Karen

Karen (pronounced kar-uhn (kahr-ren or kuh-ren for the given name))

(1) A group of people of eastern and southern Burma (Myanmar).

(2) One of these people.

(3) The language of the Karen, a Tibeto-Burman language of the Sino-Tibetan family.

(4) Of or relating to the Karen people or their language.

(5) A female given name, originally a form of Katherine.

(6) A general purpose pejorative term used to disparage white, middle-class, middle-aged women.

1759: The original spelling was Carian, from the Burmese ka-reng (wild, dirty, low-caste man), a not entirely affectionate local descriptor of the Mongoloid people of Burma.  For the ethnic group, the noun plural is Karens, (especially collectively) or Karen; for all other uses it’s Karens. 

1800s: The feminine proper name entered English from the Danish Karen, a vernacular form of Catherine & Katherine that arose in medieval Denmark.  Rare in the English-speaking world before 1928, it first became popular during the 1940s and was consistently in the top-ten for girls born in the United States between 1951-1968, and was the third most popular girl's name in 1965.  That proved to be peak-Karen and its use rapidly declined to be negligible.  Used in the Danish, Arabic, Dutch, Hebrew, Norwegian, German and English languages, variants (mostly German, Austrian & the Nordic countries) include Caja, Kaja (Danish), Caren, Caryn, Karena, Kaat, Karin, Karyn (and dozens of others), it has since 1945 also been used in Japan, China, Malaya (later Malaysia) and the Philippines.

Karen can also be a family name (surname).  In Armenian, Karen (Կարեն) (kɑˈɾɛn) is a common masculine given name, derived from the Parthian name of the House of Karen (or Caren) which ruled the Tabaristan region, corresponding (approximately) to the provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran.  The House of Karen (Kārēn in the Middle Persian; Kārēn in the Parthian & Persian (کارن‎), Kārin or Kāren, known also as Karen-Pahlav (Kārēn-Pahlaw)) was one of the seven great houses during the rule of the Parthian and Sassanian Empires.  The masculine given name Garen is a western Armenian form of the eastern Armenian Karen.

One spelling used in both Germany and the Nordic countries is Carin.  The Swedish-born Countess Carin von Kantzow (1888-1931) was the first wife of Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) and the palatial country house (construction of which was paid for by the state) he had built during the 1930s was “Carinhall” in her memory.  Carinhall sat in the grounds of his large hunting estate (another gift from the state) in the Schorfheide Forest, north-east of Berlin and was the site of many events in which he showed off his varied tastes in clothing (including Roman togas and painted toenails) and sybaritic lifestyle.  What went on at Carinhall was the subject of much gossipy humor in political & diplomatic circles and the more austere Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) once suggested to a visitor: “You should visit Göring at Carinhall, a sight worth seeing.”.  He later had a much smaller lodge built after marrying his second wife (Emma “Emmy” Sonnemann (1893–1973)); that he named “Emmyhall”.  In 1945, as the Red Army approached, Göring had Carinhall destroyed with explosives and only a few ruins now remain.

Hitler and Göring at Carinhall. The reaction of more conventional types to Göring’s appearance and behaviour was captured by an entry in the memorable diary of Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1944 (and the son-in-law of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943)).  The occasion was the Reichsmarschall’s visit to Rome early in 1942, seeking Italian reinforcements for the faltering campaign in Russia:

“As usual he is bloated and overbearing.  We had dinner at the Excelsior Hotel, and during the dinner Goering talked of little else but the jewels he owned. In fact, he had some beautiful rings on his fingers.  On the way to the station he wore a great sable coat, something between what automobile drivers wore in 1906 and what a high-grade prostitute wears to the opera.”

Beware of the edgy bob

Karen is a pejorative term used in the English-speaking world to disparage white, middle-class, middle-aged women on the basis of their sense of entitlement and demanding behavior.  It’s thus a particular critique of white privilege and is especially associated with a certain bob cut hairstyle, now known in the industry as the speak to the manager.  The origins are murky and the Karen in its now understood term is really a coalesced form from a number of threads to define characteristics like "entitlement, selfishness, a desire to complain" with stereotypical behavior being demanding to “speak to the manager”, usually about some trivial matter.  A creation of social media, the evolution from its point of critical-mass has (presumably coincidently) run in parallel with COVID-19; in November 2019, Google reported fewer than 20,000 instances of use which, by July 2020 had increased to over eight million.  It has origins in the mid-2010s as a way for people of color, particularly African-Americans, to satirise the class-based and racially charged hostilities and micro-aggressions they often face and in that it was different from the BLM (black lives matter) movement in that it focused not on violence but on instances of casual-racism, always by women perceived to be of a certain age and class.  Earlier instances were tied to specific events captured on the suddenly ubiquitous smartphones, yielding the predictably alliterative Permit Patty, BBQ Becky and Golfcart Gail but, in 2018, the trend distilled into Karen, an apparently quintessentially white name.

