inshallah

20-second video clip of Biden using inshallah during the 29 September 2020 presidential debate

2 October 2020

During the 29 September 2020 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with Chris Wallace of Fox News moderating, the following exchange occurred at 15 minutes, 45 seconds into the debate:

WALLACE:   Mr. President, I’m asking you a question. Will you tell us how much you paid in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017?

TRUMP:         Millions of dollars.

WALLACE:   You paid millions of dollars...

TRUMP:         Millions of dollars, yes.

WALLACE:   So not seven hundred and fifty?

TRUMP:         Millions of dollars, and you’ll get to see it. And you’ll get to see it.

BIDEN:           When? Inshallah?

Inshallah is Arabic for “if God wills it,” and it’s used throughout the Muslim world, not just among Arabic speakers, when expressing a wish or hope. Among believers it can be a prayer, but it can also be a superstitious statement warding off a jinx, akin to “cross my fingers” or “knock on wood.” And inshallah can also be used sarcastically, indicating that one does not believe the thing in question will happen. It does, however, seem odd coming from the mouth of an American presidential candidate. (The Biden campaign confirmed that the candidate did in fact use the word and it’s not a case of mumbling or mishearing.) But its use in the American speech and writing has been on the rise in recent decades, and Biden’s use of the phrase isn’t really all that unusual.

Inshallah has a long history of use in English, but mainly in the contexts of Muslim societies. Early uses are, unsurprisingly, dominated by glosses and quotations of Arabic speakers and Muslims. An early use by an Englishman is by Arthur Conolly who records this conversation with an Afghan that occurred on 25 October 1829:

"Artillery! What would you do with your artillery against us? Inshallah, we shall be invading Hindoostân some of these days, and then our Syuds shall make your powder turn to water, and our horse will gallop in upon you and cut you down at your guns."—"And if you do come," I replied, "Inshallah! we’ll make roast meat of you all!"—a retort which was received with the greatest good-humour by the whole company.

Of course, this is in conversation with a Muslim, and Conolly repeats the word after the Afghan had already used it.

A slightly more English-only use is in a letter by James Baillie Fraser of 11 August 1833, but again the context is of a Muslim country, in this case Iran:

Tehran, to be sure, is at this season as hot a hole as I ever was in; but I shall soon quit it, inshallah! for the healthy yeiláks of Lâr and the mountains.

And British diplomat John Bowring uses it when writing in his journal for 14 April 1855 about his mission to Siam, what is now Thailand. The fact that it is in his personal journal is telling; he is not writing for the benefit of someone else:

They urged the conclusion of the treaty, so that the Rattler might get away by the next tide; and from half-past five A.M. all hands have been engaged in copying out the articles. They wished to have them one after another, in the hope that the whole may be concluded to-day. Inshallah! Such promptitude was, I believe, never before exhibited in an Asiatic Court.

This instance is more unusual because Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, and Bowring’s diplomatic experience was primarily with China, not Arabic-speaking or Muslim nations. Still, he undoubtedly acquired it somewhere along the way and associated the term with the “East.”

But the earliest English-language use of inshallah that I’m aware of that is completely divorced from any connection with the Muslim world is from William Burroughs 1959 Naked Lunch:

Homosexuality is a political crime in a matriarchy. No society tolerates overt rejection of its basic tenets. We aren’t a matriarchy here, Insh’allah.

But since the 2003–11 Iraq War, use of the phrase in American speech and writing has grown. American troops picked up and widely used the word. The following chart shows the number of times the word appears in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) in the thirty years from 1990–2019, divided into five-year increments.

Chart showing the rise in the use of inshallah in American speech and writing from 2004–14. Source: COCA.

Biden’s son Beau served in Iraq, and it seems likely that Biden picked up the phrase from his son.

So, in the end it is not all that unusual for Biden to have used the word. And he used it correctly, expressing the hope that Trump would release his tax returns, but also sarcastically, indicating that he doesn’t believe that will ever happen.

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Sources:

Bowring, John. The Kingdom and People of Siam, vol 2 of 2. London: John W. Parker and Son, 1857, 304. HathiTrust Digital Library.

Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch (1959). New York: Grove Press, 1984, 36. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Conolly, Arthur. Journey to the North of India, vol. 2 of 2. London: Richard Bentley, 1834, 67. HathiTrust Digital Library.

Davies, Mark. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), 2020. .

Fraser, James Baillie. A Winter’s Journey (Tâtar,) from Constantinople to Tehran, vol. 2 of 2. London: Richard Bentley, 1838, 416. HathiTrust Digital Library.

Liberman, Mark. “Inshallah.” Language Log, 1 October 2020.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. inshallah, int.

