nones

7 February 2020

In recent years, there have been many news reports touting the fact that the fastest growing religious group in the United States is the nones. Who are the nones? And when did we start using the term?

The nones are people who are not affiliated with any organized religion. The group includes atheists and agnostics, but it also includes those who are “spiritual but not religious,” people who believe in a God or gods or an eternal soul but who don’t ascribe to a faith tradition that has a label. The term has become rather common in recent years, but it was coined over fifty years ago.

None dates to at least 1967 when it was used in a paper by sociologist Glenn M. Vernon. The paper was published the following year, but it apparently circulated in mimeograph form before its formal publication. The paper is titled The Religious “Nones”: A Neglected Category and says of the term:

In fact, the label “No religion” is used in the 1957 U. S. Census and by some researchers to identify those who do not belong to a formal church. By way of contrast, the social scientist classifies as “independent” those who do not report affiliation with a particular political party. The use of the “independent” label suggests that the lack of political party affiliation does not mean that one is apolitical or has no political convictions. He is still viewed as a political person. Perhaps this is because the act of voting serves as the primary validation of political participation. There is no comparable religious phenomenon, no clearly recognized religious behavior other than membership, attendance, or other identification with a formal religious group. Thus, “none” is used in religious research, designating no religious affiliation, but also adding the gratuitous implication of a nonreligious person.

And he says of the nones:

Frequently included under this label are atheists, agnostics, those with “no preference,” those with no affiliation, and also members of small groups and others who, for one reason or another, do not fall within the classification scheme being used and who more properly belong in a residual or “other” category.

Vernon also uses nones in a second 1968 paper, “Marital Characteristics of Religious Independents.” This paper is actually published a few months before the one above, but it references the 1967, mimeographed version of that paper, so this second paper was clearly written later despite the earlier publication date. In this second paper he writes:

When the sociologist of religion reports his research, he at times includes a somewhat residual category of “none” under which is frequently included such diverse individuals as atheists, agnostics, those with “no preference,” those with “no affiliation” as well as practicing and/or believing “nones"—those without affiliation who engage in ritual behavior and/or accept premises incorporated in the beliefs of the affiliated religionists. These are the “religious nones” to which previous attention has been called.

Despite the wording, I’ve found no evidence in the sources he cites of anyone else using the term nones. The “previous attention” is a reference to the mimeographed version of his first paper. The word none had been used in surveys as a possible response when asking the question of religious affiliation prior to Vernon’s two articles, but they did not use it as a noun labeling a category of religious (non-)affiliation. While this is hardly ironclad evidence that he coined the term, it seems probable that he did.

None of the above has anything to do with the Christian liturgical term none (or nones), which has an entirely different origin. The liturgical term is borrowed from Latin and French and is reference to the ninth hour of the day or the prayers that were to be offered at that hour, from the Latin nona. This nones roughly corresponds to 3 pm, the ninth hour of daylight.

Sources:

I’d like to thank Garson O’Toole of the Quote Investigator website and Peter Reitan for assistance in my research on this term.

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Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2003, s.v. none, n. and nones, n.3.

Vernon, Glenn M. “The Religious ‘Nones’: A Neglected Category.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 7.2, Autumn 1968, 219–29.

Vernon, Glenn M. “Marital Characteristics of Religious Independents.” Review of Religious Research, 9.3, Spring 1968, 162–70.

neither confirm nor deny / Glomar response

6 July 2019

When a US government official neither confirms nor denies the existence of a classified program it is called a Glomar response or a Glomar denial. This label has its origins in one of the most fascinating incidents of the Cold War between the US and the USSR, but the wording neither confirm nor deny is much, much older, dating to at least 1840.

