Verecund

Verecund (pronounced ver-i-kuhnd)

Bashful; shy modest, unassuming (rare).

1560–1570: A learned borrowing from the Latin verēcundus (shy, diffident, modest), the construct being verē(rī) (to fear or revere) + -cundus (the adjectival suffix).  The Latin verērī in the hands of medieval translators caused a minor theological dispute which lasted into the twentieth century.  In Latin verērī meant (1) “I have respect for, revere, stand in awe” & (2) “I am afraid, fear; dread”.  What entered ecclesiastical use and ultimately English translations of the Bible was the phrase “fear of God” which most modern scholars think was intended to covey the idea of being “in awe of” Almighty God but because of the way “fear” came to be understood, the other sense was generally assumed.  Of course, the idea of the “vengeful God” was popular among many clergy and theologians so there were those who would prefer their congregations to be afraid rather than merely reverential.  The equally rare adjective inverecund of course means “not modest” but in literary use (it’s doubtful if often appears elsewhere) it can be deployed to convey not only that but also something in the range of shameless to slutty; it’s surprising it’s so rare.  Verecund is an adjective and verecundity is a noun; the noun plural is verecundities.

Verecund entered the language about the same time as some others which have rather better sustained popularity including flare, gondola, monitor, parallel & vacuum but it was never common.  In the nineteenth century it seems to have enjoyed the odd spike but that was always from a low base although the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) entry in 1916 makes no mention of it being rare, or archaic, let alone obsolete.  It has thus never quite gone extinct but it’s not hard to suspect much of the use in the internet age is in lists of rare words confirming the rarity although it was in the script of the play Translations by Brian Friel (1929-2015), first performed in 1980.  That though was set in 1833 and part of the verisimilitude was that some members of the cast were well versed in the classics.

Verecund fashion is an amusing way of describing women’s clothing which displays rather less skin than much of which draws the eye of magazine editors deciding what to publish.  As something new "modest fashion" is almost wholly illusory because, by volume, most of the clothing sold around the word is, and has long been, of a modest cut which doesn’t reveal enough skin much to be noticed.  There are exceptions to that such as the somewhat misleadingly named burkini (the construct a portmanteau of bur(k)a + (bi)kini)) which was an ankle-to-hair-to-wrist swimsuit which while it showed little flesh was still sufficiently figure-hugging to be condemned by a number of mullahs and muftis.  The novelty is the publicity granted to "modest fashion" 

As a specific market segment however, modest fashion represents various industry players indentifying a way of applying their labels to quite unexceptional styles and marketing them to women with higher disposable income who for whatever reason wish to dress in a manner described usually as “conservative”.  The ideas of modesty can adhere to principles associated with religious belief and cultural practice or simply be personal preference.  There are suggestions modest fashion has introduced a higher level of style to a previously under-serviced market but it’s doubtful what has been displayed in recent shows differs greatly from what could have been found in catalogues in years gone by but as a high-priced range to be added to designer labels, it should deliver a solid profit especially in emerging markets where there are an increasing number of upper middle-class women anxious to spend disposable income and show the label.

In philosophy, the ad verecundiam fallacy deals with aspects of appeals to authority or expertise.  Essentially, the fallacy describes the acceptance as evidence for a proposition the pronouncement of someone taken to be an authority actually lacks the required expertise or position.  This typically happens when someone offers an opinion on a matter in which they have no particular competence and is not restricted to pop culture celebrities because more than one Nobel laureate has noted the absurdity of them being invited to comment on subjects about which they know no more than any intelligent layman. The phrase was a clipping of the Latin expression argumentum ad verecundiam, which deconstructs as argumentum (argument) + ad ("to" or "at") + verecundiam, the accusative singular of verecundia (coyness, modesty; shame).  The idea has a similar manifestation in law where the question of “real or ostensible authority” is involved.  In many common law jurisdictions, there are circumstances where it can be a defense that an unlawful act was undertaken because a person who the defendant could reasonably believe to possess the requisite authority to give permission for the act to be performed did so.  If a defendant acting in reliance on the belief the permission was lawfully and correctly granted, it can be a defense.  In one Australian case, a member of a parliament (a senator) gave "permission" for a protestor to stand in a certain place within the environs of the parliament and after doing so the protester was duly charged with trespass.  The court found (1) the senator had no authority to grant permission for an act of trespass to be immune from prosecution and (2) it was unreasonable for the defendant to believe a senator possessed either real or ostensible authority in this matter.  It seems still a rather harsh ruling given it doesn't seem unreasonable someone might believe a senator did possess the authority but the conviction stood.

