Route

Route (pronounce rout or root)

(1) A course, way, or road for passage or travel; the choice of roads or a path taken to reach a destination,

(2) A customary or regular line of passage or travel, sometimes formally so-named.

(3) A specific itinerary, round, or number of stops regularly visited by a person in the performance of their work or duty (bus route, paper route, mountaineering route etc).

(4) To set the path of something or someone.

(5) To send or forward by a particular course or road.

(6) In clinical medicine, the means by which a drug or agent is administered or enters the body (the oral, surface or injectionoral route).

(7) Figuratively, one of multiple methods or approaches to doing something.

(8) In Sino-historiography, one of the major provinces of imperial China from the Later Jin to the Song, corresponding to the Tang and early Yuan circuits.

(9) In computing (networking), an entry in a router table instructing a router how to relay the data packets received (and as a transitive verb, to send information through a router).

(10) In computing, to connect two local area networks, thereby forming an internet (now a rare expression though the practice remains common).

(11) In horse racing, a race longer than one mile (1600m) (now rare).

1175–1225: From the Middle English route (a way, a road, space for passage), from the Middle French route, from the Anglo-Norman rute (troop, band) from the Old French rute (road, way, path), from the Vulgar Latin rupta (literally “via a broken established way” (a road opened by force or cut through a forest etc)), the feminine past participle of rumpere (to break; to burst).  Route is a noun, router is a noun & verb and routed & routing are verbs; the noun plural is routes.

The famous US Route 66.

The verb dates from the 1880s and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists the first citation as an 1881 guide for stationmasters on the London & North Western Railway which included the phrase “mark for use on a certain route”.  In the development of the noun, the sense of a “regular course for carrying passengers or freight (first used in the postal system) emerged in the late eighteenth century, and was an extension of the fifteenth century "customary path for the driving of animal stock and herds; something later applied to sales, collections, delivery of newspapers, bread etc and the pronunciation rout was apparently universal since the early nineteenth century.  The meaning “direct an electrical signal, phone call etc over a particular defined circuit or to a particular location" has existed since 1948 and is now most familiar in computer networking.  Computer networking engineers also picked-up “re-route” (direct packets of data to another route), a direct borrowing from the postal system where a “re-route” was an instruction physically to re-direct mail from one address to another.  The word “routine” was related to route (presumably from the notion of something like a postman’s route which was unchanged from year to year) as was “rut” which originally described the track in (an unpaved) road left by a wheel and etymologists speculate this may have begun as a variant of route.  The figurative sense of rut (a dull, unchanging and habitual course or life) emerged in the mid nineteenth century based on the idea that once the wheel of a cart become “stuck in a rut”, it’s difficult (and demands much energy) to change direction (ie to “get out of the rut”).

An unfortunate choice of route: In 2012, Lindsay Lohan, travelling on the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, California, was involved in a crash between her (rented) Porsche 911 (997) Carrera S and an eighteen wheeler truck.  As one would suspect in such an unequal contest, the Porsche was badly damaged.

In postal systems, railways, computing and other fields in which objects (real or weightless) must be moved, specialized forms have been created as needed including misroute, misrouting, misrouted, preroute, prerouted, prerouting, reroute, rerouted & rerouting (hyphenated forms also used) although deroute seems never to have been needed.  The alternative spellings misrouteing, rerooted etc also existed.  Route was one of many words used to describe some sort or road including avenue, course, direction, itinerary, journey, line, passage, road, track, trail, way, transmit, beat, beeline, byway, circuit, detour, digression, divergence & meandering although routes tend to be longer and made of many roads joined together.  In idiomatic use, “to go the route” is to see something difficult or challenging through to completion.

Funded by the Lockwood Charitable Foundation, London's Red Route Café (24 Lower Clapton Road E5) is located at the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) Springboard Hackney learning centre.  In 2012, while in London for a theatrical engagement, Lindsay Lohan added her support, tweeting "Volunteer and be of service.  Come help us at #RedRouteCafé".  Apparently, while in the city, Ms Lohan helped in promotional activities for the Red Route Café, contributing to a community radio show and planning events.

It’s a simple, five letter, one syllable word but around the world it supports two distinct pronunciations (rout & rout), both of which for centuries co-existed in British English but during the 1800s, rout faded and then vanished (Scotland the last hold-out and interestingly in the cities rather than the highlands) from the British Isles.  In North American it persisted and to this day, as both noun and verb, both can be heard.  One definite exception to the general pattern of use is the pronunciation of the noun router ((1) one who arranges or schedules routes or (2) in computer networking, a device (hardware or software) that forwards data packets between computer networks).  Many languages simply adopted the name and usual pronunciation from US use and in most of the world it’s thus root-ha or rou-ter.  However, in Australia & New Zealand, the word “root” evolved also a slang term for sexual intercourse which of course begat rooter in that sense so the pronunciations root-ha or rou-ter became exclusive to that use (and there’s some evidence the slang has somewhat spread in the south Pacific islands).  In those markets, the computer routers are pronounced rout-ah, something which sometimes initially baffles visiting engineers.

