Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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Libertarianism A reader (Michael) has asked me to define the political term ‘Libertarianism.’ Well, I might just flick pass that question to one of the major dictionaries. 

The Cambridge Dictionary says this is the belief that people should be free to think and behave as they want and should not have limits put on them by governments. But a great many Liberal and Conservative Parties would say the same—so what makes this sort of political thinking different or distinctive in any way? John Ruddick is a member of the New South Wales upper house (the Legislative Council) and is a member of the Libertarian Party. His website says: ‘Libertarianism is a philosophy which recognizes the self-ownership of the individual, and that no one’s life, liberty, or property can be morally infringed upon by another.’ And most of us would agree that personal liberty is a very high priority. The problem with that sort of strong language is that other people have rights, and we have responsibilities towards other people—we have obligations as members of society. Libertarianism seems to downplay these. Sometimes, it seems to me, we might choose to give up a bit our liberty (a personal right we have) for the good of others. To give a made-up example: we might support a law that compelled us to provide personal ID when we play a poker machine—even though that’s an infringement of our personal liberty. But we can see that there are people with gambling addictions (that ruin them and their families) and we allow our liberty to be infringed in an attempt to help them control their addiction. So, I have some reservations about Libertarianism. It seems to me to go too far in one direction; to be unbalanced. What do you think?

Illicit Versus Illegal Recently Peta Credlin asked me to look at the difference between ‘illicit’ and ‘illegal.’ She had used both words in one of her editorials and asked me to look at the difference (if any) between them. They are clearly closely related and clearly have overlapping meanings—so how are they connected? Well, the basic thing to know is that one of them is a broader term and one is narrower. ‘Illicit’ (which was coined around 1606) is a broader classification than ‘illegal’ (which was coined a bit later in 1624). ‘Illegal’ is pretty straight forward, and means anything that is unlawful, that violates a specific law. ‘Illicit’ includes that but goes beyond it, making ‘illicit’ a broader term. It includes things that are illegal (and, in fact, ‘illicit’ it comes from a classical Latin source word meaning ‘unlawful’) but it also includes things that are not covered by specific laws. ‘Illicit’ includes things that are not authorized or allowed; that are regarded by society as improper, or irregular. It especially applies to things which are not sanctioned by law, or rule, or custom. So something that is not unlawful, but which is indecent and revolting to most people can be called ‘illicit’ even though it’s not ‘illegal.’ An example might best explain what I mean. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mocking the Japanese Prime Minister by making a lewd gesture with his hands while referring to her ‘melons’ may be classified as ‘illicit’—even though it’s clearly not illegal. If it had come from a stupid 15-year-old boy we might say he ought to grow up and behave decently—but we might not call it ‘illicit’ because that’s what teenage boys are like. However, when it comes from the Prime Minister who is supposed to be dignified and statesman-like it comes under the heading of ‘illicit’ for him to behave as if he were a brainless 15-year-old. It does not pass the pub test—and that makes it (in the eyes of the community) ‘illicit.’ Now that distinction between ‘illicit’ and ‘illegal’ is based on their etymology—and a legal dictionary might make a different distinction between them. But in ordinary, conversational English—that’s the difference!

Pen Pal Recently I chatted to 3AW’s Tom Elliot about ‘pen pals.’ Tom had a call on his show from a listener who started writing to a ‘pen pal’ when she was 11-years-old. She is now 77 and has just (finally!) met that ‘pen pal’ face-to-face for the first time. Tom also told me about a primary school in Melbourne where the kids were being encouraged to write to a pen pal in a remote village in Rwanda. My response was that both of these stories demonstrated that being a pen pal is (on the whole) a good thing. The expression ‘pen pal’ in American and was coined in 1925. The British equivalent is ‘penfriend’ and this seems to go back further—to around 1908. Both those dates suggest that this whole phenomenon got going not long after reliable, regular postal services were established in most of the developed world. So, is it a good thing? Yes, or course it is. For the kids Tom told me about this is a great experience of making contact with someone in a totally different culture. But it can be good for anyone of any age. In fact, there is research suggesting that it is especially good for older people—even those older people who have not had pen pals earlier in life. Perhaps during childhood and adolescence they missed out on the whole pen pal thing. Then came a busy working life and family demands. And it is only now, in retirement, they have the time and the spare energy to make a penfriend or pen pal. To make those connections there are, these days, a number of websites that offer to set you up with someone in another country to exchange letters (or, let’s be honest, emails) with from time to time. For all of us what this sort of writing does is force us to make those mental connections that make our thoughts clear and well expressed. This cognitive activity can be so strong as to hold off the possible onset of dementia (not a bad thing!) It also forges a connection with the wider world, and there’s nothing wrong with that either! So, it seems to me that ‘pen pals’ (or ‘penfriends’) can be a good thing.

