Vernacular

Vernacular (pronounced vuh-nak- yuh-ler (U) or ver-nak-yuh-ler (Non-U))

(1) In linguistics, the dialect of the native or indigenous people as opposed to that of those (in Western terms) the literary or learned; the native speech or language of a place; the language of a people or a national language.

(2) In literature, expressed or written in the native language of a place, as literary works.

(3) Using, of or related to such language.

(4) Plain, everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.

(5) In architecture, a style of architecture exemplifying the commonest techniques, decorative features, and materials of a particular historical period, region, or group of people.

(6) Noting or pertaining to the common name for a plant or animal, as distinguished from its Latin scientific name.

(7) The language or vocabulary peculiar to a class or profession.

(8) Any medium or mode of expression that reflects popular taste or indigenous styles.

(9) In linguistic anthropology, language lacking standardization or a written form.

1599: From the Latin vernāculus (household, domestic, indigenous, of or pertaining to home-born slaves), a diminutive of verna (a native; a home-born slave (slave born in the master's household)) although etymologists note the lack of evidence to support this derivation, verna of Etruscan origin. Now used in English almost always in the sense of Latin vernacula vocabula, in reference to language, the noun sense “native speech or language of a place” dating from 1706.  In technical use, linguistic anthropologists use neo-vernacular and unvernacular while in medicine, epidemiologists distinguish vernacular diseases (restricted to a defined group) from those induced by external influences.  There are also variations within the vernacular, concepts like “street vernacular” or “mountain vernacular” used to differentiate sub-sets of native languages, based on geography or some demographic; in this the idea is similar to expressions like jargon, argot, dialect or slang.  Vernacular is a noun & adjective, vernacularism & vernacularist are nouns and vernacularly is an adverb; the noun plural is vernaculars.

Cannabis (known also as marijuana) is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, Cannabis ruderalis).  In the vernacular it's "weed" or any one of literally hundreds of other terms.

Vernacular and other Latin

In the intricate world of linguistics, there are many types of Latin, many of them technical differentiations between the historic later variations (Medieval Latin; New Latin, Enlightenment Latin) from what is (a little misleadingly) called Classical Latin (or just “Latin”) but there was also a Latin vernacular referred to as vulgar Latin, one of many forks:

Vulgar Latin (also as popular Latin or colloquial Latin) was the spectrum of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward and the what over centuries evolved into a number of Romance languages.  It was the common speech of the ancient Romans, which is distinguished from standard literary Latin and is the ancestor of the Romance languages.

Dog Latin (also as bog Latin (ie “toilet humor”)): Bad, erroneous pseudo-Latin, often amusing constructions designed to resemble the appearance and especially the sound of Latin, many of which were coined by students in English schools & universities.  The “joke names” used in Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) (Sillius Soddus, Biggus Dickus & Nortius Maximus) are examples of dog Latin.

Pig Latin: A type of wordplay in which (English) words are altered by moving the leading phonetic of a word to the end and appending -ay, except when the word begins with a vowel, in which case "-way" is suffixed with no leading phonetic change.

Apothecary's Latin: Latin as it was supposed spoken by a barbarian, reflecting the (probably not wholly unjustified) prejudices of the educated at the pretentions of tradesmen and shopkeepers.

Legal Latin: Latin phrases or terms used as a shorthand encapsulation of legal doctrines, rules, precepts and concepts).

Medical Latin: This evolved into a (more or less) standardized list of medical abbreviations, based on the Latin originals and used as a specific technical shorthand.

Barracks Latin: (pseudo Latin on the lines of dog Latin but usually with some military flavor, often noted for a tendency to vulgarity).

Ecclesiastical Latin: (also as Church Latin or Liturgical Latin), a fork of Latin developed in late Antiquity to suit the particular discussions of Christianity and still used in Christian liturgy, theology, and church administration (events in 2013 confirming that papal resignations are written and delivered in ecclesiastical Latin).  Technically, it’s a fork of Classical Latin but includes words from Vulgar & Medieval Latin as well as from Greek and Hebrew, sometimes re-purposed with meanings specific to Christianity (and sometimes just the Church of Rome).

The idea of the difference is best remembered in the example of the Vulgate Bible, the Latin translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek made by Saint Jerome (circa 345-420), the details of his interpretations (which tended to favor the role of the institutional church rather than the personal relationship between Christ and individual Christian) for centuries the source of squabble schism.  Vulgate was from the Latin vulgāta, feminine singular of vulgātus (broadcast, published, having been made known among the people; made common; prostituted, having been made common), perfect passive participle of vulgō (broadcast, make known).  When after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965), it was decided to permit the celebration of the mass in local languages rather than ecclesiastical Latin, such use was said to be “in the vernacular”.

Under the Raj: three marquises, three viceroys; Lords Lytton (left), Rippon (centre) and Lansdowne (right).  Upon leaving office, UK prime-ministers were usually granted an earldom but viceroys of India were created Marquises, a notch higher in the peerage.

