toady

Have you ever heard someone called a toady? It means someone who flatters excessive, probably in order to gain favor. 

I always thought it was an odd word. Could it have any connection to a toad? That seemed unlikely. 

Surprisingly, there is a connection to the amphibian. Back in the 17th-century in Europe, there were people known as toadeaters. They worked with magicians, showmen and charlatans. As an assistant, one of their jobs was to eat - or at least fake that they were eating - what the audience was told was a poisonous toad or frog. The entertainer (who might also have been selling cures) would then save the assistant by purging the poison from the toadeater. 

These assistants who would do anything to make the charlatan look good became symbols of someone who was very subservient to another. A "toadeater" became the term for a sycophant or any obsequious underling. In the early 1800s, it was shortened to toady and by the middle of that century toady was also being used as a verb meaning "to engage in sycophancy."

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Super Bowl LV (55) in 2021 will be played in Tampa, Florida.
We have already written about the Kansas City Chiefs here,
so today we add their opponent, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, and they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. 

They were an NFL expansion team in 1976, along with the Seattle Seahawks. In their first season, they played in the AFC West division and prior to the 1977 season, Tampa Bay switched conferences and divisions with Seattle, becoming a member of the NFC Central division. Then during the 2002 league realignment, the Buccaneers joined three former NFC West teams to form the NFC South. 

The team name of "Buccaneers" was selected early in 1975. The name was said to be reminiscent of José Gaspar and the Buccaneers of the Caribbean. Gaspar (AKA Gasparilla) is an apocryphal Spanish pirate and the "Last of the Buccaneers." According to legend, he sailed and plundered across the Gulf of Mexico and the Spanish Main from his base in southwest Florida.

The term buccaneer was taken from the Spanish bucanero and derives from the Caribbean Arawak word buccan, a wooden frame on which Tainos and Caribs slowly roasted or smoked meat. From it derived the French word boucane and from that, the closely sounding boucanier was used to describe French hunters who used such frames to smoke meat from feral cattle and pigs on Hispaniola. The English colonists anglicized the word as buccaneer.

The nickname "Bucs" quickly became popular (but not the variation of "Bay Bucs").

The team's original colors were green, orange, and white. Orange represented the Florida citrus industry. The green was quickly dropped as being too similar to the teal used by the Miami Dolphins and the greens used by the college Miami Hurricanes and Florida A&M. Red was added as an accent color. Some people say it is a nod to the University of Tampa Spartans and loosely, to the Florida State Seminoles. The orange/red/white combination was now a composite of all major college teams in the state at the time.

Shortly after the franchise was awarded, in February 1975 the team name of "Buccaneers" was selected. The name was said to be reminiscent of José Gaspar and the Buccaneers of the Caribbean Sea, and the color orange representing the Florida citrus industry. Almost immediately, the nickname "Bucs" became popular, but the alternative "Bay Bucs" failed to gain traction.

History of the team logo - via Wikimedia

A few months later, however, green was dropped from the color scheme. The artists' renditions were too similar to the teal used by the Miami Dolphins, as well as the green shades utilized by the Miami Hurricanes and Florida A&M. While they desired to keep the primary color orange, which provided a popular visual link to the Gators, Hurricanes, and Rattlers, they sought to further distinguish themselves. The color red as an accent color was substituted, as a gesture to the former Tampa Spartans and loosely, to the Florida State Seminoles. The orange/red/white combination was now a composite of all major college teams in the state at the time.

There was a conscious effort to distinguish the team's branding from the other NFL "pirate" team, the Raiders. The Bucs would beat the Raiders by a score of 48–21 in Super Bowl XXXVII, nicknamed 'The Pirate Bowl'.

Peace symbol

At the end of a year and the start of a new year, we often hear the phrase "Peace on Earth."  Though it started as a symbol of nuclear disarmament, the peace sign that most people know from the 1950s has grown to apply to (and be applied to) all kinds of things.

A number of peace symbols have actually been used in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians. It was used as a secular peace symbol and popularized by a dove lithograph by Pablo Picasso after World War II.

In the 1950s the "peace sign", as it is known today, was designed by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). That was a group at the forefront of the peace movement in the UK. It was later adopted by anti-war and counterculture activists in the US and elsewhere. 

The symbol was made by superimposing the semaphore signals for the letters "N" and "D" (for Nuclear Disarmament).

1960s button for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CC0, Link

The V hand sign 

The V hand sign most commonly used to mean "peace" began as a "V for Victory" and was popularized during World War II by Winston Churchill and is displayed with the back of the hand toward the signer.

During the Vietnam War, in the 1960s, Americans began to use the "V sign" with the palm of the hand facing outward as a symbol of peace. The V hand signal and the peace flag also became international peace symbols.

The V (victory) hand sign when displayed with the palm inward toward the signer (shown on the right above) can be an offensive gesture in some countries and dates back to at least 1900.

Listen to a podcast  Who Created the Peace Sign (and Why)?