Portrait of John Locke (1697), oil on canvas by Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723).

Although he wouldn’t have recognized the term “ad-fallacies”, it was the English philosopher and physician John Locke (1632-1704) who unintentionally laid the basis for the class of what are in philosophy now known as the “ad-arguments” or “ad-fallacies”. In his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), he identified three kinds of arguments, the ad verecundiam, ad ignorantiam, and ad hominem, each of which he contrasted with ad judicium arguments (those based on “the foundations of knowledge and probability” which are reliable routes to truth and knowledge).  Locke did not use the word “fallacies” but instead described the three as the kinds of arguments “that men, in their reasoning with others, do ordinarily make use of to prevail on their assent; or at least so to awe them as to silence their opposition.”

While the latter two have been embellished in application beyond Locke’s original thoughts, his characterization of the ad verecundiam is considered still the classic example of appeal-to-authority arguments.  When considered a fallacy, it’s either on the basis that the relevant authority is fallible or because an appeal to authority is an abdication of an individual’s responsibility to determine the veracity of knowledge.  Read literally of course, that would imply Locke was suggesting nobody should ever rely on the expertise of others but that seems improbable.  What is more likely is that he was contrasting the legitimate authority of knowledge with the illusory authority of social standing; the granting of respect and deference to others purely on the basis of their place in the social hierarchy, something even more pronounced in the seventeenth-century than today.  The language Locke used in connection with the ad verecundiam (“eminency”, “dignity”, “breach of modesty” & “having too much pride”) does hint what he had in mind was the kind of authority that demands respect merely for “being who they are” rather than for “what they know”, compelling someone to accept a conclusion because of their modesty or shame, rather than the quality of argument.  In deference to Locke therefore, it’s best to translate ad verecundiam literally, as “appeal to modesty.”

Twelvemonth & Year

Twelvemonth (pronounced twelve-month)

Twelve months (one year).

Pre 1050: From the Middle English twelmonth, twelfmonthe, twelfmonþe or twelv′munth, from the Old English twelfmōnþ or twelfmōnaþ.  The construct was twelve +‎ month. Twelve was from the Middle English twelve, from the Old English twelf (twelve), from the Proto-Germanic twalif, an old compound of twa- (two) + -lif (left over (in the sense of the two left over after having already counted to ten)) from the primitive Indo-European leyp- (leave, remain). It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian tweelf, tweelif & tweelich (twelve), the West Frisian tolve (twelve), the Dutch twaalf (twelve), the German & Low German twalf & twalv (twelve), the German zwölf (twelve), the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian tolv (twelve) and the Icelandic tólf (twelve).  Month was from the Middle English month & moneth, from the Old English mōnaþ (month), from the Proto-Germanic mēnōþs (month), from the primitive Indo-European mḗhins (moon, month), probably from meh- (to measure), a reference to the moon's phases as the measure of time, the construct understood as moon +‎ -th.  It was cognate with the Scots moneth (month), the North Frisian muunt (month), the Saterland Frisian mound (month), the Dutch maand (month), the Low German Maand & Monat (month), the German Monat (month), the Danish and Norwegian Bokmål måned (month), the Norwegian Nynorsk & Swedish månad (month), the Icelandic mánuði (month), the Latin mēnsis (month), the Ancient Greek μήν (mḗn), the Armenian ամիս (amis), the Old Irish mí and the Old Church Slavonic мѣсѧць (měsęcĭ).  Twelvemonth is a noun; the noun plural is twelvemonths.