Under the Raj, there were many vernacular languages; indeed, never did the colonial administrators determine just how many existed, all the fascinated dons giving up after counting hundreds and finding yet more existed.  One difficulty this did present was that it was hard to monitor (and if need be censor) all the criticism which might appear in non-English language publications and, because at the core of the British Empire was racism, violence and rapacious theft of other peoples’ lands and wealth, criticism was not uncommon.  In an attempt to suppress these undercurrents of dissatisfaction, the viceroy (Lord Lytton, 1831–1891; Viceroy of India 1876-1880) imposed the Vernacular Press Act (1878), modelled on earlier Irish legislation, the origins of the word in the Latin verna (a slave born in the master's household) not lost on Western-educated Indians.  Not content with mere suppression, Lord Lytton also created an operation to feed to the press what he wanted printed, using bribery where required.  Fake news was soon a part of these feeds and some historians have suggested the act probably stimulated more resentment than it contained.  In 1881, Lytton’s successor (Lord Rippon, 1827–1909; Viceroy of India 1880-1884) withdrew the act but the damage was done.  The legislative reforms of the viceroys of India varied in intent and consequence.  Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927; Viceroy of India 1888-1894) enacted the Age of Consent Act (1891), raising the age of consent for sexual intercourse for girls (married or unmarried), from ten to twelve, any violation an offence of statutory rape.  Those who like to defend what they claim was the civilizing mission of empire sometimes like to cite this but seem never to dwell on the marriage age for girls in England being twelve as late as 1929.

Vulgar

Vulgar (pronounced vuhl-ger)

(1) Characterized by ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste.

(2) Indecent; obscene; lewd, ribald.

(3) Crude, coarse; unrefined, boorish, rude.

(4) As, the vulgar masses, of, relating to, or constituting the ordinary people in a society (mostly archaic).

(5) Current; popular; common; crude; coarse; unrefined.

(6) As the vulgar tongue, spoken by, or being in the language spoken by, the people generally; the vernacular; colloquial speech (mostly archaic).

(7) Lacking in distinction, aesthetic value, or charm; banal; ordinary.

(8) Denoting a form of a language (applied most often to Latin), current among common people, used especially at a period when the formal language is has become archaic and no longer general spoken use (often with initial capital; usually pre-nominal).

(9) In mathematics, a representation of a fractional number based on ordinary or everyday arithmetic as opposed to decimal fractions.  It refers to one in which two whole numbers (the numerator and denominator) are placed above and below a horizontal line (neither can be zero).  Vulgar fractions are also described as common or simple fractions.  Now rare, in US English, the term vulgar faction is obsolete.

1350-1400: From the early Modern English vulgare, from the vulgāris (belonging to the multitude), from volgus & vulgus (mob; common folk), from the Sanskrit vargah (division, group), from the primitive Indo-European wl̥k.  The construct of vulgāris was vulg(us) + -āris (the suffix a form of -ālis, used to form an adjective, usually from a noun, indicating a relationship or a pertaining to).  As an example of the forks of the root, related European words included the Welsh gwala (plenty, sufficiency), the Ancient Greek ἁλία (halía) (assembly), eilein (to press, throng) & εἰλέω (eiléō) (to compress) and the Old Church Slavonic великъ (velikŭ) (great).  The meaning coarse, low, ill-bred was first recorded in the 1640s, probably from earlier use meaning people belonging to the ordinary class dating from the 1530s.  The derived negative forms such as unvulgar and unvulgarly do exist but are rare to the point of being probably obsolete.  When used in disapprobation, the synonyms include boorish, naughty, tawdry, profane, tasteless, ribald, off-color, disgusting, obscene, impolite, suggestive, indecent, crude, scatological, nasty, filthy & coarse.  As applied to linguists, they include conversational, colloquial, vernacular & folk.  In mathematics, they are common (and most frequently), simple.

Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin or Sermo Vulgaris (common speech) is a generic term for the non-standard (as opposed to classical) sociolects of Latin from which the Romance languages developed.  It’s said the works written in Latin during classical times almost always used Classical rather than Vulgar Latin and while that is certainly true of what has survived, the literal volume of ephemeral material written in the vernacular is unknown.  Vulgar Latin was used by inhabitants of the Roman Empire and subsequently became a technical term from Latin and Romance-language philology referring to the unwritten varieties of a Latinised language spoken mainly by Italo-Celtic populations governed by the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.  Traces appear in some inscriptions, such as graffiti or advertisements but almost certainly the educated population mainly responsible for Classical Latin would also have spoken Vulgar Latin in certain contexts irrespective of their socio-economic background.  In that, things were probably little different then than now, educated people using at least some of the phraseology of the less well-spoken, even if only ironically.

Campaign buttons used in the 1964 US presidential campaign: Republican Party  (left) and Democrat Party (right).  It wouldn't be for many decades that the red would be standardized as the color of the Republicans and blue for the Democrats (as the result of a somewhat random allocation of colors by the television networks when illustrating results with charts and other graphics.