Image of USNS Glomar Explorer, US government photo

In March 1968, the Soviet K-129 Golf-class ballistic missile submarine sank 1,500 miles off the coast of Hawaii. The wreck was at a depth of 16,000 feet (4,900 meters). Soviet efforts to recover the submarine failed, and the CIA and US Navy subsequently funded the construction of the ship Global Marine Explorer or Glomar Explorer by billionaire Howard Hughes. The cover story was that the ship would be used to mine manganese from the ocean floor. In 1974 the ship managed to lift the hull of the Soviet submarine from the ocean floor, but the submarine broke up in the process, and the Glomar Explorer only recovered a portion of the sub. Allegedly, various cryptographic materials, two nuclear torpedoes, and six corpses were in the recovered portion. The bodies of the Soviet sailors were buried at sea with full honors by the US Navy.

The story became public in the pages of the Los Angeles Times in 1975. Subsequent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by reporters for documents on the incident were met with the response that the government could neither confirm nor deny the incident took place. Hence the labels Glomar response and Glomar denial became attached to the phrase.

But the earliest use in print of either label that I can find is in the 1996 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which reads:

A “refusal to neither confirm nor deny” response […] That kind of response is referred to as a “Glomar” denial.

The phrasing Glomar response can only be found from 2003 version of the CFR:

Glomar Response. In the instance where a [Department of the Navy] activity receives a request for records whose existence or nonexistence is itself classifiable, the DON activity shall refuse to confirm or deny the existence or non-non-existence of the records.

But the phrase neither confirm nor deny predates the Cold War by over a century. It’s a standard journalistic phrase used for all sorts of denials, by the government and by others. It dates to at least August 1840 in the pages of the Baltimore Sun:

Some of the Cincinnati papers of the 25th, publish a rumor of the death of Judge Bigger, Governor elect of Indiana—The papers of the 26th neither confirm nor deny the truth of the report.

The phrase appears thousands of times in newspapers since that date. For example, this one from the Nashville American in January 1900:

An able-bodied and seemingly authentic report is abroad that Coal Oil Inspector Thomas H. Jackson’s resignation is in the hands of the Governor. The Inspector will neither confirm nor deny the report.

Or this British example from The Guardian in January 1970:

Biafra has denied that Federal forces have made any gains in the latest fighting, and official sources would neither confirm nor deny the reports.

Various popular and journalistic accounts of the Glomar incident credit the CIA FOIA office for inventing the neither confirm nor deny phrase, but this not the case. The CIA simply used a standard journalistic catchphrase; it is only the labels Glomar response and Glomar denial that stem from the Cold War incident, and even these appear only decades after the incident.

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Sources:

32 CFR § 701.23. US Government Printing Office, 1 Jul 1996.

32 CFR § 701.11. US Government Printing Office, 1 Jul 2003.

“Biafrans Forced Back?” The Guardian, 3 Jan 1970, 3.

“Memphis Officials,” The Nashville American, 7 Jan 1900, 3.

“Rumored Death,” The Baltimore Sun, 31 Aug 1840, 2.

misdemeanor / high misdemeanor

22 December 2019

As even non-lawyers know, in current U.S. legal parlance a misdemeanor is a less serious crime, whereas more serious crimes are classified as felonies. But what is the origin of the term? And how did it come to be used in the context of presidential impeachments in the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors?

Misdemeanor dates to 1487 in the form misdemeaning, where it appears in the Rolls of Parliament (Rotuli parliamentorum), 1278–1503:

For othre misdemenyng of the said John Morys ayenst your Highnesse.

The form misdemeanor appears a few decades letter in a 1504 law code, Act 19 Hen. VII, c. 14 §8:

This Acte to take his effect and begynnyng for such reteynours and offences and other Mysdemeanours as shalbe doon...contrary to the forme of this acte.

The distinction between felonies and misdemeanors in British law was abolished in 1967, but it is retained in the U.S.

Demeanor means conduct, so a misdemeanor is literally bad conduct. It comes from the verb to demean, meaning to conduct, to transact business and to behave oneself. Both senses of demean date to the 14th century. In Old French, the verb dates to the eleventh century, where it appears in La Chanson de Roland.