The adverb was twelvemonthly which is not the same as twelve-monthly, another ill-defined construction which originally meant one thing annually done but was used by some in the sense of something done every month of the year.  It’s now regarded as an archaic or dialect word for year and seen only in historic texts or as a literary device. In the mid-twentieth century there was movement among some to offer it as a way offering more precision in language, the notion being that year would describe a calendar year (eg 1999) whereas September 1998-August 1999 would be a twelvemonth.  The idea never caught on.

Year (pronounced yeer)

(1) A period of 365 or 366 days, in the Gregorian calendar, divided into twelve calendar months, now reckoned as beginning 1 January and ending 32 December (the calendar or civil year).  The 366 day leap year happens (with a few exceptions) every four years; 29 February being the quadrennial addition.  The leap year (mostly) fixes the calendar and maintains it at the same length, mechanics of adjustments described in Medieval Latin as saltus lunae (omission of one day in the lunar calendar every 19 years) which in the Old English was monan hlyp. 

(2) A period of approximately the same length in other calendars; The traditional Chinese calendar, which determines the date of the Lunar New Year, is lunisolar (based on the cycle of the moon as well as on Earth's course around the sun).  A month on this Chinese calendar is 28 days long, and a normal year lasts between 353-355 days.  Other methods of calculation include from Tishiri 1 to Elul 29 in the Jewish calendar, and from Muharram 1 to Dhu al-Hijjah 29 or 30 in the Islamic.

(3) A period of 12 calendar months calculated from any point.

(4) In astronomy, also called the lunar year, a division of time equal to twelve lunar months and equal to 354.3671 days

(5) In astronomy, as tropical year (also known as a solar or astronomical year), the time the Sun takes to return to the same position in the cycle of seasons, as seen from Earth and equal to 365.242 (eg the time from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, or from summer solstice to summer solstice).

(6) In astronomy, as sidereal year, the time taken by the Earth to orbit the Sun once with respect to the fixed stars (equal to 365.256).  Hence, it is also the time taken for the Sun to return to the same position with respect to the fixed stars after apparently travelling once around the ecliptic; the time in which any planet completes a revolution round the Sun (eg the Martian year).

(7) With various modifiers (fiscal year, liturgical year, academic year et al), a period out of every twelve months, devoted to a certain pursuit, activity, or the like.

(8) A group of students entering school or college, graduating, or expecting to graduate in the same year (as in class of 2020).

(9) In English common law as legal year, a measure equal to a year and a day, the period fixed to ensure the completion of a full year. It was used in admiralty law to determine the time within which wrecks had to be claimed and in the criminal law to determine liability in murder cases; if the victim of an assault lived a year and a day from the assault, the perpetrator could not be charged with murder, even were the victim subsequently to die from his injuries.  The rule was translated to statute law in some jurisdiction and was repealed only because of advances in medical care and technology.

Pre 900: From the Middle English yeer, from the Old English gēar, gearlic & gear (yearly, of the year, annual).  It was related to the Gothic jēr, the Old Saxon & Old High German jār, the Old Norse ār (year), the Polish jar (springtime), the Latin hōrnus (of this year), the Dutch jaar, the German Jahr, the Gothic jēr and the Greek hôros (hṓrā) (year, season, part of a day, hour).  The alternative spellings were yeare, yeer, yeere & yere, all long obsolete.  Year & yearling are nouns and yearly is a noun, adjective & adverb; the common noun plural is years.

Twelvemonth does still get the odd use, usually as a novelty or deliberate anachronism.