Odyssey Following on from yesterday’s discussion of the new movie version of Homer’s epic poem The Odessey—where does that title come from? Well, the word ‘Odessey’ these days means (in addition to Homer’s original poem) ‘a long series of wanderings; a long adventurous journey’ (Oxford). This the figurative (or extended) use of the word, often written with a lower-case ‘O’. As for the word itself—it comes from the name of the hero of Homer’s poem, the king of Ithaca named ‘Odesius’ (also known as ‘Ulysses’—same person). And the word itself seems to have a meaning (as names often do). The name is derived from the ancient Greekword odousasthai meaning ‘to hate.’ We get our words ‘odium’ and ‘odious’ from the same source. Odysseus was thought to be so called because he was ‘hated by gods and men.’ The Odyssey is an epic tale of the difficult ten-year return to Ithaca by Odysseus after the fall of Troy. It’s one of the oldest known works of literature, written in Ancient Greek, and dating to perhaps 700 BC. It is attributed to Homer, though details of the poet’s life and authorship are uncertain. (One legend says that Homer was blind, and that he recited, or sang, his great poem from memory.) The tribulations of the voyage include storms at sea and interference by various gods of the Greek pantheon, including Athena, Zeus, Hermes, and Poseidon. The use of ‘odyssey’ to refer to anyone’s journey or quest dates only to the late 1800s in English, but the word was already found in Old English as the title of the epic poem. A word based on a person’s name is called ‘an eponym’—so ‘Odessey’ as an eponym. 

Epic Even if you haven’t seen the new movie version of Homer’s The Odessey (as I haven’t) you will at least have heard about it. News about the movie has been all over the place for weeks now, and has been impossible to dodge. I must admit that while I haven’t been tempted to go and see it, it did motivate me to do one thing—to hunt through my bookshelves for my copy of Homer’s great poem to read it again. Somewhere on my shelves I have a copy of the English translation of The Odessey published in the Penguin classics series quite some years ago. So far I have failed to lay my hands on it (and now I fear it might have gone missing the last time we moved house… oh, I hope not). Both this new movie and Homer’s original long narrative poem are covered by the word ‘epic’—so all of this is a (long) introduction to the word ‘epic.’ It first turns up in English around 1583, with the meaning of ‘a poem, typically derived from ancient oral tradition, which celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of one or more heroic characters of history or legend’ (Oxford). ‘Epic’ comes from a Greek word that can mean poem, or word, or speech; it passed through Latin on its way to English. It’s also used figuratively to mean anything on a vast, huge scale. By the late 1700s, ‘epic’ could refer to any long work that resembled the original epics in some way. Using ‘epic’ as an emphatic and casual adjective meaning ‘extraordinary’ or ‘impressive’ (‘epic failure’, ‘epic showdown’ and so on) is a much more recent development, dating back only to the early 1980s. (Now I must get back to searching for that book. Did I leave it on that lower shelf down there…?)

Decency When members of the Canberra press pack travelling with the Prime Minister had the unmitigated gall to ask him questions in Palau about his failed Pacific forum meeting (lots of leaders failed to turn up) and Chris Bowen’s failed Fiji climate conference (where almost everyone failed to turn up) Anthony Albanese turned on the press pack and accused them of having no ‘decency.’ Which was a bit rich coming from the man who had abandoned all sense of ‘decency’ when making vulgar gestures about the Japanese prime minister and her melons. So, what does this word ‘decency’ mean and where does it come from? The source word is clearly the word ‘decent’—which came into English in the 1500s from Latin (via French). The source word in classical Latin in decēre which means ‘to be proper’ or ‘to be fitting.’ Both those concepts (both ‘proper’ and ‘fitting’) mean ‘suitable.’ All of those words convey the notion of fitting in—of being aware of the situation and doing (and saying) that which fits the situation and the time and place. When Albanese is standing at a Pacific forum it is clearly fitting (and suitable and proper) for the media to ask about the state of his conference. For him to call it a failure of ‘decency’ to wrong. It was an entirely decent line of questioning. But for a prime minister, who is supposed to have decorum and dignity and to be aware of the dignity of foreign heads of state—for him to be vulgar about another head of state is a clear failure of ‘decency.’ So, we’re glad you raised the word Mr Albanese—and now you are hoist on your own petard.

