Today’s word of the day, thanks to the Dictionary Project, is ridiculous. Pronounced / rɪˈdɪk yə ləs /, this adjective means “causing or worthy of ridicule or derision; absurd; preposterous; laughable” or “Slang.,  absurdly or unbelievably good, bad, crazy, etc.” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ridiculous). Merriam-Webster defines it as “arousing or deserving ridicule : extremely silly or unreasonable” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ridiculous).

It appears in the English language in the “1540s, ridyculouse, ‘worthy of ridicule or contemptuous laughter,’ from Latin ridiculus ‘laughable, funny, absurd,’ from ridere ‘to laugh’ (see risible). Shakespeare and other 17c. writers sometimes spelled it rediculous.
By 18c. the sense was weakening toward ‘comical, amusingly absurd.’ The slang extension to ‘outrageous, scandalous’ is by 1839 (see below), but its appearance in college slang late 1960s is perhaps a fresh extension. The sense of ‘excellent’ is by 1959 in jazz slang” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=ridiculous).

Etymonline.com then quotes from James Orchard Halliwell, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century. […] In Two Volumes, Brixton Hill, 1852: “This is used in a very different sense in some counties from its original meaning. Something very indecent and improper is understood by it ; as, any violent attack upon a woman’s chastity is called ‘very ridiculous behaviour :’ a very disorderly, and ill-conducted house, is also called a ‘ ridiculous one.’” Then it says, “The same use also is attested in U.S., where it was regarded as a Southern word for ‘outrageous’ and noted as in use in 20c. in Gullah speech and among poor whites in the Ozarks” (ibid.).

The Urban Dictionary lists quite a few similar definitions for ridiculous: “something that is unbelievable in some way shape or form, an event worthy of memory”; “Where something is hot, cool, or off the hook”; “A word to describe a crazy, insane, yet amazingly funny person”; “when your boyfriend does something so unbelievable there are no other words to describe it”; “when something (be it a Movie, book, or anything else) is both really awesome AND is really funny”; “means fantastic, super cool, rockin’” (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ridiculous&page=1). In other words, in modern urban jargon (maybe specifically American?), it can mean anything that is extreme.

On this date in 1480 “Ottoman troops conquer Otranto in southern Italy after a 15-day siege, killing 12,000, enslaving 5,000, and beheading 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam,” according to the On This Day website (https://www.onthisday.com/events/august/12).

Mehmed II was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1444 to 1446 and from 1451 to 1481, and he became known as Mehmet the Conqueror (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_II). “When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451, he strengthened the Ottoman Navy and made preparations to attack Constantinople. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. After the conquest, Mehmed claimed the title caesar of Rome … based on the fact that Constantinople had been the seat and capital of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire since its consecration in 330 AD by Emperor Constantine I. The claim was soon recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, albeit not by most European monarchs.
“Mehmed continued his conquests in Anatolia with its reunification and in Southeast Europe as far west as Bosnia” (ibid.).

From 1463 to 1479, Mehmed fought a war against the city-state of Venice. The result of that war was the Treaty of Constantinople. The Venetians were forced to give up a variety of territories over which they had had control, including a couple of Greek islands. They also had to pay a lot of money, up front and on an annual basis. And then, “from Venetian sources, it can be inferred that the Signoria, through Battista Gritti, its new bailo [the Venetian diplomat] in Istanbul, gave the sultan to understand that it would be his rights in seizing Brindisi, Taranto, and Otranto. While it is impossible to say what extent such declarations contributed to Mehmed’s decision to carry out his long-standing plan for a landing in Italy, he acted quickly and resolutely.
“Early in the summer of 1480, kapudan-i derya [grand admiral of the Ottoman navy] Gedik Ahmed Pasha received orders from Mehmed to cross the Strait of Otranto” (ibid.).

“When the walls were breached, the Ottomans methodically passed to house to house and sacked, looted and set it on fire. Upon reaching the cathedral, “they found Archbishop Stefano Agricolo, fully vested and crucifix in hand” to be awaiting them with Count Francesco Largo, the garrison commander, and Bishop Stefano Pendinelli, who distributed the Eucharist and sat with the women and children of Otranto while a Dominican friar led the faithful in prayer. A total of 12,000 were killed and 5,000 were enslaved, including victims from the territories of the Salentine Peninsula around the city, and the cathedral was turned into a mosque” (ibid.).

Gedik Ahmed Pasha did not stop with Otranto. He continued along the coast of Italy, attacking other towns and other churches. But eventually the supply line got too long, and he abandoned the continued conquest of Italy, leaving a garrison in the castle at Otranto. Venice refused to do anything about the occupiers because of the treaty it had signed, but the King of Naples assembled an army and to try to retake Otranto.

Meanwhile, Mehmed II was preparing for another campaign in Italy, but he died in May of 1481, and the Ottoman army that would have helped the occupiers in Otranto never came. In September of 1481, the Ottomans surrendered and left. Under Suleyman, the Ottomans would briefly hold Otranto again during the Third Ottoman-Venetian War (1537-1540) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman%E2%80%93Venetian_War_(1537%E2%80%931540)), but that occupation would be even shorter than the 1480-81 occupation.

So what’s ridiculous about that? In 1764, Horace Walpole published what is generally considered to be the first Gothic novel in English. It’s a crazy story. It begins with Manfred, lord of the castle, trying to marry his sickly son Conrad to the beautiful princess Isabella. But Conrad is killed when, as he walked across the courtyard to the chapel, a giant helmet fell upon him and crushed him to death. The novel features supernatural elements, the first English novel to do so. It became the template for future Gothic novels and perhaps fantasy literature in general. And it’s called The Castle of Otranto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_of_Otranto).

I read the Castle of Otranto when I was in college. I had no idea that it wasn’t a fictional place. Ridiculous.

Today’s image is of “The imposing castle in the southern Italian city of Otranto” (https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-castle-otranto-imposing-southern-iitalian-city-puglia-image45717348).