absurd” although her choice of wardrobe for subsequent court appearances hinted she may have concluded absurdity has its place and at Kimberley Ovitz’s corporate headquarters the reaction was equally pragmatic, the company offering retailers a “re-cut” (the industry term for a second production run, a la a “second printing” in the publishing world) of the Glavis Albino in response to the phones “ringing off the hook”.  “It’s been a frenzy!” CBS News quoted an Ovitz sales associate as saying.  So that’s a case study in how the choice should be made: A rabble of photographers milling behind the bollards while shouting questions is “a shemozzle” while desperate fashionistas and boutiques besieging a designer for a frock is “a frenzy”.  Now we know.

Demon

Demon (pronounced dee-muhn (U) or dee-mon (non-U))

(1) An evil supernatural spirit; devil or fiend; an evil spirit resident in or working for Hell; a devil; a false god or idol; a Satanic divinity.

(2) An evil passion or influence.

(3) A most wicked, cruel or malevolent person; also (in weakened sense) a mischievous person, especially a child.

(4) A person who is extremely skillful in, energetic at, or devoted to a given activity, especially a sport.

(5) Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or noting a demon.

(6) In computing, a part of a computer program, such as a help facility, that can run in the background behind the current task or application, and which will only begin to work when certain conditions are met or when it is specifically invoked; often styled daemon.

(7) A person's fears or anxieties (always in the plural and usually in the form “haunted by their demons” or “facing their demons”).

(8) In Greek mythology, a tutelary deity or spirit intermediate between the major Olympian gods and mankind, especially a deified hero or the entity which supposedly guided Socrates, telling him what not to do.

(9) In the thought experiments of both physics and philosophy, a hypothetical entity with special abilities postulated for the purposes required.

(10) A person's inner spirit or genius; a guiding or creative impulse (archaic).

(11) In card games, a type of patience or solitaire played in the UK & US.

(12) Any of various hesperiid butterflies of the genera Notocrypta and Udaspes.

Circa 1200-1250: From the Middle English demon (an evil spirit, malignant supernatural being, an incubus, a devil), from the Medieval Latin dēmōn, daemōn & daemoniumm (lar, familiar spirit, guardian spirit), from the Ancient Greek daimónion (thing of divine nature (though when used by Jewish and Christian writers: “evil spirit”)), neuter of daimónios, from δαίμων (daímōn) (deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity) and in both the Greek and Latin, the meanings sometime extended to souls of the dead and “one's genius, lot, or fortune”.  Ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European dai-mon (divider, provider (of fortunes or destinies)) from the root da (to divide).  The alternative spellings daemon & daimon was used in specialized senses and remain a favourite of the modern gaming industry; daimon was a transliteration of the Greek daimōn which was deployed to avoid the post-classical associations of demon (often in the adjectival form daimonic).  The demoness (female demon) dates from the 1630s.  Demon is a noun; the noun plural is demons.

Crooked Hillary Clinton depicted as a demon (believed to be digitally-altered image).

The malignant sense existed in English from the start because the Greek word was used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek translations and the Vulgate (the principal Latin version of the Bible, prepared mainly by the theologian Saint Jerome (circa 344-Circa 420) in the late fourth century, and (as revised in 1592) adopted as the official text for the Roman Catholic Church) for "god of the heathen, heathen idol" and also for "unclean spirit".  This was also part of the Jewish tradition where authors had used the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim (lords, idols) in the Septuagint and in Matthew 8:31 there appears daimones, translated as deofol in the Old English & feend or deuil in the Middle English.  A more evocative word in the Old English word was hellcniht (literally "hell-knight").  The inherited sense from the Ancient Greek (supernatural agent or intelligence lower than a god; a ministering spirit) appeared in English from the 1560s, written variously as daemon or daimon.  The meaning "destructive or hideous person" is from the 1610s and as "an evil agency personified" (ie the demon drink), from 1712.  In another sense in late fourteenth century English, the “Demon of Socrates” was a daimonion (a divine principle or inward oracle) although his accusers (and later the Church Fathers) represented this otherwise.  The Demon Star (1895) is Algol (variable star (Beta Persei)) in the constellation Perseus, documented in the late fourteenth century, which translates literally as "the Demon" from the Arabic al-ghul (the demon), from which is derived the modern ghoul.  It corresponds, in modern representations of the constellation, to the gorgon's head Perseus holds, but probably it was so called because it visibly varies in brightness every three days, which sets it apart from other bright stars.  In one of the most famous fragments of English verse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) Kubla Khan (1798), there are the lines:

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

The noun demonarchy (rule or dominion of demons) first appeared in the 1640s while the noun demonology (the study of demons or beliefs about demons) had appeared in both secular and church documents as early as the 1590s, the related terms of the discipline being demonologer & demonological.  The adjective demonic (also daemonic) (devilish, of the nature of or pertaining to a demon), from the Latin daemonicus dates from the 1660s while demonical (from the Old English glossed daemonicus with deofelseoc (devil-sick) was from later in the century.  The adjective demoniac (possessed by a demon, insane) was from circa 1400 but several decades earlier there had been the noun demoniak, (one who is possessed, a lunatic), from the Late Latin daemoniacus, from the Greek daimoniakos (possessed by a demon), from diamond.  From the 1640s the adjective was used in the sense of "of or pertaining to demons or spirits" while by 1820 this had extended to a rather softened "devilish"; the related forms were demoniacal & demoniacally.

Lindsay Lohan in demonic pose to celebrate her twenty-third birthday, 2009.

The verb demonize (also demonise) (to make into a demon (literally or figuratively)) dates from 1778, either as a construct built from the noun or from the Medieval Latin daemonizare, all influenced by the Greek daimonizesthai (to be under the power of a tutelary deity) and the sense in the New Testament of "to be possessed by a demon”, the related forms demonized, demonizing & demonization all in use by the late eighteenth century.  The noun Pandæmonium (pandemonium the modern form) was in 1667 coined by John Milton (1608-1674) in Paradise Lost as the name of the palace built in the middle of Hell (the high capital of Satan and all his peers and the abode of all the demons), the construct being the Greek pan- (all) + the Late Latin daemonium (evil spirit) from the Greek daimonion (inferior divine power) from daimōn (in the sense of lesser god).

The Dodge Demons

The 1969 Dodge Swinger 340 (left), a platform familiar in Australia where it was produced (1969-1971) in a variety of configurations including a two-door hardtop (a 1971 VG Regal 770 (centre)) and four-door sedans (a 1971 long-wheelbase VIP (right)).

The Dodge Dart of the mid 1960s was a compact (in US terms) economy car which fulfilled its role well, lasting indeed until the late 1970s when it turned out to be in many ways superior to its ill-fated replacements.  However, an unusual conjunction of economic, legislative and demographic factors in the late 1960s made the Dart an ideal platform for a cheap muscle car which could easily and quickly be built from the corporate parts bin.  Its humble origins were never entirely disguised and it always lurked behind the sturm und drang of the bigger, more illustrious models like the Charger, Challenger and Daytona but as a bargain-priced muscle car, it deserved success.  Dodge had tentatively dipped the Dart’s toe into the muscle car waters in 1967 when it introduced the Dart GTS which, fitted with a 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) V8 performed admirably given its modest specification but it the next year it became available with a new 340 cubic inch (5.5 litre) V8 which, thought under-rated at 275 (gross) horsepower, was one of the best units of the era.  Able in most cases to match the performance offered by much of the bigger-engined competition, reviews were positive and in 1969 a separate line called the Swinger 340 was released, a package which convinced Dodge to abandon its brief flirtation with overkill, not renewing the availability of the 383 & 440 cubic inch (6.3 & 7.2 litre) V8 engines in the platform.  The big-block engines were really suitable only for a drag strip, the lighter 340 a better idea.