Except in Scandinavia, Karens are dying out.

Quite how "Karen" should be classified attracted feminist deconstruction. Although used exclusively in a pejorative manner toward a person of a specific race and gender, the subject, although female, is not one historically associated with discrimination in this context and thus the critical descriptive tools really didn’t exist.  The conclusion seemed to be this was just another way to silence women, denying them a right to speak.  The more radical feminist left, attracted more to intersectionality, suggested it was "sexist, ageist, and classist”, although, despite being deployed only against white women, it couldn’t, as a matter of law in most Western jurisdictions, be thought racist as such although, because the targets of many Karens were depicted as minorities, it did fit into the general rubric of the critique of white privilege.  Use seems to have peaked in 2020 but "a Karen" is still often heard.

Skullduggery

Skullduggery (pronounced skuhl-duhg-uh-ree)

(1) Dishonorable proceedings; mean dishonesty or trickery.

(2) An instance of dishonest or deceitful behavior; trickery.

(3) Underhand dealing.

(4) As sculdudrie or sculduddery, illicit fornication or something obscene respectively (archaic Scots dialectial forms).

1856: A creation in US English, it was a variant of earlier Scots sculdudrie or sculduddery (both of obscure origin) which had been in use in colonial America.  In Scotland, sculdudrie originally meant “adultery” or “illicit fornication” and, with the unexplained spelling variation sculduddery, by 1821 the meaning had extended to a general sense of “bawdry, an obscenity".  By from the late nineteenth century, as skullduggery, in most of the English-speaking world, it came to refer to dishonest or deceitful behaviour.  Skulduggery is a noun; the noun plural is skulduggeries or skullduggeries.

Skulduggery is general underhanded behaviour or trickery, usually secret or devious. The noun plural is skulduggeries or skullduggeries, though both are rarely used in this form because the reference tends almost always to be to behaviour in a general sense to begin with.  Everybody except Tony Blair seems to understand the profession of politics is a venal business of lies and squalid skullduggery.  By the time of his valedictory address to the House of Commons, he’d managed to forget noble causes like New Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” which lasted only until it was explained to him that the UK’s armaments manufacturers realized great profits by selling weapons to regimes with appalling human rights records:   

"Some may belittle politics but we who are engaged in it know that it is where people stand tall.  Although I know that it has many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. If it is, on occasions, the place of low skullduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes. I wish everyone, friend or foe, well. That is that... the end."

Hansard: Tony Blair’s last official words as prime-minister.  Prime Minister's Questions, 27 June 2007.

In happier times, left to right: Tony Blair, Gordon Blair & Peter "Mandy" Mandelson (left) and the mean girls: Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried, b 1985), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert, b 1982) & Regina George (Rachel McAdams, b 1978) (right).

In the early 1990s, detesting the Tory government, the press were fawning in their admiration and dubbed the New Labour trio "the three musketeers" but they came also to be called: "the good, the bad and the ugly, a collective moniker which may be generous to at least one of them.  There is no truth in the rumor the threesome provided the template for the personalities of the "plastics" in Mean Girls (2004, right) although the idea is tempting because both photographs can be deconstructed thus: Tony & Karen (sincere, well meaning, a bit naïve); Gordon & Gretchen (insecure, desperately wanting to be liked) and Mandy & Regina (evil and manipulative).

There was plenty of low skulduggery during the New Labour government, led first by Tony Blair (b 1953; UK prime-minister 1997-2007) and later by Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010) but to get a good flavour of it it’s necessary to read the memoirs by them both, then the diaries of Alastair Campbell (b 1957; Labour Party apparatchik) and finally Mandy's (b 1953; sometime (between the odd difficulty) member of the New Labour governments) The Third Man.  The books are best read in that order because it makes easiest the reading between the lines to work out why each included certain things and left out other stuff (or spun it in some strange and inevitably self-serving way).  It’s quite a fun process and actually necessary because while Campbell’s diaries are lively, the other three would otherwise be a hard slog.  It’s now sometimes forgotten that in the distant past of the post-Thatcher, early 1990s, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Mandy were seen as modernizing reformers and in the early years of government actually behaved in a way which suggested that was true.  It didn’t last however and Brown soon became consumed with jealously and eventually hatred for Blair who was denying him the premiership to which he thought himself entitled.  Mandy meanwhile became resentful at being twice dismissed from office by Blair on grounds he thought unreasonable.  From this ensued what was pretty dirty business.

A practical manual of low skulduggery in four volumes:

Tony Blair, A Journey (2010), Random House, pp 624, ISBN 978-0-09-192555-0

Gordon Brown, My Life, Our Times (2017), The Bodley Head, pp 512, ISBN 978-2-78-739526-6

Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years (2007), Random House, pp 816, ISBN 0-09-179629-6

Peter Mandelson, The Third Man (2010), Harper Press, pp 584, ISBN 978-0-00-739528-6

Mean

Mean (pronounced meen)

(1) To have or convey a particular idea; connote, denote, import, intend, signify.

