Stalk

Stalk (pronounced stawk)

(1) In botany, the stem or main axis of a herbaceous plant; any slender supporting or connecting part of a plant, as the petiole of a leaf, the peduncle of a flower, or the funicle of an ovule; the petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.

(2) In zoology, a slender supporting structure in animals such as crinoids and certain protozoans, coelenterates, and barnacles (such as the peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans; the narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.

(3) Analogous with plants, a stem, shaft, or slender supporting part of anything.

(4) In automotive use, a slender lever, usually mounted on or near the steering wheel, used by the driver to control a signal or function (when more than one function cam to be added, “multi-purpose stalk” was coined.

(5) In hunting (and by extension in certain parts of the military), stealthily to pursue or approach prey or quarry.

(6) To walk with measured, stiff, or haughty strides; to proceed in a steady, deliberate, or sinister manner.

(7) Persistently to pursue and, sometimes, attack a person with whom one is obsessed (also used to describe similar analogous behavior in the digital space of the internet.

(8) In architecture, an ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.

(9) One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.

(10 In metal fabrication, an iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it (the core arbor).

1275–1325: From the Middle English stalke or stalken (stem of a plant), from stale (one of the uprights of a ladder, handle, stalk), the construct thought to be the Old English stal (a clipping of stalu (a stave or upright piece of wood (in the sense of a part of a tool or instrument) (and related to Old Frisian staal (handle))) + -k as a diminutive suffix.  The Old English bestealcian (to walk stealthily), stealcung (akin to steal) evolved in unison, as did the Middle Low German stolkeren and Danish stalke.  The Old English forms were from the Proto-Germanic stalla- (source also of the Old English steala (stalk, support) & steall (place), from the primitive Indo-European stol-no-, a suffixed form of stol-, as variant of the root stel- (to put, stand, put in order), with derivatives referring to a standing object or place.  The noun came to be applied to similar structures in animals after 1826.  The corn-stalk (stalk of a corn plant) became a standard descriptor in botany and commerce after 1816, perhaps influenced by the earlier (1800) bean-stalk (from children’s story).  Stalk & stalking are nouns & verbs, stalker is a noun, stalky, stalkiest & stalkier are adjectives.

The verb stalk (pursue stealthily) was from the Old English stealcian (as in bestealcian (to steal along, walk warily)), from the Proto-Germanic stalkon, frequentative of the primitive Indo-European stel- which may have been a variant of ster- (to rob, to steal) although some etymologists suggest the Old English word might have been influenced by the noun.  Interestingly, the meaning "harass obsessively" dates from 1991, well before the world wide web was generally available and at a time when the internet was used only by a tiny few.  The verb stalk is another of those creatures in English which must be annoying to those learning the language.  Originally it meant “moving quietly, with stealth, unobtrusively” and was applied to poachers (one who prowls for purposes of theft) of game (the property of others).  By the 1520s it had come to mean "walk haughtily" (ie essentially the opposite of the original) and etymologists it evolved either from stalk in the circa 1500 sense of “the poacher walking with long, awkward strides” or the Old English stealcung (a stalking, act of going stealthily) and related thus to stealc (steep, lofty).  In hunting, the word was first used of poachers but came later to be applied to all who hunted their prey.  A stalking-horse was originally literally a horse draped in trappings and trained to allow a fowler to conceal himself behind it to get within range of the game without alerting the birds.  The figurative use to refer to ”a person who participates in a proceeding to disguise its real purpose” was first noted in the early seventeenth century and survives in the language of modern politics despite being associated with animal cruelty.

Stalking and the web

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN)) operates the Large Hadron Collider (the LHC, a (very) big particle accelerator) to research high-energy physics.  The World Wide Web was invented at CERN in 1989 and the organization in January 1991 delivered the first web browser to other research institutions, a general public release on the internet happening that August.  Stalking quickly ensued.  The web didn’t create stalking in the modern sense of the word as “the unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual or group towards another person or group”; that behaviour has existed probably since the origins of mankind but the existence of the internet certainly opened a vista of possibilities in the way it could be done and use of the word in this context has spiked notably since the early 1990s.  Before the internet gained critical mass, the words stalk & stalking were used mostly in botany and zoology, the use in hunting but a niche.  One inventive use of stalk (sometimes as "stalking with intent") is to describe the rapid and purposeful gait adopted by some catwalk models, something which is often a reasonable achievement give the shoes they have to wear. 

Use of the word "stalking" in English, tracked by the Collins English Dictionary.  The gradual post-war decline reflected increasing urbanization, the spike in use after 1990 tracking with (1) the use to describe on-line behavior and (2) the codification of the offence of stalking in law.