1971 Dodge Demon 340.

Demon decal with demonic pitchfork.

In 1971, the Dart received an additional body style, borrowed from their corporate companion Plymouth which had added the Duster coupé as a stylish addition to the Valiant line, their equivalent of the compact Dart.  However, Dodge’s marketing people in the early 1970s either smoked too much weed or didn’t get out enough because shortly after flirting with the idea of adding statutory grape to their paint colour charts, they decided to call their new high-performance compact the Demon.  That upset the Christian lobby, influential even then but remarkably, the marketing department was going to use the name Beaver until more worldly types told them about its use in slang.  The churches weren’t best pleased about Demon but, given the scriptural basis, they relented despite the cartoon devil on a decal stuck to the fenders.  The churches, not impressed with a marketing strategy which seemed to support the Antichrist weren’t convinced by the explanation that it was all about a play on words (Come in for a Demon-stration) and continued to protest.  Dodge persisted and although denied statutory grape, buyers could choose lurid colors like Go-Green and Citron Yella while for those intent on building the quickest version possible, there was the Demon Sizzler package which bundled a number of dress-up and high performance options.  It was a good combination at a low price but it was out-sold by the mechanically identical Plymouth Duster 340s possibly because the Christian lobby had actually organized the preaching of sermons condemning Dodge as doing the Devil’s work so in 1973 the Demon nomenclature (and the offending cartoon) was dropped, the thing re-branded to the bland Dart Sport, a line which ran for three years (although the once virile 340 would be detuned and then replaced with a much milder 360 cubic inch (5.9 litre) unit.  The Christian lobby thus claimed the demon’s scalp although they never managed to veto Dodge’s use of Swinger and today, the 1971 & 1972 Demon 340s are sought-after.  Production numbers were never high (10,098 & 8,700 respectively) and give its cheap, disposable nature, and the buyers attracted to such things over the decades, attrition rates were high and survivors are few although, as just about everywhere in the muscle car ecosystem, there’s a minor industry in creating clones.

Demon redux: 2018 Dodge Challenger Demon.  The yellow plastic guard on the leading edge of the front splitter was attached at the factory to deter damage during transport to dealerships.  The instruction was to remove them prior to sale but they picked up a cult following and many buyers insisted they be retained.

Chrysler reprised the Dodge Demon name in 2018 (and Swinger in 2022) apparently with little theological opposition.  The engine used in the new Demon was an evolution of the 376 cubic inch (6.2 litre) Hemi V8 which, in 2017’s Challenger Hellcat, was rated at 707 horsepower.  With production limited to 3300 units, the 2018 Demon used a supercharged Hemi which produced 808 hp but an optional package boosted that to 840.  So equipped, the Demon would cover a standing quarter-mile (400m) in 9.65 seconds at 140 mph (225 km/h) and cost was a remarkably modest US$86,091 including the optional package which, while not entirely suitable for driving on public roads, was completely street-legal.  It included a number of features which hinted at its real purpose, including the passenger and rear seats being no-cost options and, most intriguingly, a high-output mode which both increased power and disabled the cabin air-conditioning, routing its cooling flow instead to the induction system, a device that lowered the intake temperature by 18-odd degrees, thereby gaining a few more horsepower.  Although tuned for quarter-mile sprints and thus limiting top-speed to about 170 mph (270 km/h), it could be geared for top end performance and would easily exceed 200 mph (320 km/h).

Panda

Panda (pronounced pan-duh)

(1) A black & white, herbivorous, bearlike mammal (in popular use sometimes as “giant panda”), Ailuropoda melanoleuca (family Procyonidae), now rare with a habitat limited to relatively small forested areas of central China where ample growth exists of the stands of bamboo which constitutes the bulk of the creature’s diet.

(2) A reddish-brown (with ringed-tail), raccoon-like mammal (in the literature often referred to as the “lesser panda”), Ailurus fulgens which inhabits mountain forests in the Himalayas and adjacent eastern Asia, subsisting mainly on bamboo and other vegetation, fruits, and insects.