Year-long (also yearlong) dates from 1813, year-round from 1917 and as an adverb from 1948.  The light-year (also lightyear), the distance light travels in one year (circa 5.87 trillion miles (944 trillion km)) was first defined in 1888.  Yearling (an animal a year old or in its second year) is attested from the mid-fifteenth century, the noun year-old in this sense being from the 1530s.  Yearbook (also year-book) dates from the 1580s as (book of reports of cases in law-courts for that year), the sense extended to other books of “accumulated events and statistics of the previous year" by 1710.  The first used in the sense of a “graduating class album" is attested from 1926, an invention of American English.  The Dutch schrikkeljaar (leap year) is from the Middle Dutch schricken (leap forward) which translates literally as "be startled, be in fear" and the 29 February is schrikkeldag.  The Danish skudaar & Swedish skottår translate literally as "shoot-year”; The German schaltjahr is from schalten (insert, intercalate) and the Late Latin phrase was annus bissextilis, source of the Romanic words.  One quirk in modern commerce is that payrolls tend to be administered in weekly or multiples of weekly cycles and for most purposes there are 52 weeks in a year.  However, the year (to four decimal places) is actually about 52.1775 weeks long so, every thirteen years-odd, accountants often have to ensure provision has been made for an additional payroll period; modern software has solved the problem for most.

Many rules have been suggested to avoid any ambiguity when writing the year in text but the best method is simply to write if out in full (1999-2002).  There have been publications with rules which differ under different circumstances but any technical need to limit the number of characters used has long gone and the simple form avoids any ambiguity.  Should the need arise of to write using the tags BD and AD, it also important to choose a style that avoids ambiguity.  AD (anno domini (Latin: in the year of the lord), refers to the birth of Jesus Christ, the year 1 AD (somewhat inaccurately but notionally) being his year of birth, and anything tagged BC (before Christ) being the years prior, counted backwards and starting at 1 BC, there being no year zero (which is a nuisance because it means not all the twentieth century consists of years numbered 19xx, the last year of the century being 2000; 1 January 2001 being the first day of the new century and millennium).  Classically, the convention in English was to place the letters BC after the year and AD before.  That was so the written word would pay tribute to the spoken, the common expression in formal and ecclesiastical use being "in the year of our Lord 2021".  That’s now rare and it may be preferable to use the suffixed (55 BC, 2021 AD) for both.  The alternatives to BC &AD are BCE (before common era) & CE (common era), the years exactly aligned and, although there seems no accepted convention about where the letters are placed, use should be consistent.

Thoroughbred

Thoroughbred (pronounced thur-oh-bred, thur-uh-bred, thuhr-uh-bred)

(1) Of pure or unmixed breed, stock, or lineage, as a horse or other animal; bred from the purest and best blood; a pedigree animal; purebred.

(2) By analogy, a person having good breeding or education.

One of a breed of horses, to which all racehorses belong, originally developed in England by crossing three Arabian stallions with European mares (always initial upper case)

(3) By analogy, a machine built to exacting standards with mostly bespoke parts rather than something assembled from parts or components from other manufacturers.

1701: The construct wass thorough +‎ bred.  Through is traced to circa 1300, from Middle English thoruȝ & þoruȝ, an adjectival use of the Old English þuruh (from end to end, from side to side, a stressed variant of the adverb þurh), a byform of Old English þurh, from which English gained through.  The word developed a syllabic form in cases where the word was fully stressed: when it was used as an adverb, adjective, or noun, and less commonly when used as a preposition.  Bred is the past tense of breed.  Breed is from the Middle English breden, from the Old English brēdan (bring (young) to birth, procreate (also "cherish, keep warm), from the West Germanic brodjan (source also of the Old High German bruoten, & German brüten (to brood, hatch)) & the Proto-Germanic brōdijaną (to brood), from brod- (fetus, hatchling), from the primitive Indo-European bhreu (warm; to boil, bubble, effervesce, burn).  It was cognate with the Scots brede & breid, the Saterland Frisian briede, the West Frisian briede, the Dutch broeden, the German Low German bröden & the German brüten.  The etymological notion is incubation, warming to hatch.  The intransitive sense "come into being" is from circa 1200; that of "beget or bear offspring" from the mid-thirteenth century.  As applied to livestock, the meaning "procure by the mating of parents and rear for use" was standardised by the mid-fourteenth century.  The sense of "grow up, be reared" (in a family; clan etc.) is from the late 1300s, extended to mean "form by education" a few decades later.  Thoroughbreed (also as thorough-breed) is a now rarely used alternative form.  Thoroughbred & thoroughbredness are nouns; the noun plural is thoroughbreds.

