Thumbnail

Thumbnail (pronounced thuhm-neyl)

(1) The (finger)nail of the thumb.

(2) As thumbnail sketch, anything quite small or brief, as a small drawing or short essay, a précis or summary.

(3) In printing, a small, rough dummy.

(4) In journalism, a half-column portrait in a newspaper (also called the porkchop).

(5) Something quite small or brief; concise.

(6) Concisely to describe (something or someone).

(7) In computing (on the graphical user interfaces (GUI) of operating systems), a small image used as a preview of the original which loads upon clicking the thumbnail.  Unlike an icon, which is (Usually) a representative symbol, a thumbnail is a smaller copy of the original larger image (although technically, a thumbnail can be constructed which reports a smaller file size than the original).

1595–1605: The construct was thumb + nail.  Thumb was from the Middle English thombe, thoume & thoumbe, from the Old English þūma, from the Proto-West Germanic þūmō, from the Proto-Germanic þūmô from Proto-Indo-European tūm- (to grow).  The spellings thum, thume & thumbe were still in use in the late seventeenth century but are all long obsolete.  Nail was from the Middle English nail & nayl, from the Old English næġl, from the Proto-West Germanic nagl, from the Proto-Germanic naglaz, from the primitive Indo-European hnogh- (nail).  The earliest known instance of the phrase “thumbnail sketch” in the sense of "drawing or sketch of a small size" (though usually not literally the size of a thumbnail) dates from 1852, the verb usage adopted in the 1930s.  Thumbnail is a noun & adjective; thumbnailer is a noun, thumbnailed is a verb & adjective and thumbnailing is a verb; the noun plural is thumbnails.

Fifteen images of Lindsay Lohan’s thumbnails.

The term "thumbnail sketch" began with architects, designers and artists who quickly would create small, conceptual sketches of their ideas so they could be tested without the time or effort required to render at full-scale.  While it’s possible some may literally have been the size of a actual thumbnail, most would have been larger and the term was chosen just as something indicative of “smallness”.  The practice or architects and others creating small sketches was of course ancient and may even have been associated with prehistoric cave painting but it was in the mid-nineteenth century the term “thumbnail sketch” came to be used.  The use of the thumbnail sketch (including the companion “pencil test” in graphic design) is now universal in industries where images need to be created and the techniques learned proved useful in the 1980s when icons became widely used in the on were used on graphical user interfaces (GUI) of operating systems.  In text, in the 1950s, the thumbnail sketch came to be applied to any a précis or summary and has always been prevalent in publishing and criticism (as brief plot summaries, reviews etc) and as short-form biographical data, especially when assembled in a list of those so profiled.

Thumbnail sketches of recent Australian administrations

Kevin Rudd (right) & Cardinal Pell (left), 2010.

Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013): There have been few Australian prime-ministers who entered office with such goodwill as that enjoyed by Kevin Rudd and none who have so quickly squandered it all.  Mr Rudd’s win in 2007 was a testament to his personal popularity and a reasonable achievement given that, by any standards, on paper, the previous government shouldn’t have lost office, there being no crisis, an outstandingly good fiscal position, low unemployment and no serious scandals.  Essentially, the electorate seemed bored by a decade-odd of dull competence and Mr Rudd was new, presentable and in his nerdy, weird way, appealing and thus the country voted.  His honeymoon wasn’t noticeably short but he had the misfortune to be prime-minister when the global financial crisis (GFC) hit and while for many reasons, Australia was relatively unaffected, the stresses it induced revealed tensions in his government and his background as a public servant wasn’t useful whenever decisiveness was required; long used to providing advice to others who made decisions, his government stuttered under the weight of committees and boards of enquiry.  A contrast with this intellectual timidity was his reputation for arrogance and abrasiveness when dealing with his colleagues and this didn’t help him maintain their support; he lost an internal party vote in 2010 and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) choose another leader.  In 2023, it was announced Dr Rudd would be Australia’s next ambassador to the United States and there are rumors he’s negotiated a secret, back-channel deal whereby he reports directly to the prime-minister and not, as is usual, to the foreign minister.

Julia Gillard (left) & Kevin Rudd (right), 2013.

Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013):  Julia Gillard is thus far the only woman to become Australia’s prime-minister and some of the treatment she endured in office might make a few women wonder if reaching the top of the greasy pole is worth the price to be paid.  That said, it’s still a good gig and many will try.  Metaphorically knifing her predecessor in the back meant her premiership didn’t start in the happiest of circumstances and it didn’t help and he made little attempt to conceal his thoughts on recent events.  The poison spread through the party and the healthy majority gained in 2007 was lost in the 2010 election, the Gillard government surviving only with the support of three independents, all of whom extracted their own price.  Bizarrely as it might seem to some, Rudd returned for a while as foreign minister, an unhappy experience for many.  It couldn’t last and it didn’t, Mr Rudd resigning and unsuccessfully contesting the leadership.  Still despite it all, on paper, the Gillard government managed things successfully in a tight parliament and although the actual achievements were slight, they probably exceed expectations.  Ms Gillard is probably best remembered for her “misogyny” speech which deservedly went viral because it was highly entertaining although it did reveal someone sensitive to criticism and one wonders if she’d ever reviewed some of things said about male politicians over the centuries.  It’s clearly a more sensitive age but nor did she appear to see any inconsistencies between the words spat at her and her use of “poodle” and “mincing” (with all that they imply) when decrying one of her male opponents.  As it was, Mr Rudd got his revenge, toppling her in 2013 although his victory may have seemed pyrrhic (his second coming lasting three months-odd), he was probably content.

