Troop

Troop (pronounced troop)

(1) An assemblage of persons or things; company; band.

(2) A great number or multitude.

(3) In historic military use, (usually) an armored cavalry, cavalry or artillery battery consisting of two or more platoons and a headquarters group.

(4) As troops, a body of soldiers, police etc.

(5) A unit of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts usually having a maximum of 32 members under the guidance of an adult leader.

(6) A herd, flock or swarm of some living creatures.

(7) A band or troupe of actors (archaic).

(8) To gather in a company; flock together.

(9) To come, go, or pass in great numbers; throng; to walk, as if in a march; go; to walk, march, or pass in rank or order:

(10) To associate or consort (usually followed by with).

(11) In British military use, to carry (the flag or colors) in a ceremonial way before troops (used also by the military in some countries where military traditions have been influenced by the British).

(12) To assemble or form into a troop or troops.

(13) An alternative spelling of troupe (archaic).

(14) In British military slang, formerly to report a soldier for a breach of discipline (archaic).

(15) An alternative word for consort (archaic).

(16) The collective noun for a group of baboons.

(17) In music, a particular roll of the drum; a quick march.

(18) In mycology, mushrooms that are in a close group but not close enough to be called a cluster.

1545: From the French troupe, from the Old French trope (band of people, company, troop, crowd), of uncertain origin but perhaps from the Frankish throp (assembly, gathering of people), from the Proto-Germanic þurpą (village, land, estate), from the primitive Indo-European treb- (dwelling, settlement) or a back-formation of troupeau, diminutive of the Medieval Latin troppus (flock) and Middle French troupe, from which Modern French gained troupeau (herd)), the construct being trop- (from the Germanic form thorp) + -el, from the Latin –ellus, the diminutive suffix.  There may have been some connection with the Old English ðorp or the Old Norse thorp (village) and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest the French form was from the Latin troppus (flock) of unknown origin but may also have been picked-up from the (speculative) Germanic source.  Doublet of troupe, and possibly also of thorp and dorp; it was cognate with the German Dorf (village).

It came to be applied to groups of animals in the 1580s, the military adoption for a “subdivision of a cavalry force" dating from the same time, the general use of ‘troop” to describe any “armed forces” attested from the 1590s.  Troops were part of the structure in the Boy Scouts from the organization's beginnings in 1908, the Girl Scouts emulating this upon formation four years later.  In modern use, the spelling troupe has assumed the exclusive use of describing a company of actors, singers, acrobats or other entertainers and performers.

The noun troop is a linguistic curiosity.  It’s used as a collective noun (a troop of girl-scouts) and in the noun plural (the troops) but not as a noun singular (one doesn’t refer to individual troops as “a troop”) but there is the noun singular “trooper”.

Military and Para-military use

The troop as a military sub-unit continues to exist in some armed and police forces but tends now not in general to be part of military structures.  It was originally a tactical group, a small formation of cavalry, part of a squadron deployed on a battlefield for a specific action and it’s in that sense that use persists, a troop sometimes an alternative term for an infantry section or platoon.  There are historic exceptions in the US Cavalry and the British Army where a troop can be an infantry company or artillery battery.

The Australian Army uses the term, a troop a platoon sized element and the general term for army personnel (and literally the private soldier) is trooper.  Technically, it’s only the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR; special forces) of the Royal Australian Infantry Corps which uses troop to refer to its platoon size formations but it remains common slang.  As a general principle, where used in the military, a troop tends to be platoon-sized except in the US Cavalry, where it’s equivalent to a company (ie three to four platoons) and, when combined, these form a regiment, the change in nomenclature dating from 1883.

Para-military use: A troop of girl scouts (or guides) selling biscuits (or cookies).

In civilian use, many US police forces use troop and trooper because they modelled their command structures along military lines, the same reason the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts adopted the form although, in these less robust times, it’s become common, especially with the latter, to replace troop with company, the now less-fashionable military connection being less overt.

One exception was the Salvation Army which never used troop, either as an organizational unit or in the collective to describe its members although, it was common to refer to them as "Christian soldiers".  They did use military ranks and some of the structural terms (such as corps and division) were adopted but never troop.

Bandwagon

Bandwagon (pronounced band-wag-uhn)

(1) A wagon, historically large and often ornately decorated, used to transport the members of a band or musical troop while performing for events such as circus parades or political rallies.

(2) Figuratively, a party, cause, movement, fashion, trend etc, that by its mass appeal or strength readily attracts many followers.