Algorithm The Albanese government keeps telling us that their new ‘Digital Duty of Care’ law is designed to give us control over our social media. And it has nothing to do with giving the government more power over the media. They say that at the centre of the intention is what they call the social media ‘algorithm.’ Does that word mean anything to you? Is it one of those common words you find yourself uttering every day? Or is it a technical word that the government we’ll just trust them to get right? ‘Algorithm’ has been part of the English language for centuries. It came into English (via Latin) from an ancient Greek source that also gave us the word ‘arithmetic.’ It seems that basically any ‘algorithm’ is a set of rules or procedures used in calculation. But how does that apply to the media? Well, ‘algorithm’ has a special meaning in the realm of social media. Here’s how the Oxford explains it: ‘An algorithm (as) used by a social media company, streaming service, etc., to sort and prioritize content most likely to be relevant or engaging to individual users, based on data gathered about user behaviour, demographic profiles, etc.’ In other words, the ‘algorithm’ is how a social media or news site chooses what content should be shown to a particular user.’ One commentor explains like this: ‘The more you engage with something, the more it feeds you the same thing... So people already angry about it will seem angrier as they engage with it more as the algorithm keeps feeding them.’ But all that an ‘algorithm’ does is reflect our interests, so why does the government want to block it? What am I missing here? Research continues.

Minor premiers In the NRL the Panthers have won the ‘minor premiership.’ They done this for the fourth time in seven years. Good on them! Well done! But for years I have been puzzled by this expression ‘minor premiers.’ Perhaps that just shows that I’m a sporting idiot—or perhaps it shows that this is really an odd term. Perhaps I’m not alone. Perhaps there are lots of other people who toss this expression around without being able to explain in short simple words (to us dumb kids at the back of the room) exactly what ‘minor premiers’ means. If this is all very familiar to you, I apologise—but for the rest of us I will explain. The expression ‘minor premiers’ grows out of the history of the game. It means the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the finals. Back at the end of the 19thcentury that regular season was called the ‘minor rounds.’ And the playoffs or finals were called the ‘major rounds.’ Whichever team was at the top of the table at the end of the ‘minor rounds’ was declared to be the ‘minor premiers.’ I am told that this language survives in South Australia, but has been abandoned everywhere else. As well as the NRL the term ‘minor premiers’ is also used in ice hockey and some other sports. It is generally not used in Australian association football (otherwise known as soccer)—where they refer to the ‘minor premiership’ as the ‘premiership’, and the "’major premiership’ as the ‘championship’, more closely matching European association football terminology than general Australian terminology. Yes, I know you knew all of this stuff, but for those of us who were puzzled, this is one small puzzle now solved!

Decolonizing cartography The United Nations has decided that it is the right body to re-draw the map of the world. The UN has adopted a resolution to formally phase out the familiar Mercator map of the world, and replace it with one (they say) more accurately depicts Africa’s size. At the UN general assembly session, 164 countries voted to adopt the so-called ‘2018 Equal Earth design’—with the US voting against the resolution, and six countries abstaining. The rejected map—the globally familiar Mercator map of the world—was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. What the UN is trying to do is to ‘decolonize cartography.’ The word ‘cartography’ was coined in 1860 to mean ‘the drawing of charts of maps.’ ‘The ‘graph’ part at the end just means writing (or drafting or drawing) while the ‘cart’ bit at the beginning of the word comes from the French word for ‘paper’ (which can also mean ‘chart’). It was the French who put this word together back in 1827 (or possibly earlier). As for ‘decolonize’—the word now means removing the cultural effects of colonization. There are a string of problems with this UN decision. (1) It is impossible to accurately reproduce the surface of a sphere on flat paper. So every world map is inaccurate. This new map is just inaccurate in different ways from the old Mercator projection. (2) ‘Decolonizing’ the culture is a futile and impossible activity. In Australia it would require banning the English language (at the very least). The great gifts of colonization are so deeply embedded (and are so useful) they cannot be removed. (3) It is not the role of the United Nations to make rulings on the complex science of cartography. That’s up to the global community of cartographers, not a bunch of diplomats. There is an amusing parallel. The number which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is called ‘Pi’ (pronounced ‘pie’). This number is 3.14159—repeating. That is to say, that it can be calculated into an infinitely long number of decimal places. In 1897 the state government of Indiana passed a law saying that in Indiana the value of Pi would always be 3.2. In other words, they legislated for a mathematical impossibility, The United Nations has now made itself look as silly as the Indiana politicians of 1897.