(2) To have in mind as a goal or purpose; aim, contemplate, design, intend, plan, project, propose, purpose, target.

(3) Characterized by intense ill will or spite; black, despiteful, evil, hateful, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, nasty, poisonous, spiteful, venomous, vicious, wicked, bitchy.

(4) Having or proceeding from low moral standards; base, ignoble, low, low-down, sordid, squalid, vile.

(5) Ungenerously or pettily reluctant to spend money; cheap, close, close-fisted, costive, hard-fisted, miserly, niggard, niggardly, parsimonious, penny-pinching, penurious, petty, pinching, stingy, tight, tight-fisted.

(6) Of low or lower quality; common, inferior, low-grade, low-quality, mediocre, second-class, second-rate, shabby, substandard.

(7) Of little distinction; humble, lowly, simple.

(8) Lacking high station or birth, baseborn, common, declassed, humble, ignoble, lowly, plebeian, unwashed, vulgar; base.

(9) Affected or tending to be affected with minor health problems; ailing indisposed, low, off-color, rocky, sickly; under the weather (now rare).

(10) So objectionable as to deserve condemnation; abhorrent, abominable, antipathetic, contemptible, despicable, detestable, disgusting, filthy, foul, infamous, loathsome, lousy, low, nasty, nefarious, obnoxious, odious, repugnant, rotten, shabby, vile, wretched.

(11) Having or showing a bad temper, cantankerous, crabbed, cranky, cross, disagreeable, fretful, grouchy, grumpy, ill-tempered, irascible, irritable, nasty, peevish, petulant, querulous, snappish, snappy, surly, testy, ugly, waspish.

(12) In mathematics, something, as a type, number, quantity, or degree that represents a midpoint between extremes on a scale of valuation; average, median, medium, norm, par.

(13) In the plural (as means), that by which something is accomplished or some end achieved.

(14) In the plural (as means) all things, such as money, property or goods having economic value.

(15) In statistics, the expected value (the mathematical expectation).

(16) In music, the middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music (or an alto instrument); now only of historic or academic interest.

As a verb:

Pre 900: From the Middle English mēnen (to intend; remember; lament; comfort), from the Old English mǣnan (to mean, signify; lament; intend to do something) from the Proto-West Germanic menjojanan & mainijan, from the Proto-Germanic mainijaną (to mean, think; lament), from the primitive Indo-European meyn- (to think), or alternatively perhaps from the primitive Indo-European meino- (opinion, intent) & meyno-, an extended form of the primitive Indo-European mey- (source also of Old Church Slavonic meniti (to think, have an opinion), the Old Irish mian (wish, desire) & the Welsh mwyn (enjoyment)).  It was related to the Old Saxon mēnian (to intend) and cognate with the West Frisian miene (to deem, think) the Old Frisian mēna (to signify), the Dutch menen (to believe, think, mean), the Middle Dutch menen (to think, intend), the German meinen (to think, mean, believe) and the Old Saxon mēnian.  The Indo-European cognates included the Old Irish mían (wish, desire) and the Polish mienić (to signify, believe).  It was related to the modern moan.  The present participle was meaning and the simple past and past participle was meant although the now obsolete meaned was once a standard spelling.

The transitive (to convey (a given sense); to signify, or indicate (an object or idea) or, of a word, symbol etc (to have reference to, to signify), was documented as early as the eighth century.  The transitive, usually in passive (to intend (something) for a given purpose or fate; to predestine was from the sixteenth century. The transitive (to have conviction in (something said or expressed) or to be sincere in (what one says) is from the eighteenth century.  The transitive (to cause or produce (a given result) or to bring about (a given result) is from the nineteenth century.  The synonyms included convey, signify & indicate.  The annoying (and frequently redundant) conversational question “You know what I mean?” is not recent, attested since 1834.

As an adjective:

Pre 900: From the Middle English mēne (shared by all, common, general), a variant of imene & imeane (held or shared in common), from the Old English mǣne & gemǣne (common, public, general, universal, mutual), from the Proto-West Germanic gamainī, from the Proto-Germanic gamainiz (common; possessed jointly) and related to the Proto-West Germanic & the Old High German gimeini (common, mean, nasty) and the Latin commūnis (common (originally with no pejorative sense (as in shared, general))) from the Old Latin comoinem and cognate with the Danish gemen, the West Frisian mien (general, universal), the Gothic gamains, (common, unclean), the Dutch gemeen (common, mean), the German gemein (common), the Gothic gamains (in common) and the primitive Indo-European mey- (to change, exchange, share).  The comparative was meaner and the superlative, meanest