1849 (although some sources cite 1855): An Americanism, the construct being band + wagon.  Band (in the context of a musical troop) was from the Middle English band, from the Old French bande, from the Old Occitan banda (regiment of troops), which may have been from the Frankish bend, from the Proto-Germanic bandiz, from the primitive Indo-European bhend (to tie; bond, band).  The Modern German spelling is Bande (band).  Wagon was from the Middle Dutch wagen, from the Old Dutch wagan, from the proto West Germanic wagn, from the Proto-Germanic wagnaz (wagon), from the primitive Indo-European woghnos (wagon, primitive carriage), from wegh (to transport).  The form is also related to the Modern English way & weigh.  Bandwagon in its literal or figurative sense is not directly related to wagon’s sense of “a woman of loose virtue” (the idea being she is being “ridden” in the sense of being “mounted for sexual purposes”, the same idea as the disparaging “town bike”) although, once a reputation as “a bit of a wagon” is known, some presumably would be inspired to “jump on the bandwagon.  The alternative spelling is band-wagon and it would be a useful distinction if the hyphenated form is used of the actual wagon while the unhyphenated is for figurative purposes.  Bandwagon, bandwagonist, bandwagonism, bandwagoning & bandwagoner are nouns; the noun plural is bandwagons.  Bandwagon has been used as a non-standard verb and the adjective bandwagonish is non-standard.

In sociology, the “bandwagon effect” describes the phenomenon of people often doing or believing what they think many other people do or believe.  There can be a sound evolutionary basis for this and it is often observed in the animal behavior described as “safety in numbers” which describes beasts clustering when a predator is hunting; while the predator may be guaranteed a kill, each individual has a higher chance of survival if in a group than if isolated and thus a more attractive target.  The idea is also known as “herd behavior”, “herd instinct” & “herd mentality” and used especially in economics, explaining some trends (buying & selling) in equity markets and notably, crypto-currencies.  Terms like “herd behaviour” are often used disparagingly but there is a certain internal logic, illustrated by Joseph Heller (1923-1999) in Catch-22 (1961):

“We won’t lose. We’ve got more men, more money and more material. There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me. Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and having fun. Let somebody else get killed.”
“But suppose everybody on our side felt that way.”
“Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way.  Wouldn’t I?”

The usual expression is “climb (or jump, hop, get) on the bandwagon”, describing the tendency for people to follow others in joining, supporting or buying something as its popularity rises.  The companion phrase is “hype train” although some bandwagons become more personalized. The “Trump Train” used to describe the way the early successes enjoyed in 2016 by Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) in the process to seek the Republican Party’s nomination for that year’s presidential election assumed its own momentum, gathering speed and numbers of passengers (train-like) as it went.

Armada Cornet Band of Michigan in Band Wagon with instruments (1878).

The original band wagons (initially never hyphenized) were large, open, horse drawn carriages used essentially as mobile stages, carrying musicians who would play as they moved, typically in a circus procession or as part of the spectacle of entertainment which was a part of nineteenth century elections in the US.  The band wagons themselves became campaign posters, painted in the colors associated with a candidate and thus emblematic of the party, which would explain why Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) in 1899 explained “being on the bandwagon” as meaning “…attaching oneself to anything that looks likely to succeed.”

Wagon porn: Band Wagon, wheels (43 & 55-inch); body dark green with gold scrolling on body & seats; gearing Naples yellow, ornamented with ultramarine blue & gold stripes; trimming dark green goatskin.  The Carriage Monthly, December 1881.

The terms “bandwagoner” & “bandwagon fan” are used to describe those who support or participate in something only because it is popular or successful.  The most frequent use is as a derogatory term to refer to those who discover an allegiance to a sporting team or franchise as they begin to enjoy success, distinguishing them from the “die hard” fan who maintains their supports in bad times as well as good.  The phenomenon is cross-code (football, hockey, basketball et al) and is a specific instance illustrating the adage: “nothing succeeds like success”.

In formal logic, the term “bandwagon fallacy” (argumentum ad populum) is probably better understood by the expressions used in common discourse including “appeal to the masses” or “mob appeal”, all made to sound more palatable in the Latin consensus gentium (agreement of the people).  Essentially, the fallacy is that if a particular view or attitude is held by a majority of the population, it must be “right”, the corollary of course that if something is unpopular, it must be “wrong”; these are the two extremes of the bandwagon fallacy spectrum.  Although used in psychology and political science, the concept is more familiar in commerce and the evidence is on display in all of the advertising material which portrays products as desirable simply on the basis of their alleged popularity.  The blending of all this with the “bandwagon effect” is encapsulated in the more recent portmanteau noun “brandwagon”.

The special use of “bandwagoning” in international relations (IR) was coined by University of Chicago political scientist Quincy Wright (1890–1970) in A Study of War (1942).  Characterized by some also as “accepting the inevitable” or “lying back and trying to enjoy it”, it describes the process in which a state shifts from being an adversary of a stronger state to being in some way aligned, either in a formal alliance or a state of peaceful co-existence.  Implicit in the arrangement is that any benefits which accrue from the relationship, vis-à-vis third parties, will overwhelmingly be gained by the stronger state.  Historically, such relationships often have come into being because domination by the regional or global hegemon is anyway inevitable and it may as well be accepted without the consequences of armed conflict.  In IR, bandwagoning is cumulative in that the more states which decide to align with the strong state, the more which will either follow the lead or seek an alliance with another powerful player.