Tony Abbott (left) & Vladimir Putin (right) with koalas, 2014.

Tony Abbott (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2013-2015): One probably disappointed that Ms Gillard was in 2013 replaced was Mr Abbott because all the indications were the Liberal-National coalition’s victory in the 2013 election would have produced a landslide-scale majority rather than the merely comfortable one achieved against Mr Rudd.  Still, the majority was sufficient for Mr Abbott easily to purse his objectives and he immediately set to reducing expenditure, cutting taxes, stopping irregular immigration (his famous “stop the boats” campaign lent three word slogans (3WS) a new popularity which endures to this day) and attacking trade unions.  He was a very different character from Mr Rudd but similarly inept in managing public perception of his government.  In his thoughts, there was a certainly of purpose Mr Rudd lacked but the core problem was that his world view seemed to have been set in stone by the Jesuits who taught him while he was training for the priesthood and while much had changed since the fourteenth century, he’d not moved on.  Thus created were the tensions which marked his government which was split between technocratic realists, right-wing fanatics, a genuinely liberal wing and his coalition partners, the National Party which was devoted to the horse trading necessary to extract the money required to pork-barrel their electorates.  Presiding over this lot as a leader with thoughts were more akin to the old Democratic Labor Party (DLP) than anything from the third millennium, it’s probably remarkable Mr Abbott lasted as long as he did.  The 2014 budget which made big cuts was blamed by many for his demise and while it’s true it was badly designed and poorly explained, it does appear Mr Abbott, while one of the most formidably focused and effective oppositions leaders, simply lacked the skills needed to be prime-minister.  In 2013, he lost an internal party ballot to the man he’d replaced in a similar vote in 2009.

Malcolm Turnbull (right) & Peter Dutton (left) roadside billboard (2016).

Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; Australian prime minister 2015-2018):  There was an unusually great public optimism which immediately surrounded Mr Turnbull’s accession to office.  So encouraging were the polls that he probably should have gone to an early election as Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957) did in 1955, thus avoiding the grinding down of energy inevitable in “fag-end” administrations.  Instead he delayed, making the same mistake as Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010) and John Gorton (1911-2002; Australian prime-minister 1968-1971) and the early support evaporated, the government surviving the 2016 election with only a slender majority.  Being from the liberal wing, Mr Turnbull really wasn’t a good fit as leader of the modern Liberal Party he’d been accepted only because he was rich, a virtue which in the party tends to mean other vices are overlooked (if not forgiven).  This allowed him sometimes to prevail but ultimately it was the corrosive and related issues of energy and an emissions reduction policy which proved his nemesis.  Even if the public didn’t fully understand the intricacies of the issue (and the especially complex mechanisms in the associated legislation), increasingly they were being persuaded by the science underlying climate change and just wanted the matter resolved.  The factions in the Liberal-National coalition had for more than a decade been torn asunder by climate policy and the divisions poisoned public perception of the government; Mr Abbott may have been wrong in how he handled the matter in 2013 but he was at least certain and decisive and was accordingly rewarded.  Support for Mr Turnbull eroded and in an amusingly chaotic leadership coup in 2018, he lost the leadership.  In retirement, he found common cause with Mr Rudd as they joined to complain about the undue influence Rupert Murdoch’s (b 1931) News Corporation exerts in Australian politics, especially the national daily The Australian which, despite a notionally small distribution, is highly effective in setting agendas, forcing other outlets to pursue News Corp's pet issues.

Scott Morrison (left) & Grace Tame (right), 2022.

Scott Morrison (b 1968; prime-minister 2018-2022): There are a few candidates who deserve to be regarded as Australia’s worst prime-minister (some of them quite recent) but the uniquely distinguishing feature of assessments of Mr Morrison’s term is that so many view it with such distaste.  His narrow victory in the 2018 election was a remarkable personal achievement but that proved the high-water mark of his administration.  Many critiques noted his lack of background, his experience limited to sales, marketing and slogans which has its place but did seem to result in him viewing a democracy rather as a sales manager views his employer’s customer loyalty programmes: Just as only good customers are entitled to the benefits of membership, in the Morrison government it seemed only electorates which returned coalition members were deserving of funding.  That did change in the run-up to an election; then marginal electorates which might elect coalition members attracted largess and while all parties do this, few have been so so blatant or extreme as Mr Morrison.  He also blundered in foreign affairs, publicly and pugnaciously calling for an international enquiry into the origins of the SARS-COV-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.  That was a good idea but it should have been handled through the usual channels, not as foghorn diplomacy and the assumption of most was he was looking forward to going to his church (one where they clap, sing, strum guitars and the preacher assures the congregation God approves of surf-skis and big TVs) and telling everyone he’d stood up to the Godless atheists in the Chinese Communist Party.  Then there was the matters like the way a submarine contract was cancelled (costing the taxpayer a few hundred million) and the “robodebt” scandal (which turned out to be unlawful) which cost an as yet uncertain millions more.  Robodebt also exposed the contrast between his attitude to poor people who might be entitled to small welfare payments and that towards corporations which benefited from COVID-19 payments intended for those suffering certain defined losses in revenue.  When it was pointed out many companies which had received millions actually increased their revenue during the pandemic, Mr Morrison made it clear they could keep the money.  Maybe poor people should become Liberal Party donors.

