Suicide (pronounced soo-uh-sahyd)
(1) The intentional taking of one's own life.
(2) By analogy, acts or behavior, which whether intentional or not, lead to the self-inflicted destruction of one's own interests or prospects.
(3) In automotive design, a slang term for rear doors hinged from the rear.
(4) In fast food advertising, a niche-market descriptor of high-calorie products deliberately or absurdly high in salt, sugar and fat.
(5) A trick in the game Diabolo where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.
(6) In Queensland (Australia) political history, as suicide squad, the collective name for the additional members of the Legislative Council (upper house) appointed in 1921 solely for the purpose of voting for its abolition.
(7) In sardonic military slang, as suicide mission, a description for an operation expected to suffer a very high casualty rate.
(8) A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
(9) Pertaining to a suicide bombing, the companion terms being suicide belt & suicide vest.
(10) In electrical power, as "suicide cable (or cord, lead etc)", a power cord with male connections each end and used to inject power from a generator into a structing wiring system (highly dangerous if incorrectly used).
(11) In drug slang, the depressive period that typically occurs midweek (reputedly mostly on Tuesdays, following weekend drug use.
(12) In US slang, a beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain (known also as the "graveyard" or "swamp water".
(13) As "suicide runs" or "suicide sprints", a form of high-intensity sports training consisting of a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one and the next.
1651: From the New Latin suīcīdium (killing of oneself), from suīcīda and thought probably of English origin, the construct being the Latin suī (genitive singular of reflexive pronunciation of se (one’s self)) from suus (one’s own) + cīdium (the suffix forms cīda & cide) from caedere (to kill). The primitive European root was s(u)w-o (one's own) from the earlier s(w)e and new coining displaced the native Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”). Suicide is a noun & verb, suicidal is a noun & adjective, suicider is a noun; the noun plural is suicides. Pedantic scholars of Latin have never approved of the word because, technically, the construct could as well be translated as the killing of a sow but, in medieval times, purity had long deserted Latin and never existed in English. The modern meaning dates from 1728; the term in the earlier Anglo Latin was the vaguely euphemistic felo-de-se (one guilty concerning himself). It may be an urban myth but there was a story that a 1920s editor of the New York Times had a rule that anyone who died in a Stutz Bearcat would be granted a NYT obituary unless the death was a suicide.
Terry Richardson's (b 1965) suicide-themed shoot with Lindsay Lohan, 2012.
The Legislative Council was the upper house of the state parliament in Queensland, Australia and a bastion of what might now be called the upper 1% of white privilege. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) had long regarded the non-elected Legislative Council (and upper houses in general) as undemocratic and reactionary so in 1915, after securing a majority in the Legislative Assembly (the lower house) which permitted the party to form government, they sought abolition. The Legislative Council predictably rejected the bills passed by the government in 1915 & 1916 and a referendum conducted in 1917 decisively was lost; undeterred, in 1920, the government requested the governor appoint sufficient additional ALP members to the chamber to provide an abolitionist majority. In this, the ALP followed the example of the Liberal Party in the UK which in 1911 prevailed upon the king to appoint as many new peers as might be needed for their legislation to pass unimpeded through an otherwise unsympathetic House of Lords. Ultimately, the king agreed but so shocking did the lords find the idea of their chamber being flooded with "jumped-up grocers" that they relented in their opposition. In Queensland however, the new members of the Legislative Council duly took their places and on 26 October 1921, the upper house voted in favor of abolition, the new appointees known forever as "the suicide squad". Despite the success, the trend didn't spread and the Commonwealth parliament and those of the other five states remain bicameral although the two recent creations, established when limited self-government was granted to the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (ACT), both had unicameral assemblies.