The idea of juxtaposing someone getting “back on the party bandwagon” with falling “off the wagon” (ie drinking alcohol again) was hard to resist for at least one headline writer who knew click-bait when they saw it.  The phrase “fall off the wagon” originated in the US in the late nineteenth century as “fall off the water wagon (or cart)”, the device referenced the horse-drawn water tanks which were a frequent sight in summer, keeping down the dust on the unpaved roads of the era.  The idea thus was that to be “on the wagon” was to be drinking water rather than strong drink; “fall off the wagon” and you're back on the booze.

Egregious

Egregious (pronounced ih-gree-juhs)

(1) Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant.

(2) Extraordinary in some good way; distinguished or eminent (archaic).

1525–1535: From the Middle English, from the Latin ēgregius (preeminent; outstanding, literally “standing out from the herd”), the construct being ē- (out (and in Latin an alternative to ex-)) + greg-, stem of grēx (flock, herd) + -ius.  Grēx was from the primitive Indo-European hzger- (to assemble, gather together) which influenced also the Spanish grey (flock, crowd), the Lithuanian gurguole (mass, crowd) and gurgulys (chaos, confusion), the Old Church Slavonic гроусти (grusti) (handful), the Sanskrit गण (gaṇá) (flock, troop, group) and ग्राम (grā́ma) (troop, collection, multitude; village, tribe), and the Ancient Greek ἀγείρω (ageírō) (I gather, collect) (from whence came ἀγορά (agorá)).  The link to the Proto-Germanic kruppaz (lump, round mass, body, crop) is contested.  The English –ous was a Middle English borrowing from the Old French -ous and –eux from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of) and is as doublet of -ose in unstressed position; it was used to form adjectives from nouns and to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, most commonly in abundance.  Egregious is an adjective, egregiously is an adverb and egregiousness is a noun; the noun plural is the delicious egregiousnesses.

Meaning adaptation & shift

There are many words in English where meaning has in some way or to some degree shifted but egregious is one of the rarities which now means the opposite of what it once did.  There are others such as nice which used to mean “silly, foolish, simple”; silly which morphed from referring to things “worthy or blessed” to meaning “weak and vulnerable” before assuming its modern sense; awful which used to describe something “worthy of awe” and decimate, once a Roman military term to describe a death-rate around 10% whereas it implies now a survival rate about that number.  In English, upon its sixteenth century adoption from Latin, egregious was a compliment, a way to suggest someone was distinguished or eminent.  That egregiously clever English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was flattering a colleague when he remarked, "I am not so egregious a mathematician as you are…" which would today be thought an insult.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that in 1534, egregious unambiguously meant "remarkable, in a good sense" but as early as 1573, people were also using it to mean "remarkable, in a bad sense."  The documentary evidence appears sparse but the OED speculates the meaning started to switch because people were using the word sarcastically or at least with some gentle irony.  In the linguistically democratic manner in which English evolves, the latter prevailed, presumably because people felt there were quite enough ways to compliment others but were anxious always to add another insult to the lexicon.  Shakespeare, with his ear for the vernacular, perhaps helped.  Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) employed it in the older sense in his Tamburlaine (1590), writing of “egregious viceroys of these eastern parts…” but within a generation, William Shakespeare (1564–1616) has Posthumus condemn himself in Cymbeline (1611) in the newer condemnatory sense: “egregious murderer”, echoing his earlier use in All's Well That Ends Well (1605).  Both meanings appear to have operated in parallel until the eighteenth century which must have hurt a few feelings or perhaps, in an age of dueling, something more severe.

Imogen Sleeping (from Shakespeare's Cymbeline), circa 1899 by Norman Mills Price (1877–1951).

In southern Europe however, the bard’s words failed to seduce the Romance languages.  The Italian formal salutation egregio is entirely reverential, as are the both the Spanish and Portuguese cognates, egregio and egrégio.

Float

Float (pronounced floht)

(1) To rest, move or remain on the surface of a liquid (to be buoyant; to be supported by a liquid of greater density, such that part (of the object or substance) remains above the surface) or in the air.

(2) By metaphor, to move lightly and gracefully.

(3) By metaphor, information or items circulating.

(4) Figuratively, to vacillate (often followed by between).

(5) As applied to currencies, to be allowed freely to fluctuate in the foreign-exchange market instead of being exchanged at a fixed or managed rate.

(6) In the administration of interest rates, periodically to change according to money-market conditions.

(7) In the equities markets, the offering of previously privately held stock on public boards; an offering of shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of the public, normally followed by a listing on a stock exchange.

(8) In the bond markets, an offering.

(9) In theatre, to lay down (a flat), usually by bracing the bottom edge of the frame with the foot and allowing the rest to fall slowly to the floor.

(10) An inflated bag to sustain a person in water; life preserver.