(3) In Hinduism, a brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who acts as the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual.

(4) In colloquial use (picked up as UK police slang) as “panda car” (often clipped to “panda”), a UK police vehicle painted in a two-tone color scheme (originally black & white but later more typically powder-blue & white) (historic use only).

(5) Used attributively, something (or someone) with all (or some combination of) the elements (1) black & white coloration, (2) perceptions of “cuteness” and (3) the perceived quality of being “soft & cuddly”.

1835: From the French (Cuvier), a name for the lesser panda, assumed to be from a Tibeto-Burman language or some other native Nepalese word.  Cuvier is a trans-lingual term which references the French naturalist and zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) and his younger brother the zoologist and paleontologist Frédéric Cuvier (1773–1838).  The term was use of any of the Latinesque or pseudo-Latin formations created as taxonomic names for organisms following the style & conventions used by the brothers.  Most etymologists suggest the most likely source was the second element of nigálya-pónya (a local name for the red panda recorded in Nepal and Sikkim), which was perhaps from the Nepali निँगाले (nĩgāle) (relating to a certain species of bamboo), the adjectival form of निँगालो (nĩgālo), a variant of निङालो (niṅālo) (Drepanostachyum intermedium (a species of bamboo)).  The second element was a regional Tibetan name for the animal, related in some way to ཕོ་ཉ (pho nya) (messenger).  The use in Hinduism describing “a learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher (and specifically of the Brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who was the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual, especially one who had memorized a substantial proportion of the Vedas)” was from the Hindi पंडा (paṇḍā) and the Punjabi ਪਾਂਡਾ (pāṇḍā), both from the Sanskrit पण्डित (paṇḍita) (learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher).  The English word pundit (expert in a particular field, especially as called upon to provide comment or opinion in the media; a commentator or critic) entered the language during the British Raj in India, the use originally to describe native surveyor, trained to carry out clandestine surveillance the colonial borders.  The English form is now commonly used in many languages but the descendants included the Japanese パンダ (panda), the Korean 판다 (panda) and the Thai: แพนด้า.  Panda is a noun and pandalike (also as panda-like) is an adjective (pandaesque & panderish still listed as non-standard; the noun plural is pandas.

A charismatic creature: Giant Panda with cub.

As a word, panda has been productive.  The portmanteau noun pandemonium (the blend being panda +‎ (pande)monium was a humorous construct describing the reaction which often occurs in zoos when pandas appear and was on the model of fandemonium (the reaction of groupies and other fans to the presence of their idol).  The "trash panda" (also as "dumpster panda" or "garbage panda") was of US & Canadian origin and an alternative to "dumpster bandit", "garbage bandit" or "trash bandit" and described the habit of raccoons foraging for food in trash receptacles.  The use was adopted because the black patches around the creature's eyes are marking similar to those of the giant panda.  The Australian equivalent is the "bin chicken", an allusion to the way the Ibis has adapted to habitat loss by entering the urban environment, living on food scraps discarded in rubbish bins.

Lindsay Lohan with “panda” eye makeup (left) and a cat which manages the look "makeup free" (right).  The companion term is "reverse panda", a usually unintended effect caused by light makeup around the eyes appearing as white circles or patches.  The look sometimes is exaggerated in photographs because of the use of studio lighting or the camera flash.

The “panda crossing” was a pedestrian safety measure, an elaborate form of the “zebra crossing”.  It was introduced in the UK in 1962, the name derived from the two-tone color scheme used for the road marking and the warning beacons on either side of the road.  The design worked well in theory but not in practice and all sites had been decommissioned by late 1967.  The giant panda’s twotonalism led to the adoption of “panda dolphin” as one of the casual tags (the others being “jacobita, skunk dolphin, piebald dolphin & tonina overa for the black & white Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii).  “Reverse panda” is an alternative version of “raccoon eyes” and describes an effect achieved (sometimes “over-achieved”) with eye-shadow or other makeup, producing a pronounced darkening around the eyes, an inversion of the panda’s combination.  It’s something which is sometimes seen also in photography as a product of lighting or the use of a camera’s flash.

