Sack

Sack (pronounced sak)

(1) A large bag of strong, coarsely woven material, as for grain, potatoes, or coal.

(2) The amount a sack holds; also called sackful the amount contained in a sack, sometimes used as a unit of measurement.

(3) A bag, usually large.

(4) In slang, dismissal or discharge from employment.

(5) In slang, the bed, often as “in the sack”.

(6) In fashion, a loose-fitting dress, as a gown with a Watteau back, especially one fashionable from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth century (also spelled sacque); formerly, a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape.

(7) A loose-fitting coat, jacket, or cape.

(8) In the slang of baseball, a base.

(9) In the slang of agriculture in South Midland, US, the udder of a cow.

(10) In the slang of American Football, to tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage before the player is able to throw a pass.

(11) In fashion, as sack-line, a loose-fitting, vaguely tubular, enveloping style of dresses and coats which emerged first in 1957.

(12) To pillage or loot after capture; to plunder.

(13) A strong, light-colored wine, traditionally imported from Spain and the Canary Islands.

(14) In cricket, a run scored off a ball not struck by the batsman: allotted to the team as an extra (on sundry) and not to the individual batsman; now usually called a bye (archaic).

(15) In vulgar slang, usually as ball-sack (although there are imaginative variations): the scrotum.

(16) In fashion, as sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, and extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.

A dated form of sac (pouch in a plant or animal).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English noun sak, sake & sakke (bag, sackcloth), from the Old English sacc (sack, bag) & sæcc (sackcloth, sacking), both from the Proto-West Germanic sakku, from the late Proto-Germanic sakkuz (sack), from the Latin saccus (bag, sack, sackcloth), from the Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos) bag made from goat hair, sieve, burlap, large cloak (as for a wedding dress), from the Semitic;  In the Hebrew and Phoenician, a śaq was a “cloth made of hair, bag, mourning dress”.  The use to describe the pillage of a city or other settlement after conquest dates from 1540–1550; from Middle French phrase mettre à sac (to put to pillage, literally “to put (loot) in a sack”), sac in this sense from the Italian sacco (looting, loot), a shortened form of saccomano, from the Middle High German sakman (pillager).  As applies to alcohol, Sack was first recorded in 1525–1535, from the French (vin) sec (dry (wine)), from the Latin siccus (dry).  It was cognate with the Dutch zak, the German Sack, the Swedish säck, the Danish sæk, the Hebrew שַׂק‎ (śaq) (sack, sackcloth), the Aramaic סַקָּא‎, the Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ‎, (Ge'ez) ሠቅ (śäḳ), the Akkadian saqqu and the Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. A doublet of sac.  It was a long time ago and, records being scant, some etymologists suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (to gather or put together) that also yielded the sok (sackcloth) and the Greek borrowing came via a Semitic intermediary.  Others reject this, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield the Hebrew סַק rather than שַׂק‎ and instead argue the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from the Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.  The Japanese is the descendent is theサック (sakku) and historically, sack was an alternative spelling of sac (sacrifice).

Sack is a noun and verb, sack-like an adjective (there seems never to have been either sackesque or sackish except in jocular use) and sacker a noun.  Other derive forms include sackable and sackage.  Historically, the capacity of a sack has been defined in law.  Although long archaic and subject to (sometimes regional) variations depending on commodity, the old English measure of weight, usually of wool, was equal to 13 stone (182 lb), or 26 stone (364 lb).  The term survives in the Woolsack, on which sits the presiding officer of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the UK’s parliament (formerly the Lord Chancellor, now the Lord Speaker).  Because there’s never been a universally accept definition for sack (size, shape, construction or capacity), what some call a sack others will call a bag, pack, pouch carryall, portmanteau, satchel, tote etc or the constructs haversack, knapsack, rucksack.  The only (loosely applied) conventions of use appear to be that bags etc tend to be smaller and sacks larger and made from more coarse material.  Folklore said to be medieval held that it was a bag if, when filled with potatoes, it could be carried by a woman but, it if demanded the strength of a man, it was a sack; story is likely apocryphal.  The synonyms for the plundering of cities include pillage, loot & ransack.