(11) In plumbing, in certain types of tanks, cisterns etc, a device, as a hollow ball, that through its buoyancy automatically regulates the level, supply, or outlet of a liquid.

(12) In nautical jargon, a floating platform attached to a wharf, bank, or the like, and used as a landing; any kind of buoyancy device.

(13) In aeronautics, a hollow, boat-like structure under the wing or fuselage of a seaplane or flying boat, keeping it afloat in water (aircraft so equipped sometimes called “float planes”).

(14) In angling, a piece of cork or other material for supporting a baited line in the water and indicating by its movements when a fish bites.

(15) In zoology, an inflated organ that supports an animal in the water; the gas-filled sac, bag or body of a siphonophore; a pneumatophore.

(16) A vehicle bearing a display, usually an elaborate tableau, in a parade or procession.

(17) In banking, uncollected checks and commercial paper in process of transfer from bank to bank; funds committed to be paid but not yet charged against the account.

(18) In metal-working, a single-cut file (a kind of rasp) of moderate smoothness.

(19) In interior decorating, a flat tool for spreading and smoothing plaster or stucco.

(20) In stonemasonry, a tool for polishing marble.

(21) In weaving and knitting, a length of yarn that extends over several rows or stitches without being interworked.

(22) In commerce, a sum of physical cash used to provide change for the till at the start of a day's business.

(23) In geology and mining, loose fragments of rock, ore, etc that have been moved from one place to another by the action of wind, water etc.

(24) To cause something to be suspended in a liquid of greater density.

(25) To move in a particular direction with the liquid in which one is floating (as in “floating downstream” et al).

(26) In aviation, to remain airborne, without touching down, for an excessive length of time during landing, due to excessive airspeed during the landing flare.

(27) To promote an idea for discussion or consideration.

(28) As expression indicating the viability of an idea (as in “it’ll never float”, conveying the same sense as “it’ll never fly”).

(29) In computer (graphics, word processing etc), to cause an element within a document to “float” above or beside others; on web pages, a visual style in which styled elements float above or beside others.

(30) In UK use, a small (often electric) vehicle used for local deliveries, especially in the term “milk float” (and historically, the now obsolete “coal float”).

(31) In trade, to allow a price to be determined by the markets as opposed to by rule.

(32) In insurance, premiums taken in but not yet paid out.

(33) In computer programming, as floating-point number, a way of representing real numbers (ie numbers with fractions or decimal points) in a binary format

(34) A soft beverage with a scoop of ice-cream floating in it.

(35) In poker, a manoeuvre in which a player calls on the flop or turn with a weak hand, with the intention of bluffing after a subsequent community card.

(36) In knitting, one of the loose ends of yarn on an unfinished work.

(37) In transport, a car carrier or car transporter truck or truck-and-trailer combination; a lowboy trailer.

(38) In bartending, the technique of layering of liquid or ingredients on the top of a drink.

(39) In electrical engineering, as “float voltage”, an external electric potential required to keep a battery fully charged

(40) In zoology, the collective noun for crocodiles (the alternative being “bask”).

(41) In automotive engineering, as “floating axle”, a type of rear axle used mostly in heavy-duty vehicles where the axle shafts are not directly attached to the differential housing or the vehicle chassis but instead supported by bearings housed in the wheel hubs.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English floten, from the Old English flotian (to float), from the Proto-Germanic flutōną (to float), from the primitive Indo-European plewd- & plew- (to float, swim, fly).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian flotje (to float), the West Frisian flotsje (to float), the Dutch vlotten (to float), the German flötzen & flößen (to float), the Swedish flotta (to float), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Middle Low German vloten & vlotten (to float, swim), the Middle Dutch vloten, the Old Norse flota, the Icelandic fljóta, the Old English flēotan (to float, swim), the Ancient Greek πλέω (pléō), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Russian пла́вать (plávatʹ) and the Latin plaustrum (wagon, cart).  It was akin to the Old English flēotan & Old Saxon flotōn (root of fleet).  The meaning “to drift about, passively to hover" emerged circa 1300 while the transitive sense of “to lift up, to cause to float (of water etc)” didn’t come into use for another 300-odd years and the notion of “set (something) afloat” was actually originally figurative (originally of financial matters) and noted since 1778.  Float was long apparently restricted to stuff in the water and didn’t come into use to refer to things in the air until the 1630s, this extending to “hover dimly before the eyes” by at least 1775.   In medicine, the term “floating rib” was first used in 1802, so called because the anterior ends are not connected to the rest.  The Proto-Germanic form was flutojanan, from the primitive Indo-European pleu (to flow) which endures in modern use as pluvial.

