Author: Headlight

Sunday

Rough day in court because the judge threw the book at you? “The book” in this idiom refers to the full list of applicable laws, that is, the all the laws you broke and penalties you’re facing.

Monday

Have a great reason why you’re innocent, like being far from the crime scene at the time in question? That’s your alibi, which is Latin for “elsewhere.”

Tuesday

Aspiring attorneys take the bar exam, hope to join the local bar, then get disbarred if they’re too naughty. All this bar business goes back to Middle Ages England, where a physical barrier in the courtroom (often an actual bar) separated attorneys authorized to argue cases before a judge from spectators and others. Hence, the English “barrister” was one who had been “called to the bar” and had this courtroom role. To this day, many courts still keep some separation (think of that little gate) between spectators and the seating places for the judge, jurors, attorneys, witnesses, and courtroom personnel.

Wednesday

When the tradition of judges wearing robes jumped the Atlantic from England to the US, early American judges opted for black robes instead of the colorful ones their British counterparts were wearing, and also ditched the tradition of wearing white powdered wigs. As US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor has noted, however, the wearing of simple black robes continues only through tradition, as there are no formal rules or laws governing justices’ apparel. Judges and justices down the centuries have kept with the tradition, with some hints of flair, such as US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg using the collar she wore over her robe to signal her position in certain cases (after they’d been decided, of course).

Thursday

Another piece of American judicial tradition far predates the country itself, as every day of arguments of the US Supreme Court begins with the court marshal calling out “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are now admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!” Pronounced “oh yay,” this term goes back to 13th century old French “oiez” and translates to “hear ye / hear this / listen up.” Modern Spanish speakers make the same sound and meaning when they say “oye.”

Friday

In the US, “attorney” and “lawyer” are often used interchangeably, but they are technically different. A lawyer has a law degree, but is not necessarily licensed to practice law in court. An attorney has a law degree, has passed the bar exam and is licensed to practice in at least one jurisdiction. Hence, all attorneys are lawyers, but not all lawyers are attorneys.

Saturday

Dramatic courtroom gavel-banging is now more a product of Hollywood than reality, as most modern judges rarely, if ever, use them. However, courtroom gavels are a uniquely American invention which most likely come from the symbolism-heavy Freemasons’ use of this stoneworking tool in ceremonies. From there it likely came in the US Senate, where a handle-less ivory model is still banged a lot, and from there to American courtrooms. Yet you won’t find these (and never could) in the courtrooms of England or other countries which inherited English law.

Sunday

The good-mannered custom of men removing their hats began in Medieval churches as a gesture of respect to God. Then men began removing hats indoors, and also while passing or speaking to women or someone especially honorable. Women, on the other hand, were historically welcome to wear their hats full time almost anywhere indoors or out, and especially in church, since removing it would expose hair and flesh and may spark unwholesome thoughts in nearby men. Quite conversely, Orthodox Jewish men show humility to God by keeping their head covered, and single women in synagogues are discouraged from wearing hats at all.

Monday

Armor-wearing knights used to lift their helmet visors to show their face to their kings and queens in friendliness and respect. The usually-favored right hand was used to prove that it didn’t hold a weapon, while also showing submission to their monarch. In the mid-1700s, soldiers who previously removed their hats or helmets while passing officers were ordered “only to clap up their hands to their hats and bow as they pass [their officers].” This was both safer, since no helmets were removed on a battlefield, and since removing part of the uniform – even a hat or helmet – was increasingly viewed as disrespectful. Hence, the right hand-to-forehead salute caught on, and, with some regional variation, is still the norm (though is now more proper if the saluter is hatless, and palms-down in the navy to hide palms made dirty by typical ship work).

Tuesday

In East Asian countries, bowing is more common as a greeting, a goodbye, conveying an apology or thanks, and an indication of respect. It also plays a role in martial arts, tea ceremonies, and religious ceremonies, and bowing has it’s own etiquette involving depth and length of bow and proper response to another’s bow. Zen Buddhists begin the day with 108 bows, and sometimes many more. Notably, the term “kowtow” comes from the forehead-to-the-ground bow used to show the highest reverence in the older Imperial Chinese tradition. In the US, bowing was common in the republic’s early days but slowly disappeared and was very rare by WWII. Thomas Jefferson may have sped bowing’s American decline; this president reportedly preferred handshakes.