Stalking behaviours are universally understood as related to harassment and intimidation although there were historic differences in definitions in psychiatry and psychology, as well as a myriad of variations in legislative detail between jurisdictions and depending on the jurisdiction, both civil remedies and criminal sanctions may be available.  Stalking is a crime in every state and territory in Australia and has to consist of more than one incident although some jurisdictions require at least three (single offences are dealt with under pre-existing legislation such as assault or intimidation).  The offense as defined in the Queensland Criminal Code (1899) differs in detail from what is used in other places but is illustrative of the modern approach.  Section 359B (as modified by the Criminal Code (Stalking) Amendment Act (1999)) of the Criminal Code and provides a maximum prison sentence of seven (7) years and details the offense as conduct:

(a) intentionally directed at a person (the "stalked person" ); and

(b) engaged in on any 1 occasion if the conduct is protracted or on more than 1 occasion; and

(c) consisting of 1 or more acts of the following, or a similar, type—

(i) following, loitering near, watching or approaching a person;

(ii) contacting a person in any way, including, for example, by telephone, mail, fax, email or through the use of any technology;

(iii) loitering near, watching, approaching or entering a place where a person lives, works or visits;

(iv) leaving offensive material where it will be found by, given to or brought to the attention of, a person;

(v) giving offensive material to a person, directly or indirectly;

(vi) an intimidating, harassing or threatening act against a person, whether or not involving violence or a threat of violence;

(vii) an act of violence, or a threat of violence, against, or against property of, anyone, including the defendant; and (d) that—

(i) would cause the stalked person apprehension or fear, reasonably arising in all the circumstances, of violence to, or against property of, the stalked person or another person; or

(ii) causes detriment, reasonably arising in all the circumstances, to the stalked person or another person.

Herr Vorderwulbecke, outside Westminster Magistrates Court, 2015.

German national Daniel Vorderwulbecke (b 1978) in 2015 became the subject of a restraining order issued in UK by a Westminster magistrate, Herr Vorderwulbecke believing he was (1) the nephew of the late Queen Elizabeth II and (2) married to Lindsay Lohan.  Ms Lohan was scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court to give evidence against Herr Vorderwulbecke (who also identifies as "King Lionheart") on two charges of stalking, relating to over a thousand messages and attempts to see her during theatrical rehearsals.  At the time he was being detained under the Mental Health Act at the Gordon Psychiatric Hospital in Pimlico but unfortunately she was unable to attend, apparently because the hearing conflicted with her completing a community service order for (unrelated) motoring offences in the US.  Herr Vorderwulbecke had what is in police vernacular "a bit of previous", having received several suspended sentences in his native Germany for offences involving violence and the charge sheet in England noted his "delusional obsession" with Ms Lohan.  Because Ms Lohan was not available to give evidence, the two stalking charges were dropped but he received a 12-week prison sentence (suspended for 18 months) and was made subject to a mental health treatment requirement for 12 months relating to harassment of a restaurant manager and two counts of criminal damage.

Strumpet

Strumpet (pronounced struhm-pit)

A woman of loose virtue (archaic).

1300–1350: From the Middle English strumpet and its variations, strompet & strumpet (harlot; bold, lascivious woman) of uncertain origin.  Some etymologists suggest a connection with the Latin stuprata, the feminine past participle of stuprare (have illicit sexual relations with) from stupere, present active infinitive of stupeo, (violation) or stuprare (to violate) or the Late Latin stuprum, (genitive stuprī) (dishonor, disgrace, shame, violation, defilement, debauchery, lewdness).  The meanings in Latin and the word structure certainly appears compelling but there is no documentary evidence and others ponder a relationship with the Middle Dutch strompe (a stocking (as the verbal shorthand for a prostitute)) or strompen (to stride, to stalk (in the sense suggestive of the manner in which a prostitute might approach a customer).  Again, it’s entirely speculative and the spelling streppett (in same sense) was noted in the 1450s.  In the late eighteen century, strumpet came to be abbreviated as strum and also used as a verb, which meant lexicographers could amuse themselves with wording the juxtaposition of strum’s definitions, Francis Grose (circa 1730-1791) in his A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) settling on (1) to have carnal knowledge of a woman & (2) to play badly on the harpsichord or any other stringed instrument.  As a term in musical performance, strum is now merely descriptive.

Even before the twentieth century, among those seeking to disparage women (and there are usually a few), strumpet had fallen from favour and by the 1920s was thought archaic to the point where it was little used except as a device by authors of historical fiction.  Depending on the emphasis it was wished to impart, the preferred substitutes which ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years included tramp, harlot, hussy, jezebel (sometimes capitalized), jade, tart, slut, minx, wench, trollop, hooker, whore, bimbo, floozie (or floozy) and (less commonly) slattern skeezer & malkin.