Sack dresses by Hubert de Givenchy, Spring Summer 1958 collection, Paris 1957.

Givenchy’s sack-line debuted in their spring-summer line on 1957's catwalks, Balenciaga showing a not dissimilar style just a few weeks later.  Both were essentially an evolution of the “Shirt Dress” which had attracted some attention the previous season and signaled a shift from the fitted, structured silhouettes which had been the signature motif of the decade.  The sack-line dresses were described by some critics as “shapeless” or “formless”, presumably because they lacked any suggestion of the waistline which had existed for so long as fashion’s pivot-point.  However, the forms the sack-line took would have been recognizable to anyone familiar with fluid dynamics or the behavior of air in wind tunnels, a waistless dress which narrowed severely towards the hem one of the optimal aerodynamic shapes.  That was presumably a coincidence but Givenchy’s press-kits at the 1957 shows did claim that “More than a fashion, it’s actually a way of dressing” and one which must have found favor with at least some women, not unhappy at being able to ditch the forbidding and restrictive, high-waisted girdles needed to achieve the wasp-wasted “New Look” which Dior had introduced to a post-war world anxious to escape wartime austerity.

Sack dress # 164 by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Spring Summer 1958 collection, Paris 1957.

Balenciaga’s sack dress was in 1957 probably more exaggerated than Givenchy’s; loose and enveloping, it brought to fashion an unprecedented gap between body and garment, emphasizing how radical a shift it was the long tradition of using idealized version of the female form as the basis for the tailored shape, designers making great efforts in their cuts to emulate aspects of human movement in the behavior of fabrics.  The sack-line disconnected the two, women now feeling an moving within, rather than with the dress; it was really quite subversive to suggest clothes might be designed for the comfort of women rather than the gaze of men.  Gone were the darts, belts and bands which had so carefully be crafted to be suggestive of that idealized shape, the woman’s body now and abstract entity which, within its enveloping cocoon could be a very different that that seen usually on the catwalks.  Within the fashion industry, the enthusiasm with which the sack-line was received was restrained but cultural critics, then less numerous but perhaps more erudite than today, were intrigued, modernity welcomed in a field which had never embraced the avant-garde in the way of art, literature and architecture, the link to functionalism especially noted.  It has aged well and been influential although it would begat a less stylish variation on the theme, the dreaded "tent dress".

Marilyn Monroe in burlap sack dress, 1951.

The sack-line which appeared on the haute couture runways in 1957 wasn’t an entirely new style, a loose-fitting dress, often as a gown with a Watteau back had been fashionable from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth century (when it was also spelled as both sack & sacque) and even before that the terms had been applied to a a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape and later there was the sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, the cut extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.  There was however a more recent take, Twentieth Century Fox’s PR operation in 1951 taking advantage of a bitchy comment from a Hollywood columnist (plus ça change) to issue a series of promotional photographs of Marilyn Monroe wearing a literal “sack dress”.  There are a number of versions of the tale but the one most often told is that Ms Monroe, then twenty-four and wearing a revealing red dress, prompting one gossip columnist to snipe that she looked “cheap and vulgar” and would have been better advised to wear “a potato sack.”  Twentieth Century Fox put her in one.

That may or may not be true and it could be the publicity people just wanted some imaginative images, the sex-kitten’s soft curves and the utilitarian angularity of a potato sack quite a juxtaposition and if the intention was to prove she was so beautiful she could make even a potato sack look good, the point was well made.  The photographs were used in Stare magazine, several months before Playboy would be launched with her on the cover and Stare included an interview in which she’s alleged to have said she didn’t care for potatoes because they tend to “put on weight” but it must have been a more tolerant age because there’s no record of her being attracting the opprobrium directed by sections of the vegetable industry at President George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; US president 1989-1993) after he declared he didn’t like broccoli and it was banned from Air Force One.  Stare noted Ms Monroe had a better political antennae than the president, for whatever her dietary strictures, “…she decided to do something for the potatoes!”

