Dob & Snitch

Snitch (pronounced snich)

(1) To snatch or steal; pilfer.

(2) To turn informer; tattle.

(3) Among the criminal classes, a slang term for the nose.

(4) A tiny morsel of food (rare).

(5) A ball used in the fictional sport of Quidditch.

1785: The sense of “an informer" was probably from underworld slang meaning "the nose", a use dating from circa 1700, apparently a development of the earlier (1670s) meaning "fillip on the nose"; snitcher in same sense is from 1827.  The alternative etymology suggests a dialectal variant of sneak, perhaps even an imperfect echoic.  Sneak was from the Middle English sniken, from the Old English snīcan (to creep; to crawl).  The meaning "to steal, to pilfer" is attested from 1904 and is possibly a variant of snatch.

The nouns snitcher and snitch are synonymous with informer, other synonyms being blabbermouth, double-crosser, turncoat, sneak, squealer, source, fink, stoolie, betrayer, tattler, snitcher, tattletale, informant, rat, weasel, narc, whistle-blower, tipster, canary & nark although some are more weighted than others in the ways they’re used by the criminal classes.

Dob (pronounced dob)

(1) As the acronym DOB (DoB; D.O.B. etc), date of birth.

(2) In Australian slang, usually as “dob in”, to snitch or inform on someone.

(3) An acronym for many things: Date of Business; Department of Banking; Difficulty of Breathing; Data Object etc.

(4) In Northern Irish slang, to play truant from school.

(5) As dob (do one’s best), the accessory term to dib (from dyb (do your best)) in some of the rituals of the Boy Scout movement.

1950s: The etymology of dob as Australian slang for “to inform upon”; “to report someone’s transgression to the authorities”, is mysterious.  Unlike many forms, it seems to have emerged late, the fist known instance in print being from 1955.  It’s curious because the British dialect dob (to put down an article heavily or clumsily; to throw down; to throw stones at a mark) would doubtless have been known in Australia from the earliest days of white settlement (1788-on) but there’s no obvious connection.  Dictionaries of Australian slang do report other meanings including “to contribute money to a common cause”, and “impose upon someone a responsibility to perform and unwanted or unpopular task”, the former with some relation to the British forms, the latter something of a variation on “dobbing in” in its usual sense.  Also noted is the use in Australian Rules (VFL, ALF etc) football to mean “to kick (the ball) long and accurately; to kick (a goal)”, again with some relation to the British dialectical form relating to the throwing stones or certain actions in the game of marbles.

Lindsay Lohan, DoB: 2 July 1986.

The etymology of dob in Australia is regarded as unknown.  That dob (meaning a snitch) appears not to have been in use until the 1950s suggests many of the influences on the language which can account for some evolutions or innovations (US English, exposure to foreign languages during wartime) weren’t involved.  Nor was that other profound effect: television, which wasn’t introduced until 1956.  The 1950s was a time of high immigration to Australia, and for the first time by a large number of those for who English wasn’t their first language but no evidence of a connection has ever been offered.  That leaves the British dialectal dob as the likely origin and during the second half of the nineteenth century, the influence of these words on the local dialect was at its greatest so all that is needed to explain it is the etymological missing link.  The was also a historic use for dob as a companion word to dib (the phonetic form of the acronym DYB (do your best)), dob in this context standing for “do one’s best”, the abbreviated dib and dob used in certain chants in the rituals of the Boy Scout movement.  Once seen as an admirable institution to inculcate the values essentials in the development of youth, decades of scandal and critical analysis mean it’s now thought something between quaint and seriously weird.

Dobbed in, Tony Abbott (b 1957; Prime-Minister of Australia 2013-2015), Manly Beach, Sydney, September 2021.

Mr Abbott was fined Aus$500 after a member of the public informed the police, providing photographic evidence as proof of him out and about in public without a mask, in violation of the rules.  Denying guilt, Mr Abbott claimed he was "well within the law, reasonably interpreted”, although he wasn't going to challenge the fine, not wishing to "waste police time".  He further added he thought the current regime "rather oppressive”.  While not greatly inconvenienced by the Aus$500 fine, Mr Abbott was concerned at the corrosive effect of the laws, saying that he "...never thought dobbing and snitching was part of the Australian character", and that he thought "...as soon as we can leave this health-police state mindset behind us, the better for everyone.”  Even before falling victim to snitchers and dobbers, Mr Abbott had delivered a speech in which he said there were "...aspects of contemporary Australia, which I personally find a little bit unsettling", noting especially "...the readiness of people to dob and snitch on their neighbours worries me a lot, frankly.”  He thought this something like the behavior of those in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany) who dobbed in fellow citizens to the Stasi, the secret police.