There’s something about trollop which is hard to resist but it has fallen victim to modern standards and it now can’t be flung even at white, hetrosexual Christian males (a usually unprotected species) because of the historic association.  Again the origin is obscure with most etymologists concluding it was connected with the Middle English trollen (to go about, stroll, roll from side to side).  It was used as a synonym for strumpet but often with the particular connotation of some debasement of class or social standing (the the speculated link with trollen in the sense of “moving to the other (bad) side”) so a trollop was a “fallen woman”.  Otherwise it described (1) a woman of a vulgar and discourteous disposition or (2) to act in a sluggish or slovenly manner.  North of the border it tended to the neutral, in Scotland meaning to dangle soggily; become bedraggled while in an equestrian content it described a horse moving with a gait between a trot and a gallop (a canter).  For those still brave enough to dare, the present participle is trolloping and the past participle trolloped while the noun plural (the breed often operating in pars or a pack) is trollops.

Floozie (the alternative spellings floozy, floosy & floosie still seen although floogy is obsolete) was originally a corruption of flossy, fancy or frilly in the sense of “showy” and dates only from the turn of the twentieth century.  Although it was sometimes used to describe a prostitute or at least someone promiscuous, it was more often applied in the sense of an often gaudily or provocatively dressed temptress although the net seems to have been cast wide, disapproving mothers often describing as floozies friendly girls who just like to get to know young men.

Strum and trollop weren’t the only words in this vein to have more than one meaning.  Harlot was from the Middle English harlot, from Old French harlot, herlot & arlot (vagabond; tramp), of uncertain origin but probably from a Germanic source, either a derivation of harjaz (army; camp; warrior; military leader) or from a diminutive of karilaz (man; fellow).  It was an exclusively derogatory and offensive form which meant (1) a female prostitute, (2) a woman thought promiscuous woman and (3) a churl; a common person (male or female), of low birth, especially who leading an unsavoury life or given to low conduct.

Lord Beaverbrook (1950), oil on canvas by Graham Sutherland (1903–1980).  It’s been interesting to note that as the years pass, Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) more and more resembles Beaverbrook.

Increasing sensitivity to the way language can reinforce the misogyny which has probably always characterized politics (in the West it’s now more of an undercurrent) means words like harlot which once added a colorful robustness to political rhetoric are now rarely heard.  One of the celebrated instances of use came in 1937 when Stanley Baldwin’s (1867–1947; leader of the UK’s Tory Party and thrice prime-minister 1923 to 1937) hold on the party leadership was threatened by Lord Rothermere (1868-1940) and Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964), two very rich newspaper proprietors (the sort of folk Mr Trump would now call the “fake news media”).  Whether he would prevail depended on his preferred candidate winning a by-election and three days prior to the poll, on 17 March 1931, Baldwin attacked the press barons in a public address:

“The newspapers attacking me are not newspapers in the ordinary sense; they are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal vices, personal likes and dislikes of the two men.  What are their methods?  Their methods are direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker's meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context and what the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

The harlot line overnight became a famous quotation and in one of the ironies of history, Baldwin borrowed it from his cousin, the writer Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) who had used it during a discussion with the same Lord Beaverbrook.  Like a good many (including his biographer AJP Taylor (1906-1990) who should have known better), Kipling had been attracted by Beaverbrook’s energy and charm but found the inconsistency of his newspapers puzzling, finally asking him to explain his strategy.  He replied “What I want is power. Kiss ‘em one day and kick ‘em the next’ and so on”.  “I see” replied Kipling, “Power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”  Baldwin received his cousin’s permission to recycle the phrase in public.

While not exactly respectable but having not descended to prostitution, there was also the hussy (the alternative spellings hussif, hussiv & even hussy all obsolete).  Hussy was a Middle English word from the earlier hussive & hussif, an unexceptional evolution of the Middle English houswyf (housewife) and the Modern English housewife is a restoration of the compound (which for centuries had been extinct) after its component parts had become unrecognisable through phonetic change.  The idea of hussy as a housewife or housekeeper is long obsolete (taking with it the related (and parallel) sense of “a case or bag for needles, thread etc” which as late as the eighteenth century was mention in judgements in English common law courts when discussing as woman’s paraphernalia).  It’s enduring use is to describe women of loose virtue but it can be used either in a derogatory or affectionate sense (something like a minx), the former seemingly often modified with the adjective “shameless”, probably to the point of becoming clichéd.

“An IMG Comrade, Subverts, Perverts & Extroverts: A Brief Pull-Out Guide”, The Oxford Strumpet, 10 October 1975.   

Reflecting the left’s shift in emphasis as the process of decolonization unfolded and various civil rights movements gained critical mass in sections of white society, anti-racist activism became a core issue for collectives such as the International Marxist Group.  Self-described as “the British section of the Fourth International”, by the 1970s their political position was explicitly anti-colonial, anti-racist, and trans-national, expressed as: “We believe that the fight for socialism necessitates the abolition of all forms of oppression, class, racial, sexual and imperialist, and the construction of socialism on a world wide scale”.  Not everything published in The Oxford Strumpet was in the (evolved) tradition of the Fourth International and it promoted a wide range of leftist and progressive student movements.