It was during the depression years of the 1930s that flour companies in the US became aware women were turning their cotton flour sacks into clothing, cloths and more.  Money was scarce and seeing the possibility of increasing sales at what would be a marginal cost, one manufacturer began to package their product in sacks decorated with attractive patterns.  Now such a move would be thought part of the “circular economy” but during the Great Depression, it was something that became popular because of economic necessity, “repair, reuse, make do, and don't throw anything away” a widely-spread motto of the time.  Other manufacturers soon followed and professional designers were sometimes used to provide more appealing patterns.

The idea of recycling cotton sacks actually pre-dated the depression years.  Sack clothing was common in the nineteenth century still an important component in rural domestic economies in both Canada and the US during the 1920s but it was the effects of the Great Depression which saw the practice spread and the most commonly used sacks were those of a convenient size, most typically the cotton items in which flour and sugar were sold.  The slang in those years for the recycled clothing was “feedsack,” or “chicken linen”.

The practice declined in the early 1940s as the economy improved but continued during the war years because there were shortages of cotton and much of what was available was devoted to military needs and decorative fabric for dress-making was sometimes unobtainable.  As prosperity overtook the land in the 1950s, the use of sacks to make clothing faded and by 1953, many manufacturers had switched from cotton to much cheaper paper sacks.

Lindsay Lohan adopted the sack-line early and returns to the style from time-to-time.

Woolsack

Woolsack (pronounced woo l-sak)

(1) A sack intended to carry wool (sometimes wool-sack).

(2) The speaker’s chair in the House of Lords, one of a number of cloth-covered seats or divans, stuffed with wool, once used also by law lords, but best known as the seat of the Lord Chancellor and now the Lord Speaker.

(3) A reference to the historic Lord Chancellor's office.

(4) The historic name for the modern Australian wool bale.

1250-1300: Middle English compound word wool + sack.  Wool came from the Middle English wolle, from Old English wull, from Proto-Germanic wullō (cognate with the Saterland Frisian wulle, the Low German wull, the Dutch wol, German wolle and Norwegian ull.  All are thought derived from the primitive hwĺ̥hneh, thought also to have influenced the Welsh gwlân, the Latin lāna, the Lithuanian vìlna, the Russian во́лос (vólos), the Balau влас and the Albanian lesh.  All meant variously “wool, hair, fleece”.

Sack was from the Middle English sak (bag, sackcloth) from the Old English sacc (sack, bag) and sæcc (sackcloth, sacking), both from the Proto-Germanic sakkuz (sack), from the Classical Latin saccus (large bag), derived from the Ancient Greek σάκκος ((sákkos (bag of coarse cloth)).  Ultimate source is though Semitic, possibly Phoenician.  Word was cognate with the Dutch zak, the German Sack, the Swedish säck, the Hebrew שַׂק‎ ((śaq, sack, sackcloth)), the Aramaic סַקָּא‎, the Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ‎, Ge'ez ሠቅ (śäḳ), the Akkadian saqqu and the Egyptian sꜣgꜣ (to gather together).  There are sack factions among the etymologists.  Some suggest sack was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq that also yielded the Coptic sok and made its way into Greek by way of a Semitic intermediary.  Others reject this view on the technical grounds that an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield the Hebrew סַק rather than שַׂק (only they understand this stuff).  This faction posits the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowings from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.

The Horsesack

The Woolsack is the seat of the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords, the UK’s upper house although until the constitutional reforms of the twenty-first century, that was the role of the lord chancellor, an office dating at least from the Norman Conquest though references to the title appear as early as 605.  The New Labour government attempted in 2003 to abolish the office but a review determined it couldn’t be done without an act of Parliament and that was a distraction the government at the time preferred not to inflict on itself.  Instead, enabling legislation providing for the creation of the office of Lord Speaker and a redefinition of the role of lord chancellor was drafted in 2004 and, after a few squabbles, received royal assent a year later with the structural changes effected by 2006.

