Cause Célèbre

The expression cause célèbre came up in last week’s entry on Idiomation, and this got Idiomation wondering as to how old that expression is, and whether the origins of the expression really are found in France as the spelling implies. For those who may not be sure what a cause célèbre is, it’s an issue or incident responsible for widespread controversy and usually leads to heated public debates on the subject.

It is, to translate the expression word for word, a famous cause, that it is so controversial in nature that it seems everyone is talking about the cause of the controversy and what is being said about it as well as by whom.  Examples of a cause célèbre would be the ongoing Julian Assange saga, the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the Rodney King incident, and the Amanda Knox trial to name just a few.

The word cause in English is from the Latin word causa that refers to judicial process, and has to do with the reason or motive for a legal decision, or the grounds for action. It has been used in this sense since circa 1200.  When it is used in the sense of a side taken in a controversy, that dates back to circa 1300, so let’s take a look at where in the timeline cause célèbre came to be a recognized expression.

Hillary Clinton used the expression in August of 2015 when defending the situation when she was the U.S. Secretary of State and intelligence officials determined that over 300 messages on her private email account on her private email server were potentially classified, and an inspector general stated at least two of the email messages contained top secret information. When asked at a press conference about the emails and email server, she was quoted by a number of mainstream media sources as saying:

In retrospect, this didn’t turn out to be convenient at all and I regret that this has become such a cause celebre. But that does not change the facts, the facts are stubborn — what I did was legally permitted.

From March through to June 2011, the Old Vic Theatre in London (England) presented the stage play “Cause Célèbre: A Woman of Principle” to mark the centennial of its author, English author, dramatist, and screenwriter, Terence Rattigan (10 June 1911 – 30 November 1977). It wasn’t the first time the play had been performed. In 1987, a television version starring Helen Mirren as Alma Rattenbury was broadcast. Before that, a stage version co-written by Terence Rattigan and Robin Midgely was presented on 4 July 1977 at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. Eighteen months earlier, it had been broadcast on BBC on 27 October 1975 as a radio play.

The story was inspired by the trial of Alma Rattenbury (the former Alma Pakenham) and her teenage lover, George Percy Stoner (19 November 1916 – 24 March 2000), who, along with Alma, murdered Alma’s third husband, Francis Mawson Rattenbury (11 October 1867 – 28 March 1935) in 1935.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1:  Although Francis was Alma’s third husband, Alma was Francis’ second wife.  In 1923, he left his first wife of 24 years, Florence Nunn and their two children, for 27-year-old Alma.  He publicly flaunted his affair with Alma, and because of that and other bad behaviors, he was shunned by his former clients and associates to such a degree that he had to move away from Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). 

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 2:  Alma committed suicide days after being acquitted of murder and of being an accessory after the fact,  George was convicted and sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment, then released seven years into his sentence to join the army and fight in the Second World War, after which he did not return to prison.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 1:  Francis Mawson Rattenbury was the architect for the British Columbia Parliament Building, the Provincial Courthouse of British Columbia, the chateau styled Empress hotel for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the 18-room, 3-story Burns Manor for then-Senator Pat Burns in Calgary (Alberta, Canada).  He also designed a number of hotels and stations for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway which weren’t built due to the death of the company’s president, Charles Melville Hays, who, in 1912, was a passenger on the RMS Titanic. 