Lindsay Lohan in rather fetching, strumpet-red underwear.

The Oxford Strumpet was an alternative left newspaper published within the University of Oxford and sold locally.  It had a focus on university politics and events but also included comment and analysis of national and international politics.  With a typically undergraduate sense of humor, the name was chosen to (1) convey something of the anti-establishment editorial attitude and (2) allude to the color red, long identified with the left (the red-blue thing in recent US politics is a historical accident which dates from a choice by the directors of the coverage of election results on color television broadcasts).  However, by 1975, feminist criticism of the use of "Strumpet" persuaded the editors to change the name to "Red Herring" and edition 130 was the final Strumpet.  Red Herring did not survive the decline of the left after the demise of the Soviet Union and was unrelated to the Red Herring media company which during the turn-of-the-century dot-com era published both print and digital editions of a tech-oriented magazine.  Red Herring still operates as a player in the technology news business and also hosts events, its business model the creation of “top 100” lists which can be awarded to individuals or representatives of companies who have paid the fee to attend.  Before it changed ownership and switched its focus exclusively to the tech ecosystem, Red Herring magazine had circulated within the venture capital community and the name had been a playful in-joke, a “red herring” being bankers slang for a prospectus issued with IPO (initial public offering) stock offers.

Comet

Comet (pronounced kom-it)

(1) In astronomy, a celestial body moving about the sun, usually in a highly eccentric orbit, most thought to consist of a solid frozen nucleus, part of which vaporizes on approaching the heat from Sun (or other star) to form a gaseous, luminous coma (the envelope of dust and gas, the most dramatic part of which is the long, luminous tail which streams away from the sun (under the influence of solar winds).

(2) In astronomy, a celestial phenomenon with the appearance of such a body.

(3) Any of several species of hummingbird found in the Andes.

(4) In slang, as “vomit comet”, a reduced-gravity aircraft which, by flying in a parabolic flight path, briefly emulates a close to weightless environment.  Used to train astronauts or conduct research, the slang derived from the nausea some experience.

(5) In figurative use (often applied retrospectively and with a modifier such as “blazing comet”), someone (or, less commonly, something) who appears suddenly in the public eye, makes a significant impact and then quickly fades from view, their fleeting moment of brilliance a brief but spectacular event.

1150–1200: From the Middle English comete, partly from the Old English comēta and partly from the Anglo-French & Old French comete (which in Modern French persists as comète), all from the Latin comētēs & comēta, from the Ancient Greek κομήτης (komḗtēs) (wearing long hair; ling-haired), the construct being komē-, a variant stem of komân (to let one's hair grow), from κόμη (kómē) (hair) + -tēs (the agent suffix).  The Greek was a shortened form of ἀστὴρ κομήτης (astēr komētēs (longhaired star)), a reference to a comet’s streaming tail.  The descendants in other languages include the Malay komet, the Urdu کومٹ (komeṭ) and the Welsh comed.  Comet, cometlessness, cometography, cometographer, cometology & cometarium are nouns, cometless, cometic, cometical, cometocentric, cometary, cometographical & cometlike (also as comet-like) are adjectives, cometesimal is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is comets.

Comets orbit the Sun along an elongated path and when not near the heat, the body consists solely of its nucleus, thought to be almost always a solid core of frozen water, frozen gases, and dust.  When near the sun, the nucleus heats, eventually to boil and thus release the gaseous and luminous coma (the envelope of dust and gas), the most dramatic part of which is the long, luminous tail which streams away from the sun (under the influence of solar winds).  The path of a comet can be in the shape of an ellipse or a hyperbola; if a hyperbolic path, it enters the solar system once and then leaves forever while if it follows an ellipse, it remains in orbit around the sun.  Astronomer divide comets into (1) “short period” (those with orbital periods of less than 200 years and coming from the Kuiper belt) and (2) “long-period” (those with an orbital period greater than 200 years and coming from the Oort cloud).

Before the development of modern techniques, comets were visible only when near the sun so their appearance was sudden and, until early astronomers were able to calculate the paths of those which re-appeared, unexpected.  Superstition stepped in where science didn’t exist and comets were in many cultures regarded as omens or harbingers of doom, famine, ruin, pestilence and the overthrow of kingdoms or empires.  It was the English astronomer, mathematician and physicist Edmond Halley (1656–1742; Astronomer Royal 1720-1742) who in 1682 published the calculations which proved many comets were periodic and thus their appearance could be predicted.  Halley's Comet, named in his honor, remains the only known short-period comet consistently visible from Earth with the naked eye and remains the world’s most famous; it last appeared in 1986 and will next visit our skies in 2061.

Comet wine: Non-vintage Alois Lageder Natsch4 Vigneti Delle Dolomiti.