Rooted: The Evil Dead (1981).

The most illustrative example of the slang term root (Australia & New Zealand) in action is the famous tree root scene from the horror movie The Evil Dead (1981).  After that, the producers had nowhere to go and the sequels were increasingly comedic and such is the cult following of the original that interest remains and Evil Dead Rise is scheduled for release in April 2023.

Huawei AR3260-100E-AC Series Enterprise Router.

Said to have been prompted by fears the equipment might be configured in such a way that it enabled spying by the Chinese government (ie the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)), a number of nations have either banned or restricted use of Chinese-made Huawei routers and other telecommunications equipment.  The countries imposing a complete or partial ban of the Huawei equipment in big-machine infrastructure included the "five eyes" countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia & New Zealand) and Japan.  Thus far, a number of EU nations (including Spain, France & Germany) have not issued an outright ban but have imposed restrictions and tightened security measures in networks in which they're installed.  This is either because they believe still that a robust security model can be mapped onto the concept of a "core & edges" model of network infrastructure or they've accepted Huawei's (TikTok-like) assurance they would decline any request from the CCP to provide information.  In Beijing, the Spanish, French and German files may already have been moved to the "Useful Idiots" filing cabinet.

Routine

Routine (pronounced roo-teen)

(1) A customary or regular course of procedure.

(2) Commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity.

(3) Regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.

(4) An unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response; in informal use something perfunctory or insincere; merely procedural.

(5) In computer programming, a complete set of coded instructions directing a computer to perform a series of operations; that series of operations (also as sub-routine (as part of a larger routine) & co-routine (run in conjunction) although few programmers use the hyphens).

(6) In entertainment, an individual act, performance, or part of a performance, as a song or dance, given regularly by an entertainer.

(7) Of the nature of, proceeding by, or adhering to routine.

(8) Dull or uninteresting; commonplace.

(9) One of the key concepts in ethnomethodology (a discipline in sociology focused on the methods groups use to create societal order) and related to routinization of authority, the process through which a charismatic authority becomes a bureaucracy

(10) As RAT (routine activity theory), a sub-field of criminology.

(11) In poker, as Royal Routine, an alternative name for the royal straight flush.

1670–1680: From the Middle English routine (customary course of action; more or less mechanical performance of certain acts or duties), from the sixteenth century French routine from the Middle French route (road, route), from the Old French route & rote (usual course of action, beaten path; a customary way), the construct being rout(e) + -ine (a diminutive suffix), from the Latin rupta (broken, ruptured, burst), perfect passive participle of rumpō, from the Proto-Italic rumpō (break, I break, I violate), from the primitive Indo-European Hrunépti & Hrumpénti (to break), from the root Hrewp-.  Routine is a noun & adjective, routineness, routinization & routiner are nouns, routinize is a verb and routinely is an adverb; the noun plural is routines.

Routine can be merely descriptive of something periodic or a construct and thus neutral or convey something negative in the sense in which the synonyms include conventional, everyday, ordinary, rut, humdrum, unremarkable, habitual, perfunctory & insincere.  In other European languages the descendants include the Catalan (rutina), Dutch (routine), Galician (rutina), Hungarian (rutin), Italian (routine), Portuguese (rotina), Spanish (rutina) & Turkish (rutin).  The rather unhappy noun of action routinization (a being or becoming routine; action of imposing a routine upon) was a creation of US English in 1916 as a development from the verb routinize (subject to a routine, make into a routine) which dates from 1893.  The adjectival sense "of a mechanical or unvaried character, habitually done in the same way" has been used since at least 1917 and was a direct development from the noun.  The now familiar theatrical or athletic performance sense of "carefully rehearsed sequence of actions" dates only from 1926.

In the context of the card game, the word poker is an adaptation of US English of uncertain origin and there’s no evidence of any relationship to other meanings.  Quite why the card game was so-named has attracted speculation but no documentary evidence has ever emerged.  It may be related to the German Pochspiel (a similar card game) from the German pochen (to brag as a bluff (literally "to knock, rap” (and thus the suggested link to the verb poke))) from the Middle High German bochen & puchen, from the Proto-Germanic puk-, which is probably imitative.  An alternative idea is that it was related to the French poquer from poque, (a similar card game and a move in pétanque (a form of boules (in the sense of the game, a shortening of the French jeu de boules)), a game played with metal bowls with origins in the south of France).  The earlier version of the game was in English called brag and the US form seems first to have been played in 1829 on the lower reaches of the Mississippi, presumably among riverboat gamblers and the location, with the French influences, does support some French connection in the etymology.  Interestingly, it appears the original form seems to have been played with a 20-card pack (10-J-Q-K-A) evenly dealt among four players; the full-deck version not played until the 1840s.