Wednesday

The “curtsy,” or rough female equivalent of the bow, is shortened from “courtesy,” and wasn’t always just for women. Though less common now, it still might be seen to acknowledge those of higher rank, Royal Family members, among square dancers, or for a ballerina to salute her teacher or the musician.

Thursday

The “Bellamy Salute” that American children were taught to give the flag since 1890 would strike modern viewers as disturbingly similar to the Nazi salute. For this reason, it was replaced in 1942 by the current “right hand over the heart” salute, which Americans are also encouraged to do when the Star Spangled Banner plays.

Friday

The great honor of a 21-gun salute was born from a combination of symbolism and storage space. The practice of saluting with cannons is nearly as old as cannons themselves, and early ships began using salutes of seven guns, likely because that number had astrological and biblical significance. However, batteries on land could store more gunpowder than ships and hence fire more, so a multiplier of 3 was chosen, likely also because the number had mystical significance in many ancient civilizations. In the US, the 21 gun salute has been the presidential salute since 1842, the internationally-recognized salute since 1875, and the national salute since 1890.

Saturday

Star Trek’s famous Vulcan split-finger “live long and prosper” salute made famous by Spock began as one of Leonard Nimoy’s vivid childhood memories. The shape is approximately that of the Hebrew letter shin, first letter of many important words, including “Shekhinah” which is both a name for the feminine aspect of God and a prayer to bless the congregation. As a boy, the curious Nimoy opened his eyes during a Boston synagogue service when he wasn’t supposed to (as this deity is said to shine with brilliant light) and saw many people making this shape, though with two hands together. Nimoy later proposed that the single-handed shape should be used as a salutation and greeting among Vulcans in the first episode (“Amok Time”) when we meet others of his species.

Sunday

You might like a drink on the rocks if your relationship is on the rocks. In the first idiom, rocks just mean ice. The latter originally refers to a ship in dire trouble because it has run into rocks which are breaking it apart, a particular danger when most ships were made of wood.

Monday

Something essential is often called a “cornerstone” because the stone in the corner of a building, where two walls begin from, was traditionally a first and foundational part of the structure. Since they are often laid in a ceremony to mark the start of construction, cornerstones frequently have dates or other inscriptions on them, and some are hollow and filled with items like a time capsule.

Tuesday

The first person to think that they just passed a major milestone was likely traveling the Appian Way near Rome about 2,300 years ago. This remarkable road – still usable today – was the first to use stones as inscribed distance markers. Modern travelers may navigate with GPS rather than stones, but the term “milestone” remains for markers on this road that is life.

Wednesday

That popular language-learning app is named Rosetta Stone for a reason. Found by Napoleon’s forces in 1799 near Rosetta, Egypt, the Rosetta Stone became the key to deciphering the ancient and disused language of hieroglyphics, since the stone contained identical passages in Greek, Egyptian demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Thursday

We all know that “a rolling stone gathers no moss,” and hence the name of that famous band and magazine. Curiously, however, moss is a metaphor for stability, relationships, and wealth in this old proverb, and since slow-growing mosses and lichens rarely thrive on moving surfaces, by the early 17th century, a “rolling stone” referred to an unstable and unproductive wanderer.

Friday

References to “rocking and rolling” had been around since the 17th century to describe the motion of a boat on the ocean, with “rocking” being the forward and back motion and “rolling” the side to side motion, and were often a reference to sex as well. As to music, however, a comic song called “Rock and Roll Me” was performed in 1886 in Australia, and various songs referring to either rocking, rolling, or both appeared in the following years, until The Boswell Sisters recorded a hit song just called “Rock and Roll” in 1934. The term continued to appear in music, and in the early 1950s, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed started to apply the name “rock and roll” to the music he was playing, and the name stuck.

Saturday

The Rock of Gibraltar, longtime symbol of strength and stability, is not only modern logo of the Prudential Insurance Company, but also was one of the markers, according to ancient legend, of the limits of the known world (or at least of navigation).