As a victim of the fascist-pig state, Mr Abbott resorted to the dissident's trick of tautology to emphasise his point, "snitch" and "dob" in this context meaning the same thing.  There may be some nuances in that "snitch" probably more overtly reeks of criminality but technically, certainly regarding those reported for flouting public-health regulations, the words are synonymous.  It's not known how many informers the NSW Minister of Heath recruited to his mask-Stasi to dob and snitch on the unmasked but if Mr Abbott is right and it’s something like the Stasi, on the basis of estimates of those used in the GDR, in a state with the population of New South Wales, the number could have been anything between 250,000 and a million.

Dissidents conspire.

Fellow dissident, former deputy prime- minister Barnaby Joyce (b 1967, thrice deputy PM (between various unpleasantnesses) 2016-2022)) was in June fined Aus$200 after he was dobbed-in when masklessly buying fossil-fuel at an Armidale petrol station.  Unlike Mr Abbott, Mr Joyce admitted he was guilty as sin and copped it sweet.

Sneaker

Sneaker (pronounced snee-ker)

(1) A high or low shoe, notionally intended to be worn when playing sport or other recreational activities, usually with a rubber or synthetic sole and uppers of canvas, leather or a synthetic material (sold as “a pair of sneakers”).

(2) One who sneaks; a “sneak”.

(3) A vessel of drink (a now archaic UK dialect form).

(4) A large cup (or small basin) with a saucer and cover (Indian English, now largely archaic).

(5) In biology, as “sneaker male”, a male animal which pretends to be a female to get close to a female, thereby increasing their chance of mating.

(6) In marine hydrology, disproportionately large coastal waves which can without warning appear in a wave train.

1550s: The construct was sneak + -er.  The origin of sneak is uncertain.  It may be from the thirteenth century Middle English sniken (to creep, to crawl), from the Old English snīcan (to creep, to crawl), from the Proto-West Germanic snīkan, from the Proto-Germanic sneikanan or snīkaną (“to creep, to crawl”) which is related to the root of both snail & snake.  Similar forms include the Danish snige (to sneak), the Swedish snika (to sneak, hanker after) and the Icelandic sníkja (to sneak, hanker after).   Alternatively, there may be a link with snitch, also of uncertain origin.  Snitch may be an alteration of the Middle English snacche (a trap, snare) or snacchen (to seize (prey)), the source of the modern English snatch.  A parallel evolution in Middle English was snik & snak (a sudden blow, snap).

The alternative etymology is as a dialectal variant of sneak.  The noun emerged in the 1590s as a development of the verb (as implied in “sneakish” in the sense of “creep or steal about privately; move or go in a stealthy, slinking way” and most etymologists have concluded it was probably a dialectal survivor from the Middle English sniken from the Old English snican, from the Proto-Germanic sneikanan.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Sneaker is a noun; the noun plural is sneakers.

Reader's Digest published a number of maps illustrating regional variations in the way things are described in the US.  While they didn't seem to indicate there was a costal v flyover linguistic divide, the Mason-Dixon line did seem to have some influence and there was something of an east-west divide.  One outlier however was "sneakers" which was found predominately to be prevalent only around the north & south Atlantic coasts, the rest of the country preferring "tennis shoes" while there were pockets in the Mid-West where "gym shoes" had traction.  The publication noted their map represented only the dominant form and that all forms (and other) could be found throughout the land.

According to Google Trends, in on-line shopping, while the numbers bounce around, they do so within a range and "sneakers" remains statistically dominant.

The noun sense of sneak as “a sneaking person; person of selfish and cowardly temper and conduct” dates from the 1640s a development from the verb; by 1700 it was used to describe “the act or practice of sneaking”.  The transitive sense of “stealthily to insert” was known by the mid-seventeenth century while that of “partake of or get surreptitiously” dates from 1883.  The phrase “to sneak up (on someone or something)” was in use by 1869.  As an adjective (in reference to feelings, suspicions etc) it was used in the sense of “not openly vowed, undemonstrative” from 1748 while the “sneak-thief” (one who enters through unsecured doors and windows to steal) was first so describe in 1859.  “Sneak previews” were originals viewings of movies held before their public release for friendly critics and others likely to provide helpful publicity, the phrase first used in 1938.

Nike Dunk SB Low Freddy Kruger (US$30,000), a tribute to the villain (or hero; opinions differ) in the Nightmare on Elm Street films, the Nike swoosh a nice allusion to the blades in the famous gloves.