Lindsay Lohan's Royal Routine in The Parent Trap (1998)

The Royal Routine (more commonly known as the royal flush) is the least likely winning combination in five-card poker and cannot be beaten unless “agreed rules” are being played which includes an ascendency of suits; in that case, one Royal Routine can beat another, however unlikely such an occurrence may be.  Because in poker all suits are usually of equal value, most prefer to “split the pot” if, after a count-back, two or more hands are equal although rules for a variety of tie-break mechanisms have been defined.  In ascending order, the winning possibilities in poker are:

The Royal Routine (royal flush). The Ace down to the 10 in one suit.  Under standard poker rules, the odds against holding a Royal Routine are 649,739:1.

The straight flush: There are 40 different straight flush possibilities and the odds against are 72,192:1; although in a sense a Royal Routine is just another straight flush, it’s rarer because fewer cards are available for one to be assembled.

Four of a kind: Also called "quads", the odds against are 4,165:1.

Full house: Originally called the "full boat" (a hint of the game’s origins on the lower reaches of the Mississippi) 3744 different full house combinations are available and to players, few things are more annoying than having one’s full house beaten by another on a count-back.  The odds against are 4,165:1.

The flush: Any 5 cards of the same suit, non consecutive with the winning hand determined by the highest individual card held.  5148 different combinations of a flush are available and the odds against are 508.8019:1.

The straight: Originally known as the wheel (another allusion to the Mississippi, this one referencing the wheeled paddles of the ships which plied the route), any 5 consecutive ranked cards in multiple suits where the ace can be high or low (an ace high straight is also called the "broadway").  10240 different straight combinations are possible and the odds against are 253.8:1.

Three of a kind: In some circles called "the trips" or a "set", there are 54,912 different possibilities of 3 of a kind are available and the odds against are 46.32955:1

Two Pairs: There are 123,552 possible two pair combinations and it’s reputedly the game’s most over-bet hand; the odds against are 20.03535:1.

The pair: Any two cards of the same rank.  The odds against are 1.366477:1.

Card High:  The hand with the highest single card wins and there are over 2½ million winning combinations; the odds against are 0.9953015:1.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress (one of the special Silverplate series) which dropped the one-off, uranium A-Bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 was named Enola Gay in honor of the mission commander’s mother (Enola Gay Tibbets (née Haggard).  Enola Gay is well known but on the Hiroshima mission were six other B-29s, two of which were named after poker hands (with scatologic graphics), reflecting the popularity of the game among the military.  The three reconnaissance planes which were tasked to report weather conditions over the possible target cities were Jabit III, Full House & Straight Flush; the mission reserve B-29 was Top Secret, Necessary Evil was the camera plane which photographed the bombing and The Great Artiste carried a scientific crew with monitoring equipment.  Poker was quite a thing then and when Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) in 1945 returned from his South Pacific tour of duty it was with thousands of dollars in poker winnings, his history including one rare Royal Routine and a prize pot of US$1500 won with a bluff on a pair of twos.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (pronounced hex-ax-oh-gee-oh-e-eye-hex-en-gen-too-hex-a-pho-be-ah)

Fear of the number 666.

The number 666 is best known from the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (13:15–18) and is a symbol both of the Antichrist and the Devil and is applied to the second of two beasts mentioned in the Book of Revelation.  The construct was the Ancient Greek ἑξακόσιοι (hexakósioi) (six hundred) + ἑξήκοντα (hexḗkonta) (sixty) + ἕξ (héx) (six) +‎ -phobia.  The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later).  For certain historians and biblical scholars for whom 616 is as suspect as 666 there's the companion phobia: Hexakosioihekkaidekaphobia.   The related forms are hexakosioihexekontahexaphobe & hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic.  For help when practicing pronunciation, go to:

https://www.howtopronounce.com/hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia/

The number of the beast

The origin is murky and there are other biblical references but not always as 666; 666 is the number of talents of gold Solomon collected each year and is the number of Adonikam's descendants who return to Jerusalem and Judah from the Babylonian exile and scholars suggest there are latent references in transliteration.   Nebuchadnezzar, the sixth-century BC king of Babylon, appears both as Nebuchadrezzar and Nebuchadrezzur and the number of each name can be calculated because in the Hebrew, letters double as numbers.  Nebuchadrezzar is 663, and Nebuchadrezzur, 669; midway between the two lies 666 and it was Nebuchadrezzar, who came (bidden by God) to crush God's people so may thus prefigure the end of times beast, the antagonistic creature which appears briefly about two-thirds into Revelation’s apocalyptic vision. Some manuscripts of the original Greek use the symbols χξϛ or χξϝ while other manuscripts spell out the number in words.  Using gematria (the method of calculating numbers from names), Nero Caesar transliterated from Greek into Hebrew produces the number 666 whereas the Latin spelling renders 616.  Thus, 666 may be a coded reference to Nero, although that notion does depend on the accepted Hebrew spelling of Caesar, a thing about which there’s some doubt. 