Among the thoroughbreds:  Lindsay Lohan visiting Flemington Racecourse for the Spring Carnival, Melbourne, Australia, November 2019.  Melbourne Cup Day (left) and Derby Day (right).

The noun breed "race, lineage, stock from the same parentage" (originally of animals) dates from the 1550s, derived from the verb but wasn’t applied to people until the 1590s; the scientific use to define a “"kind or species" began to be used in the 1580s.  The noun half-breed (person of mixed race) is attested from 1760 and was used first as an adjective in 1762; now though offensive it appears to have been replaced by “mixed-race”  but even this is not recommend for use unless being applied self-referentially.  The verb cross-breed appeared in 1670, used in relation to dogs, livestock and plants and, surprisingly, appears not to have been a noun until 1774.  Underbred (of inferior breeding, vulgar) from the 1640s was an adjective which didn’t survive; it was applied to animals "not pure bred" after 1890.

Thoroughbred the adjective dates from 1701 in the sense of persons "thoroughly accomplished" and wasn’t used for horses until the concept was created in 1796; the noun is first recorded 1842 but it’s hard to believe if wasn’t earlier in use in the horse-racing business; the noun is first recorded in 1842.  Use to refer to racehorses soon became definitive and all other applications are now analogous.

Needs a trained eye.  Thoroughbred (Indy King by Mr Prospector out of Queena) on the left, Standardbred to the right.

Sometimes casually used to refer to any purebred horse, it’s correct to use the word only with the Thoroughbred breed.  If used with a lower-case "t", it technically may be applied to just about any object when appropriate but never with other horse breeds.  It can cause confusion or worse. 

The Thoroughbred was bred in seventeenth and eighteenth-century England when several dozen native mares were crossbred with three imported Oriental stallions, Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian; all Thoroughbreds can trace their pedigrees to these three.  Between the 1730s and the late nineteenth-century, the breed spread throughout the world, first arriving in Australia in 1802.  Bred mainly for (gallop but not trotting or pacing) racing, they are also used for show jumping, combined training, dressage, polo, and fox hunting.  Thoroughbreds born in the Northern Hemisphere are officially considered a year older on the 1 January each year; those from the Southern Hemisphere having their birthday on 1 August.  These artificial dates enable the synchronization of northern and southern competitions for horses within their age groups.  Thoroughbreds are bred for speed, and depending on their intended career, for endurance over distances less than a mile (1600m) or as long as four (6400m).  They have a reputation for being highly-strung, sometimes deserved, sometimes not.

A horse cannot be registered as a Thoroughbred unless conceived by natural means; any form of artificial insemination is banned.  The industry maintains there are all sorts of reasons for this but it’s really a restraint of trade designed to limit supply and maintain high prices.  One charming second career for a Thoroughbred stallion which has proven too slow to race is that of a teaser.  A teaser’s job is to be placed close to a mare, usually behind a fence, to see if she’s in the mood to mate.  If she proves receptive, the teaser is led (unwillingly one supposes) away and replaced with a fast stallion.  Nature is then allowed to take its course.