Thumbnails of Lindsay Lohan image files in a sub-directory.

Ultracrepidarian

Ultracrepidarian (pronounced uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uhn)

Of or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of expertise

1819: An English adaptation of the historic words sūtor, ne ultra crepidam, uttered by the Greek artist Apelles and reported by the Pliny the Elder.  Translating literally as “let the shoemaker venture no further” and sometimes cited as ne supra crepidam sūtor judicare, the translation is something like “a cobbler should stick to shoes”.  From the Latin, ultra is beyond, sūtor is cobbler and crepidam is accusative singular of crepida (from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís)) and means sandal or sole of a shoe.

Ultracrepidarianism describes the tendency among some to offer opinions and advice on matters beyond their competence.  The word entered English in 1819 when used by English literary critic and self-described “good hater”, William Hazlitt (1778–1830), in an open letter to William Gifford (1756–1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, a letter described by one critic as “one of the finest works of invective in the language” although another suggested it was "one of his more moderate castigations" a hint that though now neglected, for students of especially waspish invective, he can be entertaining.  The odd quote from him would certainly lend a varnish of erudition to trolling. 

Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion, Pliny the Elder (circa 24-79) recording the habit of the famous Greek painter Apelles (a fourth century BC contemporary of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356-323 BC), to display his work in public view, then conceal himself close by to listen to the comments of those passing.  One day, a cobbler paused and picked fault with Apelles’ rendering of shoes and the artist immediately took his brushes and pallet and touched-up the errant sandal’s straps.  Encouraged, the amateur critic then let his eye wander above the ankle and suggested how the leg might be improved but this Apelles rejected, telling him to speak only of shoes and otherwise maintain a deferential silence.  Pliny hinted the artist's words of dismissal may not have been polite.

So critics should comment only on that about which they know.  The phrase in English is usually “cobbler, stick to your last” (a last a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning “to follow a track'' hence footstep) and exists in many European languages: zapatero a tus zapatos is the Spanish, schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest the Dutch, skomager, bliv ved din læst the Danish and schuster, bleib bei deinen leisten, the German.  Pliny’s actual words were ne supra crepidam judicaret, (crepidam a sandal or the sole of a shoe), but the idea is conveyed is in several ways in Latin tags, such as Ne sutor ultra crepidam (sutor means “cobbler”, a word which survives in Scotland in the spelling souter).  The best-known version is the abbreviated tag ultra crepidam (beyond the sole), and it’s that which Hazlitt used to construct ultracrepidarian.  Crepidam is from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís) and has no link with words like decrepit or crepitation (which are from the Classical Latin crepare (to creak, rattle, or make a noise)) or crepuscular (from the Latin word for twilight); crepidarian is an adjective rare perhaps to the point of extinction meaning “pertaining to a shoemaker”.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956): Blue Poles

In 1973, when a million dollars was a still lot of money, the National Gallery of Australia, a little controversially, paid Aus$1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s Number 11, 1952, popularly known as Blue Poles since it was first exhibited in 1954, the new name reputedly chosen by the artist.  It was some years ago said to be valued at up to US$100 million but, given the last decade's increase in the money supply (among the rich who trade this stuff), that estimate may now be conservative.

Number 11 (Blue poles, 1952), Oil, enamel and aluminum paint with glass on canvas

Blue Poles emerged during Pollock’s "drip period" (1947-1950), a method which involved techniques such throwing paint at a canvas placed on the floor.  The art industry liked these (often preferring the more evocative term "action painting") and they remain his most popular works, although at this point, he abandoned the dripping and moved to his “black porings phase” a darker, simpler style which didn’t attract the same commercial interest.  He later returned to more colorful ways but his madness and alcoholism worsened.  Pollock (1912-1956) died in a drink-driving accident.

Alchemy (1947), Oil, aluminum, alkyd enamel paint with sand, pebbles, fibers, and broken wooden sticks on canvas

Although the general public remained uninterested or sceptical, there were critics, always drawn to a “troubled genius”, who praised Pollock’s work and the industry approves of any artist who (1) had the decency to die young and (2) produced stuff which can sell for millions.  New York art historian and curator Helen A Harrison (now director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Centre) is an admirer, noting the “pioneering drip technique…” which “…introduced the notion of action painting", where the canvas became the space with which the artist actively would engage”.  As a thumbnail sketch she offered:

Number 14: Gray (1948), Enamel over gesso on paper

“Reminiscent of the Surrealist notions of the subconscious and automatic painting, Pollock's abstract works cemented his reputation as the most critically championed proponent of Abstract Expressionism. His visceral engagement with emotions, thoughts and other intangibles gives his abstract imagery extraordinary immediacy, while his skillful use of fluid pigment, applied with dance-like movements and sweeping gestures that seldom actually touched the surface, broke decisively with tradition. At first sight, Pollock's vigorous method appears to create chaotic labyrinths, but upon close inspection his strong rhythmic structures become evident, revealing a fascinating complexity and deeper significance.  Far from being calculated to shock, Pollock's liquid medium was crucial to his pictorial aims.  It proved the ideal vehicle for the mercurial content that he sought to communicate 'energy and motion made visible - memories arrested in space.”