For two millennia there’s never been ecclesiastical or scholarly consensus about 666.  Although the second century Greek cleric Irenaeus affirmed 666, theologians then and since have expressed doubts because of the appearance of 616 in the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, one of the four great uncial codices, as well as in the Latin version of Tyconius and an ancient Armenian version.  Irenaeus knew about 616 but choose, for whatever reason, to correct the Vetus Latina, the existing Latin version of the New Testament.  The oldest known manuscript of Revelation, from Papyrus 115 in the Oxyrhynchus series, uses 616, as does the later Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, even having 616 written in full: ἑξακόσιοι δέκα ἕξ, hexakosioi deka hex (six hundred and sixteen).  These documents are cited by some scholars who suggest 616 was the original, 666 substituted by analogy with 888, the Greek number for Jesus. 

More fun, and just as speculative, is the idea the writers of the time just liked numbers, 666 being more interesting than 616 because:

(1) 666 is a triangular number, the sum of the first 36 natural numbers (ie 1+2+3+4+5+6+...+36=666).  That of course makes 666 the sum total of the numbers on a roulette wheel.  Zero, so often of such significance, here has no effect. 

(2) 666 is the sum of squares of the first seven prime numbers.

(3) In Roman numerals 666 is DCLXVI which has exactly one occurrence of all symbols whose value is less than 1000 in decreasing order (D=500, C=100, L=50, X=10, V=5, I=1).

(4) In base 10, 666 is a repdigit (and therefore a palindromic number) and a Smith number.  A prime reciprocal magic square based on 1/149 in base 10 has a magic total of 666.

The Number of the Beast is 666 (circa 1805), pen and watercolor, by William Blake (1757-1827).

Thanks to popular culture, even beyond Christendom, the number 666 and its relationship with the Devil and the Antichrist is well known and it clearly affects a few.  When in 1989 Ronald Reagan (1911-2004 US president 1981-1989) retired to leafy rich Bel-Air in Los Angeles (a locality which maintained its prestige despite the indignity of the Chevrolet Bel Air between 1950-1972 being reduced from a premium to a basic designation), although happing with the house at 666 St Cloud Road, they soon had the address changed to 668.  Whether this was on advice from Nancy Reagan’s (1921-2016) clairvoyant isn’t recorded but some organs of the US state also chose not to take chances.  US Route 666 (dating from 1926), upon statistical analysis, proved unusually dangerous and after this became public knowledge it picked up the nickname the Devil’s Highway.  In 2003 it was renamed US Highway 491 and the accident rate has lowered although its thought this is due to improvements to the road and a reduction in the number of people stopping to steal road signs, Route 666 a popular destination for stoners to pose for photographs, a thing even in the pre-selfie era.  In more secular Finland, there was apparently little concern, Finair flight AY666 plying the CPH-HEL (Copenhagen-Helsinki) route between 2006-2017, AY666 retired and replaced by AY954 as part of a general restructuring.  AY666’s last flight was on a Friday the 13^th (for the 21^st time) and it landed safely, eight minutes ahead of schedule.

Names for many phobias have been coined and while some (relating to injections, spiders, heights etc) are of clinical significance in mental health, many have been created just for linguistic fun.  A surprising number relate to numbers, many of which reference popular culture (TV, video games etc) and a site exists which provides a précis of many.  The overarching condition is arithmophobia (also known as numerophobia), which is a fear of numbers or mathematics.