The Maserati 5000 GT (Typo 103, 1959-1966)

1957 Maserati 450S.

It’s never taken much to induce advertising agencies to describe a car as a “thoroughbred”.  Some have been more convincing than others but few have been as deserving of the appellation as the Maserati 5000 GT (Typo 103).  With coachwork fabricated by eight different Italian coach-building houses, all of the thirty-four built used a slightly tamed 4.9 litre (300 cubic inch) variant of the 4.5 litre (273 cubic inch) V8 last seen in the Maserati 450S with which the factory’s racing team contested the World Sports Car Championship.  It really was end of the era stuff, a shift to unitary construction soon dooming most of the specialist coachbuilders while increasingly interventionist governments were in the throes of passing a myriad of laws which would outlaw barely disguised racing cars being used on the road.

1959 Maserati 5000 GT (Shah of Iran) by Touring.

In keeping with the pedigree of its illustrious engine, the 5000 GT enjoyed a blueblood connection in its very origin.  Before the Ayatollahs ran Iran, it was ruled by the Shah (king) and he got a lot more fun out of life than his clerical successors, noted especially as a connoisseur and of fast, exotic and expensive cars, his collection including multiple models from Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and Maserati among others.  In 1958 he’d driven Maserati’s then popular 3500 GT but thought it lacking in power and, because hundreds a year were sold to the (rich) public, a bit common.  Accordingly, after receiving material advertising both the 3500 GT and the remaining 450S race cars the factory wished to dispose of after withdrawing from racing, the shah decided he wanted a combination of the two, the race engine in the road car.  To have it created, essentially he sent Maserati a blank cheque and asked them to call when it was ready.

1962 Maserati 5000 GT by Allemano.

It wasn’t as simple as it sounded for the 450S V8 was not some adaption from a production car but a genuine racing engine designed for use nowhere but the circuits and only in the hands of skilled racing drivers. Robust and powerful it certainly was but it was also raucous, inclined to roughness at low speeds and not all that well behaved except when at racing speed when it was more raucous still, if a little smoother.  Taming such a beast for the road was a challenge but, with the shah’s buckets of money and some Italian ingenuity, remarkably, a relatively quiet and tractable engine (compared with that of a race car) was concocted.  The bore-stroke relationship was changed, the camshaft profiles softened and the porting was altered, which, combined with a lower compression ratio, improved torque and delivered the still ferocious power over a more usable range.

1959 Maserati 5000 GT by Allemano.

Italian house Carrozzeria Touring designed one of their signature superleggera (their clever technique of lightweight construction) frames, onto which they attached a hand-made skin of aluminum to create a strikingly modernist two-seater coupé, its lines and interior appointments influenced by Persian Baroque architecture.  Delivered to the shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 1919-1980) in 1959, it was almost a secret but when a second, commissioned by a South African customer,  was displayed at the 1959 Turin Motor show, it generated such interest that Maserati were soon fielding enquiries from rich commoners wanting what royalty had.  Priced stratospherically however, there weren’t enough rich folk on the planet to make it a viable option for their production lines so it entered the catalogue as a bespoke item, Maserati modifying the 3500 chassis which, frankly had been a bit over-taxed by the big V8 and tweaking the engine still further, slightly increasing the capacity but in a way that rendered it more docile, yet still a howler when stirred.  The chassis appeared in the list and buyers could choose their own coachbuilder and eventually eight produced their own interpretations, the most numerous being by Carrozzeria Allemano which, over the years, finished twenty-two, the Allemano cars thought also the most alluring.

1963 Maserati 5000 GT by Fura.

It was capable in some of the configurations in which it was supplied of 170mph (275 km/h), the fastest road car of its day, almost matching the 183 mph (295 km/h) achieved years earlier by the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut” coupé, which was little more than a Formula One car with a bigger engine and number plates.  The 5000 GT was quite something and even if the early versions weren't exactly suited to urban use, they were never anything less than exciting.  All the 34 built still exist, most percolating between private collections, high-end auction houses and the odd appearance at an appropriately exclusive Concours d'Elegance.

