filibuster

In case you’re not an expert on political systems (which I definitely am not), a filibuster is a parliamentary tactic, often used in the United States’ Senate. It involves a member of the legislature speaking for a long time, or engaging in other tactics like raising lots of points of order, to try to delay a vote on a bill. This works because in the United States’ Senate there’s no time limit on individual speeches. So a senator can potentially speak for hours or even days to stop a vote.

There are a few ways to end a filibuster, including a three-fifths majority vote (usually 60 out of 100 senators in the US Senate) to invoke ‘cloture’ (another new-to-me word). This is a formal process that limits further debate and schedules a time for a vote on the bill.

So, why is this type of long speech called a ‘filibuster’? Well, it comes from a Spanish word ‘filibustero’, which originally referred to pirates or buccaneers doing naughty things in the West Indies and Central America during the 19th century. ‘Filibustero’ probably has its origins in the Dutch word ‘vrijbuiter’, which means ‘freebooter’ or ‘pirate’. It wasn’t long before this term that previously described pirates became a word for a parliamentary obstruction tactic.

Strom Thurmond – allegedly racist AND sexist (I cut the top of his head off on purpose)

The longest filibuster on record came from the awesomely named Senator Sturm Thurmond, who sounds like a Star Wars character. Despite his excellent moniker, Thurmond was a vehement opponent of the Civil Rights Act 1957, and supported racial segregation (apparently he also had a reputation for fondling women in elevators – he sounds like a massive dick). His filibuster to stop Black Americans getting the vote started at 8.54pm on 28 August and lasted until 9.12pm THE FOLLOWING DAY – that’s a massive 24 hours and 18 minutes. Thankfully it didn’t work, and the bill passed two hours after his filibuster ended. It was signed into law by President Eisenhower within two weeks. Up yours, Sturm.

loophole

A loophole is one of those legally ambiguous things that celebrities (I’m looking at you Take That/Jimmy Carr) exploit to avoid paying tax. The word itself has an interesting backstory, and actually doesn’t have anything to do with loops. OOOH.

Allow me to take you back to the 16th century. There’s peasants and mud everywhere. It’s probably raining. You’re looking up at a medieval stone castle, which has slits in it for people to shoot arrows out of, with little risk of being hit by their attackers (unless they’re Kevin Costner). And these were known as… wait for it… loopholes. But they’re not called this because they (sort of) look like loops. The name comes from the Dutch word lûpen, which means ‘to watch’. So it’s literally a hole to watch out of (I probably didn’t need to explain that, did I?).

It’s not entirely clear how the meaning of loophole changed from window you shoot stuff out of to tax dodging. It’s more likely that the modern sense of loophole is related to actual loops, rather than windows (especially as you close a loophole). There’s also a second theory that it comes from another Dutch word loopgat (which isn’t used anymore), which describes a hole which someone or something could escape through.