The noun use of sneaker to describe certain rubber-soled shoes was in use by at least 1895 and thus (even if tangentially) linked to the use in the 1590s sense of “a sneak; one who sneaks around”).  The use for shoes was of course based on rubber-soled shoes being essentially noiseless in contrast to those which leather soles which were usually fitted with protective metal heel & toe plates to reduce wear.  A slang term for any soft-soled (usually rubber) shoe was “brothel creeper”, based on the idea that men who frequented such places preferred to do so silently so as not to be conspicuous.  The original term was actually “sneak”, first documented in accounts of prison life in 1862 as prisoners’ slang for both the wardens who at night wore “India-rubber shoes” and the shoes themselves.  The same issue was noted by the Nazi war criminals held in Spandau Prison between 1947-1987.  The prisoners had complained the heavy boots worn by the guards disturbed them but when the authorities issued rubber-soled footwear they found it harder to undertake un-noticed their many surreptitious activities.

There are a number of alternative names for the shoes.  Some are obvious such as “basketball shoes” or “tennis shoes” and “sports shoe” is a classic generic but plimsole has also endured in some places.  That was based on the “Plimlsoll Line” (originally Plimsoll’s Mark) which was a line painted on the hull of British ships to mark the point the waterline was allowed to reach before the vessel was declared overloaded.  It was named after English Liberal MP Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), a strident advocate of shipping reforms (many of which were codified in the Merchant Shipping Act (1876) including the “Plimsoll mark”).  Plimsoll came into use in 1907 to refer to rubber-soled, canvas shoe because the band around the shoes holding together the two parts evoked an image of the line on ships.  The spelling quickly shifted to “plimsole” because of the sound association between “soll” and “sole”.  An earlier form was “tacky” (also as “tackie”) which was probably of Dutch or Afrikaans origin, or else from tacky (slightly sticky), a quality associated with rubber, especially before the introduction of vulcanization.  In South Africa, tacky is used not only of rubber-soled shoes but also of car type and often other things made from rubber.

Lindsay Logan, nueva embajadora de Allbirds (the new Allbirds ambassador), possibly on a Wednesday.

In 2022, Allbirds appointed Lindsay Lohan as an ambassador for its "Unexpected Athlete" campaign, focusing on her for the new limited edition of its most successful sneakers (they seem to prefer "running shoe") to date, the Tree Flyer.  The promotional video issued for the announcement was nicely scripted, beginning with Ms Lohan’s perhaps superfluous admission that as an ambassador for running “I am a little unexpected" before working in a few references to her career in film (showing again a rare sense of comedic timing), fondness for peanut butter cookies and the odd social media faux-pas, many of which she's over the years embraced.  The feature shoe is the "Lux Pink" which includes no plastics.  As a well-known car driver and frequent flyer who has for years lived in an air-conditioned cocoon in Dubai, it’s not clear how far up the chart of conspicuous consumption Ms Lohan has stamped her environmental footprint but US-based footwear and apparel company Allbirds claims its design, production & distribution processes are designed to make its products as eco-friendly as possible.  It is a certified “B Corporation”, a system of private certification of for-profit companies of their "social and environmental performance" conferred by B Lab, a non-profit organization which aims to provide consumers with a reliable way to distinguish the genuinely environmentally active from those which cynically “greenwash”.

Lindsay Lohan, Allbirds “Unexpected Athlete Ambassador”.

They’re known also as “gym shoes”, “leisure shoes”, “sandshoes”, “kicks”, “trainers”, “training shoes” and running shoes and in Australia, until the 1990s, one big-selling (and still manufactured) model (the Dunlop Volley) almost universally known as “the Dunlop” and shoe shops do document the difference between “basketball shoes” and “basketball boots”, the latter with an upper built higher to afford greater protection for the ankles.  Interestingly, sneakers (however described) have become something of a cult and many expensive variations are available although analysts see to believe much of the price-tag is can be attributed to profit rather than development or production costs and, like the luxury handbag market, there are claims of “limited availability” and “restricted customer list” but most conclude that usually the only “limit” is demand although some genuine short production runs have been verified, usually for promotional purposes.  They’ve become also an item frequently stolen and among certain demographics, being assaulted so one’s sneakers can be stolen is a not uncommon experience.  Somewhat related to that cultural phenomenon has been the emergence of an after-market for “collectable” or “vintage” sneakers never to be worn and preferably still in their original packaging.  The record price paid at auction is apparently US$2.2 million but some new sneakers associated with celebrities list at as much as US$25,000, intended presumably endlessly to be traded as collectables rather than worn, much in the manner of some of the rarest exotic cars which even the manufacturers admit are produced for just that market.

Sisyphean

Sisyphean (pronounced sis-uh-fee-uhn)

(1) Of or relating to Sisyphus.

(2) Something endless and unavailing (describing usually some laborious or repetitive task).

