Don’t Be Vexed by Vexillology

There is historical proof that Jeanne d’Arc had three ensigns… Two were for military use: her Battle Standard, which was large in size and her Pennon which was small. The third was a religious banner made for the priests and men of the army to assemble around for morning and evening prayers.

This excerpt contains four synonyms for flag: ensign, standard, pennon, andbanner. English has many others.

In modern usage, an ensign is a country’s official national symbol, used to identify ships, airplanes, and official installations like military camps and embassies. This is the flag flown on patriotic occasions.

A pennon was a small flag, attached to a knight’s lance for identification. It was long, like a streamer, and usually triangular or swallow-tailed. A standardwas larger and was fixed to a pole that could be stuck in the ground.

The word banner is often used for its emotional connotations, as in the U.S. national anthem:

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

In US usage, the flag is called an ensign when it is displayed on a vessel, thecolors when carried by someone on foot, and a standard when displayed on a car or an aircraft, and by the cavalry.

Webster’s thesaurus gives the following flag synonyms, most of them not much used: banderole, banner, bannerol, burgee, color, ensign, gonfalon, gonfanon, jack, oriflamme, pendant, pennant, pennon, standard, streamer

A jack is the identifying flag flown on a ship. The Union Jack is the familiar British flag. When flown on land, it is properly called simply the “Union.” (SeeWikipedia article for a differing view on the use of “Union Flag.”

The U.S. naval jack is the canton (the blue part with the stars) of the national ensign.

NOTE: The Union Jack began as the canton of a larger flag.

A burgee is a triangular pennant flown by members of yacht clubs. You can see a picture of one in the Wikipedia article on maritime flags.

The word oriflamme is familiar to readers of medieval history and romance. It was the sacred banner of the French kings, first mentioned in 1124.

In England, people turn out for the trooping of the colour, a patriotic parade held in June to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. U.S. military personnel on active service salute the colors twice a day: in the morning as the ensign is raised, and at sunset when it is lowered. In his unpleasant poem, “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors,” Walt Whitman uses a word not in Webster’s list, guidon, to refer to the cavalry flags carried by Sherman’s soldiers on their march to the sea.

The study of flags is called vexillology. The word comes from vexillum, Latin for flag.

You can find all sorts of fascinating vexillological information on the Flags of the World site.

For rules and regulations surrounding the U.S. flag, and some interesting violations thereof, visit the Betsy Ross flag site.

Skin And Bones

There are a lot of idiomatic expressions in English relating to skin and bones. Here are a few examples.

Bone idle – lazy. (Example: He never does anything; he’s just bone idle.)

Bone up – study. (Example: I need to bone up on history before the final exam.)

By the skin of your teeth – barely. (Example: I caught the cab by the skin of my teeth. It was about to pull away.)

Close to the bone – offensive, painful or personal. (Example: I get a bit uncomfortable with Bob, because his comments are always close to the bone.)

Get under your skin – irritate or annoy. (Example: He is one of the most irritating people I know. He really gets under my skin.)

Have a bone to pick – have a complaint. (Example: I have a bone to pick with you. You gave me the wrong directions to the concert and I missed the start. )

Jump out of your skin – to be shocked or surprised. (Example: When the serial killer appeared in the movie, I jumped out of my skin.)

Make no bones – speak frankly. (Example: I make no bones about saying that the movie was terrible. )

No skin off my nose – it doesn’t matter to me. (Example: It’s no skin off my nose if you’d rather be alone.)

Save your skin – get away from a dangerous or unpleasant situation. (Example: The soldiers started to fire but I managed to save my skin by hiding in the bushes.)

Skin and bones – very thin. (Example: She never gains weight. She’s just skin and bones.)

The bare bones – the outline. (Example: The professor gave the students the bare bones of the topic and told them to read up on the rest. )

Work your fingers to the bone – work hard . (Example: While you went to the party, I worked my fingers to the bone tidying up the house.)

Can you think of any to add?

Caesar, Kaiser, and Czar

To begin with, “Caesar” was a family name. Now, in various forms, it is a generic term for “ruler” or “emperor.”

In Roman naming practice, a newborn child was given three names (tria nomina). Thepraenomen was a name like Lucius or Marcus. The second name was the name of the tribe, clan, or gens, such as the Julii or Cornelii. The third name was thecognomen, a nickname that distinguished one branch of a gens from another. Sometimes an adult would adopt a fourth name called an agnomen. This was a nickname he had earned himself.