Halley’s findings put an end to (most) of the superstition surrounding comets but commerce still took advantage of their presence.  A comet with a famously vivid tail appeared in 1811 and in that year, Europe enjoyed a remarkably pleasant autumn (fall) which was most conducive to agriculture and became associated with the abundant and superior yield of the continental vineyards.  For that reason, the vintage was called the “comet wine” and the term became a feature in marketing the product which emerged from any year in which notable comets were seen, a superior quality alleged (and thus a premium price).  Wine buffs say any relationship between the quality of a vintage and the travel of celestial bodies is entirely coincidental.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (2021) by Dr Heather Clark (b 1974).

One of things about the feminist cult which is now the construct of Sylvia Path (1932-1963) is that her mistreatment at the hands of her husband Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-2008) tends to obscure her work which many quite familiar with the story of her brief life will barely have read and that’s perhaps predictable, certainly for those for whom the lure of tales of tragic woman and brutish men is a siren.  As human tragedies go, her story is compelling: A precocious talent, the death of the father to whom she was devoted when only eight, the suicide attempt while a student and the burning ambition to write and be published.  Almost as soon as she met Ted Hughes she knew he was “my black marauder” and their affair was one of intense physicality as well as a devotion to their art, something which might have endured during their marriage (which produced two children) had Hughes not proved so unfaithful and neglectful.  In 1963, as an abandoned solo mother in a freezing flat during what entered history as London’s coldest winter of the century, she took her own life while her two babies slept nearby, becoming a symbol onto which people would map whatever most suited their purposes: the troubled genius, the visionary writer, a feminist pioneer and, overwhelmingly, a martyr, a victim of a man.  To his dying day, feminists would stalk literary events just to tell Hughes he had “Sylvia’s blood on his hands”.

So the story is well known and in the years since her death there have been a number of biographies, critical studies, collections of letters, academic conferences; given that, it’s seemed by the 2020s unlikely there was much more to say about one whose adult life spanned not even two decades.  For that reason the 1000-odd densely printed pages of Dr Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath was a revelation because, as the author pointed out, her life “has been subsumed by her afterlife” and what was needed was a volume which focused on what she wrote and why that output means she should be set free from the “cultural baggage of the past 50 years” and shown as “one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.”

Sylvia Plath in Paris, 1956.

Red Comet is thus far this century’s outstanding biography and a feminist perspective is not required to recognize that when reading her last poems (written in obvious rage but sustaining a controlled tension few have matched) that she was a profoundly disturbed woman.  Most clinicians who have commented seem now to agree her depression of long-standing had descended to something psychotic by the time of her suicide, a progression she seems to have acknowledged, writing to one correspondent that she was composing poetry “on the edge of madness”.  This is though a biography written by a professional literary critic so it does not construct Plath as tale of tragedy and victimhood as one might if telling the story of some troubled celebrity.  Instead, the life is allowed to unfold in a way which shows how it underpins her development as a writer, the events and other glimpses of the person interpolated into the progress of a text through drafts and revisions, each word polished as the poet progresses to what gets sent to the publisher.  Red Comet is not a book for those interested in how much blame Ted Hughes should bear for his wife killing herself and in that matter it’s unlikely to change many opinions but as a study of the art of Sylvia Plath, it’s outstanding.  Unlike many figurative uses of "comet", Plath continues to blaze her trail. 

Pre-production de Havilland Comet (DH 106) with the original, square windows, England, 1949 (left) and Comet 4 (Registration G-APDN) in BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation (1939-1974 which in 1974 was merged with BEA (British European Airways) and others to later become BA (British Airways)) livery, Tokyo (Haneda International (HND / RJTT)), Japan October 1960.

The term hoodoo is often attached to objects thought jinxed.  When the de Havilland Comet (DH 106; the first commercial jet airliner), within a year of its first flight in 1949, began to suffer a number of catastrophic in-flight accidents, newspapers wrote of the “Comet hoodoo”, something encouraged because, in the pre “black-box” era, analysis of aviation incidents was a less exact science than now and for some time the crashes appeared inexplicable.  It was only when extensive testing revealed the reason for the structural failures could be traced to stresses in the airframe induced aspects of the design that the hoodoo was understood to be the operation of physics.  Other manufacturers noted the findings and changed their designs, Boeing's engineers acknowledging the debt they owed to de Havilland because it was the investigation of the Comet's early problems which produced the solutions which helped the Boeing 707 (1957) and its many successors to be the successful workhorses they became.  As a footnote, by the time the Comet 4 was released in 1958 the problems had been solved but commercially, the project was doomed and reputational damage done.  Between 1949-1964, barely more than 100 were sold although many did provide reliable service until 1981 and the airframe proved adaptable, dozens of military variants produced, the most notable being the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, a maritime patrol version which was in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 2011.