On 11 June 1910, The Star newspaper in Christchurch (New Zealand) carried the news story by Charles Morrimer of the London Graphic of the trial of the Korean accused of murdering Prince Ito Hirobumi (14 October 1841 – 26 October 1909).  It was reported that the accused “had every possible advantage which the law allowed; he was warmly housed, decently fed, humanely treated.” He was defended by English lawyer, John Charles Edward (J.E.) Douglas (12 September 1876 – 18 December 1915), son of Canadian born Royal Navy officer Admiral Sir Archibald Douglas (8 February 1842 – 12 March 1913), and the accused spoke with his foreign counsel through an interpreter.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 3: Admiral Sir Archibald Douglas was born in Quebec (Canada) as the son of a physician, and died in Newnham (England), and was the first Canadian to obtain a naval cadetship. He was also the director of the first British naval mission to Japan. He rose to be a Sea Lord of the Admiralty under Goschen and Lord Selborne and, finally, Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 4: He was an aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria (24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) from 1893 through to 1895.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 2: John Charles Edward (J.E.) Douglas was appointed Registrar of the British Supreme Court for China in Shanghai in August 1901, and served in that position until 1907. From 1907 to 1915, he was in private practice at the bar in Shanghai before signing up for war service.

INTERESTING SIDE SIDE NOTE 3: Admiral Douglas’ son, J.E. Douglas was a Major in the 10th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. He was killed in action in Flanders on 18 December 1915 at the age of 39.

The court system was unlike the British court system as the Japanese court system had availed itself of the German Criminal Code in creating their own.

The accused, along with the accused accomplices, sat politely in the courtroom, and it was reported that the “Oriental public was much too well-behave to express either approvation or disapprovation.”

The Japanese, when they tried Prince Ito’s murdered, stood in a blaze of light — all eyes fixed on them. They knew it perfectly well. The case proved even more than a cause celebre: it proved a test case — and Japan’s modern civilization was as much on trial as any of the prisoners.

In the end, the accused murderer got the death sentence. One of the accomplices was sentenced to three years imprisonment with yard labor, and the other two accomplices received eighteen months imprisonment a piece.

The article ended with this:

He had the hero’s crown almost within his grasp, and he left the Court proudly. Has this cause celebre, so beautifully conducted, so wisely judged, ended as a score for the murderer and his misguided fellow patriots after all?

The 11 October 1900 edition of the Bismarck Tribune of Bismarck, North Dakota reported on the will of a certain Mr. Musgrove in the paper’s column, “Around The State.”

In the Musgrove will case at Grafton, Mrs. O.E. Sauter, wife of Judge Sauter of the Seventh district, is the beneficiary under the will, and Judge Sauter is named as the executor. The cause promises to become a cause celebre in Walsh county and will probably get to the supreme court [sic] before it is done. Musgrove was assistant state health officer at the time of his death. His property is said to be valued at $15,000 to $20,000.

It was on 20 March 1858 that The Hobart Town Daily Mercury newspaper reported on a criminal trial centered around the steamy story of a married man by the last name of Guillot who was carrying on not only with one young woman, but with two young women in town at the same time: The lovely Laurence Thouzery and the equally lovely Blanche de Jeufosse, daughter of the late cavalry officer, Mr. Jeufosse of the village of St. Aubin-sur-Gaillon.

Upon learning of the affair between her daughter, Blanche and Mr. Guillot, the mother convinced her gamekeeper to defend the honor of the family, which he did, and which subsequently led to Mr. Guillot’s passing. The accused and all parties that could be prosecuted in the matter were acquitted on all charges as the courts determined the killing of Mr. Guillot was justified and in accordance to law.

The title of the news article was: A New Cause Celebre.

The expression was very popular for titles of newspaper articles and books, including the 1850 book by French politician and free person of color born in Martinique, Cyrille Charles Auguste Bissette (09 July 1795 – 22 January 1858) titled, “Une Cause célèbre coloniale, Mme Marlet, de la commune de Robert, Martinique.”

In 1779, a 180 page book was published in French. with detailed footnotes, by publishers in London (England) titled, “Cause Celebre Contenant L’assassinat commis le dix-neuf de Decembre 1771, en la personne de Mademoiselle Warrimont, de la Ville de Visez, au Pays de Liege.” In English, this reads, “Cause Celebre Containing the Assassination Committed the Nineteenth of December 1771 on Miss Warrimont from the Village of Viset in Liege.”