Suicide doors
It wasn’t until the 1950s the practice of hinging doors from the front became (almost) standardized. Prior to that, they’d opened from the front or rear, some vehicles featuring both. The rear-hinged doors became known as suicide doors because they were genuinely dangerous (in the pre-seat belt era), the physics of them opening while the car was at speed had the effect of dragging the passenger into the airstream. Additionally, it was said they were more likely to injure people if struck by passing vehicles while being opened although the consequences of being struck by a car sound severe whatever the circumstances.
Still used in the 1960s by Lincoln, Ford and Rolls-Royce, they were phased out as post-Nader safety regulations began to be applied to automotive design and were thought extinct when the four door Ford Thunderbirds ceased production in 1971. However, after being seen in a few design exercises over the decades, Rolls-Royce included them on the Phantom VII, introduced in 2003, the feature carried over to the Phantom VIII in 2017. Like other manufacturers, Rolls-Royce has no fondness for the term suicide doors, preferring to call them coach doors; nomenclature from other marketing departments including flex doors and freestyle doors. Engineers are less impressed by silly words, noting the correct term is rear-hinged and these days, mechanisms are included to ensure they can be opened only when the vehicle is at rest. Encouraged by the reaction, Rolls-Royce brought back the rear-hinged door for their fixed (FHC) and drop-head (DHC) coupés although, despite the retro-touch, the factory seems now to call them simply coupés and convertibles.
The combination of the suicide door, the four-door coachwork and perhaps even the association with the death of President Kennedy has long made the convertible a magnet for collectors but among American cars of the era, it is different in that although the drive-train is typical of the simple, robust engineering then used, it's packed also with what can be an intimidating array of electrical and hydraulic systems which require both expertise and equipment properly to maintain. That need has kept a handful of specialists in business for decades, often rectifying the mistakes of others. It was unique; after the even rarer Mercedes-Benz 300d Cabriolet D ceased production in 1962, Lincoln alone offered anything in the niche. Introduced in 1961, the convertible was never a big seller, achieving not even four-thousand units in its best year and was discontinued after 1967, the two-door hardtop introduced the year before out-selling it by five to one. The market had spoken; it would be the last convertible Lincoln ever produced.
Interest in the Lincoln Continental had been dwindling since the down-sizing of the early 1980s and the nameplate suffered a fourteen year hiatus between 2002-2016. Unfortunately, the resuscitation used as its inspiration the concept car displayed at the 2015 New York International Auto Show rather than the one so admired at Los Angeles in 2002. The LA concept might not have been original but was an elegant and balanced design, unlike what was offered in NYC fifteen years later: a dreary mash-up which looked something like a big Hyundai or a Chinese knock-off of a Maybach. The public response was muted.
By 2019, it seemed clear the thing was on death-watch but Lincoln surprised the industry with a batch of eighty longer-wheelbase models with suicide doors to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Continental’s introduction in 1939. Although there were cynics who suggested turning a US$72K car into one costing US$102K was likely aimed at the Chinese market where a higher price tag and more shiny stuff is thought synonymous with good taste, the anniversary models were sold only in the home market.
The retro gesture proved not enough. After building a further one-hundred and fifty (non-commemorative) suicide door versions for 2020, it was announced production would end on 30 October 2020 and the Continental would not be replaced. Not only was the announcement expected but so was the reaction; the market having long lost interest in the uninspiring twenty-first century Continentals, few expressed regret. The name-plate however, one of the most storied in the Ford cupboard, will doubtless one day return. What it will look like is unpredictable but few expect it will match the elegance of what was done in the 1960s.
Evelyn McHale: The most beautiful suicide.
The photograph remembered as “the most beautiful suicide” was taken by photography student Robert Wiles (1909-1991), some four minutes after the victim's death. Evelyn Francis McHale (1923–1947) was a bookkeeper who threw herself to her death from the 86th-floor observation deck of New York's Empire State Building, landing on a Cadillac limousine attached to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) which was parked on 34th street, some 200 feet (60 m) west of Fifth Ave. The police would later find he last note which read: “I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.” It's reported her mother suffered from “an undiagnosed and untreated depression”.
No comments:
Post a Comment