The Lord Chancellor (once styled as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain) is in the UK’s order of precedence, the highest-ranking among the extant Great Officers of State, out-ranked only by certain royal personages and the Archbishop of Canterbury.  A lord chancellor is appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime-minister and before the acts of union which made them constituent parts of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England (including the Principality of Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland, the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland disestablished in 1922, consequent upon the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) which granted Ireland a considerable autonomy which in the years to come would evolve into independence.  That the office of Lord Chancellor for Ireland existed as early as the twelfth century seems certain but whether this was something distinct from the English office is unclear and the oldest surviving records which verify a separate Irish office date from the thirteenth century.  For centuries the Irish appointee was a clergyman, usually English and while lay chancellors tended to be the rule after the Reformation (no cleric appointed after 1665), Irish-born appointments were rare before the mid-nineteenth century.

Today, as minister for justice, the Lord Chancellor sits in cabinet and is responsible for the administration and independence of the courts.  In this detail things differ from the Australian practice because in the UK, both the attorney-general and solicitor-general sit in parliament, although, by modern convention, the former now does not attend cabinet except when summoned to provide advice.  New Labour’s constitutional changes not only moved the roll of presiding over the Lords to the newly-created lord speaker but also ended the lord chancellor’s roll as head of the judiciary in England and Wales and presiding judge of the Chancery Division of the High Court, these duties assumed respectively by the lord chief justice and the chancellor of the High Court.  The rationale of the changes in 2005 was to give constitutional effect to the separation of powers (in the British context a division between the legislature & executive (which passes and administers the laws) and the judiciary (which interprets and enforces the laws).  In practice, the distinction had for many years been observed but structurally, it looked very murky, the lord chancellor as a cabinet member belonging to (1) the executive, on the Woolsack as presiding officer in the Lords belonging to (2) the legislature and as a judge in the chancery division, belonging to (3) the judiciary, ruling on laws he or she had earlier participated in passing.

It was the fourteenth century Edward III (1312–1377; King of England 1327-1377) who commanded his Lord Chancellor, when in council, should sit on the wool bale which became known as The Woolsack, the king wishing to draw attention to the crucial importance of the wool trade to the economy of medieval England.  In 1938, to symbolize imperial unity, the Lords directed the Woolsack be re-stuffed with wool from throughout the empire at which point it was discovered the Woolsack was actually stuffed with horsehair.  Even when re-stuffed, because of the construction, some horsehair had to be added to ensure structural integrity, the Lord Chancellor, (Quintin Hogg, second Lord Hailsham, 1907–2001; first entered parliament in 1938, Lord Chancellor 1970-1974 & 1979–1987), noting in 1986 that “wise Victorian ancestors” were responsible for the substitution.

Tent

Tent (pronounced tent)

(1) A portable shelter of skins, canvas, plastic, or the like, supported by one or more poles or a frame and often secured by ropes fastened to pegs in the ground.

(2) Something that resembles a tent (often as tent-like).

(3) A type of frock (usually as tent-dress).

(4) In casual political discourse (popularized by US President (1963-1969) Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973) (as “inside the tent”) a term to distinguish between those inside or outside the institutionalized political system.

(5) To give or pay attention to; to heed (Scots; largely archaic).

(6) In first-aid (medicine), a roll or pledget, usually of soft absorbent material, as lint or gauze, for dilating an orifice, keeping a wound open, etc.

(7) A red table wine from Alicante, Spain (obsolete).

(8) A sixteenth century word for a dark-colored tint (from the Spanish tinto (obsolete)).

(9) A portable pulpit set up outside to accommodate worshippers who cannot fit into a church (Scots; largely archaic).

1250–1300: From the Middle English tente (a probe) from the twelfth century Old French tente (tent, hanging, tapestry) from the Latin tenta, (a tent; literally literally "something stretched out”), noun use of feminine singular of the Latin tentus, (stretched), past participle of tendere (to extend; stretch) from the primitive Indo-European root ten (to stretch).  Technically, the Old French tente was a noun derivative of tenter from the Latin tentāre, variant of temptāre (to probe, test, to try). Despite some sources claiming the Latin tentōrium translates literally as “tent”, the correct meaning rather “something stretched out” from tendere (to extend; stretch); related was the Latin temptāre, source of the modern “tempt”.