The sense of “common or general” is long obsolete.  What endured was “common or low origin, grade, or quality; low in quality or degree; inferior; poor; shabby; without dignity of mind; destitute of honor; low-minded; spiritless; base; of little value or worth; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.  The sense of parsimonious, ungenerous or stingy is known throughout the English-speaking world but tends to be less prevalent in the US because of the dominance of the other meaning.  The meaning “cruel or malicious has survived but is now less common.  The colloquial form meaning “accomplished with great skill; deft; well-executed is used also in the negative with the same effect: (1) She rolls a mean joint and (2) she’s no mean roller of a joint.  However, to say (3) she’s mean with the weed in her joints has the opposite meaning so in that context anyway, the meaning of mean needs carefully to be deconstructed.  This inverted sense of mean as "remarkably good" appears not to have existed prior to circa 1900.  The derived forms from the adjectival sense include (and some are less common than others) bemean, meandom, meanie, meanness, mean streak & meany.

The pejorative sense of "without dignity of mind, destitute of honor, low-minded" dates from the 1660s; the specific sense of "stingy, niggardly" noted since 1755 whereas the weaker sense of "disobliging, pettily offensive" didn’t emerge until 1839, originally as American English slang.  This evolution in meaning was influenced by the coincidence in form with mean in the sense of "middle, middling," which also was used in disparaging senses.

As a noun:

1300–1350: From the Middle English meene, mene & meine, from the Middle French meen & mean, a variant of meien, from the Old French moien & meien (from which French gained moyen), from the Latin mediānus (middle, in the middle; median (in context)) from the Latin medius (middle).It was cognate with mid, and in the musical sense, the cognate was the Italian mezzano.  A doublet of median and mizzen.

A specific meaning of mean (in the sense of middle) was “middling; intermediate; moderately good, tolerable” which is long obsolete.  The sense of “a method or course of action used to achieve some result”, now used almost exclusively in the plural, is from the fourteenth century.  The sense of something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values (a medium) is from the fourteenth century although the use of mean (in the singular) meaning “an intermediate step or intermediate steps” is obsolete.  Originally from the fifteenth century, the use in music is now of historical or academic interest.  It referred to the middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music (or an alto instrument).  In statistics, since the fifteenth century, mean is simply understood as the average of a set of values, calculated by summing them together and dividing by the number of terms (the arithmetic mean).  In mathematics a mean can be (1) any function of multiple variables that satisfies certain properties and yields a number representative of its arguments, (2) the number so yielded (a measure of central tendency) or (3) either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion.

In mathematics and statistics, the mean is what is informally called “the average”, the sum of a set of values divided by the number (count) of those values.  The median is the middle number in a set of values when those values are arranged from smallest to largest, while the mode of a set of values is the most frequently repeated value in the set.

Mean is one of those words which pepper English; one word, one spelling, one pronunciation, yet a dozen or more meanings.  Mean however doesn’t come close to the top ten words in English with the most meanings, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) list is below but the editors caution by the time the next edition of the OED is released in 2037, for some there could be more meanings still; the influencing of computing has apparently already added several dozen to “run”.

Run: 645 definitions

Set: 430 definitions

Go: 368 definitions

Take: 343 definitions

Stand: 334 definitions

Get: 289 definitions

Turn: 288 definitions

Put: 268 definitions

Fall: 264 definitions

Strike: 250 definitions

Kimberley Kitching (1970–2022) was an Australian Labor Party (ALP) Senator for Victoria (2016-2022) who died from a heart attack in March 2022 at the age of 52.  Her death gained instant attention because in the days prior, two prominent sportsmen had also suffered heart attacks at the same age (one of them fatal) and there was the inevitable speculation about the possible involvement of the mysterious long-COVID or vaccinations.  No connection with either has yet been established.  One connection quickly made was with a triumvirate of female politicians, the ALP’s senate leadership group who were quickly dubbed “the mean girls”, a reference to 2004 Lindsay Lohan movie in which the eponymous girls were the “plastics” three self-obsessed school students whose lives were consumed by material superficialities and plotting & scheming against others.  

The mean girls (2022), left to right: Penny Wong (b 1968; cabinet minister in the Rudd / Gillard /Rudd governments 2007-2013, senator for South Australia since 2002), Katy Gallagher (b 1970; chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) 2011-2014, senator for the ACT 2015-2018 & since 2019) & Kristina Keneally (b 1968; premier of New South Wales 2009-2011, senator for New South Wales since February 2018).

The mean girls (2004), left to right: Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried (b 1985)), Regina George (Rachel McAdams (b 1978) & Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert (b 1982)).