Number 13A: Arabesque (1948), Oil and enamel on canvas

Critics either less visionary or more fastidious seemed often as appalled by Pollock’s violence of technique as they were by the finished work (or “products” as some labelled the drip paintings), questioning whether any artistic skill or vision even existed, one finding them “…mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless.”  The detractors used the language of academic criticism but meant the same thing as the frequent phrase of an unimpressed public: “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”

Number 1, 1949 (1949), Enamel and metallic paint on canvas 

There have been famous responses to that but Ms Harrison's was practical, offering people the opportunity to try.  To the view that “…people thought it was arbitrary, that anyone can fling paint around”, Ms Harrison conceded it was true anybody could “fling paint around” but that was her point, anybody could, but having flung, they wouldn’t “…necessarily come up with anything.”  In 2010, she released The Jackson Pollock Box, a kit which, in addition to an introductory text, included paint brushes, drip bottles and canvases so people could do their own flinging and compare the result against a Pollock.  After that, they may agree with collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) that Pollock was “...the greatest painter since Picasso” or remain unrepentant ultracrepidarians.

Helen A Harrison, The Jackson Pollock Box (Cider Mill Press, 96pp, ISBN-10:1604331860, ISBN-13:978-1604331868).

Three photographs by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), shot for a three-page feature in Vogue (March 1951) titled American Fashion: The New Soft Look which juxtaposed Pollock’s paintings hung in New York’s Betty Parsons Gallery with the season’s haute couture by Irene and Henri Bendel.  Beaton choose the combinations of fashion and painting and probably pairing Lavender Mist (1950, left) with a short black ball gown of silk paper taffeta with large pink bow at one shoulder and an asymmetrical hooped skirt by Bendel best illustrates the value of his trained eye.

Critics and social commentators have always liked these three pages, relishing the opportunity to comment on the interplay of so many of the clashing forces of modernity: the avant-garde and fashion, production and consumption, abstraction and representation, painting and photography, autonomy and decoration, masculinity and femininity, art and commerce.  Historians of art note it too because it was the abstract expressionism of the 1940s which was both uniquely an American movement and the one which in the post-war years saw the New York supplant Paris as the centre of Western art.

Voluptuary

Voluptuary (pronounced vuh-luhp-choo-er-ee)

(1) A person devoted to the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury and sensual pleasure; a pleasure-seeker, a sensualist.

(2) Of or relating to, or characterized by preoccupation with luxury and sensual pleasure.

(3) In informal use, the bedroom.

1595–1605: From the French voluptuaire or its etymon the Late Latin voluptuārius, from the Classical Latin voluptārius (pleasure-seeker; agreeable, delightful, pleasant; sensual), from voluptās (pleasure, delight, enjoyment, satisfaction), the construct being volupt(ās) (pleasure, delight) + -ārius (the adjectival suffix).  The suffix -aris was a form of -ālis with dissimilation of -l- to -r- after roots containing an l (the alternative forms were -ālis, -ēlis, -īlis & -ūlis); it was used to form adjectives, usually from noun, indicating a relationship or a "pertaining to".  The English suffic –ary (of or pertaining to) was a back-formation from unary and similar, from the Latin adjectival suffixes -aris and -arius; appended to many words, often nouns, to make an adjective form and use was not restricted to words of Latin origin.  The Latin voluptās was from volup (with pleasure; agreeably, pleasantly, satisfactorily) (perhaps related to velle (to wish)) and ultimately from a construct of the primitive Indo-European welh- (to choose; to want) or wel (to wish; to will) + the Latin -tās (the suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being).  Voluptuary & voluptuarian are nouns & adjectives, voluptuousness, voluptuosity & volupty are nouns, voluptuous is an adjective, voluptuate is the (always rare) verb and voluptuously is an adverb; the noun plural is voluptuaries.

Upon his arrival for trial at Nuremburg (1945-1946), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), grossly overweight and drug-addicted (albeit at a very low dose) was described by one doctor as “a decayed voluptuary”.  Slimmed down and detoxed by the time he appeared in the dock, he recovered much of his earlier élan but, guilty as sin, he was sentenced to be hanged.

The words voluptuary, epicurean, hedonist, sensualist & sybarite are synonymous although conventions do seem to govern their use.  Although there’s really neither the historical nor the supporting etymology to justify how the patterns of use have evolved, there does seem a tendency to associate epicureans with a fondness for fine food (based on one minor aspect of the tradition), hedonists seem to be treated as those who seek pleasure through experiences, sybarites are indulgent materialists and sensualists are devoted to the sins of flesh while the characteristic most now associated with the voluptuary may be decadence.  That thumbnail is wholly impressionistic and for each there will be a thousand contradictory examples and in literary use the choice may be dictated as much by the cadence of the text that any sense of differences in nuance.  All share many characteristics so there’s much overlap in meaning, all relating to the pursuit of pleasure and though there may be differences in emphasis, all are used to convey the idea of excess rather than moderation, immediate gratification, and a focus on physical senses as the source of happiness.