Caesar was the cognomen of the family to which the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar was born. Its origin has been explained in various ways:

The cognomen “Caesar” originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarian section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedo, caedere, cecidi, caesum).[5] The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle.[6] Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favoured this interpretation of his name.[7] (Wikipeda)

Julius Caesar himself had a receding hairline so another possible explanation is that his family may have carried the gene of male pattern baldness and the nickname “Caesar” (hairy) was ironic.

When Julius Caesar was killed, his nephew, whom he adopted as his heir, took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. The Octavianus was his birth name so he kept it. Later on the Senate gave him the agnomen Augustus. That’s the name by which he is known as the first Emperor of Rome.

Augustus and his first four successors were related by blood so they all more or less had the right to the name Caesar. After the death of Nero, however, the Empire was up for grabs. In the chaotic “year of the four emperors” that followed Nero’s death, the name “Caesar” became a synonym for “ruler.” Galba was the first to assume it as a title. (He got to use it for about seven months.)

So famous was the title Caesar that it found its way into all the European languages. It was probably the first Latin word adopted by the Germanic languages to which English belongs.

The Romans pronounced the word with a hard c and that’s how it came into the Germanic languages. If it hadn’t been for the immense influence of Norse and French on English during the Middle Ages, the modern English word for “caesar” would have developed into something like “coser.”

During the time of the close relationship between the English and the Danes, however, the English replaced their own word with the Norse keiser (cayser, kaiser). Then, after the Norman Conquest, when French became the language of the ruling classes in Engand, the French word, with its soft c pronunciation, became the preferred form.

Later on, the word Kaiser came into English again, this time as the title of the German rulers.

The word Czar, which English speakers use to refer to the Russian emperors, entered the Russian language as Tsar, the Old Slavic version of Caesar:tsesari. The spelling Czar is a respelling of the Russian word with the letters of the Latin alphabet. The spelling with cz was common in European languages because that was how it was spelled the first time it appeared in a European book in 1549, but the French adopted the spelling tsar in the 19th century and the London Times prefers it. In German it is spelled Zar.

In the U.S. the word czar is now used to refer to anyone who is in a position of some kind of control. Ex. “Drug Czar” (either a powerful drug dealer OR a government official supposed to combat drug trafficking); “Education Czar.”

Little Caesar (1931) is the title of an historically significant film in which Edward G. Robinson played a gangster and defined the cinematic crime genre.

Such is the continuing charisma of the word that it continues to be used to suggest power and grandeur.

The word’s association with food is probably owing to its Italian origin. (Ex. Little Caesar’s Pizza.) A Caesar’s Salad, however, has nothing to do with the late dictator.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the salad is named for Cesar Cardini, a restaurant owner in Tijuana, Mexico who is said to have served the first one in about 1924.

Is it Libel, or is it Slander?

Apparently it hasn’t been a good month for sports figures.

Chris Chelios is being sued for libel:

According to a report by TSN of Canada on Tuesday, Meehan’s lawyers have issued notices of libel against Chelios and several media outlets for statements the Detroit Red Wings defenseman made last week.

and the president of the American League is being charged with slander:

Charles W. Murphy, President of the Chicago club of the National League…announced that his attorney had been directed to bring suit to-morrow against Ban Johnson, charging the American League President with slander and conspiracy.

So what’s the difference between libel and slander?

In popular usage, the words are used interchangeably in the sense of saying bad things about someone. According to legal definitions, libel is printed andslander is spoken.

The word libel came into the language from Latin libellus, “little book.” Libelwith the sense of “any published or written statement likely to harm a person’s reputation” was in use in the 17th century.

The word slander also comes ultimately from a Latin word, scandalum, “cause of offense, stumbling block, temptation,” but entered English in the 13th century, from French.

This definition from wiseGEEK describes the difference between libel andslander this way:

Slander is the spoken or transitory form of defamation of character, a legal term that refers to a falsehood presented as true which could harm the reputation of a person or entity. Slander also encompasses body gestures as in the case of sign language. If defamation of character is placed in a fixed form, as in the case of a sign, published paper, film or recording, it is considered libel. In short, slander is temporarily uttered or gesticulated, libel is published or otherwise fixed.

Thanks to the internet, a third term has gained currency: cyberlibel.

The law is still in flux when it comes to defamatory statements made on the web. Public figures are not likely to bring actions of libel against all the people publishing insulting cartoons or negative remarks about them, but less prominent people may have grounds to sue.

Bloggers would do well to think carefully before clicking the “Publish” button on a scathing post.

Here are some things to avoid:

…criticizing someone’s job performance.
….accusing someone of a crime.
…hinting that someone has a disgusting disease.
…accusing someone of sexual misconduct or other immorality.