Country mile I talked to Peta Credlin on News24 about the expression ‘a country mile.’ A viewer had asked if a country mile was really longer than a city mile. A good question. The term 'country mile' goes back to at least 1661. And it seems that a mile in the countryside was once regarded as being longer than a standard mile. What is unclear from my research is whether there were, in fact, two different measurements or it was just a case of the travelling a mile in the countryside always felt longer. However, my best guess is that there was once a real difference, back before measurements were standardized. A reader (Mark) has drawn my attention to a book called About the Size of It by Warwick Cairns which explains where our measures of weights, sizes and distances originally came from. It says that originally a mile was one thousand paces, using left-right-left, as one pace. The distance was thus one thousand five foot lengths or 5,000 feet per mile. This is what is now called a Roman mile that applied back in the days of the Roman empire. But that required lots of counting. Who wants to do that? Much easier was the farmer’s method of counting the number of fields you walked past. Each field (in those days) was a furlong—a furlong being how far a plough team could plough before needing a rest and turning around. (An acre was originally a day’s worth of ploughing). And for farmers, eight furlongs (that is, eight fields) made a mile. By the Middle Ages the furlong had been standardised to 220 yards. So the mile of eight furlongs became the standard English Statute Mile at 5,280 feet. Or 56 paces or 280 feet or about 6% longer, than the 5,000 feet mile of a Roman mile—making a ‘country mile’ longer than an urban mile. Fascinating! And my thanks for Mark for all this information.

Conspiracy theory This is a much older expression than you might think—first recorded in 1863 in The New York Times. That article complained about those people who know almost nothing about international affairs who believe that everything happening in the world is planned in smoke-filled back rooms by a handful of powerful people. The journalist makes the point the ‘conspiracy theorists’ don’t understand ‘the complications which render such a conspiracy impossible.’ In 1952 Sir Karl Poppper demonstrated that the ‘conspiracy theory of society’ is logically impossible in his powerfully argued book The Open Society and Its Enemies. Despite which, there is a conspiracy theory that is currently very popular in Australia—the so-called ‘Jewish lobby’ or ‘Zionist lobby’ or ‘Israel lobby’ conspiracy theory. This claims that the media and the government are being controlled by a secretive Jewish or Israeli or Zionist lobby. People as apparently respectable as politicians, ex-politicians, writers, community leaders (and many more) dismiss antisemitism as a scare campaign whipped up by a secretive ‘Jewish’ or ‘Zionist’ or ‘Israeli’ lobby. This conspiracy theory can be traced back to a famous antisemitic forgery called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion published in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. It was a pack of lies when that thoroughly nasty book was published, and it is still a pack of lies to this day. Sadly, the so-called ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists are busy pushing this conspiracy theory, and are persuading intelligent people to believe them. Be warned. Never believe any popular ‘conspiracy theory’—they are the fictional nonsense that Karl Popper exposed them as being all those years ago.

Whataboutery British journalist Peter Hitchens is always a delight to read. His newspaper articles are always eye-catching and good reading. (And he is the author of a brilliant book called The Rage Against God—about his swing from left wing politics to conservatism, and from atheism to belief. Look for it in your local library.) It was Peter Hitchens who drew my attention to this strange word ‘whataboutery.’ At first I thought it was something new he had coined—but no, it’s been around since 1974 and is now in the dictionary, with the following definition: ‘The practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue’ (Oxford). An example might make this clearer. If someone says, ‘The treatment of women in Islamic societies is appalling’—the ‘whataboutery’ response might be, ‘Ah, yes, but what about the toxic masculinity and patriarchy in western societies?’ If someone points how absurd it is for people to march under a banner of ‘Gay for Palestine’ because Islam prescribes the death penalty for homosexuality—the ‘whataboutery’ response might be, ‘Ah, yes, but what about the gay bashings in the streets of our cities?’ In other words, the ‘whataboutery’ response can be totally irrelevant—sometimes trying to justify bad behaviour by other sorts of bad behaviour. I heard a real of example of this some time ago, when someone raised the evil horror of Palestinian terrorists kidnapping hundreds of Israelis on October 7, 2023. The response was, ‘Yes, but what about all those Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons?’ Which was (of course) totally irrelevant—since those prisoners were terrorists and bombers and not civilians. So this word is a warning about a fraud, a dishonesty, that is perpetrated in debates. Look for it. Notice the ‘what about’ example is completely irrelevant—point that out, and drag the debate back to the real issue. Be on the lookout for ‘whataboutery.’ 