Judgement of Paris (circa 1634), oil on oak wood by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), National Gallery, London. 

The adjective voluptuous in the late fourteenth century originally meant “of or pertaining to desires or appetites” and was from the Old French voluptueux & volumptueuse and directly from the Latin voluptuosus (full of pleasure, delightful), again from voluptas and the specific idea of “one addicted to sensual pleasure” emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, the romantic poets in the early 1800s adopting the word to convey the feeling “suggestive of sensual pleasure”, something they applied especially to their aesthetic of feminine beauty.  It was only in the twentieth century that the word “voluptuous” came to be applied to the depictions of women in Renaissance art, their figures approximating what would now be described as “plump”.  Historians of art have devoted much attention to the motif and have concluded the artists were much influenced by the statutes from Antiquity and because they regarded the sculptors of old as having been closer to the perfection of Creation, regarded their carving as representing an ideal.  Of late, rather than a polite way to say “full figured”, “voluptuous” appears to have been re-purposed to mean simply “big boobs” so “Rubenesque” (a coining from the Romantic period) is probably a better choice, given its respectable origins.  Pragmatically, the “s” is almost always dropped because the clumsy sounding Rubensesque is too hard to pronounce.

In informal use, a voluptuary is “a bedroom”.  Lindsay Lohan’s voluptuary was in 2012 featured in Bravo TV’s “Million Dollar Decorator Makeover”  It’s believed it didn’t cost that much.

Sketch

Sketch (pronounced skech)

(1) A simply or hastily executed drawing or painting, especially a preliminary one, giving the essential features without the details, later to be elaborated.

(2) A rough design, plan, or draft, as of a book.

(3) A brief or hasty outline of facts, occurrences etc.

(4) As thumbnail sketch, a piece of text which summaries someone or something.

(5) A short, usually descriptive, essay, history, or story.

(6) A short play or slight dramatic performance, as one forming part of a variety or vaudeville program; a short comedy routine (a skit).

(7) To make a sketch.

(8) To summarize, to set forth in a brief or general account.

(9) In metallurgy, to mark a piece of metal for cutting.

(10) In music, a short evocative instrumental piece, used especially with compositions for the piano.

(11) In the slang of the Irish criminal class, as “to keep (a) sketch), to maintain a lookout; to be vigilant; watch for something.

(12) In journalism, as parliamentary sketch, a newspaper article summarizing political events which attempts to make serious points in a lest than obviously serious manner (mostly UK).

(13) In category theory, a formal specification of a mathematical structure or a data type described in terms of a graph and diagrams (and cones (and cocones)) on it. It can be implemented by means of “models” (functors) which are graph homomorphisms from the formal specification to categories such that the diagrams become commutative, the cones become limiting (ie products) and the cocones become colimiting (ie sums).

1660–1670: From the Dutch schets (noun), from the Italian schizzo, from the Latin schedium (extemporaneous poem), noun use of neuter of schedius (extempore; hastily made), from the Ancient Greek σχέδιος (skhédios) (made suddenly, off-hand, unprepared), from σχεδόν (skhedón) (near, nearby), from ἔχω (ékhō) (I hold).  The German Skizze, the French esquisse & the Spanish esquicio are also from the Italian schizzo.  The related forms are the nouns sketcher & sketchiness, the adverbs sketchily & sketchingly and the adjectives sketchlike and sketchable.

Sketch became a verb in the 1660s in the sense of “present the essential facts of" and was derived from the earlier noun. This idea of a sketch as a “brief account” by 1789 had enlarged to a "short play or performance, usually comic", still maintaining the connection from art as something less than full-scale, the reference to comedy suggesting something slight rather than a serious work.  The sketch-book was first recorded in 1820.  That sense extended beyond text to art and design from 1725 when it came also to mean "draw, portray in outline and partial shading", firstly to describe simple drawings, referring later to preparatory work for more elaborate creations.  The adjective sketchy is noted from 1805, describing art “having the form or character of a sketch".  The colloquial sense of "unsubstantial, imperfect, flimsy" is from 1878, possibly to convey the sense of something "unfinished".  Adumbrate (faint sketch, imperfect representation), actually pre-dates sketch, noted first in the 1550s.  It was from the Latin adumbrationem (nominative adumbratio) (a sketch in shadow, sketch, outline).  The meaning "to overshadow" is from the 1660s at which time emerged the derived forms adumbrated and adumbrating and related forms are adumbration (noun), adumbrative (adjective) and adumbratively (adverb).

Sketches of Spain

Although not yet regarded as the landmark in jazz it would come to be in the decades which followed its release in 1959, even in 1960 Miles Davis’ (1926-1991) Kind of Blue had already created among some aficionados an expectation; realising it was something special, this was what they hoped would be the definitive Davis style and they were anxious for more.  The next release however, wasn’t indicative of what was to come, Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1960 Cat# Prestige P-7166) was the third of four albums assembled from sessions recorded long before the Kind of Blue sessions and released to fulfil contractual obligations to the independent label Prestige.  Although some purists were pleased, after Kind of Blue, the music seemed old-fashioned.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8163).