Allegations the mean girls had bullied the late senator emerged just hours after her death and on social media there was little reluctance to link the events.  In a carefully-worded statement, Senators Gallagher, Keneally & Wong responded to what they described as “hurtful statements” denying they had bullied Senator Kitching and that other assertions were “similarly inaccurate” although they did concede “robust contests and interactions” were frequent in politics.  Senator Wong did admit to having made one unfortunate comment to Senator Kitching two years earlier and that, after it came to public attention, she had apologized.  Her office later expanded on this, issuing a statement saying “Senator Wong understood that apology was accepted.  The comments that have been reported do not reflect Senator Wong's views, as those who know her would understand, and she deeply regrets pain these reports have caused.”  Rather than discuss the suggestions of bullying, most (ie the usual suspects) focused on the use of a “gender-tainted lexicon”, sexist language clearly thought the greater sin.  Interestingly, the trio had previously been known as “the angels”, a reference to the 1970s television show Charlie's Angels which featured three admirably decorative young ladies being sent by their male controller to solve crimes; the implication of course being the “mean girls” tolerated as long as they did the bidding of the leader of the opposition.  “Misogyny, sexism, every day in every way...” as Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013) might have again remarked but at least the pop-culture reference was updated for later generations and it could have been worse: they might have been labelled "the good, the bad and the ugly".

In the thoughtful eulogy delivered at her funeral, Senator Kitching’s husband, Andrew Landeryou (b 1969; colorful ALP identity), referred on several occasions to the “unpleasantness” she had faced in the Senate, praising the moral courage his wife had displayed during her six years in the senate and her genuinely substantive contribution to public life, contrasting her with the “useful idiots, obedient nudniks and bland time-servers” so often seen sitting for decades on parliamentary benches.  “The simple truth of it is that Kimberley’s political and moral judgment was vastly superior to the small number who opposed her internally” he said, adding that “… of course, there’s a lot I could say about the unpleasantness of a cantankerous cabal - not all of them in parliament - that was aimed at Kimba, and the intensity of it did baffle and hurt her.”  Perhaps generously, he added he “…did not blame any one person or any one meeting for her death”, thought to be a reference to a recent meeting of the ALP’s Right faction at which her pre-selection for an electable Senate spot at the next election was reportedly threatened. 

Senators Gallagher, Keneally & Wong all attended the funeral as did the leader of the ALP and opposition leader Anthony Albanese (b 1963; leader of the opposition since 2019 and variously a minister or deputy prime-minister in the Rudd / Gillard / Rudd governments 2007-2013).  Mr Albanese rejected calls for an inquiry into claims of bullying, saying he had received “no complaints at any time” from Senator Kitching regarding bullies within the party and sought to shut down any further questions on the matter, saying they were disrespectful to Senator Kitching.  In saying that he certainly caught the spirit of the moment, none of the mainstream media making anything but the most oblique of references to the late senator’s colorful and sometimes controversial history as an ALP factional player and trade union operative but quite how long lasts the convention of not speaking ill of the dead will soon be revealed.

Mr Albanese wanting to kill the story is understandable and if he’s sure he has plausible deniability of prior knowledge it’s a reasonable tactic but it’s at least possible the best thing to do might have been to admit (1) all political parties have factions, (2) inter-faction bullying is the way business is done, (3) intra-faction bullying is endemic, (4) women and men are both victims and perpetrators but women tend to suffer more, (5) ‘twas ever thus and (6) it shall forever be thus.

Mr Albanese had used the “I know nothing” defense before and that too attracted a popular-culture comparison.  In 2013, ALP politician Craig Thomson (b 1964; former trade union official, member of parliament for the division of Dobell (NSW) 2007-2013, for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) until 2012, as an independent thereafter) was facing accusations of fraud, committed while a trade union official including the use of a union-issued credit card to pay for the services of prostitutes.  His legal problems have since worsened including further charges of fraud and domestic violence.

In 2013, in the midst of the scandal, Mr Albanese, then deputy prime-minister, and Mr Thomson were photographed having a couple of beers at Sydney’s Bavarian Bier Café.  It attracted some attention, even from within the party, one ALP luminary thinking it strange an ALP deputy prime minister should meet for a drink with someone accused of fraud and who the party had expelled from membership, labeling the meeting as “completely indefensible."  It was of interest too to the Liberal Party opposition which floated the idea that what was discussed over a few beers was a deal in case the ALP needed Mr Thomson's vote in another hung parliament, one spokesman framing things as "Fake Kevin Rudd (Kevin Rudd. b 1957; prime minister of Australia 2007-2010 & 2013) says, on the one hand, we're cleaning things up and, on the other hand, he is doing secret deals to try and run a minority government now and into the future."