It’s because of the lessons learned from the Comet hoodoo that the apertures of airliner windows have rounded edges, the traditional four-cornered openings creating four weak spots prone to failure under stress.  In the early 1950s there was much optimism about the Comet and had it been successful, it could have given the UK’s commercial aviation industry a lead in a sector which rapidly would expand in the post war years.  One who didn’t express much faith in his country’s capacity to succeed in the field was the politician Duff Cooper (1890–1954) who, shortly before taking up his appointment as the UK’s ambassador to France, was flying on an Avro York (a transport and civil adaptation of the Lancaster heavy bomber) and he noted in his diary: “I think the designer of the York has discovered the shape of an armchair in which it is quite impossible to be comfortable, if this is typical of the civil transport plane in which were are to compete against the US, we are already beaten.”  As Lindsay Lohan’s smiles indicate, as least on private jets, the seats are now comfortable.

Not quite an Edsel, not yet a Mercury: The 1960 Comet; it was an era of imaginative (other use different adjectives) styling (and at this time they were still "stylists" and not "designers").

The Mercury Comet, built in four generations between 1960-1969 and another between 1971-1977, had a most unusual beginning.  The Ford Motor Company (“FoMoCo”, Mercury’s parent corporation) had in the mid 1950s studied the five-tier (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac) branding used by General Motors (GM) and decided it too would create a five divisional structure (which by 1955 Chrysler had also matched).  The GM model dated from the 1920s and was called the “ladder” (GM at times had more than five rungs) and the idea was each step on the later would take a buyer into a higher price (and at least theoretically more profitable) range of models.  There was a time when this approach made sense but even in the 1950s when Ford embarked on their restructure it was beginning to fragment, the implications of which would become apparent over the decades.  Thus Ford ended up (firefly) with five divisions: Ford, Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln and Continental.  That didn’t last long and Continental was the first to go, followed soon by the still infamous Edsel and the corporation even flirted with the idea of shuttering Lincoln.

1963 Mercury Comet S-22 Convertible.

The original plan had been for the Comet to be the “small Edsel” but by the time the release date drew close, the decision had been taken to terminate the Edsel brand so the Q&D (quick & dirty) solution was to sell the car through the Lincoln-Mercury dealer network, an expedient which lasted for the 1960 & 1961 model years before the Comet was integrated into the Mercury range and badged appropriately.  The early Comets were built on the Falcon platform (“compact” in contemporary US terms) but when the 1966 range was released, the cars became “intermediates” (ie the size between the “compact” and “full-size” platforms) but the Comet name was withdrawn from use after 1969.  It was in 1971 revived for Mercury’s companion to the Maverick, Ford’s replacement for the compact Falcon which slotted above the Pinto which was in a domestic class so compact the industry coined the class-designation “sub compact”.  Cheap to produce and essentially “disposable”, the Maverick and Comet proved so popular they continued in production for a season even after their nominal replacements were in showrooms.

1967 Mercury Comet Cyclone "R Code", one of 60 built that year with the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) FE side-oiler V8 and one of the 19 with a four-speed manual transmission.

The Mercury Comet has never attracted great interest from collectors because few were built with the more robust or exotic drive-trains found more frequently in both the competition from GM & Chrysler and the companion versions from Ford.  The mid-range performance package for the general market was the Comet Cyclone, introduced in 1964 to replace the Comet’s earlier S-22 option; neither were big sellers but they were not expensive to produce and remained profitable parts of the Mercury range.  In 1968, during the peak of the muscle car era, Mercury sought to promote the line, dropping the Comet name and promoting the machines as the “Cyclone”, now with quite potent engines although the emphasis clearly was drag racing rather than turning corners; the high performance package was now called the “Cyclone Spoiler”.  For the NASCAR circuits however, there was in 1969 the Cyclone Spoiler II, one of the so-called “aero cars”, the better known of which were the much more spectacular, be-winged Dodge Daytona (1969) and Plymouth Superbird (1970).  Chrysler’s cars looked radical to achieve what they did but the modifications which created the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II and Ford Torino Talladega were so subtle as to be barely noticeable, the most effective being the increased slope on the lengthened nose, the flush grill and some changes which had the effect of lowering both the centre of gravity and the body.  The Ford and Mercury might have been a less spectacular sight than the Dodge or Plymouth but on the tracks the seeming slight tweaks did the job and both were among the fastest and most successful of their brief era.

1969 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II (slab-sided but slippery, left), 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler (sleek but less aerodynamic than its predecessor, centre) and the aborted 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II (handicapped out of contention by NASCAR, right).   