Video credit: C-SPAN, 2020.

cheesesteak

Cheesesteak from Pat’s King of Steaks in Philadelphia

29 September 2020

A cheesesteak is a type of sandwich consisting of thinly sliced or shaved beef, onions, and melted cheese (or Cheez Whiz if you don’t consider that product to fall into the category of “cheese”). The sandwich is closely associated with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and all evidence points to it having originated there.

The earliest reference to a cheesesteak that I have found is from the Philadelphia Daily News of 6 December 1963:

Fighter-manager Giardello is getting 15 percent of the gate. After expenses for training and buying out his previous manager, this will come to enough for a cheesesteak sandwich and carfare to his home near Garden State Park.

The designation Philadelphia is added about a decade later. From the Philadelphia Inquirer of 20 September 1974:

Start the day off at the 9th st. Italian market—the greatest dose of the Old World available in Modern America. My out-of-town guests usually rate it above the Liberty Bell as a tourist attraction. Stop off for lunch at Pat’s Steak at 6th and Catherine and let them sample a Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich or a hoagie.

And that is clipped to Philly by 1981, when it appears in an advertisement in the Tampa Tribune on 8 January 1981:

We at Philly Mignon Restaurant want to tell you of the fine response we received from our ad-with-coupon for our Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich.

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Sources:

Advertisement. Tampa Tribune (Florida), 8 January 1981, 4-NS. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Curry, Bill. “Philadelphia Story: Ready for Change?” Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 September 1974, 1-C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Merchant, Larry. “Who’s Worst Manager?” Philadelphia Daily News, 6 December 1963, 74. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, s.v. cheesesteak, n., Philly, n. and adj. March 2006; Philadelphia, n. December 2005. Note: the OED has a 1941 Chicago citation for Cheese steak that does not appear to be a reference to a sandwich and a 1946 citation for Cheese Steaks from a Brisbane, Australia newspaper, but this one appears in a recipe for a casserole and is unrelated to the sandwich.

Photo credit: Anonymous, 2006, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

fifth column

28 September 2020

A fifth column is a group of insurgent forces engaging in sabotage and espionage behind enemy lines. The phrase dates to 1936 and the Spanish Civil War. In October of that year, fascist forces under Francisco Franco were advancing in four columns on Madrid, held by socialist government forces, and the fascists claimed to have a quinta columna working within the city. The Spanish term is variously attributed to both Franco and his deputy, Emilio Mola, but no one has been able to identify the original Spanish use of the phrase.

The phrase first appears in English in Associated Press stories about the war. From 10 October 1936:

The Socialist newspaper Informaciones in Madrid said Fascists had claimed assistance from a “fifth column inside the capital.”

(Dispatches concerning the “inside” column were cut drastically by the Spanish censor although indications were given that mass arrests of Fascist suspects followed the newspaper’s story.)

And a few days later on 16 October 1936:

Repeated claims by Gen. Francisco Franco, commander-in-chief of the Insurgent Forces, that a secret “fifth column” of Fascist sympathizers has been organized in Madrid—ready to aid Franco’s four lines of marching men when the assault on Madrid begins—led the Socialist Government to launch today’s raids.

The alleged fifth column was reported on widely in English-language newspapers in the fall of that year, and the term got a boost in 1938 with the publication of a play titled The Fifth Column set during the war by Ernest Hemingway and an anthology of that title that contains the play and forty-nine short stores. The play is not considered one of Hemingway’s finer works.

By the time World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, fifth column was being used generally to refer to insurgent forces operating behind enemy lines.

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Sources:

Associated Press. “Rebels Cut Last Madrid Rail Line to East Coast.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10 October 1936, 1. ProQuest.

———. “Rebels Rumble into Range for Madrid Attack.” Daily News (New York), 16 October 1936, 22. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. fifth column, n.

Notes:

When searching ProQuest, I became very excited when I found what was purported to be a use of fifth column in reference to Spain in Foreign Affairs from January 1936, before the Spanish Civil War had even started. This would have disproven the common explanation of the term’s origin. But upon checking the article in JSTOR, I discovered that ProQuest had bad metadata and the article actually appeared in July 1937. Lesson: always doublecheck the metadata.