In Middle English, tent (noun) (attention) was an aphetic variant of attent from the Old French atente (attention, intention) from the Latin attenta, feminine of attentus, past participle of attendere (to attend).  Word thus evolved in meaning to describe a structure of stretched fabric under which people could attend events.  The French borrowing wholly displaced the native Middle English tild & tilt (tent, til”) from the Old English teld (tent). The closest in Spanish is tienda (store, shop; tent).  The verb sense of "to camp in a tent" is attested from 1856, "to pitch a tent" noted a few years earlier.  The modern sense of tent and the relationship to words related to “stretch” is that the first tents were ad-hoc structures, created by stretching hides over wooden framework.  In arachnology, the Tent caterpillar, first recorded 1854, gained its name from the tent-like silken webs in which, gregariously they live.

FBI director J Edgar Hoover & President Johnson, the White House, 1967.

The phrase “inside the tent” is a bowdlerized version of words most frequently attributed to Lyndon Johnson (1908–1973 (LBJ); US president 1969-1969) explaining why, on assuming the presidency, he chose not to act on his original inclination (and the recommendation of some of his advisors) not to renew the appointment of J Edgar Hoover (1895–1972; director of US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 1924-1972): “Well, it’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”  That may have been sound political judgement from one of the most Machiavellian operators of the modern age but an indication also of the fear (shared by not a few others) of what damaging and even incriminating information about LBJ Hoover may have locked in his secret files.

Lord Beaverbrook & Winston Churchill, Canada, 1941.

LBJ’s sometimes scatological references often involved bodily functions but much of it drew on the earthy language he learned from decades of political horse trading in Texas, another favourite when speaking of decision-making being: “There comes a point when you have to piss or get off the pot”.  Nor were the words used of Hoover original, the earliest known references in exchanges in the early twentieth century between the Arabists in the UK’s Foreign Colonial offices as “…keeping the camel inside the tent”.  In the vein of the US State Department’s later “He might be a son of a bitch but he’s our son of a bitch”, it was an acknowledgement often it was desirable to in some way appease the odd emir so that he might remain an annoying but manageable nuisance rather than a potentially dangerous enemy.  When it came to colonial fixes, the foreign office had rare skills.  Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) recycled the joke in 1940 when, after being advised by George VI (1895–1952; King of the United Kingdom 1936-1952) not to include Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964) in his administration, the king’s concerns including being well aware of why the press lord had gained his nickname “been a crook”.

House minority leader Gerald Ford & President Johnson, the White House, 1967.

One quip however does seem to be original, LBJ’s crude humor the source also of the phrase “walk and chew gum”, used to refer to the ability (or inability) of governments to focus on more than one issue.  It was a sanitized version of a comment made by LBJ after watching a typically pedestrian television performance by Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977), then minority leader (Republican) in the House of Representatives: “Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.”  There was a time when that might never have been reported but times were changing and it was printed in the press as “Gerald Ford can't walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Of tents, sacks & maxi

The tent dress, also known as the "A-line", picked up both names because of the similarity of the trapezoid shape to an A-frame tent or building and was one of a number of garments which emerged in the 1960s when women's fashion retreated from the cinch-waisted, tailored lines mainstream manufacturers mass-produced in the 1950s.  Because the sheer volume of fabric, they were popular with some designers who used vivid psychedelic imagery in the patterns, a nod to the hippie vibe of the time.

Crooked Hillary Clinton in tent dress, The Hamptons, 2019.

Designed originally to be functional, comfortable and ageless, tent dresses have no waistline and are worn without belts; they’re thus essentially shapeless and while they don't exactly hide flaws, they certainly don't cling to them so can (sort of) flatter a shape to the extent it's possible, even though they actually accentuate width.  About once every fashion cycle, and never with great success, the industry pushes the tent dress as one of the trends of that season, the attempt in 2007 still regarded in the industry as a cautionary tale of how things shouldn't be done.

Tent dresses, made from a variety of fabrics, obviously have a lot of surface area so there's much scope to experiment with colors, patterns and graphics, the garments offered in everything from solid hues, subtle patterning, bold strips and, most famously, wild arrays of colors seemingly chosen deliberately to clash.  Given their purpose, most are long-sleeved or at least with a sleeve reaching the upper forearms and while the length can vary (some actually better described as loose shirts), the classic tent dress is knee or calf-length.