1625–1635: From the Ancient Greek name Sīsýpheios or Sī́syphios, the construct being Sīsýphe + -eios (from the Latin adjectival suffix -ēiōs, the accusative masculine plural of –ēius).  Some etymologists suggest the name has a pre-Greek origin and some connection with the root of the word sophos (σοφός) (wise) while one noted German mythographer thought it derived from sisys (σίσυς) (a goat's skin), a reference to a rain-charm in which goats' skins were used.  A sisyphean task is one which comes to be understood as both endless and futile; no longer how long one persists, the task is never done.  Because it’s based on a name, Sisyphean is often capitalized, but not always and is is used especially in the phrases “Sisyphean task” & “Sisyphean labors”.  The comes from the name of Sisyphus, a character in Greek mythology who was punished by being forced continuously and eternally to roll a boulder up a steep hill and just as he was about the reach the top, the boulder would roll back down, and he’d have to start all over again.  The phrase is now used of any task which seems never to end no matter how diligent one may be, such as clearing the contents of one’s inbox.  A classic modern example (which apparently wasn’t quite true) was the task is allocated to the team painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge; by the time they finished at the northern end, it was time to return to the south and start again.  Sisyphean is an adjective.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus (Σίσυφος) was the most cunning (if not the most admirable) of mortals.  A Thessalian prince and founder of Corinth (then called Ephyra), he was the son of King Aeolus of Aeolia and Enarete, the daughter of Deimachus and in the way the myths of Antiquity bounced around a bit, he was either the successor and avenger of Corinthus or the successor of Medea.  In the best known of the myths, Autolycus had stolen flocks of sheep from Sisyphus, but because he had engraved his name under the hoof of each, he was able to reclaim them by pointing to the etchings and that day happened to be the eve of the marriage of Anticleia, daughter of Autolycus, and Laertes.  Still not best pleased about the theft of his livestock, Sisyphus that night found his way into the bride’s bed and from that vengeful conquest was born Odysseus.  Those facts are agreed but in some of the myths a scheming Autolycus offered his daughter to Sisyphus because he wanted a grandson to inherit his wiliness & cunning.  The variations in the myths have attracted much comment and it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that some were found to be the work of Medieval writers but some of those with sometimes contradictory “alternative facts” were from Antiquity and it needs to be remembered that many were written by “content providers” who created their “new” product from an existing and popular cast of characters.  In that the process was much the same as the modern equivalent, the US daytime TV soaps, where “killed off” characters can re-appear and on one celebrated occasion, one who had lost a leg managed in a later season to show up again bipedal.

When Zeus abducted Aegina he travelled through Corinth where he was seen by Sisyphus and when her father Asopus came searching for her, Sisyphus promised to reveal the kidnapper's name on condition that Asopus made a spring gush on the town's citadel.  To this Asopus agreed and Sisyphus told him Zeus was the guilty one; here again the myths take forks.  In one telling an enraged Zeus struck the snitch with a thunderbolt, hurling him into the Underworld, where he was condemned for eternity to roll an enormous rock up a hill, the big stone always to roll back to the bottom just as the peak was approached.  However, in the Odyssey, the story was that Zeus sent Thanatos, the spirit of Death, to pay one of his unwelcome visits to Sisyphus in order to bring about his end.  The cunning Sisyphus, however, took Thanatos by surprise and chained him up, meaning that for some time, not one mortal of all of Earth died, compelling Zeus to force the spirit’s release so he could resume his essential tasks; Zeus made sure Sisyphus was the first victim.

Ever plotting, before Thanatos did his work, secretly Sisyphus made his wife promise not to perform at his funeral the obsequies to which he was entitled and upon arrival in the Underworld, stridently he complained to Hades about this slight.  It being a boys club, Hades granted him permission to return to earthly life to punish her.  Of course, the devious fellow didn’t keep to the pact and stayed on Earth, living in rude good health to a great age.  He was though mortal and when eventually he died the gods of the Underworld weren’t going to be tricked again, setting him to the task of pushing the rock uphill, leaving him not a moment to seek his escape.  That story is complete but there were other variations, the most intriguing being in a damaged fragment from the Roman writer Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus (circa 64 BC–17 AD).  Here, it’s described how Sisyphus hated his brother Salmoneus and asked the oracle of Apollo how he could kill the sibling he described as “his enemy”.  Apollo told him that he would find men to take revenge if he slept with his own niece, Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus.  The deed done, Tyro gave birth to twins by Sisyphus but, learning of what the oracle had promised, she killed her two children.  What happens next is not known because that part of the text has been lost but the concluding passages survived and Sisyphus in found in Underworld, rolling his stone.  For this incestuous tale, readers are invited to fill in the gaps.  The foundation of the Isthmian Games is sometimes attributed to Sisyphus, in honor of his nephew Melicerties.  He was married to Merope and his descendants included Glaucus and Bellerophon.