In English, the first known reference to the panda as a “carnivorous raccoon-like mammal (the lesser panda) of the Himalayas” while the Giant Panda was first described in 1901 although it had been “discovered” in 1869 by French missionary Armand David and it was known as parti-colored until the name was changed which evidence of the zoological relationship to the red panda was accepted.  The giant panda was thus once included as part of the raccoon family but is now classified as a bear subfamily, Ailuropodinae, or as the sole member of a separate family, Ailuropodidae (which diverged from an ancestral bear lineage).  The lesser panda (the population of which has greatly been reduced by collectors & hunters) is now regarded as unrelated to the giant panda and usually classified as the sole member of an Old World raccoon subfamily, Ailurinae, which diverged from an ancestral lineage that also gave rise to the New World raccoons, most familiar in North America.  As late as the early twentieth century, the synonyms for the lesser panda included bear cat, cat bear & wah, all now obsolete.

Panda diplomacy

Lindsay Lohan collecting Chinese takeaway from a Panda Express outlet, New York City, November 2008.

Although the first pandas were gifted by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) Chinese government in 1941, “panda diplomacy” began as a Cold War term, the practice of sending pandas to overseas zoos becoming a tool increasingly used by Peking (Beijing after 1979) following the Sino-Soviet split in 1957.  Quite when the phrase was first used isn’t certain but it was certainly heard in government and academic circles during the 1960s although it didn’t enter popular use until 1972, when a pair of giant pandas (Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing) were sent to the US after Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) historic visit to China, an event motivated by Washington’s (1) interest in seeking Peking’s assistance in handling certain aspects of the conflict in Indochina and (2) desire to “move Moscow into check on the diplomatic chessboard”.  Ever since, pandas have been a unique part of the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CCP) diplomatic toolbox although since 1984 they’ve been almost always leased rather than gifted, the annual fee apparently as high as US$1 million per beast, the revenue generated said to be devoted to conservation of habitat and a selective breeding program designed to improve the line’s genetic diversity.  Hong Kong in 2007 were gifted a pair but that’s obviously a special case ("one country, two pandas") and while an expression of diplomatic favour, they can be also an indication of disapprobation, those housed in the UK in 2023 returned home at the end of the lease and not replaced.

It’s one of a set of such terms in geopolitics including  “shuttle diplomacy” (the notion of a negotiator taking repeated "shuttle flights" between countries involved in conflict in an attempt to manage or resolve things (something with a long history but gaining the name from the travels here & there of Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) in the 1960s & 1970s)), “ping-pong diplomacy” (the use of visiting table-tennis teams in the 1960s & 1970s as a means of reducing Sino-US tensions and maintaining low-level cultural contacts as a prelude to political & economic engagement), “commodity diplomacy” (the use of tariffs, quotas and other trade barriers as “bargaining chips” in political negotiations), “gunboat diplomacy” (the threat (real or implied) of the use of military force as means of coercion), “hostage diplomacy” (holding the nationals of a country in prison or on (sometimes spurious) charges with a view to exchanging them for someone or something) and “megaphone diplomacy” (an official or organ of government discussing in public what is usually handled through “usual diplomatic channels”; the antonym is “quiet diplomacy”).

Panda diplomacy in action.