It shouldn’t be confused with "barracks Latin" (originally a casual description of the "rough" language of soldiers and others compared with "polite, educated Latin" of the Roman elite) which is the rendering, with humorous intent, of common English phrases into something which sounds as though it might be Latin.  One of the Monty Python films used the barracks Latin names Sillius Soddus and Biggus Dickus and the best known is Illegitimi non carborundum, an aphorism translating as "don't let the bastards grind you down".  First recorded among soldiers during World War II (1939-1945), an association from which it gained the "barracks" label (although it's not clear in which branch of the military it originated nor even if the coiners were British or American).  It caught on and was famously popularized by Republican candidate Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) during his disastrous 1964 presidential campaign.  Despite the Kennedy assassination, those who voted (and there were many who were prevented from exercising that constitutional right) in the 1964 election represented the United States in the era during which prosperity and optimism were were more widely distributed than at any point in its history.  Vietnam, Watergate, malaise and trickle-down economics would follow.  In the 1964 election, Goldwater lost to President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US President 1963-1969) in one of the biggest landslides in US electoral history.  It was also one of the more polarized campaigns and the electorate responded better to Johnson's "building a great society" than Goldwater's "fear and loathing" although such were the atmospherics that it's now remembered more as "crooked old Lyndon vs crazy old Barry".  

Goldwater hung in his office a sign reminding him of his dictum although his used an embellished barracks Latin: Noli permittere Illegitimatis carborundum (Never let the bastards grind you down).  He always denied being a Freemason and admitted membership only of a fraternal organization known as the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

Although an avowed conservative (with at least some of what that implies), he wasn't above using vulgar English if he thought there was a point to be made.  When told Johnson aide Walter Jenkins (1918–1985)  had been arrested in a YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) toilet in the act of "performing an indecency upon another man", although he declined to use the event to attack the Democrats (some suggesting he had no wish to provoke the Republicans into probing for evidence of homosexuality among his staff), in "off the record" comments to journalists he would complain: "What a way to win an election, communists and cocksuckers".  As it would transpire, others in rge Republican machine didn't share Goldwater's reticence and tried to use the arrest as a smear against the administration but the general public reaction was more amused than outraged.  Jenkins paid a US$50 fine for "disorderly conduct".

In the election, Goldwater did however win five states in the South, the best result by a Republican in the region since the reconstruction-era after the US Civil War (1861-1865), a harbinger of the shift in political alignment which would transform the South from a Democratic stronghold (the so-called “Solid South”) into a bastion of Republican strength.  There were many reasons for this and it may be some of them were probably more significant than Goldwater's uncompromising positions on economics and his staunch anti-communism.  Nevertheless, his mystique among American conservatives remains based on the legend of him being the intellectual trailblazer for the “Regan Revolution” and the transformation of the Republican party from a centrist aggregation of the north-eastern establishment into a collective of regional and sectional pressure groups, the factionalism prone to unleashing the forces of extremism which now contest for control.  After Ronald Reagan’s (1911–2004; US President 1981-1989) victory in 1980, one Washington Post columnist noted the feeling of those who had voted for Goldwater in 1964 being one of vindication, regretting only it had taken “…sixteen years to count the votes".

The vulgar, indecent, obscene, lewd & ribald

Although the technical uses in mathematics and the categorization of Latin strains are long established, the best known and most common use of “vulgar” is to describe things considered indecent, obscene, lewd or ribald.  Given the habits and tastes of men, there’s little shortage of such material thus to be described but shifts in public perception and tolerance means vulgarity is a moving target and there is certainly no consensus, opinions varying not only between but within regions, class, generations and probably just about any segmentation of society yet devised.  The unifying factor though is usually anything involving sex or any conventionally sexualized body parts (such as the foot fetishists free to indulge most aspects of their hobby).  Although in recent decades there’s been something of a retreat, this remains a permissive age as regards what were once considered vulgarities.

Vulgarity remains in the eye of the beholder.

So, something vulgar can sometimes be judged an obscenity and is often lewd or ribald but not of necessity indecent.  The linguistic tussle is because the words “obscene” and “indecent” appear sometimes in legislation and something so defined can even attract criminal sanction whereas anything lewd is subject merely to social disapprobation while ribald carries the connotation of “humorously vulgar”.  Standards shift (and sometimes are nudged along by this force or that) and it is almost always a subjective judgement as Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) explained in his famous concurring judgement in Jacobellis v Ohio (378 U.S. 184 (1964)): "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within [the shorthand description “hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…

That may have been what prosecuting counsel Mervyn Griffith-Jones (1909-1979) had in mind when in R v Penguin Books Ltd ((1961) Crim LR 176) he asked the jury to consider whether DH Lawrence’s (1885–1930) novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) was too obscene to be read by the British, alleging it “…induced lustful thoughts in the minds of those who read it” and begging them to ponder “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?”.  There was a time when an English jury might have allowed themselves to be told by one of their “betters” what they should be permitted to read but those days were done and the jury (more likely to be servants than masters) had decided they would decide which vulgarities they would tolerate.

Hood

Hood (pronounced hood)

(1) A soft or flexible covering for the head and neck, either separate or attached to a cloak, coat and similar garments.

(2) Something resembling or suggestive of such a covering (especially in shape) and used in botany to describe certain petals or sepals.

(3) In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence, the (usually) hinged, movable part of an automobile body covering the engine (the bonnet in the UK and most of the old British Empire).  Despite geographical spread, the phrase “under the hood” is now close to universal, referring to (1) the engine of an automobile & (2) by extension, the inner workings or technical aspects of anything (a computer’s specifications etc).