At the end of the search, the phrase originated with the 37-volume compilation of famous legal cases in France titled, “Nouvelles Causes Célèbres” published in 1763. This was a collection of reports of well-known French court decisions from the 17th and 18th centuries, and prior to the publication of this series, Idiomation was unable to find a previously published case of the expression.

The expression — and the celebration of sensationalization as well perhaps — is therefore pegged to 1763 thanks to the title of the series.

Pink Elephants

If someone accuses you of seeing pink elephants, it means you are suffering from hallucinations … mostly likely caused by a state of inebriation.

In 1992, the “Confrerie van de Roze Olifant” (Brotherhood of the Pink Elephant) was founded to promote the Belgian beers made by the Huyghe Brewery aka Brouwerij Huyghe. The brewery has been in operation since 1654 and its best known beer is called Delirium Tremens (which is Latin for “trembling madness“). It has an alcohol content of 8.5% and was named “Best Beer In The World” at the 2008 World Beer Championships held in Chicago, Illinois.

In the May 14, 2010 edition of the Wall Street Journal, journalist Jean Spender wrote about former Alaska governor’s speech at a fundraising breakfast for the Susan B. Anthony List in Washington, D.C. She was quoted as having said:

Look out, Washington. There’s a whole stampede of pink elephants coming this November.

So where does this idiom come from, and what’s with all this talk of pink elephants as opposed to blue or green or bright yellow elephants?

Back in 1953, a Looney Tunes cartoon named “Punch Trunk” referred to pink elephants when a drunk looks at his watch and then says to a tiny grey elephant “You’re late!” Staggering away, he adds as an aside for the audience’s benefit,”He always used to be pink.”

Aha! What this means is that before 1953, there were pink elephants in some idiomatic form or another. And, of course, there was. In Disney‘s 1941 animated feature, “Dumbo” Timothy Q. Mouse and Dumbo the Elephant accidentally find themselves inebriated when they drink water that’s been spiked with champagne. Thanks to this mishap, they hallucinate pink elephants singing, dancing and playing marching band instruments. It would be easy to stop there and say it was obviously an expression that originated with Dumbo but that’s not quite right.

In the December 1938 edition of Action Comics #7, Superman lifts an elephant over his head while performing at the circus. As with most stories, there has to be an non-believer in the crowd and in this case, it’s a drunk. Upon witnessing Superman‘s feat of strength, the drunk says, “I don’t mind seeing pink elephants, but (hic) this is too much!”

The expression appears in the National Provisioner, published by the Food Trade Publishing Company and heralded as the “official organ of the American Meat Packers Association.”  In the October 17, 1908 edition, the following excerpt is found with regards to the Packers’ Convention in Chicago. In fact, the following is attributed as being part of the “aftermath of the convention.”

Listen to the gentle dill-dill bird carolling sweet lays and the voice of the placid niph blending his voice in beatific unison. And see — see the pink elephants with green mosquito jockeys astride racing over the walls — what’s that? It’s 11 o’clock. Say, send a boy up with a pitcher of ice water, will you? In a hurry please.

In Chapter II of Jack London’s novel “John Barleycorn” published in 1903, the author provides an excellent definition of how alcohol and pink elephants are associated.

There are, broadly speaking, two types of drinkers. There is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers.

But are there such things as pink elephants? As a matter of fact, yes. In fact, albino elephants — which are far more common in Asian elephants than African elephants — are reddish-brown or pink. In Thailand, they are called chang phueak which, when translated, is pink elephant.

In 1877, Queen Victoria became the Empress of India even though India had been under British control since 1858.  Six years after Queen Victoria was crowned the Empress of India, Toung Taloung, wintered for a time at the London Zoological Gardens before continuing its journey to join the Barnum, Bailey and Hutchison Circus in New York City. While in London, journalists and citizens were disappointed to learn that the alleged “white” elephant wasn’t white at all, but rather a reddish-brown — or rather, a dirty dusty rose.