Oudenophobia (0), Henophobia (1), Dyophobia (2), Triskaphobia (3), Tetraphobia (4), Pentaphobia (5), Hexaphobia (6), Heptaphobia (7), Octophobia (8), Enneaphobia (9), Decaphobia (10), Hendecaphobia (11). Dodecaphobia (12), Triskaidekaphobia (13), Dekapentophobia (15), Hexadecaphobia (16), Heptadecaphobia (17), Octodecaphobia (18), Enneadecaphobia (19), Eikositriophobia (23), Eikosihexaphobia (26), Triakontenneaphobia (39), Tessarakontadyophobia (42), Tessarakontaheptaphobia (47), Pentekontoctophobia (58), Hexekontadyophobia (62), Hexekontenneaphobia (69), Hebdomekontahenophobia (71), Ogdokontaheptaphobia (87), Enenekontenneaphobia (99), Hekatophobia (100), Hekatohendecaphobia (111), Hekatenenekontahenophobia (191), Diakosioihekkaidekaphobia (216), Diakosioipentekontaphobia (250), Triakosioitriakontatriophobia (333), Tetrakosioeikosiphobia (420). Pentakosioipentekontahenophobia (551), Hexakosioihekkaidekaphobia (616), Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (666), Heftakosioitessarakontaheptaphobia (747), Enniakosioihendecaphobia (911), Enniakosioenenekontenneaphobia (999), Quattuormiliasescentoruphobia (4600), Tessarakontadyochilahexekontenneaphobia (42069), Compustitusnumerophobia (composite numbers), Meganumerophobia (large numbers), Imparnumerophobia (odd numbers), Omalonumerophobia (even numbers), Piphobia (pi), Phiphobia (the golden ratio), Primonumerophobia (prime numbers), Paranumerophobia (irrational numbers), Neganumerophobia (negative numbers) & Decadisophobia (decimals),

The latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR, March 2022) made few changes to the classification anxiety disorders and phobias which had been revised in DSM-5 (2013).  Phobias are categorized as anxiety disorders, with specific phobia (fear of something that poses little or no actual danger) being the most common anxiety disorder.  A specific phobia is said to manifest when a person experiences extreme anxiety when they anticipate exposure or are exposed to a feared stimulus and there are five general categories: (1) animal type (spiders, snakes, dogs etc), (2) the natural environment (tornadoes, heights, water, fire etc), (3) injections and related procedures (needles, medical procedures), (4) situational events (flying, enclosed spaces etc ) & (5) other types (ie phobias that do not fit into the previous four categories).  The fifth category interacts with the introduction of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) which is diagnosed when an individual experiences persistent worry about everyday challenges out of proportion to the perceived threat.  GAD extends to those aware their reaction is one of excessive fear about what can be a non-existent threat and no more than worrying about worrying too much.  Superstitions related to particular numbers are common in many cultures but of themselves these do not constitute a phobia which technically is a diagnosis of reaction to the point where the affect on a patient’s life is clinically significant.  Accordingly, while noting just about anything which has been styled a phobia could induce a case of GAD, few actually satisfy the APA’s diagnostic criteria and the DSM mentions just the handful which constitute the overwhelming majority of cases.

Shuttle

Shuttle (pronounced shuht-l)

(1) In weaving, a device in a loom for passing or shooting the weft thread through the shed from one side of the web to the other, usually consisting of a boat-shaped piece of wood containing a bobbin on which the weft thread is wound (ie the tool which carries the woof back and forth (shuttling) between the warp threads on a loom).

(2) In a sewing machine, the sliding container (thread-holder) that carries the lower thread through a loop of the upper thread to make a lock-stitch.

(3) In transport, a public conveyance (bus, train, ferry, car, limousine aircraft), that travels back and forth at regular intervals over a particular route, especially a short route or one connecting two transportation systems; the service provided by such vehicles.

(4) In badminton, as shuttlecock, the lightweight object, built with a weighted (usually rubber-covered) semi-spherical nose attached to a conical construction (historically of feathers but now usually synthetic) and used as a ball is used in other racquet games. Shuttlecock was also once widely used as the name of the game but this is now rare.

(5) As space shuttle, vehicle designed to transport people & cargo between Earth and outer-space, designed explicitly re-use with a short turn-around between missions (often with initial capital letters).  The term shuttlecraft is the generic alternative, “space shuttle” most associated with the US vehicle (1981-2011).

(6) To cause (someone or something) to move back and forth by or as if by a shuttle, often in the form “shuttling”.

(7) Any device which repeatedly moves back and forth between two positions, either transporting something or transferring energy between those points.

(8) In electrical engineering, as shuttle armature, a H-shaped armature in the shape of an elongated shuttle with wires running longitudinally in grooves, used in small electrical generators or motors, having a single coil wound upon a the bobbin, the latter usually formed in soft iron.

(9) In diplomacy, as shuttle diplomacy, the practice of a diplomat from a third country shuttling between two others countries to conduct negotiations, the two protagonists declining directly to meet.