Also, the Wikipedia article for fifth column had a reference, with citation, to a use of the phrase in a German diplomatic cable from 1906 in regard to the Balkans. But upon checking the reference the phrase does not appear. The term in the cable was politische Minierarbeiten (political mine-work/undermining), fifth-column-like activity, but not a use of the phrase and an entirely different metaphor. Such acts of sabotage and espionage have been going on since time immemorial, so citing this in reference to fifth column is uninformative at best and misleading at worst. I edited the Wikipedia page to delete the reference. Lesson: whenever possible go to the primary source.

rickroll

18-second video clip from Rick Astley’s 1987 song “Never Gonna Give You Up”

25 September 2020

A rickroll is a particular type of bait-and-switch prank played on the internet. In a rickroll, a person posts a link that is either clickbait or ostensibly related to the discussion at hand but that actually links to a video of Rick Astley’s 1987 song “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Rickroll is obviously a compound of Rick (as in Astley) + roll. The origin of the rick half is clear enough, but the roll needs some explaining.

The first known instance of a rickroll, albeit an audio-only one, was on 31 August 2006, when Erik Helwig dialed into a radio call-in show and instead of talking played Astley’s song.

The first documented video rickroll was on 15 May 2007. A trailer for the video game Grand Theft Auto IV had just been released and demand was so high the original site crashed. Various mirror sites popped up, and one person on the site 4chan posted a link purporting to be to the game’s trailer but was actually to Astley’s video. This was followed by a myriad of rickrolls on 1 April 2008, April Fool’s Day, widening and cementing the prank’s reach and popularity. The claim that rickrolling originated on 4chan is plausible, but due to that site’s well-deserved demise, it cannot be verified.

Image of duck with wheels instead of legs and the caption “duckroll”

The term rickroll, as opposed to the prank itself, without any doubt got its start on 4chan. In 2006, 4chan founder m00t played a bait-and-switch prank in which the word egg in posts to that site was changed to duck. Thus, the word eggroll became duckroll. And soon 4chan users began posting a picture of a duck with wheels to the site. So, when the Astley bait-and-switch prank started, it was quickly labeled rickroll.

Again, the early 4chan uses of the word rickroll have been lost to the ages, but term begins appearing as a search term in Google in early May 2007, which aligns with the origin on 4chan. The earliest published use of rickroll I have found is from a music review in the Village Voice on 29 August 2007:

Yet his pencil-neck frame and caramel baby-face (reminiscent of Emmanuel Lewis) make him less the progeny of Barry White than that of a similarly gawky deep throat: Rick Astley. One video (set to music from the Nintendo game Mega Man II) explains how “ZONDAY CREATED THE CHOCOLATE RAIN TO STOP THE FAGGOTRY OF RICKROLL”; not to be outdone, Zonday soon posted an octave-lower cover of Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Two weeks later, an article in the Guelph Mercury (Ontario) on 13 September 2007 gave an account of the prank that just about sums it all up:

Spend enough time online and you're bound to experience the Web 2.0 equivalent of getting punk'd.

Referred to as Rick Rolling or getting Rick Rolled, you click a juicy link—say, a secret clip of a movie or video game -- only to end up at YouTube with Rick Astley shimmying to his late '80s hit, Never Gonna Give You Up.

The Web prank has definitely made its presence known online—not to mention in my head where it's still stuck.

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Sources:

Beta, Andy. “Music: The Chocolate Wars.” The Village Voice, 29 August 2007, 76. ProQuest Music & Performing Arts Collection.

“The Biggest Little Internet Hoax on Wheels Hits Mainstream.” Foxnews.com, 22 April 2008. Internet Archive: Way Back Machine.

Dubs, Jamie. “Rickroll.” Knowyourmeme.com. 2020. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/rickroll

Helwig, Erik. “Early Rickroll Proof (08.31.2006).” Archive.org, 29 June 2020.

“You Just Got Rick Rolled.” Guelph Mercury (Guelph, Ontario), 13 September 2007, F14. ProQuest.

Video credit: Rick Astley, 1987.

Image credit: Knowyourmeme.com.

filibuster

Still image featuring actors Claude Rains and Jimmy Stewart from the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

24 September 2020

As we know it today, a filibuster is a procedural move to delay or block a piece of legislation in the U.S. Senate. But it is a word that is intertwined with American history, and in particular with colonialism, slavery, and the oppression of Black people, from before the American Revolution through to the present day.

Traditionally, debate in the U.S. Senate was unlimited, senators could continue to speak on a topic as long as they actually hold the floor, and there are examples of groups of and even individual senators have blocked legislation for days and even permanently. In 1957, then-Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set the record for an individual filibuster by speaking for 24 hours, 18 minutes in an attempt to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The bill eventually passed. This vision of how a filibuster operates is perhaps best exemplified in Frank Capra’s 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which newly minted Senator Jefferson Smith, played by James Stewart, filibusters for 25 hours before collapsing from exhaustion.