Keystone species They keep inventing them, don’t they? New expressions we didn’t have before, and I’m not entirely persuaded we need now! This one, ‘keystone species’ appears to have been coined in 1969. It was coined in the ecological community and first appeared in a journal called American Naturalist in 1969. It means ‘a species exerting a major influence on an ecosystem, especially one on whose activities the survival of other species depends’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Of course, various species have been going extinct since the dawn of time. That’s why you won’t bump in a stray dinosaur in your supermarket parking lot. This just seems to be part of the pattern of life on earth. But according to at least some ecologists—this should stop! And stop now! No more species going extinct! Well, good luck with that, since the pattern seems to be rather deeply embedded in nature of this planet. And as part of their ‘non-extinction’ program they identify these ‘keystone species’ which are important because other species depend on them. Hence, if a ‘keystone species’ happens to go extinct, so will all the others that depend on them. I suspect that a lot of ‘keystone species’ are prey that get caught and eaten by bigger, nastier creatures, and if the prey die out then the bigger, nastier creatures will also die out. At a guess (and this comes from a non-ecologist) I suspect that ‘plankton’ might be a ‘keystone species’—since these very small, floating organisms get eaten everything bigger than they are (and that’s almost everything, up to and including whales). The qualifying word ‘keystone’ has been borrowed from stone masons who use this word for the central stone at the summit of an arch or vault which locks the whole structure together—hence, the ‘key’ stone.

Bigger than Ben Hur When some huge, ambitious project is proposed someone is likely to say that it’s ‘bigger than Ben Hur’ (Malcolm Turnbull’s absurd Snowy 2.0 project is ‘bigger than Ben Hur’ and getting bigger—and more expensive—everyday!) So, where does this come from? It all begins with a novel: Ben Hur written by Lew Wallace and published in 1880. It is a huge, sweeping historical novel set during the time of Christ. The story behind the writing of the book is interesting. Wallace (an American lawyer, civil war general, and state governor) was travelling on a train and got into a debate with a man sharing his carriage over whether the story of Jesus Christ (recorded in the Bible) was historically reliable. Wallace insisted that it wasn’t—and promised to do some serious research to prove it. His painstaking historical research changed his mind, and persuaded him of the truth (and importance) of Jesus Christ. So, based on that research he wrote this historical novel, Ben Hur. It has been turned into a movie more than once—the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston, was famous as a vast, movie spectacular that won 11 Academy Awards (it is supposedly being re-made, yet again, this year). And there were earlier silent movie versions. But the expression ‘bigger than Ben Hur’ doesn’t come from these movies—it is far older than that. Ben Hur was staged as a play on Broadway in 1899—and it was a huge, spectacular stage play, with big crowd scenes and live horses on stage. They even staged the famous chariot race in the story, using live horses and chariots on a spinning treadmill. It must have been stunning, because it was this stage production that gave us the expression ‘bigger than Ben Hur.’

Brumby Peta Credlin asked me to look at the word ‘brumby’ (because of the horrible brumby cull in the Snowy Mountains National Park). A ‘brumby’ is a wild bush horse, descended from runaway stock. The word first appeared in 1871. The Australian National Dictionary says “of unknown origin”—but there are four theories. A researcher at Flinders University, Dymphna Lonergan claimed that ‘brumby’ is a corruption of an Irish word for a young horse or colt. Another proposal is that it’s from the name of a person (possibly a Lieutenant or Major Brumby) whose horses escaped and started the breed. A third theory is that it’s a corruption of Baramba Station in Queensland: a cattle station whose stud horses supposedly ran wild when the station went broke. While, the fourth (and most likely) explanation, is that it comes from an Aboriginal word booramby meaning “wild.” Banjo Paterson, in an 1896 referred to this origin for ‘brumby’ in the introduction to his bush ballad ‘Brumby’s run’ saying that a New South Wales Supreme Court judge, hearing of ‘Brumby horses’ asked: “Who is this Brumby? And where is his run?” Paterson’s bush ballad was his answer to that question:

It lies beyond the Western Pines

Beneath the sinking sun,

And not a survey mark defines

The bounds of “Brumby’s Run.”