In 1970, just how aerodynamic was the 1969 Cyclone Spoiler was proved when the racing teams tried the new model which, although it looked sleek, was not as aerodynamically efficient and noticeably slower.  That might seem something of an own goal but Ford were blindsided by NASCAR’s decision to render the low-volume “aero cars” uncompetitive by restricting them to the use of 305 cubic inch (5.0 litre) engines while the conventional bodies were permitted to use the full 430 (7.0).  Thus the aerodynamic modifications planned for the 1970 Torino and Cyclone never entered production.  Of the two prototype Cyclone Spoiler IIs built, one survives revealing a nose which was in its own way as radical as those earlier seen on the Plymouth and Dodge.  In the collector market, the aero cars are much sought but the Cyclones are the least valued which may seem strange because they were on the circuits among the most successful of the era.  Market analysts attribute this to (1) the Cyclone Spoiler II (and Torino Talladega) being visually much less eye-catching than the wild-looking pair from Chrysler and (2) the Cyclone Spoiler II being sold only with a modest 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) engine whereas the Fords ran 428s (7.0) and the Chryslers 440 (7.2) & 426 (6.9) units, the latter a version of the engine actually used in the race cars.

The highly qualified Kate Upton (b 1992) was in 2014 featured in a Sports Illustrated session filmed in a "vomit comet" (a modified Boeing 727 with a padded interior). 

Shibboleth

Shibboleth (pronounced shib-uh-lith or shib-uh-leth)

(1) A belief, principle, or practice which is commonly adhered to but which is thought by some people to be inappropriate or out of date.

(2) A custom, phrase, or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to, or as a stumbling block to becoming a member of, a particular social class, profession etc.

(3) A slogan; catchword.

Circa 1300s: From the Hebrew שִׁבֹּלֶת (shibbólet) (ear of grain (the part of a plant containing grain, such as the head of a stalk of wheat or rye) (and more rarely "stream, flood or torrent")).  The word was used as a password by the Gileadites as a test to detect the fleeing Ephraimites, who could not pronounce the sound sh (Judges 12:4–6).  From this emerged by the 1630s the figurative sense of "watchword", the additional meaning "outmoded slogan still adhered to" noted by 1862.

The Ephraimites and the Gileadites

The story behind the word is in the Old Testament’s Book of Judges (12:1-15).  In ancient Hebrew, shibboleth translated literally as “ear of grain” (stream, flood or torrent in some translations), some groups pronouncing it with a "sh" sound, but speakers of related dialects pronounced it with a hard s.

In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, fight a great battle.  The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade across the Jordan River to catch the fleeing Ephraimites who were trying to get back to their territory.  The sentries asked each person who wanted to cross the river to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no "sh" sound in their language, pronounced the word with a hard s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered.

12:4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.

12:5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, art thou an Ephraimite? If he say Nay;

12:6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

As a technique to identify foreigners, the use may have predated  the biblical tale of the Gileadites and Ephraimites and there are many instances in history.  The Italians used the test-word cicera (chick pease) to identify the French during the massacre called the Sicilian Vespers (1282).  

1941 Chrysler New Yorker Three Passenger Coupe.

During WWII, while conducting training exercises on Pavuvu and Guadalcanal, the Marines improved battlefield security not with a password, but by an identification procedure described as "sign and countersign", the technique being sequentially to interrogate an unknown friend or foe with the name of an automobile which required the "L" sound in vocalization.  The response was required to be a cognomen for another automobile uttered in the same manner and in an accent definitely American; those who answered call out "Chryswer" or "Cadiwac" likely to be shot.

A loaf of Ukranian palyanitsa.

The ancient use of a shibboleth to allow the detection of enemies within was revived in 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Ukrainians, if suspecting someone might be a Russian, challenge them to say the word “palyanitsa”, a soft wheat bread with a crispy crust, natives of the two nations pronouncing it differently and it's said to be difficult for Russians to master the Ukrainian form. 

Eristic

Eristic (pronounced e-ris-tik)

(1) Pertaining to controversy or disputation; controversial; provoking strife, controversy or discord.

(2) A person who engages in disputation; a controversialist.

(3) The art of disputation; of, relating, or given to controversy or logical disputation for its own sake (especially if pursued speciously) or as a technical exercise (in education).

(4) In the study of the myths of Antiquity, of or relating to Ἔρις (Eris) (Discord), the goddess of strife,

1630–1640: From the Ancient Greek ἐριστικός (eristikós) (eager for strife, anxious to provoke), the construct being erist(ós) (verbid of erízein (to wrangle), derivative of éris discord) + -ikos, the English equivalent being eris + -t- + ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  Eristic is a noun & adjective, eristical is an adjectives and eristically is an adverb; the noun plural is eristics.

The eristic is a long-standing feature in democratic politics where the formal notions of “government” and “opposition” are institutionalized.  There is much in Lord Randolph Churchill’s (1849–1895) dictum that “the duty of the opposition is to oppose” and that process is the dynamic by which political debate is conducted.  That’s good if a genuine contest of ideas but there is often a sense that things are opposed for no reason other purpose than the conflict itself; it’s not the goal which matters, just the maintenance of strife.  The state of politics in the US can now be said to be eristic and that’s not something unique to the modern era, politics is a cyclical business and the forces unleashed can ultimately create conditions whereby conflict switches to conciliation and then to consensus.  Although there seems little hope of that in the immediate future, nothing lasts forever and unexpected events can be catalytic.  Eristic seems an attractive option for those writing about politics because (1) it’s undeniably applicable and (2) it adds variety to what can be often a repetitive vocabulary, the most common adjectives in such texts including belligerent, combative, contentious, controversial, disputatious, quarrelsome, scrappy & testy.  Political scientists who decide to use the adjective should note the comparative form (more eristic) and the superlative (most eristic) and, just in case there’s any doubt, Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) would likely usually attract the superlative.