(4) In the UK and most of the old British Empire, the roof of a carriage or automobile, able to be lowered or removed (ie on a convertible, cabriolet, roadster, drophead coupé (DHC) et al).  In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence such things tend variously to be called soft-tops or convertible tops.

(5) A metal cover or canopy for a stove, fitted usually with a ventilation system (a flue or extractor fan).

(6) In falconry, a cover for the entire head of a hawk or other bird, used when not in pursuit of game.

(7) On academic gowns, judicial robes etc, an ornamental ruffle or fold on the back of the shoulders (in ecclesiastical garments, and in cults such as the Freemasons, also used as a mark of one’s place in the hierarchy).

(8) In nautical use, as hooding ends, one of the endmost planks (or, one of the ends of the planks) in a ship’s bottom at bow or stern which fits into the stem and sternpost rabbets.  When fitted into a rabbet, these resemble a hood (covering).

(9) In zoology, a crest or band of color on the head of certain birds and other animals (such as the fold of skin on the head of a cobra, that covers or appears to cover the head or some similar part).

(10) In anatomy (the human hand), over the extensor digitorum, an expansion of the extensor tendon over the metacarpophalangeal joint (the extensor hood (dorsal hood or lateral hood).

(11) In colloquial use in palaeontology, the osseous or cartilaginous marginal extension behind the back of many dinosaurs (also known as the “frill”).

(12) As the suffix –hood, a native English suffix denoting state, condition, character, nature, etc, or a body of persons of a particular character or class, formerly used in the formation of nouns: childhood; likelihood; knighthood; priesthood and of lad appended as required (Twitterhood, Instahood etc, subsets of Twitterverse & Instaverse respectively).

(13) In slang, a clipping of hoodlum.

(14) In slang, a clipping of neighborhood, especially an urban neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socioeconomic status (a part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and adopted also by LatinX) although use in these communities does now transcend economic status.

(15) To furnish with or fit a hood; to cover with or as if with a hood.

(16) In medieval armor, a range of protective cloakings or coverings

Pre 900: From the Middle English hode, hod, hude, hudde & hoode (hoodes apparently the most common plural), from the Old English hōd, from the Proto-Germanic hōdaz, (related to the Old High German huot (hat), the Middle Dutch hoet and the Latin cassis helmet) and cognate with the Saterland Frisian Houd, the Old Frisian hōde, the West Frisian & Dutch hoed, the Proto-Iranian xawdaH (hat), the German Low German Hood and the German Hut (hat).  The Old English hād was cognate with German –heit and was a special use used to convey qualities such as order, quality, rank (the sense surviving academic, judicial & ecclesiastical garments).  The ultimate source is uncertain but most etymologists seem to support the primitive Indo-European kad & kadh (to cover).  Hood is modified as required (chemical hood, clitoral hood, un-hood, de-hood, fume hood, hood-shy, hood unit, hoodwink, range hood, riding hood etc) and something thought hood-shaped is sometimes described as cuculliform.  Hood is a noun & verb, hooded & hooding are verbs, hoodless hoodesque & hoodlike are adjectives; the noun plural is hoods.

Hooded: Lindsay Lohan in hoodie, JFK Airport, New York City, NYC April 2013. The bag is a Goyard Saint Louis Tote (coated canvas in black).

Hood as clipping of hoodlum (gangster, thug, criminal etc) dates from the late 1920s and would influence the later use of “hoodie” as a slur to refer to those wearing the garment of the same name, the inference being it was worn with nefarious intent (concealing identity, hiding from CCTV etc.  Hood as a clipping of neighborhood (originally especially an urban (inner-city) neighborhood inhabited predominantly by African Americans of low socio-economic status) dates from circa 1965 and became part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and was adopted also by LatinX) although use in all communities does now transcend economic status.  It was an alternative to ghetto (a word with a very different tradition) and encapsulated both the negative (crime, violence, poverty) & positive (group identity, sense of community) aspects of the low-income inner city experience.  Although a part of AAVE, it never formed part of Ebonics because its meaning was obvious and, to an extent, integrated into general US vernacular English.  The phrase “all good in the hood” is an example of the use of the clipping.

Blu-Ray & DVD package art for Red Riding Hood (2006).  In US use, "alternate" seems to have been accepted as a synonym for "alternative".  Few seem to mind.

The verb hood in the sense of “to put a hood” & “to furnish with a hood” on dates from circa 1400 while although hooded & hooding aren’t attested until decades later, it’s possible the use emerged at much the same time.  The Old English hod was typically "a soft covering for the head" which extended usually over the back of the neck but only in some cases did it (permanently or ad-hoc) attach to some other garment.  The modern spelling emerged early in the fifteenth century and indicated a “long vowel” although that pronunciation is long extinct.  The word was picked up in medicine, botany & zoology in the seventeenth century while the use to describe the “foldable or removable covers on a carriage which protects the occupants from the elements” was documented since 1826 and that was used in a similar context by the manufacturers of prams and baby-carriages by at least 1866.  The meaning “hinged cover for an automobile engine” was in use in the US by 1905 while across the Atlantic, the British stuck to “bonnet”.  The fairy tale (some read it as a cautionary tale) Little Red Riding Hood (1729) was a translation of Charles Perrault's (1628-1703) Petit Chaperon Rouge which appeared in his book Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Tales from Past Times (1697)).