Sometime between 1883 and 1903 — twenty years between Toung Taloung‘s appearance at the London Zoological Gardens and Jack London’s story — pink elephants, while very rare, were associated with the hallucinations of those who partook of alcoholic beverages.

Don’t Spare The Horses

Whenever you hear someone add don’t spare the horses to a directive, what you’ve heard is someone being told to hurry up with what they’re doing.  It’s not a negative statement, but rather, one that expresses the importance of speeding things up rather than continuing at the current pace.

When Jane Simon, journalist for The Mirror in London, England wrote her April 26, 2010 article, “We Love Telly: Pick Of The Day” she included a bit about Iron Chef UK — a spin-off of the American show which was a spin-off of the original Japanese show. While the four chefs contestants take on are impressive, it’s Olly Smith that Jane Simon writes most enthusiastically about with this comment:

Hyperactive even when he’s presenting some quite sensible item on Saturday Kitchen, here he’s been told to go for broke and don’t spare the horses.

“I’m like a Spitfire coming through the clouds!” he booms as he dashes in to peer into a frying pan. Or, my personal favourite: “Join us after the break when we shall erupt in a frenzy of judgment!”

In the crime thriller novel by Catherine Aird aka novelist Kinn Hamilton McIntosh (June 20, 1930 – ) entitled, “The Complete Steel” and published in 1969, the adventures of Detective Chief Inspector C. D. Sloan and his sidekick, Detective Constable Crosby continue. The story was published in the US under the title, “The Stately Home Murder” and was the third book in the series.

Detective Constable Crosby turned the police car …

“Home James and don’t spare the horses,” commanded Sloan, climbing in.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

Sloan sighed. “Headquarters. Crosby, please.”

“Don’t Spare The Horses” was also a popular song by American actor, composer and songwriter, Fred Hillebrand (1893 – 1963) in 1934. The main focus of the song is about a date night gone terribly awry. It was recorded by “radio sweetheart number one” Elsie Carlisle (28 January 1896 – November 1977) with Ambrose and the Mayfair Hotel Orchestra the year it was written. The recording was re-issued in 1966 on the Pearl Flapper label in an Ambrose compilation. These lyrics were transcribed from the 1938 edition of Song Fest.

HOME, JAMES, AND DON’T SPARE THE HORSES

It was in the gay nineties
One night at a swell affair
She was dressed in her best Sunday bustle
And wore a rat in her hair.

Her hero was both young and handsome,
But he was a terrible flirt.
He spent the entire evening
Making up to every skirt.

And when she gently reproached him,
He heeded her not at all,
And she, in her best Sunday bustle,
Went flouncing out on the hall,

She swept down the stairs most majestic
To her footman waiting below.
She spoke in accents loud and clear,
And told him where to go.

Home James, and don’t spare the horses,
This night has been ruined for me.
Home, James, and don’t spare the horses,
As ruined as ruined can be.

It’s still in the gay nineties,
In fact the very next day.
Our hero is somewhat remorseful,
And don’t know just what to say.

He thinks he’d better do something
To win her again for his own,
For she was his very best sweetheart
She was always good for a loan.

He went right straight to her mansion
And said “Forgive me dear.”
But, when he tried to embrace her,
She gave him a boot in the rear.

He swept down the stairs most majestic
And the doorman, he booted him too,
And as he threw him in the street,
She said “Humph to you.”

Home, James, and don’t spare the horses,
My suitor is just a bit tight,
Home, James and don’t spare the horses,
He’ll sleep in the stable tonight.

The song puts the expression to the 1890s, and magazines such as “McBride’s Magazine” and “Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine” corroborate this date with the publication of the story “Unc’ Ananias: A Virginia Story” written by American historian and author, Molly Elliot Seawell (October 23, 1860 – November 15, 1916) in July 1982.