Etymologists have concluded the noun was effectively a merger in the Middle English of three related Old English nouns: flota (boat, fleet), flote (troop, flock) & flot (body of water, sea), all from the same source as the verb.  The early senses were the now-mostly-obsolete ones of the Old English words: the early twelfth century “state of floating"”, the mid thirteenth century “swimming”, the slightly later “a fleet of ships; a company or troop” & the early fourteenth century “stream or river”.  From circa 1300 it has entered the language of fishermen to describe the attachments used to add buoyancy to fishing lines or nets and some decades later it meant also “raft”.  The meaning “a platform on wheels used for displays in parades etc” dates from 1888 and developed either from the manner they percolated down a street on from the vague resemblance to flat-bottomed boat which had been so described since the 1550s.  The type of fountain drink, topped with a scoop of ice cream was first sold in 1915.

The noun floater (one who or that which floats) dates from 1717 as was the agent noun from the verb.  From 1847 it was used in political slang to describe an independent voter (and in those days with the implication their vote might be “for sale”), something similar to the modern “swinging voter”.  By 1859 it referred to “one who frequently changes place of residence or employment” and after 1890 was part of US law enforcement slang meaning “dead body found in the water”.  The noun flotation dates from 1765, the spelling influenced by the French flotaison.  The adverb afloat was a direct descendent from the Old English aflote.  In idiomatic use, it was the boxer Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) who made famous the phrase “float like a butterfly; sting like a bee” and “whatever floats your boat” conveys the idea that individuals should be free to pursue that which they enjoy without being judged by others.  To “float someone’s boat” is to appeal to them in some way.  Float is a noun & verb, floater is a noun, floated is a verb, floating is a noun, verb & adjective and floaty is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is floats.

Lindsay Lohan floating in the Aegean, June 2022.

In the modern age, currencies began to be floated in the early 1970s after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system (1944) under which most major currencies were fixed in relation to the US dollar (which was fixed to gold at a rate of US$35 per ounce).  That didn’t mean the exchange rates were static but the values were set by governments (in processes called devaluation & revaluation) rather than the spot market and those movements could be dramatic: In September 1949, the UK (Labour) government devalued Sterling 30.5% against the US dollar (US$4.03 to 2.80).  The Bretton Woods system worked well (certainly for developed nations like the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of western Europe) in the particular (and historically unusual) circumstances of the post-war years but by the late 1960s, with the US government's having effectively printed a vast supply of dollars to finance expensive programs like the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms build-up, the “Great Society” and the space programme, and social programs, surplus dollars rapidly built up in foreign central banks and increasingly these were being shipped back to the US to be exchanged for physical gold bars.  In 1971, the Nixon administration (1969-1974) responded to the problem of their dwindling gold reserves by suspending the convertibility, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system and making floating exchange probably inevitable, the trend beginning when Japan floated the Yen in 1973.

A Bloomberg chart tracking the effect of shifting the US dollar from its link with gold to a fiat currency.  Due to this and other factors (notably the oil price), in the 1970s, the bills of the 1960s were paid.

Others however moved more slowly, many adopting the tactic of the Australian government which as late as 1983 was still running what was known as a “managed float”, an arrangement whereby the prime-minister, the treasurer and the head of the treasury periodically would meet and, using a “a basket of currencies”, set the value of the Australian dollar against the greenback and the other currencies (the so-called “cross-rates”).  Now, most major Western nations have floating currencies although there is sometimes some “management” of the “float” by the mechanism of central banks intervening by buying or selling.  The capacity for this approach to be significant is however not as influential as once it was because the numbers in the forex (foreign exchange) markets are huge, dwarfing the trade in commodities bonds or equities; given the volumes, movements of even fractions of a cent can mean overnight profits or losses in the millions.  Because some "floats" are not exactly "free floats" in which the market operates independently, there remains some suspicion that mechanisms such as "currency pegs" (there are a remarkable variety of pegs) and other methods of fine tuning can mean there are those in dark little corners of the forex world who can benefit from these manipulations.  Nobody seem prepared to suggest there's "insider trading" in the conventional sense of the term but there are some traders who appear to be better informed that others. 

Cluster

Cluster (pronoubced kluhs-ter)

(1) A number of things of the same kind, growing or held together; a bunch.

(2) A group of things or persons close together.

(3) In US military use, a small metal design placed on a ribbon representing an awarded medal to indicate that the same medal has been awarded again (equivalent to UK & Commonwealth “bar”).

(4) In phonetics, a succession of two or more contiguous consonants in an utterance (eg the str- cluster of strap).

(5) In astronomy, a group of neighboring stars, held together by mutual gravitation, that have essentially the same age and composition and thus supposedly a common origin.

(6) In military ordnance, a group of bombs or warheads, deployed as one stick or in one missile, applied especially to fragmentation and incendiary bombs.

(7) In statistics, a naturally occurring subgroup of a population used in stratified sampling.

(8) In chemistry, a chemical compound or molecule containing groups of metal atoms joined by metal-to-metal bonds; the group of linked metal atoms present.

(9) In computer software, a file system shared by being simultaneously mounted on multiple servers.