The suffix -hood (a word-forming element meaning “state or condition of being”) was an evolution of the Old English -had (condition, quality, position) which was used to construct forms such as cildhad (childhood), preosthad (priesthood) & werhad (manhood); it was cognate with German –heit & -keit, the Dutch -heid, the Old Frisian & Old Saxon -hed, all from the Proto-Germanic haidus (manner, quality (literally “bright appearance”, from the primitive Indo-European skai & kai- (bright, shining) which was cognate with the Sanskrit ketu (brightness, appearance).  It was originally a free-standing word but in Modern English survives only in this suffix.

HMS Hood in March 1924.  The last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy, it was 860 feet (262 metres) in length, displaced 47,000 tons and had a main armament of eight 15 inch (380 mm) guns.

HMS Hood (1918-1941) was a Royal Navy battlecruiser named after Admiral Samuel Hood, first Viscount (1724–1816), one of five admirals the family would provide.  Although the Battle of Jutland (1916) had exposed the inherent limitations of the battlecruiser concept and the particular flaws in the British designs, the building of the Hood anyway continued and the revisions made in the light of the Jutland experience in some way exacerbated the ship’s problems; weight was added without fully affording the additional protection required.  The Admiralty was aware of this and of the four battlecruisers of her class planned, Hood was the only one completed as the Navy embarked on a re-design but the naval disarmament agreed between the major powers in the aftermath of World War I (1914-1918) meant none were built (indeed no navy would launch a new battlecruiser until the 1980s and even then the notion was thought strange) and for almost two decades Hood remained the largest warship in the world.

Naval architecture, fire control ballistics and aviation had however moved on in those years and although the biggest warship afloat (the “Mighty Hood” in the public imagination), Hood was outmoded but as late as the early 1930s this mattered little because the prospect of war between the big powers seemed not only remote but absurd.  Hood is still thought one of the most elegant warships ever and it spent those years touring the empire and other foreign ports, her fine lines and apparent might impressing many although the Admiralty was well aware the days of Pax Britannica were over.  Much comment has been made about the design flaw which resulted in the Hood sinking in minutes after a shell from the German battleship Bismarck, fired from a range of some ten miles (16,000 m), penetrated the deck (some modern analysts contest this because of technical details relating to the angle of fire available to the German gunners), causing the magazine to explode, essentially splitting the hull in two.  In fairness to the Kriegsmarine (the German navy), it was a good shot but at that range, it was also lucky, that essential element in many a battle.

In structural linguistics, the term “Americanisms” is used to describe several sub-sets of innovations in English attributed to those (and their descendents) who settled in North America.  They include (1) spellings (color vs colour), most of which make more sense than the originals, (2) simplification of use (check used for cheque as well as its other meanings), (3) coinings (sockdolager (decisive blow or remark), a nineteenth century American original of contested origin) and (4) alternatives (suspenders vs braces).  Hood was one word where used differed in the US.  In the UK, the hood was the (traditionally leather but latterly a variety of fabrics) folding top which began life on horse-drawn carriages and later migrated to cars which eventually were, inter alia, called cabriolets, drophead coupés or roadsters.  In the US the same coachwork was used but there the folding tops came to be called “soft tops”, one reason being the hood was the (usually) hinged panel which covered the engine.  In the UK, that was called a bonnet (from the Middle English bonet, from the Middle French bonet (which endures as the Modern French bonnet), from the Old French bonet (material from which hats are made), from the Frankish bunni (that which is bound), from the Proto-Germanic bundiją (bundle), from the primitive Indo-European bend- (to tie).  The origins of the use of bonnet and hood as engine coverings were essentially the same: the words were in the nineteenth century both used on both sides of the Atlantic to describe cowls or coverings which protected machinery from the elements, impacts etc (the idea based on the familiar garments) and it was only chance that one use prevailed in one place and one in the other.  There were other differences too: what the British called the boot the Americans said was the trunk which on the early automobiles, like many of the stage coaches they replaced, indeed it was.

Unhinged: Not all hoods were hinged.  In 1969, some Plymouth Road Runners (left) and Dodge Super Bees (right) could be ordered with a lightweight, fibreglass hood held in place by four locking pins.  Known as the "lift-off hood", it need two conveniently to remove the thing so it wasn't the most practical option Detroit ever offered but to the target market, it was very cool.

Rehab

Rehab (pronounced ree-hab)

(1) A clipping of rehabilitation.

(2) In slang (though also sometimes used formally), a programme or facility for treating substance abuse (those addicted to narcotics or alcohol.

(3) In slang (though also sometimes used formally), a programme or facility for treating those recovering from certain medical conditions:

(4) In slang, a building which has been renovated, usually in the context of urban renewal and re-development being.

(5) Of or relating to rehabilitation.

(6) In the vernacular of post-war New Zealand English, the informal short form for the Department of Rehabilitation, a government institution established to cater for the needs of injured military personnel.