Davis had enjoyed considerable success in the 1950s but, needing the distribution and promotional network of a major label to reach a wider audience, he’d signed with Colombia (CBS internationally).  The early Colombia releases had been well received but it was the sixth, Kind of Blue, which made him a star beyond the world of jazz, the album selling in volumes unprecedented in the genre; to date, over four million copies are said to have been shipped.  Davis had been innovative before, his performance at the 1954 Newport Jazz Festival defining what had come to be called “hard bop” (a flavor of jazz influenced by other forms, especially rhythm and blues) but the appeal extended little beyond already established audiences.  What made Kind of Blue so significant was that Davis essentially created modal jazz which shifted the technique from one where the players worked within a set chord progression to soloists creating melodies using modes which could be deployed alone or in multiples.  Musicians explain the significance of this as a movement to the horizontal (the scale) rather than the traditional vertical (the chord).  In the somewhat insular world of jazz, that would anyway have been interesting but the sound captivated those beyond and was a landmark in what would come to be known as musical fusion, the cross-fertilisation of sound and technique.  Among composers, fusion was nothing new but Kind of Blue realised its implications in a tight, seductive package.

Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain, (1959, Columbia, Cat# CS 8271).

Sketches of Spain too was a fusion but it was different to what had come before and no attempt to be Kind of Blue II.  For one thing, the sound was big, recorded in the famously cavernous converted church in Manhattan which for decades was Colombia’s recording studio.  Lined with old timber and with a ceiling which stretched 100 feet (30 m) high, technicians called it the “temple of sound” because of the extraordinary acoustic properties.  The ensemble too was big, a necessity because this time the fusion was with the orchestral, the long opening track an arrangement by Davis and Gil Evans (1912-1988) of the adagio movement of Joaquín Rodrigo’s (1901-1999) guitar concerto, Concierto de Aranjuez.  Such was the extent of the fusion there were traditionalists who doubted Sketches of Spain could still be called jazz; they saluted the virtuosity but seemed to miss the sometimes arcane complexities in construction inaccessible except to the knowing few.

Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (1970, CBS, Cat# S 66236).

A wider world however was entranced and technical progress needs also to be noted.  Colombia had recorded Davis before in the then still novel stereo but even fans acknowledged the mono pressings remained superior and it wasn’t until 1960, after extensive testing and the refinement of equipment that the technique had been perfected.  Sketches of Spain was lush or austere as the moment demanded, listeners new to stereo especially enchanted at being able to hear the sounds hanging in a three-dimensional space, each instrument a distinct object in time and place.  Nobody asked for mono after that.  Influential as it was, to Davis, Sketches of Spain was just another phase.  Ten years later, noting the increasing sparse audiences in jazz clubs and aware a new generation had different sensibilities, Davis would fuse with other, more recent traditions and Bitches Brew would cast his shadow over a new decade.

Six photographs of Lindsay Lohan, rendered in software as pencil sketches.

Transmogrify

Transmogrify (pronounced trans-mog-ruh-fahy)

To change in appearance or form, especially strangely or grotesquely; transform.

1650–1660: A seventeenth century creation of uncertain origin but most etymologists list it as a portmanteau of transfigure and modify in the spirit of the earlier transmigrify and transmography.  It was a probably a jocular invention rather than a mistake, a type of pseudo-Latinism which, in the nineteenth century would come to be known as “barracks Latin” or “dormitory Latin” because soldiers and schoolboys were often the authors of such coinings although transmogrify may have come from the pseudo-scientific lexicon of the alchemists.  There have been alternative theories however and some serious-minded scholars did suggest a word formation derived from maugre (in the sense of the archaic meaning of “spite or ill will”), hence it originally signified the "evil eye" which, under the influence of the former etymologies, shifted its meaning to its sense of "transformation" but the view has never enjoyed much support.  There was also the notion of some link with transmigure or transmigrate but it’s thought most likely these forms merely were thought to lend transmogrify with some sense of legitimacy, the latter especially because in the seventeenth century it was used in the sense of souls passing into other bodies after death.  One derivation which didn’t survive was the noun transmography which, after enjoying some currency in the seventeen & eighteenth centuries, went extinct.  Transmogrify & transmogrifying are verbs, transmogrifier transmogrification are nouns and transmogrified is a verb & adjective; the most common noun plural is transmogrifications.

For centuries, many among the etymologically fastidious condemned "transmogrify" as wholly fake, the august Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) dismissing it as a "long & ludicrous" creation among his collection of "facetious formations" but it's now a more tolerant age and the word seems widely accepted although many dictionaries still note the use is: "often jocular".  Justice Peter Hamill is a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (NSW) and according to his thumbnail sketch on the website of The Law Society of NSW: "His Honour is known for his unique catchwords…"  Among his judicial colleagues he's said to be called the "Shakespeare of catchwords" and in a recent case lent "transmogrify" the respectability of his imprimatur from the bench: “A lot could be said about this young man and his transmogrification from a shy, quiet, intelligent middle child of a conservative, hardworking family to a notorious killer and gangster” Justice Hamill wrote in his judgment.

Lindsay Lohan over the years 2004-2009-2022: Transmogrifications for better and worse.

