rebarbative

‘Rebarbative’ is an adjective (AKA a describing word) you can use for someone (or something) that’s repellent, irritating or unattractive. And as they probably won’t know what it means, they won’t realise you’re insulting them. Winner winner chicken dinner.

‘rebarbative’ is a word of two halves, It comes from the Latin word ‘rebarbare’, which is made up of ‘re-’ meaning ‘against’, and ‘barba’ which means ‘beard’ or ‘hair’. Why is it hairy? Well, rebarbative was originally used to refer to something that was so horrible it caused your hair to stand on end. Like spiders. Or Donald Trump.

The record for the world’s longest beard is currently held by one Hans Langseth, even though Hans is no longer with us. He was a Norwegian-American who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his beard was a whopping 17.5 feet (approximately 5.33 meters) long. I realised when I googled Hans that I’d already written about him for former word of the week pognophile, so head to that post if you’d like to know more about him.

Growing your beard super long can be a hazardous business. In 1567, another man called Hans died when he tripped over his own beard. Hans Steininger, or Staininger depending on which page of the internet you look at, was the burgomaster (i.e. head honcho, or mayor) of Branau, a town then in Bavaria but now in Austria. He usually kept his beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4 metres) long at the time, rolled up and tied with a leather strap to keep it out of the way. But on that fateful day in 1567, he was responding to an emergency (possibly a fire) and forgot to roll it up and out of the way. When rushing down some stairs he fell over it and broke his neck. Poor old Hans.

recalcitrant

Despite sounding like a medical complaint, recalcitrant is an adjective (AKA a describing word) for someone or something that stubbornly refuses to follow rules or instructions, while also being a dick about it. Think stroppy teenagers, Donald Trump or my dog*.

Recalcitrant’s angry roots are Latin, from ‘recalcitrare’, which is a combo of ‘re-’ (meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’, as in ‘return’, ‘recall’ and ‘recover’) and ‘calcitrare’, which means ‘to kick’. Why kicking? Well, in its original sense, ‘recalcitrare’ was used to describe the behaviour of a stubborn or unruly horse that literally kicked back at someone trying to control or train it. Over time, we’ve extended the term’s meaning to describe people who resist authority, are uncooperative, or are unwilling to be controlled or directed.

I asked my friend ChatGPT if he (it’s definitely a he) had any stories about stroppy horses. And he told me about Clever Hans. Now Clever Hans wasn’t actually stroppy (so I don’t think ChatGPT is going to be taking over the world just yet, seeing as he can’t even get that right), but it is quite an interesting story, so I thought I’d include it here anyway.

Clever Hans was a horse born in 1895ish who became famous for doing sums and other clever things. He would answer questions by tapping his hoof, and became a sensation in Germany in shows run by his owner, Willhelm von Osten. Hans could add, subtract, multiply, divide, work with fractions, tell time, keep track of the calendar, differentiate between musical tones, and read, spell, and understand German, which makes him much cleverer than yours truly.

Sadly, it turns out although Hans was a very clever horse, he was perhaps not quite as clever as everyone thought. A psychologist called Oskar Pfungst carried out a series of experiments to understand how Hans was answering questions correctly. And he discovered that the horse was actually responding to subtle (and unconscious) cues from his trainer and human audience. For example, when he was asked a question, he would start tapping his hoof. When he reached the right number of taps, the audience would involuntarily exhibit subtle body language changes like tensing up or relaxing. Hans would stop tapping when he detected these cues, giving the appearance of getting the question right.

One of the ways Pfungst realised he was doing this was that he only got the answer right when the person asking the question knew the answer themselves. This is now called the ‘Clever Hans effect’, and has changed the way scientists all over the world investigate animal intelligence.

Even after he was debunked, von Osten, who refused to believe Pfungst's findings, continued to show Hans around Germany, where he still attracted large and enthusiastic crowds. It’s worth pointing out that Willhelm never charged for any of these shows, either before or after Clever Hans was outed. Nice, right?

Also, I still think Hans was pretty clever.

*I love you really, Gus.

Clever Hans with Willhelm

juggernaut

A juggernaut is something huge and powerful, usually destructive, that can’t be stopped, either literally or metaphorically. Like a steam roller, or Donald Trump’s ego. In British English we also use it for a big old lorry. But it is a bit of a weird word. So what is a jugger, and why is it nauting?

A slightly unimpressive photo of the temple

Well, the good news is that ‘juggernaut’ has some epic etymology. The bad news is that it’s a bit grim. It comes from Jagannāth, the Hindi word for ‘Lord of the World’. Jagannath is an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and has an important temple in Puri, on the eastern coast of India. That’s not the grim bit, obviously. Each year the temple holds the Ratha Yatra, or chariot festival, when images of Jagannath and his brother (Balabhadra) and sister (Subhadra) are pulled on huge and elaborately decorated (you’ve guessed it) chariots. According to hopefully apocryphal (i.e. bullshit) reports going back to the 14th century, hardcore Vishnu fans would throw themselves in front of these to show their devotion by being crushed beneath the wheels of carriages. That. Is. Commitment. Colonial Brits supposedly saw this, then anglicised Jagannath as ‘juggernaut’ giving it the meaning of unstoppable force that we have today.

Jagannath and his siblings’ temple at Puri is freaking massive – it covers an area of over 400,000 square feet (37,000 square metres in new money). It was built in the 11th or 12th century (depending on which page of Wikipedia you look at) by king Anantavarman Chodaganga, a ruler of the Eastern Ganga dynasty who were in charge of the southern part of Kalinga in India. There’s a flag on the top of it which apparently defies science, and always flies in the opposite direction to the way the wind’s blowing. (Boringly, there is actually some science that explains this involving fluid dynamics and something called a Kármán vortex street, but that isn’t half as fun so let’s ignore it.) Every day since it was built, a priest has scrambled up the walls of the temple – the height of a 45-storey building – without any protective gear, to change this flag. Bagsie not me.

kakistocracy

I heard this one on ‘The Chase’ this week, and even though Bradders didn’t think it was a real word, it definitely is. A kakistocracy is a state or society run by the worst, least qualified or most stupid people.

Government, innit

Unsurprisingly, ‘kakistocracy’ saw a rise in popularity when Trump took office in 2017. It actually isn’t related to ‘kak’ as in poo as you might think (that comes from a South African word for ‘faeces’). It’s from the Greek root kakistos, which means ‘worst’. The ‘-cracy’ ending is also from Greek – it’s from kratos which means ‘power’ or ‘rule’. ‘Kakistocracy’ was first recorded in the 17th century, where it made an appearance in a rant, sorry sermon, by someone called Paul Gosnold in ‘A sermon preached at the publique fast the ninth day of August 1644 at St Marie’s, 1644’. Here it is in action:

‘…transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this againe into a newer Independency; and our well-temperd Monarchy into a mad kinde of Kakistocracy. Good Lord!’

It was later made famous by Thomas Love Peacock (whose name is so close to being a sentence – I love people whose names are sentences. Like Jeremy Irons) in his 1829 novel ‘The Misfortunes of Elphin’ (nope, me neither). Peacock worked for the East India Company and wrote a poem about working in an office. Even though it has nothing to do with ‘kakistocracy’, I’ve included it here because it still seems pretty relevant today:

‘From ten to eleven, have breakfast for seven;
From eleven to noon, think you've come too soon;
From twelve to one, think what's to be done;
From one to two, find nothing to do;
From two to three, think it will be
A very great bore to stay till four.’