A case study in the mechanics of panda diplomacy was provided by PRC (People’s Republic of China) Premier Li Qiang (b 1959; premier of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2023) during his official visit to Australia in June 2024.  Mr Li’s presence was an indication the previous state of “diplomatic deep freeze” between the PRC & Australia had been warmed to something around “correct but cool”, the earlier state of unarmed conflict having been entered when Beijing reacted to public demands (delivered via “megaphone diplomacy”) by previous Australian prime minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) for an international enquiry into the origin of the SARS-Covid-2 virus which triggered the COVID-19 pandemic.  Such a thing might have been a good idea but underlying Mr Morrison’s strident call was that he was (1) blaming China and (2) accusing the CCP of a cover-up.  Mr Morrison is an evangelical Christian and doubtlessly it was satisfying for him to attend his church (one of those where there’s much singing, clapping, praising the Lord and discussing the real-estate market) to tell his fellow congregants how he’d stood up to the un-Christian, Godless communists but as a contribution to international relations (IR), it wasn’t a great deal of help.  His background was in advertising and coining slogans (he so excelled at both it was clearly his calling) but he lacked the background for the intricacies of IR.  The CCP’s retributions (trade sanctions and refusing to pick up the phone) might have been an over-reaction but to a more sophisticated prime-minister they would have been reasonably foreseeable.

Two years on from the diplomatic blunder, Mr Li arrived at Adelaide Zoo for a photo-opportunity to announce the impending arrival of two new giant pandas, the incumbent pair, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, soon to return to China after their 15 year stint.  Wang Wang and Fu Ni, despite over those years having been provided “every encouragement” (including both natural mating and artificial insemination) to procreate, proved either unable or unwilling so, after thanking the zoo’s staff for looking after them so well, the premier announced: “We will provide a new pair of equally beautiful, lovely and adorable pandas to the Adelaide Zoo.”, he said through an interpreter, adding: “I'm sure they will be loved and taken good care of by the people of Adelaide, South Australia, and Australia.”  The duo, the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere, had been scheduled to return in 2019 at the conclusion of the original ten year lease but sometime before the first news of COVID-19, this was extended to 2024.  Although their lack of fecundity was disappointing, there’s nothing to suggest the CCP regard this as a loss of face (for them or the apparently unromantic couple) and Wang Wang and Fu Ni will enjoy a comfortable retirement munching on abundant supplies of bamboo.  Unlike some who have proved a “disappointment” to the CCP, they’ll be spared time in a “re-education centre”.

A classic UK police Wolseley 6/80 (1948-1954) in black, a staple of 1950s UK film & television (top left), Adaux era Hillman Minx (1956–1967) (top centre) & Jaguar Mark 2 (1959-1969) (top right), the first of the true "black & white" panda cars, Ford Anglia 105E (1958-1968) on postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2013 (bottom left), in one of the pastel blues which replaced the gloss black, Rover 3500 (SD1, 1976-1984) (bottom centre) in one of the deliberately lurid schemes used in the 1970s & 1980s (UK police forces stockpiled Rover 3500s when it was announced production was ending; they knew what would follow would be awful) and BMW 320d (bottom right) in the "Battenburg markings" designed by the Police Scientific Development Branch (SDB).

Until 1960, the fleets of cars run by most of the UK’s police forces tended to be a glossy black.  That began to change when, apparently influenced by US practice, the front doors and often part or all of the roof were painted white, the change said to be an attempt to make them “more distinctive”.  The new scheme saw then soon dubbed “panda cars”, the slang picked up by police officers (though often, in their economical way, clipped to “panda”) and use persisted for years even after the dominant color switched from black to pastels, usually a duck-egg blue.  Things got brighter over the years until the police developed the high-visibility “Battenburg markings” a combination of white, blue and fluorescent yellow, a system widely adopted internationally.  Interestingly, although the black & white combination was used between the 1960s-1990s by the New Zealand’s highway patrol cars (“traffic officers” then separate from the police), the “panda car” slang never caught on.

The Fiat Panda

Basic motoring, the 1980 Fiat Panda.