(10) In computer hardware, two or more computers working at the same time, each node with its own properties yet displayed in the network under one host name and a single address.

(11) A collective noun for mushrooms (troop is the alternative).

Pre 900: From the Middle English cluster (bunch), from the Old English cluster & clyster (cluster, bunch, branch; a number of things growing naturally together), from the Proto-Germanic klus- & klas- (to clump, lump together) + the Proto-Germanic -þrą (the instrumental suffix), related to the Low German Kluuster (cluster), the dialectal Dutch klister (cluster), the Swedish kluster (cluster) and the Icelandic klasi (cluster; bunch of grapes).  All the European forms are probably from the same root as the noun clot.  The meaning "a number of persons, animals, or things gathered in a close body" is from circa 1400, the intransitive sense, "to form or constitute a cluster," is attested from the 1540s; the use in astronomy dating from 1727.  Cluster is a noun & verb; clustery is an adjective, clustered is an adjective & verb, clustering is a noun, adjective & verb and clusteringly is an adverb; the noun plural is clusters.  The specialized technical words include the adjective intercluster (and inter-cluster) & the noun subcluster (and sub-cluster).

Clusters various

Cluster is a (slang) euphemism for clusterfuck; drawn from US military slang, it means a “bungled or confused undertaking”.  The cluster which the slang references is the cluster bomb, a canister dropped usually from an aircraft which opens to release a number of explosives over a wide area, thus the sense of something that becomes a really big mess.  Cluster bombs began widely to be used during the Second World War, the first deployed being the two-kilogram German Sprengbombe Dickwandig (SD-2) (butterfly-bomb).  The US, UK, USSR and Japan all developed such weapons, described in typical military tradition by an unmemorable alpha-numeric array of part-numbers, the battlefield slang then being "firecracker" or "popcorn" and it wasn’t until 1950 that “cluster bomb” was first used by the manufacturers and another ten years before the term came into general use.

However, the informal compound clusterfuck was at first rather more literal, emerging in 1966 meaning “orgy” or some similar event in which intimacy was enjoyed between multiple participants.  The sense of it referencing a “bungled or confused undertaking” started only in 1969, first noted among US troops in Vietnam who, with some enthusiasm, used it both as a graphic criticism of military tactics and the entire US strategy in the Far East.  The standard military euphemism is "Charlie Foxtrot”.

There are alternative etymologies for clusterfuck but neither has attracted much support, one being it was coined in the 1960s by hippie poet Ed Sanders as “Mongolian Cluster Fuck” and this may have been an invention independent of the military use.  The other is said to date from the Vietnam War and have been the creation of soldiers critical of the middle-management of the army, the majors and lieutenant colonels, those responsible for supply and logistics, aspects of war for millennia the source of many military problems.  The insignia for each of these ranks (respectively in gold or silver), is a small, round oak-leaf cluster, hence the notion when there's a screw up in the supply chain, it's a clusterfuck.  It's a good story but etymologists have doubts about the veracity.

Students learning English are taught about euphemisms and the vital part they play in social interaction.  They are of course a feature of many languages but in English some of these sanitizations must seem mysterious and lacking any obvious connection with what is being referenced.  There are also exams and students may be asked both to provide a definition of “euphemism” and an example of use and a good instance of the latter is what to do when a situation really can be described only as “a clusterfuck” or even “a fucking clusterfuck” but circumstances demand a more “polite” word.  So, students might follow the lead of Australian Federal Court Judge Michael Lee (b 1965) in Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited [2024] FCA 369 who in his 420 page judgment declared the matter declared “an omnishambles”. The construct of that was the Latin omni(s) (all) + shambles, from the Middle English schamels (plural of schamel), from the Old English sċeamol & sċamul (bench, stool), from the Proto-West Germanic skamul & skamil (stool, bench), from the Vulgar Latin scamellum, from the Classical Latin scamillum (little bench, ridge), from scamnum (bench, ridge, breadth of a field).  In English, shambles enjoyed a number of meanings including “a scene of great disorder or ruin”, “a cluttered or disorganized mess”, “a. scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation” or (most evocatively), “a slaughterhouse”.  As one read the judgement one could see what the judge was drawn to the word although, in the quiet of his chambers, he may have been thinking “clusterfuck”.  Helpfully, one of the Murdoch press’s legal commentators, The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (b 1966; by Barry Goldwater out of Ayn Rand) who had been one of the journalists most attentive to the case, told the word nerds (1) omnishambles dated from 2009 when it was coined for the BBC political satire The Thick Of It and (2) endured well enough to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2021 Word of the Year.  The linguistic flourish was a hint of things to come in what was one of the more readable recent judgments.  If a student cites “omnishambles” as a euphemism for “clusterfuck”, a high mark is just about guaranteed.

Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak leaves & Swords (1957 version).  These “de-nazified” awards were first issued by the Federal Republic of Germany (the FRG or West Germany) in 1957 and were awarded only to members of the Wehrmacht entitled to such awards.  Production of these awards ceased in 1986.