“Certainly, certainly, my dear boy,” cried the Squire, taking Mrs. Cary’s arm. “I don’t wish to be informed of your and Patty’s private affairs, — not for the world; but — er — remember, you needn’t spare the horses. Of course I don’t know where you are going, as you haven’t seen proper to mention it, but — the sorrels are good for twenty miles before dark.” And in half a minute the Squire had whisked Mrs. Cary out of sight, although a crack in the door showed they were not out of hearing.

Not much further in this story, the following is written:

At this, Patty advanced and put her hand shyly in Jack’s. He led her out the door, calling out, —

“Good-by, Squire. I am to drive Miss Patty home, and afterwards — but never mind: I know you’d rather not hear.”

“Don’t spare the horses, — don’t spare the horses, my boy,” shouted the Squire.

As Jack drove off in the trap with Patty, the gentlemen cheered, the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and Squire Cary came out beaming, and asking right and left, “What’s all this? What’s all this?” Nobody volunteered to tell him.

And in “Erlesmere: or, Contrasts of Character” by L.S. Lavenu and published in 1862, this passage kicks off the first paragraph of the story:

“Drive hard, Nat, don’t spare the horses. My master gave particular orders that we should do the ten miles home in fifty minutes.” So speaking, Mr. Erle’s headgroom spring up behind Sir Fitzroy Herrode’s light barouche. The postilion touched the off horse, and the equipage plunged into the steam of a sunny December morning.

And “Ballou’s Monthly Magazine: Volume 2” published in 1855, there was a story entitled, “Courtship In The Dark” by Frederick Ward Saunders that included this passage:

“I suppose you want me to drive fast, don’t you, sir?” asked the coachman, in a significant tones, as he closed the door.

“Yes, drive like blazes, don’t spare the horses,” replied Cap. though for the life of him he couldn’t have told him where to drive.

The coachman mounted the box, cracked his whip, and off they went at a deuce of a pace, Mary crying like a watering-pot, and Cap. trying to comfort her, in which he succeeded admirably, for he had a peculiar knack of comforting good-looking young women in distress; and by the time they had gone a couple of miles, she became quite lively and chatty.

While the urban myth of Queen Victoria being responsible for the expression “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses” is widely recounted as the source for the idiom, it is nothing more than a fanciful tale … an urban myth. The habit of referring to coachmen as James dates back to the 1600s, with the name James being used as a name of convenience by those from wealthy or noble families when addressing the coachman.

With this information, the idiom can be pegged to the beginning of the 17th century. With that being said, “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.”

Black Out (as in “censorship”)

When people talk about black outs, they can mean one of three things:  to cut or turn out the lights or electric power; to prevent or silence information or communication; or to become unconscious. 

Preventing or silencing information or communication, either in its entirety or in part, is derived from the 15th century word “blackening” which means to defame a person.  In other words, if someone was the subject of a negative commentary on his person, it was said that the speaker was “blackening” the subject’s reputation.

It’s only from a black out — keeping the “blackening” from being expressed to others — that the subject could maintain a pristine reputation, whether it was warrantedor not.

The Milwaukee Journal of May 21, 1984 ran a news bite with the headline, “Bucks Black Out USA Telecast” and continued with this additional information in the first paragraph:

The National Basketball Association playoff game between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics Monday night, scheduled to be televised by the USA Network, will be blacked out within a 35-mile radius of the City of Milwaukee.

On October 8, 1965 the Windsor Star ran a news story entitled, “Reds Black Out Moon Shot News” that reported on the Soviet space program.  It read in part:

The Soviets today placed a news black-out on the face of Luna 7 hours after the space rocket was to have reached the surface of the moon.  All indications were that the unmanned instrument probe failed to make a soft landing.