So, despite the dubious origins, in English, "transmogrify" is now a real word, though rare.  Many sources note the whimsy but it has a history in literature and popular culture dating back centuries.  Dictionaries (and even the odd style–guide) sound the cautionary note that the usual use is something like “to transform or change in a grotesque way” so it need to be used carefully but in genre literature like fantasy and science fiction (SF), it often describes magical or supernatural transformations.  Generally though, it can be used of any kind of radical, unfortunate or unexpected change.

The transmogrifications of the early 1970s, from top: BMW 2002, MGC & MGB, Mercedes-Benz W116 & Ford Pinto.  These were known as the “battering ram years” and while some were worse than others, there were few aesthetic successes in the attempts to conform with the new bumper bar laws.

In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) first introduced federal regulations for bumper-bar standards in 1971.  They required that all passenger cars manufactured on or after 1 September 1972 (1 September was the traditional start date for the next model year) be equipped with front and rear bumpers which met certain criteria in relation to impacts at certain speeds.  The primary purpose was to reduce the damage vehicles suffered in the frequent low collisions which were such a cost to the insurance industry.  The rules, although badly written, were strengthened during the 1970s and weren’t relaxed until Ronald Reagan’s (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989) administration embarked on a process designed to reduce the regulatory burdens on industry.

Bonk

Bonk (pronounced bongk)

(1) A bump on the head (usually not severe).

(2) To hit, strike, collide etc; any minor collision or blow.

(3) In slang, a brief intimacy between two people, usually with a suggestion of infidelity; often modified with the adjective quick and only ever used where the act is consensual (less common in North America).

(4) In sports medicine, a condition of sudden, severe fatigue in an endurance sports event, typically induced by glycogen depletion (also in the phrase “hit the wall”).

(5) In snowboarding, to hit something with the front of the board, especially in midair.

(6) In zoology, an animal call resembling "bonk" (such as the call of the pobblebonk (any of various Australian frogs of the genus Limnodynastes)).

1931: A creation of Modern English, the origin remains uncertain but most suspect it was likely imitative of sounds of impact (like bong, bump, bounce or bang) and thus onomatopoetic.  As a slang term for an affaire de coeur, use was first noted in 1975 and has always, depending on context, carried an implication of something illicit or quickly done; purely recreational though always consensual.  The use in sports medicine describing the condition of glycogen depletion references a metaphorical impact as in “hitting the wall”, the first known use in 1952 in endurance sports medicine.  Bonkee, as a descriptor for a "woman of loose virtue", appears to have been a 2014 creation which never caught on which is a shame because there are all sorts of cases where the companion terms "bonker" & "bonkee" might have been handy .  The form "bonkers", referring to the deranged, dated from circa 1957 and was apparently unrelated to the earlier naval slang for “drunk” but alluded rather to what could be the the consequence of a “bonk on the head”.  The third-person singular simple present is bonks, the present participle, bonking and the simple past and past participle, bonked.  Bonk & bonking are nouns & verbs, bonker is a noun, bonky is an adjective, bonked is a verb and bonkers is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bonks.

Bonkers: "Last Call" 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 in "plum crazy" (one of the retro colors which reprised those used by Chrysler in the "psychedelic era" of the late 1960s).  3300 were produced, many of which are now being advertised for sale at well above the RRP (recommended retail price).

The Demon 170 was released as part of Dodge’s “Last Call” programme which marked the end of the corporation's run of high-performance V8s, a tradition dating from the early 1950s.  Offered in a bewildering array of configurations in a process which was something like Nellie Melba's (1861-1931) "farewell" tours, the SRT Demon 170 was the most bonkers of a generally bonkers lot.  Rated at 1,025 hp (764 kW), the factory claimed it could accelerate from 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 1.66 seconds with an elapsed time in the standing ¼ mile (400 metres for those who insist) of 8.91 seconds (terminal speed 151 mph (243 km/h)), setting the mark as the worlds quickest ever standard production car, a reasonable achievement for something weighing 4275 lbs (1939 kg).  By world standards it was also very cheap and on the basis of cost-breakdown vs performance, there was nothing like it on the planet.  In British (and other English-speaking regions although rare in the US) use, "bonkers" can and often is used in an entirely non-pejorative way to suggest something or someone verging on the irrational but in some way astonishing, admirable or inspiring.  Road cars with 600+ horsepower V8 & V12 engines are of course bonkers but we'll miss them when they're gone and it would seem the end is nigh.  Greta Thunberg (b 2003) has expressed no regret at the extinction of this species.  

Bonking Boris

Hand-turned fish bonkers on sale in Jaffray, a village in the south-western Canadian province of British Columbia (left) and the front page of The Sun (7 September 2018; right), a tabloid which rarely lets an alliterative opportunity pass by.  