Like Mr Albanese, Mr Rudd claimed to know nothing about his deputy’s meeting with Mr Thomson or its purpose.  Asked to comment, Mr Rudd said it was not his business who his deputy decided to drink with, saying he did “many things in life but supervising the drinking activities of my ministerial colleagues is not one of them."  "And who they choose to sit down with" he added.  Later, detailed questions were sent to Mr Rudd’s office which declined to comment about whether Mr Rudd knew beforehand of the meeting or if he had asked what had been discussed.  A spokesman said Mr Rudd had “nothing further to add.”  Mr Thomson insisted it was an innocent drink after the two former party colleagues ran into each other and there was no discussion of any political deals or of Mr Thomson returning to the ALP. "I'm not wooable" Mr Thomson was quoted as saying adding, “It was a completely innocent beer.  There is no conspiracy theory here.”

Mr Albanese said Mr Thomson was not a close friend of his but added that he often ran into colleagues at bars and that it was just “…a personal chat, that's all. No big deal."  That didn’t impress the Liberal Party’s then leader in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania since 1994, minister in various Coalition governments 2001-2015) who questioned how the pair could drink together given Mr Thomson's legal team was suing the LP, claiming the NSW ALP state secretary Sam Dastyari (b 1983; senator for NSW 2013-2018 before resigning in the midst of a Chinese-related donations scandal) had pledged to pay his legal costs.  "What is the deputy prime minister doing consorting in a Sydney bar with disgraced MP Craig Thomson at the Mr Thomson's lawyer is suing the NSW ALP?” Senator Abetz asked, presumably rhetorically.

Sydney Daily Telegraph, front page, Thursday 8 August 2013.

The Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph took the “I know nothing” excuses of Albanese and Rudd to their front page, the trope being the Hogan’s Heroes TV show produced by US network CBS between 1965-1971, one of the signature lines from which was “I know nothing” by Kommandant Colonel Clink’s slow-witted but affable Sergeant of the Guard, Hans Schultz.  Technically it worked but tropes and memes do rely on the material used registering in the public consciousness and that can be difficult when using a forty year old TV show no longer in widespread syndication.  For the Telegraph’s readers, mostly of an older demographic, it probably did register but some research might have been necessary for younger people, many of whom receive news only through social media feeds. 

For the same reason Donald Trump was disappointed his jibe about Pete Buttigieg (b 1982; contender for Democratic Party nomination for 2020 US presidential election, US secretary of transportation since 2021) and the absurdity of imagining Americans would vote for “Alfred E Neuman”, didn’t resonate.  It was just too long ago and too few knew about Mad magazine.  While there was quite a resemblance, and decades before it would have been a good line, in 2020 Buttigieg could dismiss it a “...must be a generational thing”.  By contrast, the mean girls line worked as well as it did because the film it references is both much more recent and, having hardly dated, retains an ongoing appeal.

Declarative

Declarative (pronounced dih-klar-uh-tiv)

(1) Serving to declare; having the quality of a declaration; make known, or explain.

(2) Making or having the nature of a declaration.

(3) In the study of learning, acquiring information one can speak about.

(4) In psychology and structural mnemonics, as declarative memory, a type of long-term memory where facts and events are stored (one of two types of long term human memory).

(5) In computing, as declarative statement (or declarative line or declarative code) that which declares a construct.

(6) In computing, as declarative programming, a paradigm in programming where an objective is stated, rather than a mechanism or design.

(7) In formal grammar, a grammatical verb form used in declarative sentences.

1530-1540: From the Middle English declarative (making clear or manifest, explanatory), from the French déclaratif, from the Late Latin dēclārātīvus (explanatory), past participle stem of the Classical Latin declarare (make clear, reveal, disclose, announce), the construct being de- (presumed here to be used as an intensifier) + clarare (clarify) from clarus (clear).  The meaning “making declaration, exhibiting” dates from the 1620s and in the mid-fifteenth century it was in common use as a noun meaning “an explanation”.  In some contexts, declarative is often a synonym of declaration.  The companion adjective enunciative (declarative, declaring something as true) also dates from the early sixteenth century and was from the Latin enunciates (technically enuntiativus), from the past participle stem of enuntiare (to speak out, say, express).  In English, it’s rare compared to declarative (1) because of that form's wide use in documents explaining the rules and conventions of English and (2) because enunciate was captured by the speech therapists and elocution teachers who refused to give it back.  Declarative is a noun & adjective and declaratively an adverb; the noun plural is declaratives.

The Balfour Declaration, 1917.

Published by the newspapers on 9 November 1917, the letter of a week earlier from then UK foreign secretary Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK Prime Minister 1902-1905) to British banker and leading Zionist Lord Rothschild (1868–1937), came to be known as the “Balfour Declaration”, a seemingly modest and certainly vague (a quality of expression at which Balfour excelled) text of but three sentences but the implications of that vagueness have for more than a century troubled the world.