Some slave for lifetimes at their Sisyphean tasks, others walk away.

Sisyphean and Herculean tasks

A “Sisyphean task” differs from a “Herculean task” in that the latter, although immensely challenging, is achievable with extraordinary effort while the former not only cannot be done but must repeatedly be attempted for all eternity.  Hercules was from the Latin Herculēs, from the Etruscan hercle, from the Ancient Greek Ἡρακλῆς (Hēraklês), believed to be the cognate of Ἥρα (Hḗra) (Hera) and, according to some etymologists, the construct was the primitive Indo-European yóhr̥ (year, season) + κλέος (kléos) (glory).  Hercules was the Roman name for the Greek divine hero Heracles, the son of Jupiter and Alcmene, a celebrated hero who possessed exceptional strength.  In the myths, he’s remembered most for the twelve difficult labors he was made to perform as a penance for killing his family and that's the origin of the phrase.

Mr Trump & Mr Biden on CNN.

Essentially, what certain operatives in the White House are hoping is the task confronting Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) over the next few weeks is merely Herculean and not Sisyphean.  It should of course be neither because all he needs to do is not appear senile or at least not obviously at some stage of cognitive decline.  That would seem a reasonable expectation for a major-party nominee for the office of President of the United States (POTUS), a four-year appointment which, as well as lots of other stuff, includes being commander-in-chief of the planet’s most powerful military and the right to deploy the US nuclear arsenal.  However, after the first televised debate (June 2024) with Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021), he has yet to convince many and in each public appearance since, what he has been doing is pushing his rock (which gets bigger and heavier which each attempt) uphill, only to commit some gaff which means the rock rolls to the bottom and he has to start again.  Mixing up the names of Vladimir Putin; (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) & Volodymyr Zelensky (b 1978; president of Ukraine since 2019) might have elicited little more than a smile from observers had it not been part of a pattern of behavior and while in the archives there are doubtlessly many similar gaffs by others, Mr Biden’s are now keenly awaited and rated for severity.  At least quickly he caught the error and corrected himself but later the same day, he referred his vice-president (Kamala Harris (b 1964; US vice president since 2021) as “Vice President Trump”, blithely carrying on, apparently oblivious to what he’d just said.  That seems to be beyond  gaff; more of “a howler”.

It’s definitely a matter of a heightened focus on Mr Biden’s slip-ups and Mr Trump also has “a bit of previous” in mixing up names, something which has not gone unnoticed but has been treated as just an amusing part of the clatter of the campaign and it’s an associative thing: because he’s not labelled as being in “obvious cognitive decline”, when Mr Trump mixes up a name, it’s spun not as a symptom but just an “everyday” gaff.  In January 2024 Mr Trump mistakenly referred to his then rival for the nomination Nikki Haley (b 1972; ambassador to UN 2017-2018) when he should have been attacking Democrat Nancy Pelosi (b 1940; speaker of the US House of Representatives 2007-2011 & 2019-2023), repeatedly naming Ms Haley (who for some two years under his administration served as ambassador to the UN) when speaking at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, discussing the 6 Jan 2021 capitol riot:

“Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it.  All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security.  We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want.  They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that.  These are very dishonest people.”

Nikki Haley must have been much on his mind.  The previous September, he’d surprised a few by saying “…with Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn’t be won” before going on to say “…we would be in World War II (1939-1945) very quickly if we’re going to be relying on [Mr Biden].”  Asked for a comment, Mr Trump claimed sometimes “sarcastically” he transposes Mr Biden’s name with that of Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) “…as an indication that others may actually be having a very big influence in running our country.”  Seemingly, crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) is no longer on his mind.

This is a genuine crisis for the Democratic Party and one thing it has done is publicize the way the machinery would work if a critical mass of delegates to the Democratic National Convention (scheduled for 19-22 August 2024) decide to contest Mr Biden’s path to the nomination.  The first potential spanner in the works is a recent amendment to Ohio electoral law which demands presidential candidates be certified (ie the state’s electoral commissioner must be notified that presidential candidates have been officially nominated) at least 90 days before the general election if they are to appear on ballot’s in Ohio.  That makes the Ohio deadline the earliest in the land and the cut-off date is 7 August, some two weeks before the convention.  The Republican National Convention is held in July so this is exclusively a problem for the Democrats and the issue has existed in the past but states have either accepted a “provisional nomination” or extended their deadline.  The Ohio attorney-general however says the state will not be accepting a provisional certificate and the Republican-controlled legislature did not pass an extension amendment so there things stand, appearing to demand the delegates vote in some virtual way prior to 7 August.  There is also the matter of federal electoral law for the delegates to consider.  What it holds is that the millions of dollars being held as campaign funds for the Biden-Harris ticket cannot be transferred to new ticket, unless the new presidential nominee was one of the members of the old.  What this means is that if Mr Biden is not the nominee, the vital campaign funds will remain available only if that nominee is Vice-President Harris.