The Gordon-Keeble GK-1 (1964-1967)

1965 Gordon-Keeble GK-1.

Although elegant and capable, the Gordon-Keeble was no thoroughbred.  Using a square-tube space-frame purchased as part of the assets of a bankrupt company, it was clothed not in hand-formed aluminum but with the much cheaper fibreglass.  Using various bits and pieces taken from the parts-bins of many manufacturers, it was powered by a 327 cubic inch (5.3 litre) Chevrolet V8, essentially the same motor found in everything from Corvettes to pick-up trucks and while it may have lacked a pedigree, the purchase and the running costs were appreciably less than Maserati 5000 GT, one able to buy one for a fraction of the cost and, if the worst came to the worst, replace the engine and gearbox for less than the cost of an Italian cylinder head.

1965 Gordon-Keeble GK-1.

All but one of the one-hundred Gordon-Keeble GK-1s were built in England between 1964- 1967 by engineers once associated with the Peerless company, one of quite a few briefly to flourish during the 1950s producing low-volume runs of swoopy-looking fibreglass bodies atop custom frames, using a variety of power-plants.  It was a simpler time.  The genesis of the GK-1 was a request in 1959 from a US Air Force (USAF) pilot then stationed in England to fit a Peerless with a 283 cubic inch (4.6 litre) Chevrolet Corvette V8.  The concept, essentially the same as that Carol Shelby (1923-2012) famously and historically would pursue by mating the AC Ace with the Ford V8 to create the Cobra (1962-1967), so impressed the engineers they took a V8 Peerless to Carrozzeria Bertone in Turin, Italy where a steel body designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro was built, appearing on Bertone’s stand at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show where it was well received.

1964 Gordon-Keeble GK-1.

After long delays related to securing contractual relationships with external component suppliers, the show car was finished to a point close to the standard required for regular production and, after testing which convinced the engineers it was a commercially viable proposition, sent to Detroit as a proof-of-concept for General Motors to evaluate.  Suitably impressed, Chevrolet agreed to supply the Corvette engines and gearboxes for the first production run.  Visually, the GK-1 differed little from the prototype, but structurally and mechanically, there were changes.  Most obvious was the switch of the body construction from steel to fibreglass, the engineers’ preference for aluminum prohibitively expensive and the Corvette engine was the newer 327 cubic inch (5.3 litre) unit introduced in 1962.  Mechanically, the GK1 was ready and reliable and, with its space-frame, De Dion rear axle, four wheel disk brakes, twin fuel tanks and a host of internal fittings hinting at a connection with aviation, the specification was tempting.  Released in 1964, the critical response was overwhelmingly positive (although nobody had a good word for the steering) and demand seemed initially strong.

1965 Gordon-Keeble GK-1.

However, the back-shed curse, which afflicting many small-scale British manufacturers in the era, struck.  Under-capitalized, the company was unable to successfully to link its cash flow with the demands of external suppliers upon which production depended and, whatever the engineering prowess available, the accounting skills required successfully to operate as a trading organization were lacking; a retail price under Stg£3,000 was unrealistically low and inadequate to support the actual cost of production and development.  By 1965, with ninety GK1s having been sold, the company was perilously close to insolvent and was sold but the new owners proved no more adept than the old.  After struggling to complete another nine cars (one more was added to the total in 1971, assembled the previous year from the residual spare parts when the factory was liquidated), operations finally closed, hopes of a US-based revival proving abortive.

Clan Gordon emblem.

One quirky footnote in the Gordon-Keeble story was the creature on the marque’s badge: a tortoise.  That may seem a curious choice for a vehicle designed for high-speed but the beast ended up on the badge because of a boardroom dispute.  Bertone’s prototype at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show had featured a badge with a stag's head, the emblem of the Scottish Clan Gordon to which belonged one of the founders of Gordon-Keeble.  Because the clan’s motto was Bydand (abiding or remaining) which, in modern parlance translates as something like “durable, immortal, steadfast & everlasting”, it was thought appropriate for the GK-1, which did live up to the motto better than most, some ninety-two of the one-hundred said either to be in running condition or undergoing restoration.