Google Banjo Paterson and “Brumby’s Run” and read the whole of the poem. It’s not long, and it’s a great bush ballad. It makes you smell the gum leaves and see the distant plains—it’s one of those bush ballads that warm an Aussie’s heart.

Oppressive language Brandeis University (in the United States) once ran on its website an ‘oppressive language list.’ They included words the university wanted students and staff to avoid so as to protect the feelings of the more sensitive souls around them. The list was drawn up by students involved with the university’s Prevention, Advocacy and Resource Centre. It would have made you very careful of your words, because it was a long list—in five different categories: Violent language; Identity-based language; Language that doesn’t say what we mean; Culturally appropriative language; and Person-first and Identity-first language. Some of the things they wanted students to avoid struck me as pointless. For example, under ‘Violent language’ they wanted to ban ‘Take a shot’ on the assumption that it’s a reference to gun violence. But it is possible to ‘take a shot’ in cricket or tennis by wielding a bat or racquet not pulling a trigger! Under ‘Identity-based language’ they wanted to ban ‘African American’ and replace it with ‘Black’—but it was only a few years ago we were told to do the exact opposite! And some of the things they put on their list were just plain wrong. For instance, they want to ban ‘rule of thumb’ based on the old urban myth that in England a man was allowed to beat his wife as long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb. Untrue. There never was any such law. It was (as it sounds) a rough method of measurement. They also wanted to ban the word ‘tribe’ because they claimed this was a ‘dehumanising’ word. But the anthropologists who use it certainly don’t dehumanise. And people who use it metaphorically (e.g., naming football supporters ‘the Tigers’ tribe’) likewise. They also wanted to ban ‘homeless person’ and replace it with ‘person without housing’—which just proves they had a tin-ear and couldn’t recognise a badly construct phrase when they saw one. Their whole list addressed a non-existent problem by banning unproblematic words. When the language fascists really get going they seem to lose their minds!

Talking Turkey Has the name of the country called ‘Turkey’ changed? If so, why? And what is the correct way to refer to it these days? ‘Turkey’ the Oxford tells us means, ‘the name of a country in south-eastern Europe and Anatolia, formerly used as the name of the lands of the Turkic-speaking peoples…’ And the country has been known by that name in English since the 1400s. But at the request of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the United Nations in June 2022 agreed to use the spelling ‘Türkiye’ to refer to the country. In January 2023 the US State Department followed suit. This new spelling brings with it a new pronunciation. In English ‘Türkiye’ is pronounced as turk-EE-ah. And I have heard both Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese use this new pronunciation. Is this just being polite, and using the form the locals prefer? Or is it something else? Why did Erdogan make the request? Because ‘Türkiye’ is how the country is spelled in its native Modern Turkish alphabet, and Erdogan’s rebranding of its spelling is part of his larger nationalistic, anti-Western agenda. We have to remember that Erdogan is running an increasingly repressive Islamist dictatorship that has been busying itself for over a decade with decoupling from the West and aligning with Russia and Iran. And we are under no obligation to spell or pronounce place names in the same way as the locals. The locals spell (and pronounce) ‘Munich’ as ‘Munchen’. We don’t do the same. The locals spell (and pronounce) the Italian city ‘Florence’ as ‘Firenze.’ We don’t. There is no intelligent reason to change our spelling or pronunciation of ‘Turkey.’

Dhimmitude This is a word that is almost unknown in the Western world. But it is a vitally important word, because it might be what the future holds for us, or for our children. ‘Dhimmitude’ means, ‘the condition or status of non-Muslims living under sharia law’ (Collins Dictionary). It comes from the Arabic word ‘dhimmi’ which means ‘non-Muslims living in an Islamic state.’ It is a permanent status of subjection in which Jews and Christians have been held under Islamic rule since the eighth century, and that forces them to accept discrimination or face forced conversion, slavery or death. The term ‘dhimmitude’ was coined in 1982 by the President-elect of Lebanon, Bachir Gemayel, to name attempts by the country's Muslim leadership to subordinate the native Lebanese Christian minority (mostly Maronite Christians). There are a number of levels of humiliation under ‘dhimmitude’—for instance non-Muslims can be required to pay an addition tax not applied to Muslims, and the testimony of non-Muslims cannot be accepted in a court of law against a Muslim. It is an explicit rejection of secular equality—and it acknowledges that radical Islamism is not just a religion: it is also a political ideology. One reason why radical Islamists on October 7, 2023, did not hesitate to kill more than a thousand Jews, rape others, and kidnap still others (and then, in captivity, strangle to death two small boys) is because of the belief that non-Muslims are mere ‘dhimmis’—less than fully human. A word worth knowing.