Developed during the second half of the troubled and uncertain 1970s, the Fiat Panda debuted at the now defunct Geneva Motor Show in 1980.  Angular, though not a statement of high rectilinearism in the manner of the memorable Fiat 130 coupé (1971-1977), it was a starkly functional machine, very much in the utilitarian tradition of the Citroën 2CV (1948-1990) but visually reflecting more recent trends although, concessions to style were few.  Fiat wanted a car with the cross-cultural appeal of its earlier Cinquecento (500, 1957-1975) which, like the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) Mini (1959-2000) was “classless” and valued for its practicality.  It was designed from “the inside out”, the passenger compartment’s dimensions created atop the mechanical components with the body built around those parameters, the focus always on minimizing the number of components used, simplifying the manufacturing and assembly processes and designing the whole to make maintenance as infrequently required and as inexpensive as possible.  One innovation which seemed a good, money saving device was that all glass was flat, something which had fallen from fashion for windscreens in the 1950s and for side windows a decade later.  In theory, reverting to the pre-war practice should have meant lower unit costs and greater left-right interchangeability but there were no manufacturers in Italy which had maintained the machinery to produce such things and the cost per m² proved eventually a little higher than would have been the case for curved glass.  Over three generations until 2024, the Panda was a great success although one which did stray from its basic origins as European prosperity increased.  There was in the 1990s even an electric version which was very expensive and, its capabilities limited by the technology of the time, not a success.

The name of the Fiat Panda came from mythology, Empanda, a Roman goddess who was patroness of travelers and controversial among historians, some regarding her identity as but the family name of Juno, the Roman equivalent of Hera, the greatest of all the Olympian goddesses.  Whatever the lineage, she was a better choice for Fiat than Pandarus (Πάνδαρος) who came from the city of Zeleia, Apollo himself teaching him the art of archery.  Defying his father’s advice, Pandarus marched to Troy as a foot soldier, refusing to take a chariot & horses; there he saw Paris & Menelaus engaged in single combat and the goddess Athena incited Pandarus to fire an arrow at Menelaus.  In this way the truce was broken and the war resumed.  Pandarus then fought Diomedes but was killed, his death thought punishment for his treachery in breaking the truce.

Press-kit images for the 2024 Fiat Grande Panda issued by Stellantis, June 2024.

In June 2024, Fiat announced the fourth generation Panda and advances in technology mean the hybrid and all-electric power-trains are now mainstream and competitive on all specific measures.  The Grande Panda is built on the new Stellantis “Smart Car platform”, shared with Citroën ë-C3, offering seating capacity for five.  Unlike the original, the 2024 Panda features a few stylistic gimmicks including headlights and taillights with a “pixel theme”, a look extended to the diamond-cut aluminium wheels, in homage to geometric motifs of the 1980s and the earlier Panda 4x4.

Panda scene from Homer vs Dignity.

Pandas (fake & real) have a role in Homer vs Dignity, (November, 2000, episode 5, season 12 of the animated television series The Simpsons (on the Fox network 1989-2024, on Disney+ since 2024)).  The plot line involved evil nuclear power-plant owner Montgomery Burns hiring Homer Simpson as his “prank monkey”, staging public antics and publicly humiliating himself, all for Mr Burns’ amusement.  The most controversial scene was the one in which Homer, dressed in a panda suit, sexually was violated by a real panda (presumably this was referred to and signed-off by the Fox lawyers).  On The Simpsons, there’d not before been a scene like it and despite the cartoon South Park (on Paramount+'s Comedy Central since 1997) raising (or lowering) the cartoon bar, there’s not been one like it since.

Psychological moment, Homer Simpson being dragged into the panda’s den.  In the age of #metoo, Fox’s lawyers might have suggested a script-revision.