Sack dresses by Hubert de Givenchy (1927–2018), Spring Summer 1958 collection, Paris 1957.

Nor should the sack-line be confused with the tent.  Givenchy’s sack-line debuted in their spring-summer line in 1957, Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972) showing a not dissimilar style just a few weeks later.  Both were essentially an evolution of the “Shirt Dress” which had attracted some attention the previous season and signaled a shift from the fitted, structured silhouettes which had been the signature motif of the decade.  The sack-line dresses were described by some critics as “shapeless” or “formless”, presumably because they lacked any suggestion of the waistline which had existed for so long as fashion’s pivot-point.  However, the forms the sack-line took would have been recognizable to anyone familiar with fluid dynamics or the flow of air in wind tunnels, a waistless dress which narrowed severely towards the hem one of the optimal aerodynamic shapes.

That was presumably a coincidence but Givenchy’s press-kits at the 1957 shows did claim that “More than a fashion, it’s actually a way of dressing” and one which must have found favor with at least some women, not unhappy at being able to ditch the forbidding and restrictive, high-waisted girdles needed to achieve the wasp-wasted “New Look” which Dior had introduced to a post-war world anxious to escape wartime austerity.  Waistless, the sack-line appeared to hang suspended from the shoulders like an envelope around the frame yet despite not being body-hugging, the lines managed to accentuate the figure, the trick being using the mind of the observer to "fill in the gaps", based on available visual clues.  The simplicity of the sack line made it the ideal canvas on which to display other stuff, models in sacks soon showing off gloves, hats, shoes and other adornments and the elegant austerity of the lines remains influential today.

Maxi dresses are not tent dresses.  Lindsay Lohan in maxi dresses illustrates the difference.

Not all enveloping dresses, of which the vaguely defined “maxi” is probably the best known example, are tent dresses.  What really distinguishes the tent dress is that it’s waistless and in the shape of a regular trapezoid, hence the alternative name “A-line” whereas the point of the maxi is that it’s ankle-length, the antithesis of the mini skirt which could be cut as high up the thigh as any relevant statutes and the wearer’s sense of daring permitted.  Extreme in length, the maxi typically had at least something of a waist although some with severe perpendicular lines certainly could be classified as sacks.

Sad

Sad (pronounced sad)

(1) Affected by unhappiness or grief; sorrowful or mournful; depressed, glum, melancholy; feeling mentally uncomfortable, discomforted, distressed, uncomfortable.

(2) Expressive of or characterized by sorrow.

(3) Unfortunate; unsatisfactory; shabby; in poor condition.

(4) Of color, somber, dark, or dull; drab; lacking brightness.

(5) Of music, an identifiable set of characteristics in composition which humans (with some cultural variations) perceive as evoking melancholy; poignant, touching.

(6) In slang, unfashionable; socially inadequate or undesirable deplorably bad; lamentable (probably interchangeable with “lame”).

(7) In slang (New Zealand), strongly to express displeasure.

(8) In baking (pastry, cakes et al) not having risen fully; heavy, soggy (no rare except regionally).

(9) As SAD, seasonal affective disorder.

(10) Heavy; weighty; ponderous; close; hard (obsolete).

(11) Valiant, firm or steadfast (obsolete).

(12) Dignified, serious, grave (obsolete).

(13) Sated, having had one's fill; satisfied, weary (obsolete).

(14) Naughty; troublesome; wicked (obsolete).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English sad, from the Old English sæd (grave, heavy, weary (originally “sated, full; having had one’s fill of food, drink, fighting etc)), from the Proto-Germanic sadaz (sated, satisfied), the source also of the Old Norse saðr, the Middle Dutch sat, the Dutch zad, the Old High German sat, the German satt and the Gothic saþs (satiated, sated, full)), akin to the Old Norse sathr, the Latin satis (enough) & satur (sated), and the Greek hádēn (enough), from the primitive Indo-European seto or seh- (to satiate, satisfy) from the root sa- (to satisfy).  Synonyms include unhappy, despondent, disconsolate, discouraged, gloomy, downcast, downhearted, depressed, dejected & melancholy; the antonyms including happy, cheerful, gleeful, upbeat & joyous.  Sad & saddening are nouns, verbs & adjectives, sadness is a noun, saddenest, sadded & sadding are verbs, sadly is an adverb, sadder & sadest are adjectives and sadden is verb & adjective; the noun plural is sads.  The special noun use of sad (plural sads) is as an alternative form of saad (the letter ص in the Arabic script which is the 14^th letter of the Arabic alphabet).