Forgiveness While we are all thinking about—and talking about—the late, great Dolly Parton it seems like the right time to remember the word the guided Dolly’s life: the word ‘forgiveness.’ The word comes from the verb ‘to forgive’ which has been part of the English language for more than a thousand words, since the days of Old English. ‘Forgive’ is a development of the verb ‘to give’—in other words, ‘forgiveness’ is a gift that one person gives to another. Importantly, it is a free gift, willingly given. It means (as you know) giving the gift of pardon to someone, and that means ceasing to harbour resentment or anger against that person. At a key point in her life Dolly Parton famously said, ‘Forgiveness—that’s all there is.’ The story behind what we might call ‘Dolly’s word’ is a big one. She was discovered by a major American country music star named Porter Wagoner. He hired her to tour with him from the late 1960s to the early 70s. In 1967 he introduced her to his television audience. Wagoner made her a star. He took a chance on her, introduced her to an enormous audience, stood by her. But then when she left his show and became a solo star he resented her bitterly. Porter Wagoner sued Dolly Parton for $1 million and trash-talked her for years. And then, a few years later, when she was a superstar and he had fallen on hard times, she bought his music-publishing company from his creditors and gave it back to him. She helped him financially and reconciled with him and was there at his deathbed to remind him that the words she sang to him years before (‘I Will Always Love You’) were still true. When an astonished interviewer asked her why she did this, Dolly Parton said, ‘Forgiveness—that’s all there is.’ It is a powerful single word. ‘Forgiveness’ gives to both parties. To the guilty person it gives pardon and an end to guilt. To the person offering forgiveness it gives the gift of freedom from bitterness and resentment. That’s the best Dolly Parton story I know—and a great word for today: ‘forgiveness.’

Great Game This is an expression that is largely forgotten these days. The compound noun the ‘Great Game’ seems to have been coined around 1841. It’s certainly used in the Literary Gazette of that year referring to ‘Eastern politics.’ Originally the ‘Great Game’ meant ‘The struggle for power and influence in southern central Asia and the north-west borders of India’ (Oxford)—and it was between the British and Russian empires. It often involved manipulation, lobbying, propaganda, espionage and influence peddling—a kind of ‘cold war.’ But from time to time it burst out into a ‘hot war’ (such as the Crimean War, 1853-56). The term ‘the Great Game’ was popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel set in India Kim. In that book Kim is told, ‘When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before.’ Today there is a new ‘Great Game’—this time between Western Civilisation and Islamist global insurgency. This new ‘Great Game’ is often played politically—with Islamists lobbying their Marxist friends for political influence, with noisy street demonstrations, with anti-Jewish and anti-Western power struggles in universities and so. But this new ‘Great Game’ can also sometimes switch from being a ‘cold war’ into a ‘hot war’—as in the Bondi terrorist attack, similar terrorist attacks around the Western world, rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel, missiles fired by Houthis at ships in the Red Sea, and so on. And, just as Rudyard Kipling says in Kim, we should be clear that this ‘Great Game’ will be played to the death—either Western Civilization dies, or radical Islamism dies: ‘When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before.’ It might be time to revive this long-forgotten expression—the ‘Great Game.’

Labelism My esteemed editor at The Spectator Australia, Rowan Dean, once coined a brand-new (and very useful!) word—the term ‘labelism’ to name how some (mentally lazy) commentators go about their work. Instead of using real mental muscle these lazy commentators just resort to ‘labelism’—they stick a label on a person or an idea or a movement. That means they no longer need to think about it. They can just pigeonhole (and dismiss it) under a handy label. For example, there is the label ‘far right’ (sometimes expressed as ‘hard right’). By labelling the One Nation political party as ‘far right’ it has been stuck in a pigeonhole, and you can stop thinking about it. The label tells you all you need to know. Or so these commentators seem to think. If you have some complex ideas about fashionable climate theories you can be labelled ‘climate denier’ and just dismissed. If you happen to think attacks on Jews (both verbal and physical) are a bad thing you can be labelled a ‘Zionist’—and hence there’s no need to weigh the moral seriousness of what you say. If you are concerned about radical Islamic terrorism your protests can be dismissed under the label of ‘Islamophobia.’ Similarly, if you have the temerity to have reservations about the claim that men can become women, you will be labelled ‘transphobic.' Even the label ‘Boomer’ is being used to dismiss the views of older Aussies. If you’re part of the baby boomer generation then you must be old and stupid and you should be slammed in a box labelled ‘Boomer’ to muffle the sound of your complaining voice. That’s how ‘labelism’ works. Well done Rowan Dean! This is a word we clearly need. 