Mr Biden at work.

Political junkies who belong to the school of “politics as theatre” are actually hoping for a so-called “open convention” (sometimes called a “brokered convention), something not seen since 1952 although both parties have since flirted with the possibility.  An open convention is one in which no individual secures a majority on the first ballot and it become a matter of horse trading between 4000-odd delegates and for that to happen would require either Mr Biden deciding to withdraw (and presumably endorsing Ms Harris) or a challenge emerging from the floor.  While the junkies can see the potential for fun in such a spectacle, the thought of an open convention sends shivers down the spines of the party bosses who like things to be stage-managed and decided in advance; the potential for messiness just too big a risk.  Still, at least in theory, it really is in the hands of the delegates who under the law are entitled to vote for whomever they wish, even if they have been elected on the basis of a pledge to vote for a certain candidate.

If Mr Biden manages to rise to the herculean task of convincing the necessary folk he’s not senile then the problem goes away because, even if they think he’s likely to descend into senility during a second term, that’s a bridge to be crossed as some later date.  Perhaps fortunately for Mr Biden, even if the task proves Sisyphean, he might still secure the nomination by refusing to withdraw because it’s not as if there are others both outstanding in quality and willing to stand against the Republican’s inevitable nominee; this is not 1968.  Interestingly, analysts have noted a sudden shift in the Trump campaign and suggest rather than trying to damage Mr Biden to the extent he's forced to withdraw from the process, the strategy now appears to be shaped towards ensuring he remains the candidate, the assumption being Trump will beat Biden but only may win against another candidate.  In politics, there's much preference for the known rather than the unknown. 

Janus

Janus (pronounced jey-nuhs)

(1) In Roman mythology, a god of doorways (and thus also of beginnings), and of the rising and setting of the sun, usually represented as having one head with two bearded faces back to back, looking in opposite directions, historically understood as the past and the future.

(2) When used attributively, to indicate things with two faces or aspects; or made of two different materials; or having a two-way action.

(3) In zoology, a diprosopus (two-headed) animal.

(4) In chemistry, used attributively to indicate an azo dye with a quaternary ammonium group, frequently with the diazo component being safranine.

(5) In astronomy, a moon of the planet Saturn, located just outside the rings.

(6) In figurative use, a “two-faced” person; a hypocrite.

(7) In numismatics, (as Janus coin),a coin minted with a head on each face.

(8) In architecture, as the jānus doorway, a style of doorway, archway or arcade, the name derived from the Roman deity Iānus (Janus) being the god of doorways.

Mid-late 1500s: From the Latin Iānus (the ancient Italic deity Janus), to the Romans of Antiquity, the guardian god of portals, doors, and gates; patron of beginnings and endings.  The Latin Iānus (literally “gate, arched passageway”) may be from the primitive Indo-European root ei- (to go), the cognates including the Sanskrit yanah (path) and the Old Church Slavonic jado (to travel).  In depictions, Janus is shown as having two faces, one in front the other in back (an image thought to represent sunrise and sunset reflect his original role as a solar deity although it represents also coming and going in general, young and old or (in recent years) just about anything dichotomous).  The doors of the temple of Janus were traditionally open only during the time of war and closed to mark the end of the conflict, the origins of allusions to the “temple of Janus” being used metaphorically to mean conflict or wartime and the month of January is named after Janus, the link being to “the beginning of the year”.  The most commonly used forms are Janus-faced & Janus-headed while specialized uses include Janus cat (a cat with diprosopus (a condition in which part of the face is duplicated on the head)) and Janus particle (in nanotechnology and physics, a spherical microscopic particle which has hemispheres with sharply differing properties, such as one hydrophilic hemisphere and one hydrophobic hemisphere).  Janus is a noun or proper noun and Janus-like, janian, janiform & januform are adjectives.

Prosthetic in studio (left), Ralph Fiennes (b 1962) on-set in character (centre) and Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 2022-2025) imagined in the same vein (right).

The prosthetic used in the digitally-altered image (right) was a discarded proposal for the depiction of Lord Voldemort in the first film version of JK Rowling's (b 1965) series of Harry Potter children’s fantasy novels; it used a Janus-like two-faced head.  It's an urban myth Peter Dutton auditioned for the part when the first film was being cast but was rejected as being "too scary" but if ever there's another film, the producers could do worse than to cast him and should Mr Dutton not resume his political career (God forbid), he could bring to Voldemort the sense of menacing evil the character has never quite achieved, fine though Mr Fiennes' performance surely was.