It was an example of the power of words.  After half a lifetime in politics immersed in diplomacy and the minutiae of treaties & agreements Balfour knew a “declaration of sympathy” was no more an obligation than “view with favor” was a commitment, personal or political and that one's “best endeavours” meant whatever one at the time decided it meant and that ranged from “doing nothing” to “doing much”.  However, as well as the implications of writers there are also the inferences drawn by readers and to the extend Balfour did descend into illustrative specifics, his text was meaty enough for those who might be affected (and many more besides) to decide for themselves what HMG (His Majesty's Government) had declared and variously, those views have lived on in the collective memory.  In psychology, psychiatry and structural mnemonics, there are three defined types of memory: declarative, semantic & episodic.  Declarative memory (known also as explicit memory) is a type of long-term memory where knowledge & events are stored.  Semantic memory is a sub-category of declarative memory which (1) stores general information such as names and facts and is (2) a system of the brain where logical concepts relating to the outside world are stored.  Episodic memory is a sub-category of declarative memory (1) in which is stored memories of personal experiences tied to particular times and places and (2) is a system of the brain which stores personal memories and the concept of self.  

A gang of four Sceggs, all of whom would speak in the accent known as the “declarative middle-class voice”. Sceggs should not be confused with the homophonic skegs, a feature from shipbuilding.

Although technically only marginally related to declarative as otherwise used in English, as a specific category in studies of social class the “declarative middle-class voice” is an accent taught or honed by private girls’ schools.  Optimized for husband-hunting expeditions, training involves reciting school mottos such as Luceat Lux Vestra (Let your light shine), borrowed by Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar (SCEGG) from Matthew 5:16.  Over the Sydney Harbor Bridge, at Abbotsleigh the motto is tempus celerius radio fugit (Time flies faster than a weaver's shuttle), the idea behind that said to be: “As the shuttle flies a pattern is woven, with the threads being the people, buildings and events. The pattern is Abbotsleigh as it continues to grow in complexity and richness each year”.  Quite whether a weaver’s shuttle (said by some detractors to have been chosen as symbolic of the "proper" place of women being in a state of domestic servitude for the convenience of men) is appropriate for a girls’ school in the twenty-first century has been debated.  The motto came from the family crest of Marian Clarke (1853-1933), Abbotsleigh’s first headmistress (principle) and was maintained using the family’s grammatically dubious form tempus fugit radio celerity until 1924 when the correct syntax was substituted.  It’s an urban myth the mistake was permitted to stand until 1924 as a mark of respect while Ms Clarke was alive; she lived a decade odd after the change although the family’s heraldry was apparently never corrected.

One of history's more fateful declarative statements: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) delivers a speech to members of the Reichstag, declaring war on the United States.  Kroll Opera House, Berlin, 11 December 1941, the US responding the same day with declarations of war against Germany and Italy.  Appearing in this image are a number of the Nazi hierarchy who would (1) later sit together as defendants  in the Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) & (2) be hanged from the same gallows (1946).  Interestingly, although militarily hardly inactive over the last few decades, the declarations of war in June 1942 (essentially a "tidying up exercise" to satisfy legal niceties) against Romania, Bulgaria & Hungary were the last by the US.  From the moment the declaration was made, historians and others have puzzled over Hitler's state of mind, given Germany was under no legal obligation to declare war and his decision meant the wealth and industrial might of the US was suddenly added to the forces opposing the Reich.  Much has been written on the subject exploring the understanding of Hitler, his general & admirals had of the potential of the US rapidly to project military power simultaneously across both the Atlantic and Pacific and there are a variety of thoughts but all can be boiled down to what defence counsel in the 1970s offered as the streaker's defence: "It seemed a good idea at the time".

Hitler addressing the members of the Reichstag, 1939 (left) & 1941 (right), the most obvious difference (at least politically) between the two the presence on the front row (lower left) of Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi deputy Führer 1933-1941), who in June 1941, on the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, flew to Scotland on a personal mission to negotiate the end of hostilities between Germany & the UK, something that remains one of the more bizarre episodes of World War II (1939-1945) albeit one at the time which became a "nine day wonder" subsumed by larger events and the geopolitics of the time which left the British reluctant to exploit the arrival for propaganda purposes.  By the time war was declared on the US, Hess was some six months into a period of captivity which would last until his death more than forty-five years later although, when Hitler made the fateful declaration, he had been moved from the Tower of London, his fortnight of imprisonment there a distinction much envied by Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974), one of Hess's fellow inmates in Spandau Prison for close to twenty years.  Reserved usually for royalty and those accused of high treason, Hess would be the last prisoner to be held in the Tower of London.  The photograph from 1941 is sometimes confused with one taken from the same angle on 30 January 1939 when Hitler delivered the speech most remembered for his infamous prediction that another world war would ensure "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe", the relevant passage being:

"I have very often in my lifetime been a prophet and have been mostly derided. At the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish people who only greeted with laughter my prophecies that I would someday take over the leadership of the state and of the entire people of Germany and then, among other things, also bring the Jewish problem to its solution. I believe that this hollow laughter of Jewry in Germany has already stuck in its throat. I want today to be a prophet again: if international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe". 