Oddly enough, a black out doesn’t always have to be caused by the media as shown by an article in the Palm Beach Post on September 25, 1950 entitled, “Smoke From Canadian Fires Black Out Much Of The North.”  The story addressed the thick layers of smoke coming from Canadian forest fires in northern Alberta and effecting the Great Lakes area with smoke that “brought the darkness of night to many cities in midday.”  The states most affected by the thickest smoke palls were Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, although the smoke had also spread as far south as Virginia and Iowa.  What is particularly interesting about this natural phenomena is that:

Some callers [to the Washington Weather Bureau] wondered whether the strange darkness had anything to do with atomic bombs.  Others thought tonight’s scheduled total eclipse of the moon had arrived sooner than expected.  Street lights were turned on early in many places.

Even back at the turn of the previous century, black outs occurred as read in a news story carried in the Poverty Bay Herald in New Zealand on August, 24, 1912 about Queen Mary and her son, the Prince of Wales (23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972). 

He is only permitted to read the London Times among the English papers, and his tutor is to carefully black out anything verging on the objectionable in the Paris Temps, the only French paper he is allowed to see.

The Prince of Wales — officially invested as such in a special ceremony at Caernarfon Castle on July 13, 1911 — became Edward VIII and abdicated the throne in order to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson.

iI should be noted here that the Prince of Wales was the eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George V and Queen Mary, and his great-grandmother was Queen Victoria.  When the First World War (1914–18) broke out, Edward was the minimum age required for active service and he was keen on enlisting as well as keen on serving on the front lines.

Back on track with this idiom, during the 1760s and 1770s, a political reformer and polemicist, writing under the pseudonym of Junius, portrayed the press as “an essential restraint for bad men and impediment to bad measures.”  In fact, in his book “Dedication to the English Nation” he wrote in 1772:

The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.

Speaking for the radicals, he stated that he was not causing dissension by way of “blackening the reputations of the nation’s leaders.”  Instead, he believed the press should have, along with others powers, the right and freedom to expose a politician’s every action.  He stated that press prosecutions did more damage than the questions and news accounts originally published by the press.  This is, in part, how incomplete, false or delayed news reports were referred to as black outs.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day — the day after Christmas Day — is a holiday celebrated in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and other Commonwealth countries.

On December 23, 1895 in the Southland News Notes of the Otaga Witness newspaper, it was reported that:

With regard to the formation of a rifle association for Southland, and the holding of a championship meeting in connection therewith, after discussion is was resolved — “That a rifle association be formed to be called the Southland Rifle Association.”  Correspondence with several country clubs having been read it was proposed — “That as of the 1st January  had been found an inconvenient date for country clubs, the first meeting of the association be held at Invercargill on Boxing Day, December 26.”

Back on December 22, 1868 the Nelson Evening Mail ran advertisements on page 3 and in Column 1, Alfred Greenfield, Provincial Secretary of the Superintendent’s Office in Nelson (New Zealand) announced that:

The public offices will be closed on —
Friday, 25th instant, Christmas Day.
Saturday, 26th instant, Boxing Day.
Friday, 1st January, New-year’s Day.

On December 30, 1845 in the Sydney Morning Herald, there was a brief article entitled  “Christmas And Boxing Day.”   It stated:

A by no means bad test of the manner in which Christmas Day was passed throughout the town and district was afforded by Friday’s Police Court presenting not a single case of drunkenness on the free list, or indeed any other charges.

It continued by stating later in the same article:

Saturday’s police list exhibited the same gratifying report of Boxing Day as that day’s list did of Christmas Day.  Not a single free case of drunkenness, and only three charges for such offence on the bond list, all ticket holders, and who were discharged, one of them stating by the way that he had taken “a spell” from drink for five years until the previous day; the bend advised him to go and take another spell for another five years.

That the day after Christmas should be referred to as Boxing Day attests to the fact that the term was understood to mean the day after Christmas and was not in question.

It is said that Boxing Day originated in England under Queen Victoria’s reign and since the phrase cannot be found in publications in reference to the day after Christmas prior to her reign, it is likely to be an accurate representation of when the day after Christmas became known as Boxing Day.

Historians, however, are still at odds as to why the day after Christmas is referred to as Boxing Day.