Peter Dutton captured by a photographer during a happy moment (left), Pinhead the head Cenobite (centre) and and artist's depiction of Mr Dutton in “Pinhead mode” (digitally altered image, right).

However, even if too scary to be a Voldemort, for the next instalment in the Hellraiser franchise, Mr Dutton may be just scary enough to be the next “Pinhead”, the leader of the Cenobites, extra-dimensional, sadomasochistic creatures unable to differentiate between pain and pleasure.  As well, as looking the part, to depict a convincing Cenobite, Mr Dutton would absorb little of the director’s time in rehearsals because he’d need just to “act naturally”.  The first Hellraiser film was released in 1987 and there have since been nine sequels with Pinhead gaining a cult following among aficionados of the genre so, should he need a post-political career, definitely he should audition.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason and that also would work in his favour because it’s clear the Cenobites are a Masonic crew.

Roman cast bronze coin from the aes grave series, circa 225-217 BC; it shows the bearded head of Janus opposite the prow of a war galley.

In the lushly populated pantheon of Roman gods, Janus (Iānus) was one of the oldest, represented with two faces, one looking forwards and the other backwards (ie artistically, to the left & right).  In some of the myths, Janus was a native of Rome where, at some point, he ruled with Camesus while others claimed he came from Thessaly and ended up in Rome as an exile, welcomed there by Camesus, who shared his kingdom with him.  He ruled alone after the death of his host and in many tales Janus built a city on a hill (consequently called Janiculum as would have been the convention).  He had come to Italy with his wife (Camasenea or Camise) and the best known of their children was Tiberinus.  Janus received Saturn when he was driven from Greece by Jupiter, Saturn ruling over Saturnia, a village situated on the heights of the capitol.  By consensus, it seems that during the reign of Janus people unfailingly were honourable & honest (the stories from Antiquity are well-named as “myths”) and there was universal peace and prosperity.  While trade was as old as humanity and it’s clear there had been various means of exchange, it’s Janus who is credited with inventing “money” in the modern sense in which currency is understood, the oldest known Roman bronze Roman coins cast with an effigy of Janus on one side and the prow of a boat on the reverse.  Where the myth-tellers differ is whether the “civilizing” of the first natives of Latium can be attributed to Janus or Saturn but upon his death he was deified so there was some sense of gratitude.

The fate of Tarpeia, pressed (bludgeoned in some stories) to death by the shields of the Sabines.

In the way the myths did tend to multiply, other legends became attached to his memory, the most famous being the events which transpired after Romulus and his companions had carried off the Sabine women, prompting Titus Tatius and the Sabines to attack the city.  One night, driven by her lust for Tatius, the treacherous Tarpeia delivered the citadel into the hands of the Sabines but rather than wedding her as he had promised, Tatius had her put to death on the very Roman basis: “nobody likes a snitch”.  His soldiers had already scaled the heights of the Capitol when Janus launched a jet of hot water which put them to flight; to commemorate this military miracle, it was decreed that in time of war the door of the Temple of Janus should always be left open so in times of trouble the god could come to the aid of the Romans.  It was closed only if the Roman Empire was at peace.  Janus was said also to have married the Nymph Juturna who gave him a son, the god Fontus (or Fons).

(John) Foster Dulles (1888–1959; US Secretary of State 1953-1959, left) with Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US POTUS 1953-1961, right), Washington DC, 1955.

The terms “Janus-faced” or “Janus-headed” are used in engineering an architecture to describe designs where the “face” or “head” of an object or shape is duplicated but the idea usually is applied to people.  To speak of someone as being “two faced” is to suggest, variously, they’re deceitful, duplicitous or hypocritical.  Many have been damned (and sometimes even admired) as “two-faced” but on one occasion, after someone had observed Foster Dulles was “a bit two-faced” about something, Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) responded he couldn’t be because “…if he had two faces, he wouldn’t use that one.”  During his not infrequent criticisms of Dulles, habitually Churchill would speak of his “great slab of a face” although in retirement the old enmities (mostly) were forgotten and in May 1959 he visited him in his hospital room in Washington DC.  The two had “a pleasant chat” and within a fortnight Dulles was dead.

Noses down: In the Berghof on the Obersalzberg on 21 June 1939, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments & war production 1942-1945, (left) and Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945, right) study plans for Linz's new opera house (photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957; Nazi court photographer), Bavarian State Library's Fotoarchiv Hoffmann.