(7) To rehabilitate (something, someone, a concept or idea).

(8) In political science, to restore an individual to their previous status (drawn from late medieval civil & canon law and associated particularly with Soviet-era Russia and undertaken to rectify those unpersoned).

(9) In environmental science, a defined area (land or aquatic) in which a programme of rehabilitation is being undertaken or has been completed.

1948 (as documented although there may have been previous ad-hoc use in various oral traditions):  The original form emerged in the vernacular of post-war New Zealand English NZ the informal short form for the Department of Rehabilitation, a government institution established to cater for the needs of injured military personnel.  It worked in conjunction with the civil organization the Rehabilitation League, formed in 1931 with similar aims.  By the early 1970s, the word as a slang term was used in relation to housing and urban renewal programmes.  The extension of the meaning to “an action of restoring anything to a previous condition” emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and was soon used of land, buildings, machinery etc and in the 1940s it began to be applied to programmes designed to re-educate & re-train criminals, addicts and such for a successful re-entry to society.  Rehab is a noun & verb, rehaber is a noun & rehabbed & rehabbing; the noun plural is rehabs.

The Collins Dictionary tracks patterns of word use and while the pre-modern statistics are neither comprehensive or exact to the extent revealed by analysis of the wealth of modern data, it's thought still usefully illustrative.  Clearly there was a trend of use in the eighteenth century but this is thought not indicative of "rehab" being treated as a stand-alone word but as a contraction to save space when printing legal and ecclesiastical documents, a required technique in an era when ink and paper were both expensive.  Rehab, as currently used, is very much a word of the twenty-first century.

The noun rehabilitation (act of reinstating in a former rank or standing) dates from the 1530s and was from the French réhabilitation or the Medieval Latin rehabilitationem (nominative rehabilitatio) (restoration), a noun of action from the past-participle stem of rehabilitare, the construct being re- (again) + habitare (make fit), from the Latin habilis (easily managed, fit).  At least some etymologists suspect the derived verb rehabilitate may have emerged concurrently but the earliest known citation is from 1583.  The process originally applied exclusively to those who, having earlier been punished for some transgression by being stripped for rank or status, were for whatever reason restored to their former position.  The verb was from the Medieval Latin rehabilitatus, the past participle of rehabilitare and the processes were at various times codified in both civil and canon law.  The process is now best remembered from the practices in the Soviet Union where comrades guilty of especially unworthy acts (or thoughts) could be “unpersoned” (ie erased from all records).  In some cases, circumstances could change and the unpersoned were rehabilitated.

Lindsay Lohan with broken wrist (fractured in two places in an unfortunate fall at Milk Studios during New York Fashion Week) and 355 ml (12 fluid oz) can of Rehab energy drink, Los Angeles, September 2006.  The car is a 2006 Mercedes-Benz SL 65 (R230; 2004-2011) which would later feature in the tabloids after a low-speed crash.  The R230 range (2001-2011) was unusual because of the quirk of the SL 550 (2006-2011), a designation used exclusively in the North American market, the RoW (rest of the world) cars retaining the SL 500 badge even though both used the 5.5 litre (333 cubic inch) V8 (M273).

Doubtlessly, substance abuse has existed ever since substances became available to be abused and just a certainly, over the millennia, individuals, families and societies have devised their own methods to rehabilitate those afflicted.  There was great variation in the approaches but in the West, most tended to be influenced by the dominant ethos that addiction was a moral failing and personal weakness, the literature suggesting punishment and abstinence were there preferred course of treatment; “drying out” has a long history.  It was in the late twentieth century that the notion of “rehab” being not only a process but one which could be treated in a permanent structure, an institutionalization of earlier ad-hoc approaches of which Alcoholics Anonymous, beginning in 1935 is probably the best known although it was by no means the first and much of its success in attracting followers has been attributed to it distancing itself from the religious affiliations which characterized many of its predecessors.

Lindsay Lohan in rehab center, Sundance, Utah, 2007.  It is possible to purchase alcohol in Utah although the regulatory environment is more restrictive so presumably the state is more suited than many to host rehab centers.

Even by the 1970s, there was still much stigma attached to rehabilitation programmes and it was probably the admission by Betty Ford (1918–2011; US First Lady 1974-1977) that she was an alcoholic which was most instrumental in lending some legitimacy to the concept.  After leaving the White House she would found her own rehab clinic which continues to operate.  In the years since, there’s been an attempt to re-classify addiction as a treatable medical condition rather than a moral failing or something worse which need to be treated punitively.  To an extent that has worked and there’s probably a general public perception that addiction is exactly that, a chemical relationship between the substances and the physical brain but in some jurisdictions, such is the volume of addiction that it’s simply not possible to provide rehab services on the scale required.  There’s a critique also of rehab as something which has come to be seen by the TikTok generation as something almost fashionable, presumably because of the frequency with which pop-culture celebrities are clients and even addiction can now thus be rationalized as one of the corollaries of the creative mind.  There’s also of course the link between rehab clinics and wealth, the association created because (1) they’re places where even short-stay programmes can cost tens of thousands of dollars and (2) the only time they’re attract publicity is when a celebrity or some other famous figure attends.  Criticism has been extended too because there’s often little sympathy for those who use an admission of addiction in mitigation (“excuse” in the popular imagination) when on trial for this or that and there’s a perception rehab is an attractive alternative to actual punishment.