Sunday

HTML = Hypertext Markup Language

Monday

HTTP = Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Tuesday

LTE (like, 5G LTE) = Long-Term Evolution

Wednesday

URL = Universal Resource Locator

Thursday

RAM = Random Access Memory

Friday

CC (on email) = Carbon Copy, and its secretive cousin BCC, Blind Carbon Copy.

Saturday

USB = Universal Serial Bus

Sunday

The long-running video game classic “Tetris” involves stacking various shapes, each made up of four squares. Hence, the title combines the words “tetra” (Greek for four) and “tennis,” the game developer’s favorite sport.

Monday

Mario, that globally-known mustachioed hero of the Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers video games, was originally just known as “Jumpman.” While developers at Nintendo’s suburban Seattle US headquarters were brainstorming better names, landlord Mario Segale angrily interrupted to berate the company’s president for being late on rent. When he left, employees immediately named the character “Super Mario.”

Tuesday

The runaway arcade hit Pac-Man was called “Puck Man” when released first in Japan, but was retitled before the 1980 US release to prevent the defacing of machines into a less family-friendly title.

Wednesday

If you’ve ever noticed that Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog are both side-scroller games involving high-flying characters collecting floating gold circles (coins vs. rings) seeking to defeat an ultimate bad guy (Bowser vs. Dr. Robotnik), it is because Sonic was created by Sega to compete with Nintendo’s very successful Mario. In Sonic’s original backstory, he is named Sonny and comes from a poor hedgehog family that subsists on bugs, slugs, and food scraps from a nearby burger joint in Hardly, Nebraska. The design of Dr. Robotnik is based upon President Teddy Roosevelt wearing pajamas.

Thursday

The original conception of the 1978 classic shooter Space Invaders had the alien ships replaced by humanoid beings, but this idea was nixed so as not to suggest that shooting at people was morally acceptable.

Friday

The name “Atari” is taken from a position in the ancient strategy game Go in which one player’s piece is in imminent danger, similar to a king being in check in chess. Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell was a big Go enthusiast.

Saturday

The big ape in Donkey Kong may remind you of King Kong, but the trademark infringement fight has already been lost. Universal City Studios sued Nintendo in 1982, but Nintendo’s lawyer noted that the movie studio itself had proven in earlier litigation that King Kong’s story and characters were already in the public domain. Accordingly, the court ruled that Universal had no right to the character, they had filed the case in bad faith, and were now themselves liable for damages. Years later, the Mario Brothers character “Kirby” was named for Nintendo’s prevailing lawyer, John Kirby.

Sunday

Healthy self-esteem is great, but extremely self-absorbed people are called “narcissistic.” This term comes from Narcissus, a hunter in Greek mythology who was so attractive that women, men, and nymphs often fell in love with him on sight. Cocky Narcissus was unmoved by these advances but finally fell madly in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to leave his beautiful image, he died of starvation and thirst (or suicide, in some accounts), leaving only the narcissus flower in his place, which also still bears his name.

Monday

Among those who pursued Narcissus was Echo, a comely mountain nymph who had been cursed by Hera to only repeat the last words which were said by another. Needless to say, her conversation with Narcissus did not impress him. Rebuffed and despairing, Echo wastes away until only her voice remained. This is what you hear when your voice “echoes.”

Tuesday

By some accounts, it was Nemesis, goddess of divine revenge and retribution, who led haughty Narcissus to that reflecting pond which he could not leave. Nemesis’ specialty was checking human arrogance, and we still invoke her name to describe an arch rival.

Wednesday

A strong person’s weakness is called their “Achilles’ heel” because, according to myth, infant Achilles was held by the heel when his mother dipped him into the River Styx to give him immortality. Thus, his heel stayed dry and was his vulnerable point, and ultimately the site of his mortal wound.

Thursday

“Epicureans” pursue pleasures of the senses, especially with food and drink, since it was Epicurus’ philosophy which focused on pleasure and tranquility as life’s purpose.