Pre 900: Shuttle was a merge from two sources. From (1) the Middle English shutel, shotel, schetel, schettell, schyttyl & scutel (bar; bolt), from the Old English sċyttel & sċutel (bar; bolt), the notion being shut +‎ -le.  Shut was from the Middle English shutten & shetten, from the Old English scyttan (to cause rapid movement, shoot a bolt, shut, bolt), from the Proto-Germanic skutjaną & skuttijaną (to bar, to bolt), from the Proto-Germanic skuttą & skuttjō (bar, bolt, shed), from the primitive Indo-European skewd & kewd- (to drive, fall upon, rush). The -le suffix was from the Middle English -elen, -len & -lien, from the Old English -lian (the frequentative verbal suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -lōną (the frequentative verbal suffix) and was cognate with the West Frisian -elje, the Dutch -elen, the German -eln, the Danish -le, the Swedish -la and the Icelandic -la.  It was used as a frequentative suffix of verbs, indicating repetition or continuousness.  From (2) the Middle English shitel (missile; a weaver's instrument), shutel, schetil, shotil, shetel, schootyll, shutyll, schytle & scytyl (missile; projectile; spear), from the Old English sċytel, sċutel (dart, arrow) (related to the Middle High German schüzzel and the Swedish skyttel), from the Proto-Germanic skutilaz, (related to the Middle High German schüzzel and the Swedish skyttel) and cognate with the Old Norse skutill (harpoon), the idea akin to both shut & shoot.  Shuttle is a noun, verb & adjective, shuttling is a noun & verb and shuttled and shuttles are verbs; the noun plural is shuttles.  The adjectival form shuttle-like is more common than the rare shuttlesque (which is listed as non-standard by the few sources to acknowledge its dubious existence).

A Lindsay Lohan advertising mural on the back of one of the airport shuttle buses run by Milan Malpensa International Airport in northern Italy.

The original sense in English is long obsolete, supplanted by the senses gained from the weaving instrument, so called since 1338 on the notion of it being “shot backwards and forwards” across the threads.  The transitive sense (move something rapidly to and fro) was documented from the 1540s, the same idea attached to the shuttle services in transport, first used in 1895 (although the intransitive sense of “go or move backward and forward like a shuttle” had been in use by at least 1843) in early versions of what would come to be known as intra-urban “rapid transit systems” (RTS), the one train that runs back and forth on the single line between fixed destinations (often with intermediate stops).  This was picked up by ferry services in 1930, air routes in 1942, space travel in 1960 (in science fiction) and actual space vehicles in 1969.  Shuttle in the sense it evolved in English is used in many languages but a separate development was the naming of the weaving instrument based on its resemblance to a boat (the Latin navicula, the French navette and the German Weberschiff).  The noun shuttlecock dates from the 1570s, the “shuttle” element from it being propelled backwards and forwards over a net and the “cock” an allusion to the attached anti-aerodynamic construction (originally of feathers) which resembled a male bird's plume of tail feathers.  The term Shuttle diplomacy came into use in the 1970s thanks to tireless self-promotion by Dr Henry Kissinger although the practice (of “good offices”) dates back centuries.

The Abbotsleigh class of 2020 pondering time flying faster than a weaver’s shuttle.

The motto of the Sydney girl’s school Abbotsleigh is tempus celerius radio fugit (Time flies faster than a weaver's shuttle), the idea behind that said to be: “As the shuttle flies a pattern is woven, with the threads being the people, buildings and events. The pattern is Abbotsleigh as it continues to grow in complexity and richness each year”.  Quite whether a weaver’s shuttle (said by some detractors to have been chosen as symbolic of the "proper" place of women being in a state of domestic servitude for the convenience of men) is appropriate for a girls’ school in the twenty-first century has been debated.  The motto came from the family crest of Marian Clarke (1853-1933), Abbotsleigh’s first headmistress (principle) and was maintained using the family’s grammatically dubious form tempus fugit radio celerity until 1924 when the correct syntax was substituted.  It’s an urban myth the mistake was permitted to stand until 1924 as a mark of respect while Ms Clarke was alive; she lived a decade odd after the change although the family’s heraldry was apparently never corrected.

The US (left) and USSR (centre) space shuttles compared with a badminton shuttlecock (right).  The shuttlecock is rendered in a larger scale than the shuttles.

The US Space Shuttle was operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) between 1981-2011 as the low Earth orbital vehicle which was the platform for its Space Transportation System (STS).  The plans, based on ideas first explored in science fiction a decade earlier, for a (mostly) reusable spacecraft system were first laid down in 1969 and despite intermittent funding, test flights were first undertaken in 1981.  Five Space Shuttles were eventually built to completion and between 1981-2011, there were over a hundred missions.  The stresses imposed on the craft were considerable which meant both the mission turn-arounds were never as rapid as had been hoped and the extent to which components could be reused had to be revised.  There was controversy too about the failures of NASA’s procedures which resulted in the two accidents in which all seven crew aboard each shuttle were killed.  The programme was retired in 2011.

Lindsay Lohan getting off the NAPA Shuttle, The Parent Trap (1998).  The term "to disembark" was borrowed from nautical use and of late "to deplane" has entered English which seems unnecessary but the companion "to disemplane" was more absurd still; real people continue to "get on" and "get off" aircraft.