An ordinary misdemeanor is not to be confused with a high misdemeanor, which is legal horse of a different color. High misdemeanor is a largely archaic term except for one important context, the impeachment of officers, including the president, and judges of the United States. Article II of the U.S. Constitution states:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

So a high misdemeanor is very serious misconduct, not a minor offense. The phrase appears as early as 1614 in the Charge of Sir Francis Bacon Knight, His Maiesties Attourney Generall, Touching Duells:

Wheresoeuer an offence is capitall or matter of fellony, if it be acted and performed, there the conspiracy, combination, or practise tending to the same offence is punishable as a high misdemeanor, although they neuer were performed.

Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) gives the phrase more definition:

Misprisions, which are merely positive, are generally denominated contempts or high misdemesnors; of which the first and principal is the mal-administration of such high officers, as are in public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment: wherein such penalties, short of death, are inflicted, as to the wisdom of the house of peers shall deem proper; consisting usually of banishment, imprisonment, fines, or perpetual disability.

When writing the U.S. Constitution, the framers were relying on this English legal tradition. The passage regarding impeachment was revised several times, and this gives us today a fairly good idea of what the framers meant by the term high misdemeanor. The original draft included only “treason and bribery” in the list of offenses. George Mason thought this too limiting and suggested the list be replaced by the word “maladministration.” But the framers thought that too broad a criterion, which would lead to impeachment for differences over policy and make the president subservient to the senate. So, Mason suggested the present language, which was accepted.

A high misdemeanor does not have to be a crime—the use of the phrase in the Constitution predates the U.S. Criminal Code, so that can’t be what the framers meant. And several federal judges were impeached in the nineteenth century for being intoxicated while on the bench, with the first one being in 1803, when many of the framers were still serving in the House and Senate and presumably understood what they had intended the phrase to mean. Being drunk on the bench is improper behavior to be sure but hardly a crime. A high misdemeanor is, perhaps, better defined as a violation of the public trust or one’s oath of office. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65, writes of high misdemeanors:

Those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

There have been three presidential impeachments in U.S. history. (The case of Richard Nixon would have resulted in another impeachment had he not resigned before the House voted on his articles of impeachment.) Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act by dismissing and replacing his Secretary of War without the consent of the Senate and for “bringing disgrace and ridicule to the presidency by his aforementioned words and actions.” Neither of these are crimes, but the first is a clear violation of his oath to “faithfully execute the laws of the United States.” Johnson was acquitted by the Senate by only one vote. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying under oath to a grand jury and by so doing obstructing justice. Both of these are crimes, but the nature of the lie, to cover up an extramarital affair, is hardly a violation of the public trust, so whether or not this case constituted a high misdemeanor is a matter of opinion. Clinton too was acquitted by the Senate. In 2019, Donald Trump was impeached for “abuse of power” and “obstruction of justice.” The article on abuse of power included the elements of the crime of bribery but did not use that word. The obstruction of justice charge was for preventing administration officials from obeying Congressional subpoenas. Both are crimes, with the one essentially constituting bribery, which is explicitly defined in the Constitution as an impeachable offense, as well as violations of the public trust. As of this writing, the Senate has yet to take up the case, but it is expected to acquit him of both charges.

Given this history, perhaps then-Representative Gerald Ford was correct when in 1970 he defined an impeachable offense and high misdemeanor as “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” Ford, of course, would become president after Nixon was driven from office by an impeachment inquiry.