But today the filibuster is limited to legislation and cannot be used to block confirmation of executive branch or judicial appointees, and senators do not have to continuously speak. All that is needed is a showing that there are not 60 votes (out of 100 senators) to invoke cloture and end debate. If there aren’t the 60 votes, the senate drops the matter and goes on to other business. And it seems likely that the Senate will change its procedures to disallow the filibuster entirely in the near future.

Originally, however, a filibuster had nothing to do with parliamentary procedure; a filibuster was a pirate or privateer. The word comes from the Dutch vrijbuiter, literally freebooter, as in booty, or someone with license to plunder, either from a government or from being an outlaw with nothing to lose. There are cognates in many Germanic languages. The modern parliamentary term, however, is a nineteenth-century borrowing of the Spanish filibustero.

The form frebetter appears in a 19 July 1570 letter from Michael Coulweber to Thomas Gresham:

And for so much as I was spoyled by the waye in cominge towards England by the Duke of Alva his frebetters maye it please the Queene’s Majestie and your honnor to consider me therein to her Majestie, and your honour’s pleasure.

The introduction of the < l > is uncertain. It may be from the Dutch vlieboot or Spanish flibote, literally fly-boat, a small, fast boat favored by many pirates. (The Spanish word is almost certainly borrowed from the Dutch; the sixteenth-century Caribbean was awash with such linguistic exchanges.) Although, the earliest instances of the English word with the < l > are references to armies or bands of soldiers that plunder, not pirates at sea. Flibutor appears by 1591 in Garrard and Hitchcock’s The Arte of Warre:

Merchants, victualers, artificers, and such others, as bring wares to the campe, he must take order that they be courteously & fauourably vsed, to the intent that they may vtter their wares willingly & safely, foreseeing that they be paid with good money, vsing towards them a louing countenance, & procuring them a conuoy & sufficient gard, as well for their cōming as for their departing, to the intent they may with good wils, be occasioned to returne the more speedely, & so remaine altogether satisfied, without suspect of being robbed or spoiled of theeues and flibutors, for which he ought diligently & sufficiently to prouide, since that by their meanes an armie is made abundant of all things propre, commodious and necessary.

The form flibustier shows a French influence. That form appears in the 1699 A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew:

Flibustiers, West-Indian Pirates, or Buekaneers, Free-booters.

After these early uses, the word largely drops from English usage, except for the occasional historical reference.

The word reappears in nineteenth-century America, a borrowing from the Spanish filibustero, which also traces back to the same Dutch root. It is applied to Commodore Matthew Perry during the Mexican-American War. From the New Orleans Times-Picayune of 10 December 1846:

A Filibuster.—We expect to hear by the next arrival from the Gulf that Com. Perry has made a descent upon some important point on the Mexican coast. He left Tampico on the 2d inst. with the U.S. steamship Mississippi, the steamer Vixen, sloop of war John Adams, and schooners Bonita and Petrel, on an expedition unknown. The mystery observed in regard to the destination of this force augurs the importance of the service that has been assigned it, but Com. Perry is one of those officers who does not keep friend or foe long in suspense as to what he is about. For his recent exploit before Tabasco the Vera Cruz papers denounced him as a filibuster. We apprehend that they will have to invent a bigger word to characterize his future operations. Filibuster, though, sounds like a term of significance—it may be a good word, like “nobled queen,” yet we doubt if it will answer the coming occasions of the Mexican press.

And it comes into widespread use during the 1850s in reference to bands of American mercenaries who raided, plundered, and intervened in the politics of Latin American and Caribbean countries, in particular Cuba. There are quite literally tens of thousands instances of this sense of filibuster in U.S. newspapers during the period 1850–60. An early example of this sense is from the New Orleans Weekly Delta of 24 June 1850:

An American Filibuster.

The fashionable word for the members of the late Expedition to Cuba, is filibuster—the Anglicised filibustero of the Spaniards. Terms, bestowed in reproach, are often accepted as compliments by those to whom they are applied. So it is with the gallant young men who formed the late Expedition to Cuba. Conscious of the honesty of their motives, they find considerable amusement in the high-sounding, terrible epithets of the ferocious Spaniards and their American allies. Thus, therefore, the word “Filibuster” has acquired a significance and popularity, which is likely to give it considerable run. It has entirely superseded the word “Liberator.”

Filibuster also quickly developed an extended sense, referring to politicians who were extreme and bellicose in their views, particularly over the question of slavery. This sense is in place by 1851. From the Georgia Telegraph of 26 August 1851:

Now, every body at the South has agreed upon the unconstitutionality of the Wilmot Proviso; and all parties—from the lowest soap tail to the most rampant fire eater—from the most obsequious of the Fillmorebusters to the most ultra of the Filibusters—have declared that a vote of Congress directly excluding the Southerner from the territories gained by common exertion, valor, and treasure, would be ample cause of immediate “disruption.”