Homer vs Dignity was at the time cited as a “jumping the shark” moment although it’s regarded now as an aberration and not a marker of terminal decline.  The idiomatic “jumping the shark” is a reference to some creative endeavor having worked the concept dry and resorting instead to gimmicks and absurdities.  The term dates from 1985 and was coined by US media personality Jon Hein (b 1957) as a belated response to an 1977 episode in the fifth season of the ABC sitcom Happy Days (1974-1984) in which a character, most incongruously, performs a water ski jump over a caged shark.  However, although Homer vs Dignity widely was panned, it appears not to appear in the various “top five worst episode ever” lists, headed usually by The Principal and the Pauper (September, 1997, episode 2, season 9) in which school principal Seymour Skinner is revealed to be an imposter and dismissed from his position.  Because Principle Skinner was needed as an ongoing character, the episode resolved things in a twist improbable even by cartoon standards with the entire population of Springfield declaring never again to speak of the matter.

Tumult

Tumult (pronounced too-muhlt or tyoo-muhlt)

(1) Violent and noisy commotion or disturbance of a crowd or mob; uproar.

(2) A general outbreak, riot, uprising, or other disorder.

(3) Highly distressing agitation of mind or feeling; turbulent mental or emotional disturbance.

1375–1425: From the late Middle English tumult(e), from the twelfth century Old French tumult from the Latin tumultus (an uproar; commotion; bustle; uproar; disorder; disturbance), akin to tumēre to (to be excited; to swell), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European root teuə - (& teu) (to swell).  Teuə- was a productive root, forming all or part of: butter; contumely; creosote; intumescence; intumescent; protuberance; protuberant; psychosomatic; -some; soteriology; thigh; thimble; thousand; thole; thumb; tumescent; tumid; tumor; truffle; tuber; tuberculosis; tumult & tyrosine.  It’s the hypothetical source of (and certainly evidence for its existence is provided by): the Avestan tuma (fat), the Ancient Greek tylos (callus, lump); the Latin tumere (to swell), tumidus (swollen) & tumor (a swelling); the Lithuanian tukti (to become fat), the Old Church Slavonic & Russian tuku (fat of animals) and the Old Irish ton (rump).  Tumult is a noun & verb, tumultuate, tumultuating & tumultuated are verbs tumultuously is an adverb and tumultuous is an adjective; the noun plural is tumults.  

Nothing good ever came from the DLP:  One of tumult’s few linguistic niches is the phrase “the tumult & the shouting”, clearly a favorite of publishers given the number of books enjoying the title.  One was the 1977 political memoir of Frank McManus (1905–1983), an Australian senator who was briefly leader of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) in the dying days of its first and longest incarnation.  While of no great literary merit, it’s an amusing mix of apologia and vicious character assassination, capturing vividly the hatreds which for a generation or more poisoned the Victorian Labor Party following the 1955 split.

Tumult is an example of a word in English where the root has become rare but a derived form remains in common use, the adjective tumultuous more frequently seen (tumultuous noted first in English in the 1540s).  It’s was a borrowing from the Middle French tumultuous (tumultueux in Modern French), from the Latin tumultuosus (full of bustle or confusion, disorderly, turbulent), from tumultus which also provided tumult. Like tumult, the adverb tumultuously and the noun tumultuousness are less common.

Headline writers, whether in print or on-line, famously are fond of alliterations and puns, preferably combined.  It's also one of the few aspects of journalism in which clichés seem to be tolerated and even celebrated.  The breed also has favorite words and one is "tumultuous".  While there are many words which (depending on context), can convey much the same meaning including boisterous, hectic, raucous, histrionic, riotous, stormy, turbulent, violent, agitated, clamorous, disorderly, disorder, disturbed, excited, noisy, obstreperous, passionate, rambunctious, restless, rowdy, turmoil, maelstrom, upheaval, riot, agitation, commotion, pandemonium, strife, rumbustious, termagant, unruly, uproarious, vociferous affray, racket, revolt, revolution, mutiny, unrest, disturbance, hassle, fracas, ferment, turbulence, outcry, convulsion, quarrel & perturbation & vicissitudinous, none work quite as well to encapsulate feeling the and some are not words as widely understood.

For some lives, the only adequate adjective is tumultuous (although "stormy" must have been tempting for some of those writing of Mr Trump.