The Soviet Union’s space shuttle, construction of which began in 1980, unsurprisingly, was visually very similar to the US vehicle, there being only so many ways optimally to do these things.  The USSR’s effort was the Буран (Buran) (Snowstorm or Blizzard), the craft sharing the designation with the Soviet spaceplane project and its spaceships, known as "Buran-class orbiters".  Although more than a dozen frames were laid down, few were ever completed to be flight-ready and the Buran’s only flight was an un-crewed orbital mission in 1988 which was successful.  The deteriorating economic and political situation in the Soviet Union meant the programme stalled and in 1993 it was abandoned by the new Russian government.  The striking similarity between the profile of the US & Soviet space shuttles and a badminton shuttlecock is coincidental but not unrelated.  The space craft are designed as aerodynamic platforms because, although not of relevance in the vacuum of space, they did have to operate as aircraft while operating in Earth’s atmosphere whereas the shuttlecock is designed deliberately as an anti-aerodynamic shape.  The shuttle’s shape was dictated by the need to maximize performance whereas a shuttlecock is intentionally inefficient, the shape maximizing air-resistance (drag) so it slows in flight.

Henry Kissinger, shuttling between dinner companions (left to right), Dolly Parton (b 1946), Diane von Furstenberg (b 1946), Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997) and Carla Bruni (b 1967).

The term shuttle diplomacy describes the process in which a mediator travels repeatedly between two or more parties involved in a conflict or negotiation, in circumstances where the protagonists are unable or unwilling to meet.  Ostensibly, the purpose of shuttle diplomacy is to facilitate communication between the parties and reach a resolution of the dispute(s) but, being inherently political, it can be used for other, less laudable goals.  The practice, if not the term has a long history, instances noted from antiquity and the Holy Roman Empire was renowned for the neutral diplomats who would travel back and forth between kings, princes, dukes and cardinals.  During both the Conference of Vienna (1814-1815) and the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) the negotiations were marked by intransigent politicians sitting in rooms while a (notionally) disinterested notable shuttled between them, giving and taking until acquiescence was extracted.  A celebrated example of the process played out between 1939-1940 when Swedish businessman Birger Dahlerus (1891-1957) played a quixotic role as amateur diplomat, shuttling between London and Berlin in what proved a doomed attempt to avoid war.  It was for years seen as something romantic (if misguided) and it was only years later when the UK Foreign Office’s papers on the matter were made available the extent of the Swede’s conflicts of interest were revealed.

Richard Nixon meets Henry Kissinger.

The term entered the language in 1973 when Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) used it to refer to his efforts to negotiate an end to the Yom Kippur War between Israel and its Arab neighbors.  Kissinger shuttled between Tel Aviv, Cairo and other Middle Eastern capitals in an attempt to broker a ceasefire and improve diplomatic relations, enjoying some success, achieving a bilateral peace between Egypt and Israel as well as a number of disengagement agreements.  Some historians and foreign policy scholars however, while acknowledging what was achieved, have suggested that it was the Kissinger’s approach to the region in the years leading up to the war which contributed to the outbreak of hostilities.

Kissinger has also been criticized on the basis that shuttle diplomacy was never anything more than him playing a game of realpolitik on a multi-dimensional chessboard rather than an attempt to imagine a regional architecture which could produce a comprehensive peace plan in the Middle East, his emphasis on securing something in the interest of the US (a treaty between Egypt and Israel) meaning the vital issue of Palestine and its potential to assist in securing long-term peace in the region was not just neglected but ignored.  Cynics, noting his academic background and research interests, compared his shuttle diplomacy with the travels of emissaries in the Holy Roman Empire who would travel between the Holy See, palaces and chancelleries variously to reassure the troubled, sooth hurt feelings and cajole the diffident.  There was also the idea of Henry the self-promoting celebrity who could bring peace to Vietnam and Nixon to China, the political wizard who solved problems as they arose.  Certainly, the circumstances in which Kissinger was able to use shuttle diplomacy as a political narrative were unique.  He’d first undermined and then replaced William Rogers (1913–2001; US secretary of state 1969-1973) as secretary of state and even before becoming virtually the last major figure still standing from Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) first term as the Watergate affair took its toll, essentially took personal control of the direction of US foreign policy.  As he put it “…one of the more cruel torments of Nixon’s Watergate purgatory was my emergence as the preeminent figure in foreign policy”.

So, opportunistic his initiatives may have been but there were after all real problems to be solved and it seems unfair to criticize Kissinger for doing what he did rather than constructing some counter-factual grand design which might have created a permanent, settled peace in the Middle East.  However, among realists (and Kissinger was dean of the school), even then there were few who believed such a thing was any longer possible possible (certainly since the conclusion of the six-day war in 1967) and Kissinger certainly achieved something and to do that it’s necessary to understand there are some problems which really can only endlessly be managed and never solved.  Some problems are insoluble, something lost on many US presidents infected more than most by the diminishing but still real feelings of optimism and exceptionalism that have for centuries characterized the American national character.  Until he met Elizabeth Holmes (b 1984; CEO of US biotech company Theranos 2003-2018), nothing fooled Henry.