One of the (many) judgments of Paris: Early in the century, the feud between Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan played out in the well-documented way such things are done on social media.  Both now mothers, détente appears to have been negotiated and a state of peaceful co-existence seems now to prevail.

In Greek mythology, Ἔρις (Eris) (strife) was the goddess or personified spirit (daimona) of strife, discord, contention and rivalry and in the bloodthirsty way artists for centuries delighted in doing, often she was depicted as the daimona of the strife of war, haunting battlefields and glorying in the carnage of the slaughter.  Something of the crooked Hillary Clinton on Antiquity, for obvious reasons Eris was closely identified with the Enyo the goddess of war and the eighth century poet of Ancient Greek Homer used the names interchangeably in his epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.  In Roman mythology her name was Discordia, the source obviously of the Modern English “discord”.  So disagreeable was Eris that other gods tried to avoid inviting her to their parties.  Usually this caused no more than the usual bitchiness familiar in mythology but one infamous non-invite led to the event known as the μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος (Golden Apple of Discord), known in the story The Judgment of Paris.  Much miffed at not being invited to the wedding of Peleus & Thetis, Eris tossed the golden apple in the midst of the feast of the gods at the wedding banquet, offering it as a prize to whoever was of the greatest beauty, thus sparking a vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite a squabble which ultimately triggered the Trojan War.  Eris, even more angry than usual, had inscribed kallisti (To the prettiest one) on her “wedding gift” handing it to Πάρις (Paris, AKA Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros) (Alexander), the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy) who was told to choose the goddess he found most beautiful.  Judging what turned out to be one of Greek mythology's more significant beauty contests, Paris chose Aphrodite, offending Hera and Athena, the most famous consequence of their feud being the Trojan War.  Tragedy did thereafter stalk the marriage of Peleus and Thetis; of their seven sons, the only one to survive beyond infancy was Achilles.

Friedrich Nietzsche (circa 1890), etching on wove paper by an unknown artist of the European Expressionist school, Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.  Even before he went mad, Nietzsche looked sort of deranged.

Eris wasn’t an accident of supernatural genetics but was “born that way”.  In his Theogony, the Ancient Greek poet of the seventh & eighth centuries, Hesiod, recounted how she was the goddess who gave birth to work, forgetfulness, hunger, pain, battles, fights, murders, killings, quarrels, lies, disputes, lawlessness, ruin and bad language, but spread the blame a bit in his later Works and Days, saying the source of conflict on Earth was the two different strifes: Eris the daughter of Nyx and the other a spirit of emulation, placed by Zeus within the world to engender a healthy sense of competition.  That much appealed to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) who decided “a healthy sense of competition” was the struggle for survival and supremacy between men which was the very nature of human existence and in Homer's Contest (circa 1872 and described as a preface for one of several projected or at least contemplated books) he wrote: “Without competing ambition the Hellenic State like the Hellenic man degenerates.  He becomes bad and cruel, thirsting for revenge, and godless; in short, he becomes “pre-Homeric” — and then it needs only a panic in order to bring about his fall and to crush him.”  Contemplating the Germany of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) quickly grasped Nietzsche and was soon seduced by his words.

Hitler’s opinion of his fellow man was often not high and Nietzsche’s construct of human nature resonated.  He thought envy and jealousy the foundation of Ancient Greek society, both qualities essential for effective competition to produce the dynamic in which the strong would thrive and dominate the weak: “Eris urges even the unskilled man to work, and if one who lacks property beholds another who is rich, then he hastens to sow in similar fashion and to plant and to put his house in order; the neighbor vies with the neighbor who strives after fortune.. The potter also has a grudge against the potter, and the carpenter against the carpenter; the beggar envies the beggar, and the singer the singer. Good is this Eris to men”.  More delicate types like the English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975 and born a week before Hitler) saw something very different in Hellenic civilization but for Nietzsche the lesson was conflict (competition) in all facets of life, be it athletics, art, war, rhetoric or poetry meant not only individuals reaping the material and spiritual rewards of fame & glory but the strengthening of a whole society.  Nietzsche may not have been the “Nazi” some like to suggest but his words had such appeal to them it can be hard to separate the two and the implications of his philosophy are apparent in Hitler’s domestic & foreign policy as well as the internal structures of the party, something not well understood until the post-war years.