Monster Rehab energy drinks.

According to the helpful site Caffeine Informer, Monster's Rehab energy drinks (Peach Tea, Raspberry Tea, Orangeade, Watermelon, Strawberry Lemonade & Tea + Lemonade) contain 160 mg of caffeine (except the watermelon flavor which weighs in at 150).  A cup of black coffee will typically contain between 55-70 mg.  According to the manufacturer, the Rehab drinks are "packed with electrolytes, vitamins, and botanicals that deliver on advanced hydration helping you reduce fatigue and increase concentration."  Their target market is those who wish to "refresh, recover & revive" and their staccato advertising copy captures the moment they'd like customers to visualize:

It’s 2 P.M. Still sleeping, but who’s banging on the door?  “Housekeeping!”  Your eyes open to see a mermaid scoot her ass across the floor.  The housekeeper screams and mutters a prayer.  This can’t be right.  Your eyes close.  It’s after 4 now.  Your head’s pounding.  So many questions.  You’ve got to meet everyone downstairs in an hour to do it all again.  Not a problem.  You’re a professional.  You crack open a Rehab Monster Tea + Lemonade and let the lemon-infused electrolytes, vitamins, and botanicals work their life-giving, hydration magic.  Congrats, You’re back from the dead.

Crunning & Cromiting

Crunning (pronounced khrun-ing)

In high-performance sports training, simultaneously running and crying.

Circa 2020: the construct was cr(y) + (r)unning.

Cromiting (pronounced krom-et-ing)

In high-performance sports training, simultaneously running, crying & vomiting.

Circa 2020: the construct was cr(y) + (v)omit + (runn)ing.

The verb cry was from the thirteenth century Middle English crien, from the Old French crier (to announce publicly, proclaim, scream, shout) (from which Medieval Latin gained crīdō (to cry out, shout, publish, proclaim)). The noun is from Middle English crie, from the Old French cri & crïee.  The origin of the Old French & Middle Latin word is uncertain.  It may be of Germanic origin, from the Frankish krītan (to cry, cry out, publish), from the Proto-Germanic krītaną (to cry out, shout), from the primitive Indo-European greyd- (to shout) and thus cognate with the Saterland Frisian kriete (to cry), the Dutch krijten (to cry) & krijsen (to shriek), the Low German krieten (to cry, call out, shriek”), the German kreißen (to cry loudly, wail, groan) and the Gothic kreitan (to cry, scream, call out) and related to the Latin gingrītus (the cackling of geese), the Middle Irish grith (a cry), the Welsh gryd (a scream), the Persian گریه‎ (gerye) (to cry) and the Sanskrit क्रन्दन (krandana) (cry, lamentation).  Some etymologists however suggest a connection with the Medieval Latin quiritō (to wail, shriek), also of uncertain origin, possibly from the Latin queror (to complain) through the form although the phonetic and semantic developments have proved elusive; the alternative Latin source is thought to be a variant of quirritare (to squeal like a pig), from quis, an onomatopoeic rendition of squeaking.  An ancient folk etymology understood it as "to call for the help of the Quirites (the Roman policemen).  In the thirteenth century, the meaning extended to encompass "shed tears", previously described as “weeping”, “to weep” etc and by the sixteenth century cry had displace weep in the conversational vernacular, under the influence of the notion of "utter a loud, vehement, inarticulate sound".  The phrase “to cry (one's) eyes out” (weep inordinately) is documented since 1704 but weep, wept etc remained a favorite of poets and writers.

Vomit as a verb (the early fifteenth century Middle English vomiten) was an adoption from the Latin vomitus (past participle of vomitāre) and was developed from the fourteenth century noun vomit (act of expelling contents of the stomach through the mouth), from the Anglo-French vomit, from the Old French vomite, from the Latin vomitus, from vomō & vomitare (to vomit often), frequentative of vomere (to puke, spew forth, discharge), from the primitive Indo-European root wemh & weme- (to spit, vomit), source also of the Ancient Greek emein (to vomit) & emetikos (provoking sickness), the Sanskrit vamati (he vomits), the Avestan vam- (to spit), the Lithuanian vemti (to vomit) and the Old Norse væma (seasickness).  It was cognate with the Old Norse váma (nausea, malaise) and the Old English wemman (to defile).  The use of the noun to describe the matter disgorged during vomiting dates from the late fourteenth century and is in common use in the English-speaking world although Nancy Mitford (1904–1973 and the oldest of the Mitford sisters) in the slim volume Noblesse Oblige: an Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy (1956) noted “vomit” was “non-U” and the “U” word was “sick”, something perhaps to bear in mind after, if not during, vomiting. 

