I Allude - To Turpitude

No!  This Is Nothing To Do With Cleaning Paintbrushes
You are thinking of the derivation which comes from the Latin <hack spit> "Terebinthine", a Mediterranean conifer that yields the resin "Turpentine"; which you cannot drink - at least if you wish to see tomorrow - but which is indeed quite handy at getting gloss paints out of your fine-point best badger bristles.  Art?

Sic

     Typically for us here at BOOJUM! this is what we're not talking about.  What Your Humble Scribe refers to is derived from Latin <further spitting and hacking ensues*>, specifically "Turpis" for "Base".  Not as in Commander John Koenig's fiefdom on the Moon, as that would be silly; no, base as in low, licentious, seedy, sleazy - all the characteristics of a ballfoot player's agent.  From there comes "Turpitudo", meaning "Of base character".

ART!  <sounds of Tazer being charged up>

      - and thus to "Turpitude", or someone rather wicked.
     "Has someone kicked him awake?" I hear you kvetch.  "Shouldn't be be in bed by now, tucked up with a warm bottle of rum?"
     Pausing only to say that rum is horrid stuff best used only in Rum and Raisin ice cream <drifts off for a moment on the subject of ice cream> - O! I shall explicate.  Art?

As seen in the latest edition of "Empire"

     Conrad read these books when Darling Daughter was a lot younger, and found them jolly entertaining - er, that is, after she'd read them in the first place.
     The thing is, titular character Artemis is a pre-teen criminal mastermind, who has inherited his father's criminal empire when Daddy goes a-missing.  Artemis is as coldly calculating as a cryogenic computer, with all the morals of a shark.  That big coloured dude up there is his bodyguard-cum-confidante, the girl in green is an elf policewoman and the scruffy beggar in brown is a criminal dwarf.  I remember having a conversation on a forum many years ago about how problematic it would be to make a film of these novels, given that the role model is a very bad person.

"Good" is not the word I'd use ...

     Of course Conrad has absolutely no qualms about rooting for Artemis, because blue-eyed, bountiful and good gets boring after a while**.  Still, there must be some Hollywood suits sweating nervously about how this goes down.
     We shall see, we shall see ...
     Motley, put on this balaclava and let's go trick-or-treating down at the bank!

I Have A Hunch - About "Floating Punch"
No!  This is nothing to do about those gruesome collections of miscellaneous alcohols which get concocted for parties.  Think more along the lines of The Associates -

 - but with less Affection

     For Lo!  We are back with the diaries of Stanley Christopherson, who by the point I am annotating had been promoted to Major.  We are into January 1943, when the Deutches Afrika Korps and the Italians were in an enormously long retreat from the Alamein position, with the 8th Army trying to catch them up.  The Axis were running away slightly faster than the pursuit, you see, and one of their staples was to leave behind a rearguard of anti-tank guns in ambush; the idea was to knock out a few British vehicles and then, having held things up hopefully until dark, skedaddle.  This was essentially Rommel's modus operandi from November 1942 until March 1943: so much for Perfidious Albion being stereotypical in it's operations ...  Art?

Run Rommel Run

     This is where the "Floating Punch" comes in:  a pair of Bren Carriers mounting heavy machine guns, which operated at about 4,000 yards distance from the opposition, part of the Buffs battalion who accompanied Stan and his Sherwood Ranger Yeomanry.  Stan wanted to see if these guns could be got out to a flank - usually the left one - and engage any enemy rearguards from said flank.  This would either suppress the anti-tank guns as the crews either went to ground or to heaven, or force them to pull back, or try to deal with an attack from two directions at once.

The Floating Punch - it's come to lunch!

     As editor James Holland points out at several points in the text, Stan and the SRY were always trying to innovate, improve and generally be as effective as possible.  Who's the fuddy-duddy now, Herr Schickelgruber?


Talking of lunch ...

It will all make sense on Facebook, honest

Stap Me Vittles!  It's Coincidence Skittles!
Or not.  Or is.  You could have bowled me over, as the saying goes, since I do have a resemblance to a ten-pin bowling skittle in terms of pear-shapedness -
     What I mean to say is that there's an episode of "Starry Trek" to do with gangsters - you're going to insist I find out what the title is, aren't you? <sighs wearily yet resignedly in pursuit of veracity> - "A Piece Of The Action", there, happy now?  Art!

There you are, futuristic font and all.

     Conrad's retentive rubbish-tip skip of a mind well remembers where Captain James Tiberius Kirk is attempting to flannel one of the locals with a card game he's improvising about on the spot.  He calls one of the hands a "Tronk", although it could well have been "Tronc" - it's a Tronc, it works better that way.
     What do I discover whilst looking up "Turpitude"?  "Tronc" - the name given to a container where collective tips are placed, before being divided out amongst the staff.  French in origin.

Fancy that.

     Just another way the Universe is trying to tell me something.  Not sure what it is, yet.

I Did Mention There Was A Possibility -
That I'd get back to you on the subject matter of "Cyclops" and I only just realised that we've mentioned this word derived from the Greek <yet more hacking and spitting, in a virtual manner because we don't want to spread diseases, do we Vulnavia?***> without analysing it's etymology!
     No, you're thinking of the study of insects.  Art?

That style of pre-classic architecture known as "Cyclopean"

     The Greeks of antiquity used to dub the architectural heritage in their landscape of the above style as "Cyclopean" because (they assumed) only giants would create and assemble structures with such enormous stones.  We know better.
     Anyway, back to the word "Cyclops" itself.  It comes from "Kuklos", meaning "Circle" and "Ops", meaning "Eye".  So there. 
     And with that I'm pretty sure we've exhausted everything there is about circular eyes.  Unless, that is, I can find some myth or legend that refers to - say - square ones?



*  Conrad and Latin do not get on.
**  6.374 seconds, to be precise.
***  Conrad and Greek have a fraught relationship, too.