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Sources:

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2002, s. v. misdemeanour, n.; misdemeaning, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s. v. demeanour, n.; demean, v.1.

meritocracy

30 April 2019

The term meritocracy arose in socialist circles in the 1950s as a derisive term for a new system of class oppression. The first known use of the term is by Alan Fox in the journal Socialist Commentary of May 1956. Fox writes:

[Social stratification] will remain as long as we assume it to be a law of nature that those of higher occupational status must not only enjoy markedly superior education as well but also, by right and necessity, have a higher income in the bargain. As long as that assumption remains—as long as violation of it are regarded as grotesque paradoxes—then so long will our society be divisible into the blessed and the unblessed—those who get the best of everything, and those who get the poorest and the least. This way lies the “meritocracy”; the society in which the gifted, the smart, the energetic, the ambitious and the ruthless are carefully sifted out and helped towards their destined positions of dominance, where they proceed not only to enjoy the fulfillment of exercising their natural endowment but also to receive a fat bonus thrown in for good measure.

This is not enough. Merely to devise bigger and better “sieves” (“equality of opportunity”) to help the clever boys get to the top and then pile rewards on them when they get there is the vision of a certain brand of New Conservatism; it has never been the vision of socialism.

(I include this lengthy quotation because copies of the original source are difficult to find—as far as I know, it hasn’t been digitized—and the brief quotation in the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t fully convey the context or tone of its use.)

The term made its way into mainstream discourse via the publication of Michael Young’s 1958 The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870–2033: The New Elite of Our Social Revolution. Young’s book is a satirical look at 1950s British society from the perspective of someone writing from the distant perspective of the year 2034. Young writes:

Before the meritocracy was fully established, age-stratification as a substitute for the hereditary order may have been necessary for the sake of social stability.

Young is basically echoing Fox’s sentiment that the meritocracy is simply a replacement of one class of bosses with another. In this case, the hereditary rulers of Britain had been replaced by a seniority system (“age-stratification”), which, in the 1950s, was being replaced by one based on perceived merit. Young’s book made something of a splash, and was much commented upon in the mainstream press upon its publication.

Young later claimed to have coined the term, and he may have used it without conscious awareness that it was already in use. And many writers have followed suit, crediting Young with coining the term. But he did not—as any quick look at the OED, which contains the Fox citation from two years earlier, would confirm. Young was simply using a term that was already in use by those discussing the problems of social and economic stratification.

Meritocracy was originally derisive, not satirical, although Young’s book is definitely satire. But it is certainly ironic that twenty-first century capitalism has adopted this socialist slur as justification for its existence.

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Sources:

Fox, Alan. “Class and Equality.” Socialist Commentary. May 1956, 13.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition. September 2001. s. v. meritocracy, n.

Young, Michael. The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870–2033: The New Elite of Our Social Revolution. New York: Random House, 1959, 71–72. (Published in Britain by Thames and Hudson the previous year.)

Zimmer, Ben. “A ‘Meritocracy’ Is Not What People Think It Is.” The Atlantic. 14 March 2019.

meme

26 October 2019

Boromir meme with caption “one does not simply create a meme”

Most of us are familiar with memes, those images with varying text that propagate, often virally, through the internet, but where does the word meme come from?

It may be surprising to many, but the word meme was coined by biologist and famed promoter of atheism Richard Dawkins in 1976. Dawkins was trying to label those bits of culture that spread and become iconic. He considered these bits of culture to be analogous to biological genes. From his book The Selfish Gene:

The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. “Mimeme” comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like “gene.” I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme [...] It should be pronounced to rhyme with “cream.” Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.

It wasn’t until around 1998 that meme was applied to the internet images we know today. While this is a more specific application of Dawkins’s original sense, it is true to general principles: they are cultural units; they spread, with successful ones outcompeting less prolific ones; and, like biological genes, they can mutate (the changing text that overlays the images).

The first citation in this newer, more specific, sense in the OED is from the CNN program Science and Technology Week of 24 January 1998, in reference to the computer-generated image of a dancing baby that had appeared on the television show Ally McBeal that month:

The next thing you know, his friends have forwarded it on and it’s become a net meme.

From Richard Dawkins to Ally McBeal to internet phenomenon, but a bad start for a short, little word.

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Sources:

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2001, s. v. meme, n.