Halloween

Halloween (pronounced hal-uh-ween or hal-oh-een)

The evening of 31 October, historically was celebrated mostly in the UK, Canada, the US and Ireland but it spread to Scandinavia and Australia and can now be found in many countries, some participants presumably unaware of its history.

Circa 1745: From the festivals All Hallows Even (also as Hallow-e'en & Hallow e'en), celebrated as a popular holiday on the last night of October (the eve of All Saints Day).  All Hallows’ Eve was the evening before All Saints’ Day, from the Old English ealra halgena mæssedæg (All Hallows' Mass-day) and the literal meaning is "hallowed evening" or "holy evening", derived from the Scottish term Allhallowe'en although throughout the British Isles it had long been noted in the calendar as "the evening before All-Hallows".  In Scots, the word eve is even, and this became contracted to e'en or een, eventually to become Hallowe'en.  Hallow was from the otherwise-obsolete Middle English noun halwe (holy person, saint), from the Old English halga, which is from the source of the verb hallow.

A traditional Jack O'Lantern, hung throughout Scotland and Ireland to ward off evil spirits.  Pumpkins came later which were bigger and easier to carve but aesthetically, a turnip makes sense because the shape tends to more closely resemble that of a human skull.

The idea of "All Hallows'" existed in Old English but "All Hallows' Eve" didn’t appear until 1556.  All-Hallows is from the Middle English al-halwe, from the late Old English ealra halgan (all saints, the saints in heaven collectively) and this was both the name of the feast day and of individual churches.  In the regions of the British Isles the fests were celebrated on various days (influenced as in pagan times by the rhythm of the seasons and the demands placed on the allocation and location of labor) but in the Church records the date 31 October was being described as alle halwe eue by the early twelfth century.  The term “Hallow-day” for "All-Saints Day" is from 1590s, replacing the late thirteenth century halwemesse day.  The consequential Hallowtide (the first week of November) emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.

In pagan times it was the last night of the year in the old Celtic calendar, where it was Old Year's Night (a night for witches) and Halloween is thus another of the pagan festivals essentially taken over and re-branded by Christianity.  Because of the association with witches the day was always associated with magic and sorcery and it was this tradition which inspired Robert Burns’ (1759-1796) poem Halloween, penned in 1785 and first published in 1786 in the Kilmarnock Volume (1786).  Of twenty-eight stanzas (epic length by Burns’ standards) and written in a mix of Scots and English, it shows the clear influence of the twelve stanza on Hallow-E'en (1780) by John Mayne (1759–1836) and the spirit of the evening is captured in Burns’ words which suggest Halloween is "thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands".

Off to the party.  Lindsay Lohan entering the Cuckoo Club Halloween Party, 31 October 2018.

Although most associated with children going door-to-door in costume demanding candy with the (usually implied) menace of some minor prank if denied (hence trick-or-treat), this aspect is of US origin and dates only from the 1930s.  In these modern, litigious times, children are encouraged to be pragmatic, cut their losses and seek more treats from the more generous rather than visit tricks upon the parsimonious.

Like a number of the festivals in the Christian calendar, it’s a borrowing from pagan rituals, this one the last night of the year in the old Celtic calendar, where it was Old Year's Night, treated as a night for witches, hence the tradition of the costumes in this theme with pumpkins carved in demonic form (although the original Jack O'Lanterns in Scotland were turnips rather than pumpkins).  The Christian feast of 31 October begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide which, in the western liturgical calendar, is dedicated to the remembrance of the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the departed faithful.  The view that Halloween is a lineal descendant of old pagan festivals, especially the Gaelic Samhain, is generally accepted as being one of many Christianized by the early Church which found it more profitable to accommodate rather than suppress popular, unthreatening traditions.  However, there’s always been a purist sect within the Church which has denied the pagan link and insists Halloween’s origins are wholly Christian.  Modern capitalism is neutral on this, the day just another secular event during which much stuff can be sold and one unusual in that in United States, it’s the only event on the calendar free from some sort of moral or spiritual baggage.  Many abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition which endures in the vegetarian dishes of this vigil day such as potato pancakes, toffee-apples and soul cakes.

Pumpkin carving can reflect many influences including pumpkin ∏ (pi) (left), Leggo (centre) and Kim Kardashian (right).

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,

Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.
Among the bonny winding banks,
Where Doon rins, wimplin' clear,
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks,
And haud their Halloween
Fu' blithe that night.

Opening stanzas of Halloween by Robert Burns.