Today’s word of the day, thanks to the Merriam-Webster dictionary website, is lambaste, or lambast, which can be pronounced /læmˈbeɪst/ or /læmˈbæst/ (the first one rhymes with paste and the second one rhymes with last). It is a verb that means “to beat or whip severely” or “to reprimand or berate harshly” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lambaste).

Merriam-Webster says, “The origins of lambaste (which can also be spelled lambast) are somewhat uncertain, but the word was most likely formed by combining the verbs lam and baste, both of which mean ‘to beat severely.’ (This baste is unrelated to either the sewing or cooking one.) Although lambaste started out in the 1600s meaning ‘to assault violently,’ English speakers were by the 1800s applying it in cases involving harsh attacks made with words rather than fists. This new sense clearly struck a chord; after fighting its way into the lexicon, lambaste has held fast ever since” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day).

The etymology website says that it entered the language in the “1630s, apparently from baste ‘to thrash’ (see baste (v.3)) + the obscure verb lam ‘to beat, to lame’ or the related Elizabethan noun lam ‘a heavy blow’ (implied by 1540s in puns on lambskin). Compare earlier lamback ‘to beat, thrash’ (1580s, used in old plays). A dictionary from c. 1600 defines Latin defustare as ‘to lamme or bumbast with strokes’” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/lambaste#etymonline_v_2015). Then it gives a brief etymology of the third definition of baste: “’beat with a stick, thrash,’ 1530s, perhaps from the cookery sense of baste (v.2) or from Old Norse beysta ‘to beat’ or a similar Scandinavian source (such as Swedish basa ‘to beat, flog,’ bösta ‘to thump’), from Proto-Germanic *baut-sti-, from PIE root *bhau- ‘to strike’” (ibid.). Then it gives an etymology for lam: “’flight, escape,’ as in on the lam, 1928, in pickpocket slang, (according to OED attested from 1897 in do a lam), from a U.S. slang verb meaning ‘to run off’ (1886), of uncertain origin, but perhaps from lam (v.), which was used in British student slang for ‘to beat’ since 1590s (compare lambaste); if so, the word has the same etymological sense as the slang expression beat it” (ibid.).

On this date in 1975, Bobby Fischer, the American chess player, was stripped of his world championship title for refusing to defend it.

Bobby Fischer (1943-2008) was born to a single mother, Regina Wender Fischer. She had married Hans-Gerhardt Fischer in Moscow and had a daughter, but due to the threat of anti-Semitism under Stalin, Regina moved first to France and then to the United States, where she had citizenship because she had been raised in St. Louis. In the US, she got pregnant and had Bobby (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer). He and his sister purchased a chess set at a drug store, and he taught himself to play. Through his sister, he learned of a simultaneous exhibition with a Scottish chess master, and he did well enough to draw the attention of a local chess instructor, who took Fischer under his wing. He later had other teachers, and he began to experience growth and success (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer).

Eventually, Fischer became the world champion, winning the title in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1972 against Boris Spassky from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russia). He was just the third world champion to come from the United States. The first was Paul Morphy, who defeated Adolf Anderssen in 1858 in Paris, although there was no organization to make such a title official. The second was Wilhelm Steinitz, who was the official world champion from 1886 until 1894, when he was defeated by the German Emanuel Lasker (though, to be honest, Steinitz was from Bohemia when he won the first championship).

In 1948, the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE), or International Chess Federation, took over the world chess championship. It was under the auspices of FIDE that Fischer won his one and only world chess championship and then was stripped of it three years later.

Fischer developed a reputation as a bit of a nut. For instance, despite his high IQ, he dropped out of high school when he turned 16 (I knew a few guys who did the same thing, dropping out on their 16^th birthday, but those guys left to become mechanics or bricklayers, not international chess masters). He died of kidney failure when he was just 64 probably because he had had a urinary tract infection and refused treatment for it. He lived the last 16 or so years of his life as a fugitive because of conflicts he had with the United States government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer).

But his refusal to participate in the 1975 World Chess Championship grew out of good reasons, though many people misunderstood. FIDE’s system of choosing the every-third-year challenger to play the reigning world champion favored Soviet players, who would collude to make it easy for at least one member of their team succeed. From 1948, when FIDE took over the management of the Chess World Championship, until 1993 when a disagreement led to a split championship, every single champion, except Fischer, was from the Soviet Union. Furthermore, every single runner up, except for Fischer in 1975, when he forfeited to Anatoly Karpov, was from the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Chess_Championships). The system was corrupt, and the Soviets used chess as a proxy in the Cold War (https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/bobby-fischer-is-overrated).

Bobby Fischer was one of the greatest chess players, if not the greatest player, of all time, and his genius should be remembered. He was the Babe Ruth, or the Michael Jordan, or the Bob Gibson of the game. He dominated the game in a way no player had ever done, in a way that no player has done since. People sometimes still lambaste Fischer for his lack of patriotism, or his quirkiness regarding tournament conditions, or his refusal to defend his championship, but he deserves far more praise than criticism.

Today’s image is of “American chess champion and prodigy the controversial and tempermental Bobby Fischer plays Soviet chess player Tigran Petrosian, Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 1971 (Express Newspapers/Getty) from Rolling Stone Magazine (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/bobby-fischer-showdown-in-reykjavik-177551/). Fischer is on your right.