The term Fillmorebuster is a nonce word, a play on filibuster, referring to President Millard Fillmore. Fillmore was a Whig who supported slavery as a means to keep the union together, helping to negotiate the Compromise of 1850, which permitted territories to decide for themselves whether or not to permit slavery, and signing the Fugitive Slave Act. So, a Fillmorebuster would be a tepid opponent of or a tacit supporter of slavery. The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful attempt to undo the Compromise of 1850 and prohibit slavery in the U.S. territories.

The filibuster would continue to be tactic of choice by those senators wishing to deny Blacks their Civil Rights and maintain White supremacy through to the present day.

Along with being a label for a bellicose politician, filibuster was also used as a verb meaning to engage in incendiary rhetoric. We can see this verb sense in the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser of 30 January 1852:

The government of Great Britain would never consider or receive resolutions that accompanied a prayer for mercy [for Irish political exiles] with an attack on her policy, or disrespectful or denunciatory language. His idea was that if the Senate merely proposed to filibuster a little on general principles, there would be no harm in adopting the resolutions of General Cass; but if there was a sincere wish to intercede effectually for the exiles, the Senate had better think twice before taking any such action.

And it was used as an adjective referring to such rhetoric. From the New Orleans Daily Picayune of 9 February 1852:

I perceive that Gen. Cass is endeavoring to head him off by a similar course in the U.S. Senate, where he introduced a resolution, and made quite a filibuster speech on the subject yesterday.

So far, filibuster had shifted in meaning from pirate to mercenary to bellicose politician to bellicose speech. And in the 1860s it would acquire the current sense of blocking legislative action by continuing debate. This sense is in place by 1863 when the New Haven Daily Palladium of 17 January 1863 writes this about the New York state legislature:

There is great excitement in the Assembly. The Hall is crowded. The main business so far has been filibustering, and speeches to stave off a vote.

The tactic was widespread throughout the United States during the 1860s, as can be seen from the following reports.

Missouri, 18 January 1864:

Mr. Wingate said this bill must be acted upon, and by postponing it from day to day, and filibustering to defeat it, we failed in our duty to our constituents and sacrificed the best interests of the State.

Kentucky, 22 January 1864:

The election of a Senator was prevented by the Senate today by filibustering until the hour of adjournment.

New Jersey, 25 January 1865:

Mr. L. Abbott moved that the House adjourn. Lost—29 to 30—the Democrats voting in the affirmative and the Unionists in the negative.

A system of “filibustering” was then entered into after which a motion to adjourn until Monday evening prevailed.

U.S. Congress, 31 January 1865:

Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, noticed the comment upon himself in the Washington correspondence of the Chicago Tribune, written, he said, by an employee of the House, in which he, with others, were represented as having filibustered to prevent the passage of Mr. Washburne’s resolution reducing tax on printing paper, and as being conspicuous among those who desired to continue the tax on knowledge.

Eventually, most parliamentary bodies would enact rules to eliminate the filibuster, but the practice continues in the U.S. Senate.

At its heart, the filibuster is deeply undemocratic, allowing a minority of senators to hold the nation hostage. Given the word’s roots in piracy, this should not be surprising.

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Sources:

“An American Filibuster.” New Orleans Weekly Delta, 24 June 1850, 8. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Baltimore Correspondence.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 9 February 1852, 1. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

B. E. A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew in Its Several Tribes of Gypsies, Beggers, Thieves, Cheats &c. London: W. Hawes, 1699. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Burgon, John William. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, vol. 2 of 2. London: Robert Jennings, 1839. 360. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“The Canvass in the 2d District. Mr. Johnson’s Politics.” The Georgia Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), 26 August 1851. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“A Filibuster.” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 10 December 1846, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Garrard, William and Captain Hitchcock. The Arte of Warre. London: Roger Warde, 1591, 236. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

“The Irish Exiles.” Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser (Alexandria, Virginia), 30 January 1852, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“The Kentucky Senatorship.” Boston Evening Transcript, 22 January 1864, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Missouri Legislature.” Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis), 18 January 1864, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“New Jersey Legislature.” West Jersey Press (Camden, New Jersey), 25 January 1865, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“New York Speakership.” The Daily Palladium (New Haven, Connecticut), 17 January 1863, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. filibuster, n. and filibuster, v.; third edition, June 2008, s.v. freebooter, n.

“Thirty-Eighth Congress—2d Session.” The Daily Age (Philadelphia), 31 January 1865, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, dir. Frank Capra, Columbia Pictures, 1939.