The declarative sentence in English

In English grammar, there are four types of sentences:  Declarative, exclamatory, imperative, and interrogatory and the declarative, whether in fiction or non-fiction the declarative is by far the most frequently used.  The declarative sentence is one which makes a statement, provides a fact, offers an explanation, or conveys information.  To be a declarative sentence (also known as a declarative statement), it needs to be in the present tense, usually ends with a period (full-stop) and typically, the subject appears before the verb.  A declarative sentence can also be called an assertive sentence it if asserts something is factual.

In 2005, Lindsay Lohan went for a drive in her Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG roadster (left) which didn't end well (centre) but the car was later (right) repaired and at auction attracted an above-average price; that proves all's well that ends well.

There are two types of declarative sentences: the simple and the compound (or elaborated declarative sentence.  A simple declarative sentence consists of only a subject and predicate (Lindsay Lohan is an actor).  A compound declarative sentence usually joins two related phrases with a comma and a conjunction (such as and, yet, or but) but the link can also be provided by a semicolon (a device which continues to litter literary novels but has otherwise much fallen from favor) and can be accompanied by a transition word such as besides, however or therefore, (Lindsay Lohan bought a Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG; within weeks she crashed it).  The song 88 lines about 44 women (The Nails, 1981) was illustrative in that although composed essentially as 89 simple declarative sentences, it was performed as 44 compound declarative sentences.  The writer explained the (88 vs 89) discrepancy by saying “Uh-uh, not Kathrine” (nominally “line 49”) was “not a line but an aside”.

88 lines about 44 women by David Kaufman, Douglas Guthrie, George Kaufman & Marc Campbell (1981).

Deborah was a Catholic girl

She held out till the bitter end

Carla was a different type

She's the one who put it in

Mary was a black girl

I was afraid of a girl like that

Suzen painted pictures

Sitting down like a Buddha sat

Reno was a nameless girl

A geographic memory

Cathy was a Jesus freak

She liked that kind of misery

Vicki had a special way

Of turning sex into a song

Kamala, who couldn't sing,

Kept the beat and kept it strong

Zilla was an archetype

The voodoo queen, the queen of wrath

Joan thought men were second best

To masturbating in a bath

Sherry was a feminist

She really had that gift of gab

Kathleen's point of view was this

Take whatever you can grab

Seattle was another girl

Who left her mark upon the map

Karen liked to tie me up

And left me hanging by a strap

Jeannie had a nightclub walk

That made grown men feel underage

Mariella, who had a son

Said I must go, but finally stayed

Gloria, the last taboo

Was shattered by her tongue one night

Mimi brought the taboo back

And held it up before the light

Marilyn, who knew no shame

Was never ever satisfied

Julie came and went so fast

She didn't even say goodbye

Rhonda had a house in Venice

Lived on brown rice and cocaine

Patty had a house in Houston

Shot cough syrup in her veins

Linda thought her life was empty

Filled it up with alcohol

Katherine was much too pretty

She didn't do that shit at all

Uh-uh, not Kathrine

Pauline thought that love was simple

Turn it on and turn it off

Jean-Marie was complicated

Like some French filmmaker's plot

Gina was the perfect lady

Always had her stockings straight

Jackie was a rich punk rocker

Silver spoon and a paper plate

Sarah was a modern dancer

Lean pristine transparency

Janet wrote bad poetry

In a crazy kind of urgency

Tanya Turkish liked to fuck

While wearing leather biker boots

Brenda's strange obsession

Was for certain vegetables and fruit

Rowena was an artist's daughter

The deeper image shook her up

Dee Dee's mother left her father

Took his money and his truck

Debbie Rae had no such problems

Perfect Norman Rockwell home

Nina, 16, had a baby

Left her parents, lived alone

Bobbi joined a New Wave band

Changed her name to Bobbi Sox

Eloise, who played guitar

Sang songs about whales and cops

Terri didn't give a shit

Was just a nihilist

Ronnie was much more my style

Cause she wrote songs just like this

Jezebel went forty days

Drinking nothing but Perrier

Dinah drove her Chevrolet

Into the San Francisco Bay

Judy came from Ohio

She's a Scientologist

Amaranta, here's a kiss

I chose you to end this list

There are also special classes of declarative sentences such as the interrogative sentence which poses a direct question so necessitating a question mark at the end.  (What is your name?).  The imperative sentence delivers an instruction, command, or request and, depending on this and that, will end either in a period or an exclamation mark (thus “Pass me the remote.” or “Shut the fuck up!”).  An exclamatory sentence will almost invariably end with an exclamation mark and if would be only as a deliberate literary device that an author would use an exclamatory sentence without one (and there are critics who insist that without one, it can’t be an exclamatory sentence although one can discern the difference between “I love you!” and “I do love you.”).