In Middle English & early Modern English the prevailing senses were "firmly established, set; hard, rigid, firm; sober, serious; orderly and regular but such notions (except in dialect) survive only among some bakers where the word is used to describe anything which has failed to rise and remains soggy, heavy and lacking fluffiness.  Etymologists assume the sense development was based on a transference of the idea of “heavy, ponderous” to Being “full” mentally or physically (ie “weary; tired of).  By the early fourteenth century, the familiar modern use to suggest “unhappy, sorrowful, melancholy, mournful” was established although a less supported alternative path of the change traces a course through the common Middle English sense of “steadfast, firmly established, fixed” (sad-ware described some notably tough pewter vessels) and “serious” to “grave.”  In the way sad is most used in Modern English, ultimately it replaced the Old English unrot which was the negative of rot (which confusingly to modern ears, meant “cheerful, glad”.  By the mid fourteenth century, the dominant meaning was to express “sorrow or melancholy” while the meaning “very bad, wicked” dates from the 1690s; that use faded but re-emerged in the late twentieth century, use the same way “lame” is deployed to describe the unfashionable or socially lamentable, a variation on the slang sense of “inferior, pathetic”, documented since 1899.  The “sad sack” (a usually miserable person)” dates from the 1920s and was popularized by World War II (1939-1945) era cartoon character published in US military magazine Yank, assumed by all to be a euphemistic shortening of the alliterative armed forces slang phrase sad sack of shit.

The verb sadden picked up the meaning “to make sorrowful” in the 1620s; until around circa 1600 it had meant “to make solid or firm” and the early verb was the simple sad, from the Middle English saden (become weary or indifferent (also “make (something) hard or stiff”, from the Old English sadian which may be the source of the modern verb but the history is tangled.  The intransitive meaning “to become sorrowful” dates from 1718.  The noun sadness developed from the early fourteenth century Middle English sadnesse (seriousness) and the reason it’s not entirely clear when the meaning shift to “sorrowfulness, dejection of mind” evolved is probably because there was such regional variation but it appears to have unfolded over the fifteenth & sixteenth centuries; throughout Middle English the word usually referred to “solidness, firmness, thickness, toughness; permanence, continuance; maturity; sanity”.  The adjective sadder (more sad) was from the Middle English sadder and saddest persist as the comparative & superlative forms.  The adverb sadly originally meant “heavily” & “solidly”, the use to convey “sorrowfully” emerging by the mid-fourteenth century.