German law since the end of World War II generally have prohibited individuals from wearing the swastika but in 1957, under pressure from the newly (1955) reconstituted armed forces (the Bundeswehr (literally "Federal Defense")), the Gesetz über Titel, Orden und Ehrenzeichen (legislation concerning titles, orders and honorary signs) was amended, authorizing the replacement of Nazi-era Knight's Crosses with items with an oak leaf cluster in place of the swastika, essentially identical to the Imperial Iron Cross of 1914.

Lindsay Lohan at the Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022) premiere, New York City, November 2022.

The dress was a Valentino sequined embroidered floral lace column gown with jewel neck, long sleeves and concealed back zip.  It was worn with a gold Valentino Rockstud Spike shoulder bag in crackle-effect metallic nappa leather, complemented with Stephanie Gottlieb jewelry including diamond cluster earrings in 18k white gold and a heart shaped yellow sapphire ring with pavé diamonds.

Philadelphus

Philadelphus (pronounced fil-ah-del-fiss)

(1) Any shrub of the temperate genus Philadelphus, cultivated for their strongly scented showy flowers (family Hydrangeaceae).

(2) As Philadelphus coronaries (mock orange), a deciduous, early summer-flowering shrub with arching branches that bear racemes of richly scented, cup-shaped, pure white flowers in profusion with finely toothed, bright green foliage.  The plant is grown for its ornamental value.

(3) A male given name with origins in the Ancient Greek.

1600s (in botanical use): From the Ancient Greek Φιλάδελφος (Philádelphos) (brotherly love) & philadelphon (loving one’s brother).  Philadelphus is a proper noun.

Philadelphus coronaries (mock orange) in flower.

The mock orange plant has long been valued for its decorative and functional properties.  Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; US president 1801-1809) was a keen gardener and horticulturalist of some note and on 19 April 1807 noted in his “garden book”: “Planted 9 Philadelphus coronarium, Mock orange in the 4 circular beds of shrubs at the 4 corners of the house.”  Although the origin is uncertain, biologists suspect the strong growing, medium-sized shrub is native either to northern Italy, Austria & Central Romania or Central & North America and Asia; in Europe & North America it has been cultivated at least the sixteenth century.  Before modern standards of taxonomy were codified in the eighteenth century, the plant was classified under the genus Syringa (covering the species of flowering woody plants in the olive family or Oleaceae (commonly called lilacs) and a typically comprehensive description was recorded by Lady (Jean) Skipwith (circa 1748–1826), a Virginia plantation owner and manager still celebrated among botanists for her extensive garden, botanical manuscript notes, and library, the latter reputedly the largest at the time assembled by a woman.  Lady Skipwith called the plant a “Syringa or mock orange” while the US naturalist, explorer & explorer William Bartram (1739–1823) preferred the former, reflecting a scientist’s reverence for anything Greek or Latin.  Syringa was from the stem of the Latin syrinx, from the Ancient Greek σῦριγξ (sûrinx) (shepherd's pipe, quill), the name reflecting the use of the plant's hollow stem to make pipes, flutes & tube.  In modern use, “Mock Orange” tends to be preferred by most, the name derived from the fragrance of the flowers being so reminiscent of orange blossoms.  The origin of the scientific name “Philadelphus” (first applied in the early seventeenth century) is attributed usually to being a tribute to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Ptolemaîos Philádelphos (Πτολεμαῖος Φιλάδελφος in the Ancient Greek) 309-246 BC, pharaoh (king) of Ptolemaic Egypt (284-246 BC), said to be a keen gardener (which can be translated as “he kept many slaves to tend his gardens”).

The literal translation of the Greek philadelphon was “loving one’s brother”, something used in the sense of “brotherhood of man” as well as when referring to family relationships.  For the pharaoh, the use was a little more nuanced because, after some earlier marital problems, he married his older sister Arsinoe II (316-circa 269 BC).  This appalled the Greeks who condemned the arrangement as incestuous and the couple thus picked up the appellation Philadelphoi (Φιλάδελφοι in the Koinē Greek (sibling-lovers)).  Historians however are inclined to be forgiving and suggest the union was purely for administrative convenience, Egyptian political & dynastic struggles as gut-wrenching as anywhere and there’s no evidence the marriage was ever consummated.  Just to make sure there was the appropriately regal gloss, the spin doctors of the royal court circulated documents citing earlier such marriages between the gods (such as Zeus & Hera).  It certainly set a precedent and the intra-family model was followed by a number of later Ptolemaic monarchs and the practice didn’t end.  The scandalous marriage of Heraclius (circa 575–641; Byzantine emperor 610-641) to his youthful niece Martina resulted in her becoming “the most hated woman in Constantinople” and it was a union certainly consummated for “of the nine children she bore her husband, only three were healthy, the rest either deformed or died in infancy.”