Sometimes, such realizations, literal or figurative, come too late.  In the entry Speer made on 30 November 1946 in his clandestine prison diary (Spandauer Tagebücher (Spandau: The Secret Diaries) (1975)) is the passage: “Once again I am obsessed by the thought of Hitler’s two faces, and that for so long a time I did not see the second behind the first.  It was only toward the end, during the last months, that I suddenly became aware of the duality; and, significantly, my insight was connected with an aesthetic observation: I suddenly discovered how ugly, how repellent and ill proportioned, Hitler’s face was. How could I have overlooked that for so many years?”  Clearly, such thoughts stayed with him because on 8 December 1953 he noted: “Last night I had the following dream: In a rather sizable group, sometime toward the end of the war, I declare that everything is lost, that there is no longer a chance and the secret weapons do not exist.  The others in the dream remain anonymous. Suddenly Hitler emerges from their midst I am afraid that he will have heard my remark and may order my arrest.  My anxiety increases because Hitler’s retinue displays extreme iciness.  Nobody says a word to me.  Suddenly the scene changes.  We are in a house on a slope, with a narrow driveway.  Only gradually do I realize that it is Eva Braun’s [Eva Hitler (née Braun; 1912–1945)] house.  Hider comes to tea, sits facing me, but remains frosty and forbidding.  He chews the comers of his fingernails, as he so often did.  There are bloody places where they are bitten down to the quick.  Looking into his swollen face, I realize for the first time that perhaps Hitler wore his moustache in order to divert attention from his excessively large, ill-proportioned nose.  Now I am afraid that I will be arrested any moment because I have perceived the secret of his nose.  Heart pounding, I wake up.”

An eighteenth century carving of Janus in the style of a herm.

A part of the etymological legacy of the Roman Empire, the name Janus appears in several European languages.  In Danish (from the Latin Iānus), it’s a Latinization of the Danish given name Jens.  In Faroese, it’s a male given name which begat (1) Janussson or Janusarson (son of Janus) and (2) Janusdóttir or Janusardóttir (daughter of Janus).  In Estonian it’s a male given name.  In Polish, it’s both a masculine & feminine surname (the feminine surname being indeclinable (a word that is not grammatically inflected).  There is no anglicized form of the Latin name Janus.  Although it was never common and is now regarded by most genealogy authorities as "rare", when used in the English-speaking world the spelling remain "Janus".  Often, when Latin names were adopted in English, even when the spelling was unaltered, there were modifications to suit local phonetics but Janus is pronounced still just as it would have been by a Roman.

Tristar pictures used the Janus motif in promotional material for I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  Not well-received upon release, it's since picked up a cult following.

Dating from the 1580s, was from the Latin ianitor (doorkeeper, porter), from ianua (door, entrance, gate), the construct being ianus (arched passageway, arcade" + tor (the agent suffix).  The meaning “usher in a school” and later “doorkeeper” emerged in the 1620s white the more specific (and in Scotland and North America enduring) sense of “a caretaker of a building, man employed to attend to cleaning and tidiness” seems first to have been documented in 1708 (the now unused feminine forms were janitress (1806) & janitrix (1818).  Why janitor survived in general use in Scotland and North America and not elsewhere in the English-speaking world is a mystery although the influence of US popular culture (film and television) did see something of a late twentieth century revival and in  sub-cultures like 4chan and other places which grew out of the more anarchic bulletin boards of the 1980s & 1990s, a janitor is the (often disparaging) term for a content moderator for a discussion forum.

Augustus Orders the Closing of the Doors of the Temple of Janus (circa 1681), oil on canvas by Louis de Boullogne (1654–1733), Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

Among the more annoying things encountered by those learning English are surely Janus words, those with opposite meanings within themselves.  Examples include:  Hew can mean cutting something down or adhering closely to it.  Sanction may mean “formal approval or permission” or “an official ban, penalty, or deterrent”.  Scan can mean “to look slowly and carefully” or “quickly to glance; a cursory examination”.  Inflammable, which many take to mean “easy to burn” but the treachery of the word lies in the in- prefix which is often used as a negative, with the result that inflammable can be deconstructed as “not flammable”.  Trip can (and usually does) suggest clumsiness but can also imply some nimbleness or lightness of foot, as in the saying “trip the light fantastic”.  Oversight is a particularly egregious example.  To exercise oversight over someone or something is provide careful, watchful supervision yet an oversight is an omission or mistake.  In the ever-shifting newspeak of popular culture, the creation of the janus-word is often deliberate.  Filth can mean “of the finest quality”, wicked can mean “very good” and in the way which might have pleased George Orwell (1903-1950) "bad" has become classic “newspeak” (coined by Orwell for Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and used now to describe ambiguous, misleading, or euphemistic words, used deliberately to deceive, typically by politicians, bureaucrats or corporations).  “Bad weed” can mean the drug was either of fine or poor quality depending on the sentence structure: “that was bad weed” might well suggest it was of not good while “man, that was some bad weed” probably means it was good indeed.  Saying nice now seems rarely to mean what dictionaries say nice has come to mean but can variously describe something wonderful, appalling or disgusting.