Acronym Finder lists an impressive 104 acronyms or initialisms, some of the more memorable being Sex, Alcohol, Drugs; Social Anxiety Disorder; Search and Destroy; Seasonal Affective Disorder; Schizoaffective Disorder; Separation Anxiety Disorder; Stand Alone Dump; Single, Available & Desperate; Single Awareness Day (ie Valentine's Day); System Administrator (they prefer sysadmin or syscon); Scotland Against Drugs and Sullen, Angry, Depressed.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Avoiding SADness: Lindsay Lohan soaking up some sun in Prussian blue bikini with high-waist brief and halter-style top.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a particular instance of depression which is sometimes referred to as seasonal depression or winter depression.  SAD was first described in 1984 and included in the revision to the third edition (DSM-III-R (1987)) of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a “seasonal pattern”, a modifier applied to recurrent forms of mood disorders, rather than as an independent entity.  In the DSM-IV (1994), its status as a standalone condition was changed, no longer classified as a unique mood disorder but instead a specifier (called “with seasonal pattern”) for the “recurrent major depressive disorder that occurs at a specific time of the year and fully remits otherwise”.  In the DSM-5 (2013), although there were detail changes in terminology, the disorder was again identified as a type of depression (Major Depressive Disorder with Seasonal Pattern).  The symptoms of SAD often overlap with the behaviors & mood changes noted in clinical depression, the novelty being the condition manifesting usually during the fall (autumn) & winter when temperatures and lower and the hours of sunlight fewer, the symptoms tending to diminish with the onset of spring.  While notably less common, there are those who experience SAD during the summer and in either case it’s seen more frequently in women. SAD appears to be possible at any age but is most typically suffered in the age range 18-30.  In the US, the dynamic of the condition is illustrated by the diagnosis of SAD ranging from 1.4% of the population in sunny Florida to 9.9% in often gloomy Alaska and, after some initial sceptism, the condition was accepted as legitimate by most of the profession although there has been some contradictory research.  Although in a sense SAD has for centuries been documented in the works of poets and artists, it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that structured research began and it has been linked to a biochemical imbalance in the brain prompted by exposure to reduced hours of daylight and a reduction in sunlight.  It’s thought that as the seasons go by, some experience a shift in their internal “biological clock” (circadian rhythm) which induces the mechanism to become asynchronous with their daily schedule.  SAD appears more prevalent among those living far from the equator where the conditions in winter are exaggerated.

Common symptoms of SAD include fatigue (even among those who increase their daily hours of sleep) and the weight gain associated with overeating and carbohydrate cravings.  The symptoms can vary from mild to severe and in many cases are little different to those associated with major depression including:

(1) Feeling sad or having a depressed mood.

(2) Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed.

(3) Changes in appetite; usually eating more, craving carbohydrates.

(4) Change in sleep patterns (usually sleeping too much).

(5) Loss of energy or increased fatigue despite increased hours of sleep.

(6) Increase in purposeless physical activity (eg inability to sit still, pacing, handwringing) or slowed movements or speech (to be clinically significant these actions must be severe enough to be observable to others).

(7) Feelings of worthlessness or guilt.

(8) Difficulty thinking, concentrating, or making decisions.

(9) Thoughts of death or suicide.

Risking SADness: Lindsay Lohan's strangely neglected film Among the Shadows (Momentum Pictures, 2019) was also released in some markets as The Shadow Within.  It's a gloomy piece, shot almost wholly in darkness and revolves around murderous werewolves and EU politicians (two quite frightening species).

There are several treatments for SAD including light therapy, antidepressant medications & talk therapy, sometimes used in combination.  Light therapy involves sitting in front of a light therapy box which emits a very bright light (while filtering-out harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays), usually for at least 20 minutes per day, typically first thing in the morning, during the winter months.  Most report some improvement after undergoing light therapy within 1-2 weeks of beginning treatment but the best results are obtained and relapse is most often prevented if the treatment is continued through the winter.  This is definitely a treatment rather than a cure and many re-start the therapy in the early fall to prevent any onset.  Talk therapy, particularly cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), has been used to treat SAD and the results appear to be similar to those suffering other forms of depression.  Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the anti-depressants most commonly used to treat SAD.

Rjukan's three-mirror array, reflecting the Sun's rays on the town square below.  Each mirror is 17²m (183 square feet).

The Norwegian town of Rjukan sits some 3 hours north-west of the capital, Oslo and is famously one of the darkest inhabited settlements on Earth, wholly without sun for five months of the year.  Some 3400 souls live in Rjukan, the town created by Norsk Hydro, the electricity company which built a hydro-electric plant on the nearby falls to generate large quantities of electricity.  The reason it spends so long in darkness is because it sits in a valley, surrounded by mountains which block the light.  In 1928, Norsk Hydro built a cable car to permit the town's residents to travel to the mountain top to enjoy some sunshine but recently, the town spent 5 million Norwegian Kroner (US$4.95 million) to install an array of moving mirrors to direct sunlight to the town square.  Solar-powered, the mirrors sit 450-metres up the slope and track the movement of the sun.  Not only has the innovation brought light into the lives of the locals but the motorized mirrors have become a tourist attraction.  The idea of such a mirror was actually not new and had been discussed since 1913 but one was installed only in 2013.

Citizens in the reflected Sunshine.