The noun bonker is (1) a short, blunt hardwood club used by fishers efficiently to dispatch (ie bonking them dead) just-caught fish and (2) according to The Sun, the adulterous Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022).  A bonk by Boris or the club and a not wholly dissimilar outcome ensues; a one-time employer called bonking Boris "ineffably duplicitous" and the estranged (now former) Mrs Johnson presumably agreed.  At the time, the former prime minister had "a bit of previous" in extra-marital bonking and when this one was announced, it was with an alliterative flourish not seen since the headline “BORIS BACKS BREXIT”.  His resignation from Theresa May's (Lady May, b 1956; UK prime-minister 2016-2019) government was unrelated to bonking (as far as is known) and came, in July 2018, three days after a cabinet meeting at Chequers (the prime-minister's country house), where agreement was reached on Mrs's May’s Brexit strategy, a document compromised by the need to make a nonsensical impossibility look like good policy.  That can be done but it requires rare skill to be in Downing Street and it's been some time since that could be said. 

Freed by his resignation from the burdens of the Foreign Office, bonking Boris was clearly unconcerned at rumors his opponents in the party were assembling a dossier of some four-thousand words detailing his cheating ways, fondness for cocaine and failings of character and turned his attention to a campaign for the Tory leadership.  As wonderfully unpredictable as the politics of the time were fluid, nobody was quite sure whether he’d go into the inevitable election or second referendum as "leave" or "remain"; it would depend on this and that.  In the end, he remained a leaver and things worked out well, his election victory meaning that for one, brief, shining moment, the three world leaders with the most outstanding hair, all had nuclear weapons at the same time.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; left), Boris Johnson (centre) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011; right)

Some hairstyles are more amenable than others to a quick post-bonk rectification.  Kim Jong-un's cut is probably quite good and would bounce back from a bonk with little more than a run-through with the fingers.  Donald Trump  however would likely need both tools and product for a post-bonk fix.  Mr Trump usually appears well-fixed unless disturbed by breezes any higher than 2 on the Beaufort scale and even a perfunctory bonk is probably equal to at least 4 on the scale so it would have been interesting to see if Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Gregory, b 1979) lived up to her (stage) name although Mr Trump has denied that bonk ever happened.  Mr Johnson's hair so often looks post-bonk that either his conquests are more frequent even than has been rumored or he asks for a JBF with every cut.  One UK publication suggested exactly that, hinting his instruction was "not one hair in place".  That has the advantage for Mr Johnson in that it's a style essentially the same pre-bonk, mid-bonk and post-bonk and thus pricelessly ambiguous in that merely by looking at him, one couldn't tell if he was going to or coming from a bonk although, one assumes, whichever it was, a bonk would never be far from his mind.  Whatever the criticisms of Mr Johnson's premiership (and there were a few), it's to his eternal credit that in his resignation honours list Ms Kelly Jo Dodge (for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser) was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "parliamentary service".  In those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Mr Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style.  Few honours have been so well deserved.

A bandaged Lindsay Lohan waking dazed and confused after a bonk on the head in Falling for Christmas (2022; left) and on the move in Irish Wish (2024).   

In May 2021, Netflix & Lindsay Lohan executed what became a three movie deal, the first (Falling for Christmas) released in the northern winter of 2022, just in time for the season.  She played the protagonist, a pampered heiress who loses her memory after suffering a bonk on the head, waking up to a new life.  The second Netflix release opens in February 2024 and in Irish Wish, the plotline involves her spontaneously wishing for something, subsequently waking up to find the wish granted.  So it’s a variation on the theme of the first (though without the bonk on the head), the twist being in the theme of “be careful what you wish for”.

Bonking Barnaby and the bonk ban

Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018), a student of etymology, was as fond as those at The Sun of alliteration and when writing his memoir (A Bigger Picture (2020)) he included a short chapter entitled "Barnaby and the bonk ban".  As well as the events which lent the text it's title, the chapter was memorable for his inclusion of perhaps the most vivid thumbnail sketch of Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) yet penned:

"Barnaby is a complex, intense, furious personality.  Red-faced, in full flight he gives the impression he's about to explode.  He's highly intelligent, often good-humoured but also has a dark and almost menacing side - not unlike Abbott (Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015)) - that seems to indicate he wrestles with inner troubles and torments."

Mr Turnbull and Mr Joyce in parliament, House of Representatives, Canberra, ACT.

The substantive matter was the revelation in mid-2017 the press had become aware Mr Joyce (a married man with four daughters) was (1) conducting an affair with a member of his staff and (2) that the young lady was with child.  Mr Turnbull recorded that when asked, Mr Joyce denied both "rumors", which does sound like a lie but in the narrow sense may have verged on "the not wholly implausible" on the basis that, as he pointed out in a later television interview, the question of paternity was at the time “...a bit of a grey area”.  Mr Joyce and his mistress later married and now have two children so all's well that end's well (at least for them) and Mr Turnbull didn't so much shut the gate after the horse had bolted as install inter-connecting doors in the stables.  His amendments to the Australian Ministerial Code of Conduct (an accommodating document very much in the spirit of Lord Castlereagh's (1769–1822; UK foreign secretary 1812-1822) critique of the Holy Alliance) banned ministers from bonking their staff which sounds uncontroversial but was silent on them bonking the staff of the minister in the office down the corridor.  So the net effect was probably positive in that staff having affairs with their ministerial boss would gain experience through cross-exposure to other portfolio areas although there's the obvious moral hazard in that they might be tempted to conduct trysts just to engineer a transfer in the hope of career advancement.  There are worse reasons for having an affair and a bonk for a new job seems a small price to pay.  It's been done before.