the.com/square
the only shape boring enough to become an insult for boring people
means A four-sided shape with equal sides and right angles, or—by extension—a person seen as conventional, unhip, and dully conformist.
from From Old French 'esquire' and ultimately Latin 'exquadrare,' to make four-cornered (from 'quadra,' a square). For centuries it meant honest and fair—'a square deal,' 'fair and square,' a 'square meal.' The insulting sense is much younger: it bloomed in 1940s American jazz slang, where the in-crowd reportedly mocked the unhip by tracing a square in the air with their fingers, marking the dull and rule-bound. Thus the same shape that once meant honest came to mean tediously straight.
- equal sides
- Four equal sides, four right angles, zero surprises
- slang origin
- Meant unhip in 1940s jazz musician slang
- the number
- Multiply any number by itself, get its square
- city centers
- Public squares anchor cities from Tiananmen to Times
- square deal
- Roosevelt's slogan promised fairness, not geometry
red square — moscow's famous plaza, approximately 23,000 square meters, built in 15th century
times square — manhattan intersection, 42nd to 47th streets, 5 blocks long, called crossroads of the world
trafalgar square — london public space, named after 1805 naval battle, center of uk capital
tiananmen square — beijing plaza, world's largest at 109 acres, site of 1989 pro-democracy protests