Run was from the Middle English runnen & rennen (to run), an alteration (influenced by the past participle runne, runnen & yronne) of the Middle English rinnen (to run), from the Old English rinnan & iernan (to run) and the Old Norse rinna (to run), both from the Proto-Germanic rinnaną (to run) and related to rannijaną (to make run), from the Proto-Indo-European hreyh- (to boil, churn”.  It was cognate with the Scots rin (to run), the West Frisian rinne (to walk, march), the Dutch rennen (to run, race), the Alemannic German ränne (to run), the German rennen (to run, race) & rinnen (to flow), the Danish rende (to run), the Swedish ränna (to run) and the Icelandic renna (to flow).  The non-Germanic cognates includes the Albanian rend (to run, run after).  The alternative spelling in Old English was ærning (act of one who or that which runs, rapid motion on foot) and that endured as a literary form until the seventeenth century.  The adjective running (that runs, capable of moving quickly) was from the fourteenth century and was from rennynge; as the present-participle adjective from the verb run, it replaced the earlier erninde, from the Old English eornende from ærning.  The meaning "rapid, hasty, done on the run" dates from circa 1300 while the sense of "continuous, carried on continually" was from the late fifteenth century.  The language is replete with phrases including “run” & “running” and run has had a most productive history: according to one source the verb alone has 645 meanings and while that definitional net may be widely cast, all agree the count is well into three figures.

The suffix –ing was from the Middle English -ing, from the Old English –ing & -ung (in the sense of the modern -ing, as a suffix forming nouns from verbs), from the Proto-West Germanic –ingu & -ungu, from the Proto-Germanic –ingō & -ungō. It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian -enge, the West Frisian –ing, the Dutch –ing, The Low German –ing & -ink, the German –ung, the Swedish -ing and the Icelandic –ing; All the cognate forms were used for the same purpose as the English -ing).

Lilly Dick (b 1999) of the Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens.

The portmanteau words crunning (simultaneously running and crying) & cromiting (simultaneously running, crying & vomiting) are techniques used in strength and conditioning training by athletes seeking to improve endurance.  The basis of the idea is that at points where the mind usually persuades a runner or other athlete to pause or stop, the body is still capable of continuing and thus signals like crying or vomiting should be ignored in the manner of the phrase “passing through the pain barrier”.  The ides is “just keep going no matter what” and that is potentially dangerous so such extreme approaches should be pursued only under professional supervision.  Earlier (circa 2015), crunning was a blend of crawl + running, a type of physical training which was certainly self-descriptive and presumably best practiced on other than hard surfaces; it seems not to have caught on.  Crunning & cromiting came to wider attention when discussed by members of the Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens team which won gold at the Commonwealth Games (Birmingham, UK, July-August 2022).  When interviewed, a squad member admitted crunning & cromiting were “brutal” methods of training but admitted both were a vital part of the process by which they achieved the level of strength & fitness (mental & physical) which allowed them to succeed.

The perils of weed.

Although visually similar (spelling & symptoms), crunning & cromiting should not be confused with "scromiting" (a portmanteau of “screaming” and “vomiting”) a word coined in the early twenty-first century as verbal shorthand for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS).  Hyperemesis is extreme, persistent nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, a kind of acute morning sickness and CHS presents in much the same way.  The recreational use of cannabis was hardly new but CHS was novel and the medical community has speculated the reaction induced only in some users may be caused either by their specific genetic differences or something added to or bred into certain strains of weed although the condition remains both rare and geographically distributed.  The long-term effects are unknown except for damage to tooth enamel caused by the stomach acid in the vomit.

The legendary Corey Bellemore.

An athletic pursuit probably sometimes not dissimilar to the exacting business of crunning & cromiting is the Beer Mile, conducted usually on a standard 400 m (¼ mile) track as a 1 mile (1.6 km) contest of both running & drinking speed.  Each of the four laps begins with the competitor drinking one can (12 fl oz (US) (355 ml)) of beer, followed by a full lap, the process repeated three times.  The rules have been defined by the governing body which also publishes the results, including the aggregates of miles covered and beers drunk.  Now a sporting institution, it has encouraged imitators and there are a number of variations, each with its own rules.  The holder of this most illustrious world record is a three-time champion, Canadian Corey Bellemore (b 1994), who set the mark of 4:28.1 on 23 October 2021.

University of Otago Medical School.

Some variations of the beer mile simply increase the volume or strength of the beer consumed and a few of these are dubbed Chunder Mile (“chunder” being circa 1950s Australia & New Zealand slang for vomiting and of disputed origin) on the basis that vomiting is more likely the more alcohol is consumed.  For some however, even this wasn’t sufficiently debauched and there were events which demanded a (cold) meat pie be enjoyed with a jug of (un-chilled) beer (a jug typically 1140 ml (38.5 fl oz (US)) at the start of each of the four laps.  Predictably, these events were most associated with orientation weeks at universities, a number still conducted as late as the 1970s and the best documented seems to have been those at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.  Helpfully, at this time, it was the site of the country’s medical school, thereby providing students with practical experience of both symptoms and treatments for the inevitable consequences.  Whether the event was invented in Dunedin isn’t known but, given the nature of males aged 17-21 probably hasn’t much changed over the millennia, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn similar competitions, localized to suit culinary tastes, have been contested by the drunken youth of many places in centuries past.  As it was, even in Dunedin, times were changing and in 1972, the Chunder Mile was banned “…because of the dangers of asphyxiation and ruptured esophaguses.”