Larping There are always some words that become fashionable (at least for a while) and then fade away again long before those of us who are not dedicated followers of fashion have even heard of them. I suspect this is one. For a certain segment of the population ‘larping’ is currently a popular put-down that is splattered all over social media like bird droppings. So, what does it mean? What is it criticising? According to the hyper-hip Urban Dictionary ‘larping’ means ‘When someone is pretending to be something they’re not.’ This, they say, can involve lying on social media or lying in real life. The Urban Dictionary says ‘often’ (I would have thought always) used in a derogatory sense.’ The word comes from the world of game playing, and is an acronym for Live Action Role Play. However, when you accuse someone of ‘larping’ you are not accusing them of a bit of swords and sorcery role playing, but of pretending to be something in real life that they are not. If you take a selfie standing beside a Lamborghini in a car sales room and use it to pretend you have bought a Lambo, then you are ‘larping.’ Pretending to know a famous person, pretending to be rich, pretending to know about a topic, pretending to have a certain lifestyle, and so on—all are examples of ‘larping.’ The Urban Dictionary says this has been around since early 2021—but it seems to have become particularly popular this year. Perhaps there’s more of it going on? You have to feel sorry for the younger generation—they just don’t seem to be happy living in the real world!

Kangaroo court This is officially defined as ‘an improperly constituted court having no legal standing, especially one held by strikers, mutineers or prisoners.’ More broadly the notion is that in a ‘kangaroo court’ the accused will not receive justice, but that rough punishment will follow almost immediately upon accusation. Oddly, this expression appears to be Australian influenced, but not of Australian origin. In fact, the phrase appears to have been born in the United States. The earliest citation is from Texas in the second half of the 19thcentury. One suggestion is that the term ‘kangaroo court’ was born on the gold fields of California in the gold rushes that began in 1848. The phrase may have been coined because there were Australians who’d joined the rush, and they were teaching the yanks a word or two—including the idea that ‘kangaroos’ were ‘jumpers.’ The first such ‘rough justice’ tribunals might have been aimed at punishing ‘claim jumpers’—and anyone who’s a ‘jumper’ can be nicknamed a ‘kangaroo.’ However, there is a problem with that theory.

This expression is first recorded in New Orleans in 1841, well before the Californian gold rush. It next turns up in Texas in 1853, and not (as it logically should) in California. So, this American expression must only come from the fact that around the world the kangaroo had become famous as a ‘jumper’—and a ‘kangaroo court’ was one that ‘jumped to judgement.’ Hence. this so-called ‘court’ jumped to judgment in a single bound (with the agility of an Australian macropod). 

Fifth column Yesterday when writing about the expression ‘cold war’ I used another of those familiar (but slightly odd) expressions— ‘fifth column.’ We know what it means. It refers to enemies within our midst—people who look like us and seem to be ordinary citizens, but who are working being the scenes to bring down all we care about. We treasure the good things that come to us from the past, but there are some among who hate the past and want to destroy everything that has been handed down to us. We treasure the words of Shakespeare, the paintings of Rembrandt, the music of Bach and the values of Christianity—but the ‘fifth column’ of enemies within hate all these things. But why are they called a ‘fifth column’? Where does that number come in? It comes from the Spanish Civil War (1936—39). One of General Franco’s military leaders was General Emilio Mola who was besieging the city of Madrid with four columns of troops surrounding the city. It was General Mola who famously said that as well as his four columns around the city he had a ‘column of supporters’ inside the city who were his ‘fifth column. In October of 1936 The New York Times reported: ‘Police last night began a house-to-house search for Rebels in Madrid... Orders for these raids… apparently were instigated by a recent broadcast over the Rebel radio station by General Emilio Mola. He stated he was counting on four columns of troops outside Madrid and another column of persons hiding within the city who would join the invaders as soon as they entered the capital.’ And we have a column of enemies within us today—who live amongst us but are not part of ‘team Australia.’