Friday

An enormous task might be called “Herculean” because half-human Hercules had to complete twelve superhuman tasks to achieve immortality, often aided by his great strength or helpful gods.

Saturday

“Pandora’s box” is metaphor for creating or unleashing big problems. According to myth, Pandora was the first mortal woman created by the gods and was given many gifts by them, including a beautiful box (or jar in some versions) containing the world’s yet-unknown miseries and woe. When the instructions never to open it were forgotten, the awful contents flew out.

Sunday

“Orwellian” usually refers to some aspect of a totalitarian government and/or dystopian future, as described in George Orwell’s classic novel “1984.”

Monday

“Kafkaesque” usually describes baffling, overcomplicated, and irrational bureaucracies, or some other utterly illogical nightmare scenario, as endured by characters in Franz Kafka’s writings.

Tuesday

“Dickensian” usually (but not always) suggests poor and squalid working and living conditions, as those described in 19^th century England in Charles Dickens’ works.

Wednesday

To attain and keep power by scheme, craft, and deceit is often called “Machiavellian” after the whatever-it-takes power grabbing principles laid out by Niccolo Machiavelli in his 1513 book The Prince.

Thursday

“Darwinian” refers to the natural selection concepts of naturalist Charles Darwin, often summarized as “survival of the fittest,” or, more broadly, as the long-term selection for the traits of those organisms best suited to their environment.

Friday

“Hobbesian,” is named for philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who viewed humans as naturally inclined to pursue advantage by competing rather than cooperating, even though cooperation may be more productive. A “Hobbesian trap” describes a situation where each of two rivals (which could be individuals, groups, or nations) knows the other might destroy them, so each is inclined to acquire greater armament, thereby inviting further distrust, or attack the other first in a preemptive strike.

Saturday

“Homeric” is synonymous with “epic and heroic” since the ancient poet Homer’s poetry was this in nature.

Sunday

…is named after the sun.

Monday

…is named for the moon, and the next four are for Norse gods:

Tuesday

…is for Tiu/Tiw, god of war.

Wednesday

…is for Woden, aka Odin, supreme deity and Tiu’s father.

Thursday

…is for Thor, god of thunder.

Friday

…is for the goddess Frigga, who was also Odin’s wife, and

Saturday

…is for Saturn, Roman god of feasting and fun (fittingly).

Sources for all day names:

Sunday

When an artist releases an “LP,” this is short for “Long Play,” which was a full-length album on a 12-inch vinyl record played at 33 RPM (rounds per minute).

Monday

The “single” was released on a 7-inch record that played at 45 RPM, also known as “a 45.”

Tuesday

Between the single and the LP in length is the “EP” for “Extended Play,” which typically has 3-6 songs on it.

Wednesday

The 45 RPM record could hold roughly 3 minutes of music per side, and having a 45 record was essential to get an artist’s songs played on the radio and build their fanbase. Accordingly, the 3-minute song became the standard. Despite the near-limitless song length now offered by digital media storage, the vast majority of songs released are still under 5 minutes long.

Thursday

The “B side” or “flip side” of a 45 RPM record often had a less radio-ready song on it, though many B-sides songs still became successful in their own right.

Friday

Some of the earliest sound recordings were made on wax cylinders (though calling them metal soaps is more chemically accurate), hence the reason records are occasionally called “wax.”

Saturday

Since about the 1940s, records have been made from the polymer polyvinyl chloride, hence the nickname “vinyl.”

Sunday

“Ad lib” means to improvise and perform spontaneously. The term is a shortening of “ad libitum,” or “according to pleasure.”

Monday

“Quid pro quo” means “something for something,” as in an exchange.

Tuesday

“Semper fi” is a shortening of “semper fidelis” or “always faithful,” and is the US Marine Corps’ motto.

Wednesday

“Vice versa” translates to “in a turned position,” but in modern English means interchanged or a switched position.

Thursday

“Per se” means “in itself” or “intrinsically.”

Friday

“Pro bono” shortens “pro bono publico” which means “for the public good” and usually refers to professional services (especially legal) offered for free.

Saturday

“E.g.” might appear before an example, since it stands for “exempli gratia” or “for the sake of example.”