The Philadelphi corridor

The Latin proper noun Philadelphi was the genitive/locative singular of Philadelphus.  In 2024 use spiked because the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) use “Philadelphi Corridor” as military code for the narrow (14 km (9 miles) long & 100 m (110 yards) wide) stretch of land used to separate the Gaza Strip from Egypt; it runs from the Mediterranean coast to the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel and includes the Rafah crossing into Egypt.  The IDF created the corridor (from Gaza territory) as a “buffer zone” (or “cordon sanitaire”), ostensibly to prevent the Hamas, the PIJ (Palestine Islamic Jihad) and others smuggling weapons and other contraband into Gaza through a remarkable network of underground tunnels.  The corridor assumed great significance after Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 and later after its disengagement from Gaza in 2005; it has long been among the more contested spaces in the Middle East.  According to the IDF, the term “Philadelphi Corridor” was allocated during a routine military planning conference and the choice was wholly arbitrarily with no historical or geographical significance related to the region or any individual.

Just because a military say a code-name has no particular meaning doesn’t mean that’s true; the IDF is no different to any military.  The most obvious possible inspiration for the “Philadelphi corridor” was the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus but one influence may have been cartographic, the geographic shapes of the Gaza Strip (left) and the US city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (right) quite similar and were the monstrosities Northwest, West & Southwest Philadelphia to be annexed by adjacent counties, the shapes of the two would be closer still.  

Lindsay Lohan in Philadelphia, 2012.

The Philadelphi corridor has assumed a new importance because Benjamin Netanyahu (b 1949; Israeli prime minister 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and since 2022) has added Israeli control of it to his list of pre-conditions for any ceasefire in negotiations between his government and the Hamas.  It was designated as a demilitarised border zone after the withdrawal of Israeli settlements and troops from Gaza in 2005, prior to which, under the terms of Israel’s Camp David peace treaty with Egypt (1979), the IDF had been allowed to maintain limited troop formations in corridor but without heavy weapons or heavy armour.  Old Ariel Sharon (1928–2014; prime minister of Israel 2001-2006) arranged the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza subsequently forming the Kadima (Forward) political party because he could persuade the Likud (The Consolidation) party to follow his vision.  Very much a personal vehicle for Mr Sharon, Kadima did not survive his incapacitation from a stroke while the Likud fell into the hands of Mr Netanyahu.  Following the Israeli withdrawal, responsibility for the corridor’s security fell to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, this maintained until the Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007; it was seized by Israel in May 2024 as the IDF’s Gaza ground offensive extended into Rafah.

Over the years, the tunnel complex has proved a remarkably effective means by which to facilitate cross-border smuggling of weapons, other materiel, fuel and a variety of stuff including food, medicine and consumer goods, despite many attempts by the IDF and Egyptian authorities to end the traffic, the latter perhaps a little less fastidious in their endeavours.  The tunnels are impressive pieces of civil engineering, including electricity, ventilation systems, air-conditioning and communications facilities; some are sufficient large to allow heavy trucks to pass and there has long been speculation about the extent to which financial and logistical support for tunnel construction, maintenance & repair is channelled from the Gulf Arab states.  In Cairo, the government viewed the IDF’s seizure of the corridor with some alarm and remain a “status quo” power, insistent that an ongoing Israeli presence will “endanger” the Camp David peace treaty, no small matter because the “ripple effect” of the 1979 agreement had profound consequences in the region.

Pointing the way: Mr Netanyahu (left) explains the Philadelphi corridor (right).      

Still, Mr Netanyahu has made clear he intends to maintain a military presence in the corridor (including the Rafah crossing) and that remains an unnegotiable condition for a ceasefire with the Hamas; opposition to this stance has come from Cario, the Hamas and some of the third parties involved in the negotiation.  In Tel Aviv, that would not have been unexpected but there is now an increasingly persistent protest movement among Israeli citizens, the allegation being the prime-minister is cynically adding conditions he knows the Hamas will be compelled to reject because as long as the war continues, he can remain in office and avoid having to face the courts to answer some troubling accusations pre-dating the conflict.  Mr Netanyahu responded to this criticism by saying as long as the Hamas remained a threat (later refined to “as long as Hamas remained in control of Gaza”), the offensive needed to continue.  One of the great survivors of Middle East politics, Mr Netanyahu recently assured the more extreme of his coalition partners (described as “right-wing” which, historically, is misleading but descriptive in the internal logic of Israeli politics) by engineering a vote in cabinet binding Israel to retaining control of the corridor.  Despite this, opposition within the cabinet to the ongoing “moving of the goalposts” to prevent any possibility of a ceasefire is said to be growing.  The opposition accused the prime-minister of being more concerned with placating the extremists in his government than securing the release of the remaining hostages seized by the Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attack and left unstated but understood by implication was the message Mr Netanyahu regards them as the “collateral damage” in his manoeuvres to avoid the courts.