Gordon-Keeble corporate logo.

However, because of the long delays before production began, it was necessary to seek bridging finance and this brought the inevitable managerial disputes and as a result, Mr Gordon left, contractually obliged to allow the project to continue using his name but he withdrew the right to use the clan emblem.  With everything else going on, that wasn’t given much thought until late 1963 when, with a debut finally close, a photo-shoot was arranged so brochures and other promotional material could be prepared.  At just the moment the absence was noticed, a tortoise happened to be wandering in the garden chosen as the backdrop and the meandering Testudinidae, unaware of the minor role it was about to play in UK corporate history, was picked up and placed on the hood (bonnet), everyone amused at the juxtaposition of one of nature’s slowest creations adorning one of mankind’s fastest.  The tortoise was returned to the flower-beds and adopted as the emblem, appearing on the escutcheon of every Gordon-Keeble.

Smite

Smite (pronounced smahyt)

(1) To strike or hit hard, with or as with the hand, a stick, or other weapon; to deliver or deal (a blow, hit etc) by striking hard.

(2) As acts of God, to strike down, injure, or slay (influenced by the use of the word in biblical translations); to kill or injure by the exercise of divine power.

(3) To afflict or attack with deadly or disastrous effect; violently to kill; to slay.

(4) In military conflict, to put to rout in battle; to overthrow.

(5) To afflict; to chasten; to punish.

(6) To feel mentally or morally afflicted with a sudden pang.

(7) Figuratively (now (as smitten) used only in passive), to strike with love or infatuation; to affect suddenly and strongly with a specified feeling; to impress favorably; charm; enamor.

Pre 900: From the Middle English smiten (to daub, smear, smudge; soil, defile, pollute) from the Old English smītan from the Proto-Germanic smītaną (to sling; throw), from the primitive Indo-European smeyd- (to smear, whisk, strike, rub).  It was cognate with Saterland Frisian smiete (to throw, toss), the West Frisian smite (to throw), the Low German smieten (to throw, chuck, toss), the Dutch smijten (to fling, hurl, throw), the Middle Low German besmitten (to soil, sully), the German schmeißen (schmeissen) (to fling, throw), the Danish smide (to throw) and the Gothic bismeitan (to besmear, anoint).  The alternative spelling smight is long obsolete.  Smite & smiting are nouns & verbs, smited (smit is archaic except in poetic use) & smote are verbs (the latter an adjective in Middle English), smiter is a noun and smitten is an adjective & verb; the (rare) noun plural is smites.

Smitten: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) looking longingly at Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).

Although before their eyes met in 2018, the two had exchanged such long-distance insults as "dotard" and "little rocket man", after meeting, things changed as Mr Trump would later explain: “I like him. He likes me. I guess that’s OK. Am I allowed to say that?  I was being really tough and so was he. And we would go back and forth.  And then we fell in love.  No, really.  He wrote me beautiful letters.  They were great letters.  And then we fell in love.”  Caught up in the magic of the moment, the two were clearly smitten but on substantive matters there was little progress and within a year the DPRK's highly productive news agency was releasing transcripts of the foreign ministry's statement in which it claimed Mr Trump's attitude "must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard".  Assuming both live to see the day, the only hope of a reconciliation would seem to be Mr Trump regaining the presidency in 2024.

The meaning "to hit, strike, beat" is from the mid twelfth century, derived from the Old English smitan but that’s attested only as "to daub, smear on; soil, pollute, blemish, defile", the sense also of the Proto-Germanic smitan, the Swedish smita, the Danish smide, the Old Frisian smita, the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch smiten, the Dutch smijten, the Old High German smizan, the German schmeißen and the Gothic bismeitan.  The development of the various senses is unclear but most etymologists agree that of throwing is probably the original, more than one suggesting the semantic channel may have been “slapping mud on walls in wattle and daub construction", connected with the primitive Indo-European sme- (to smear).  The sense of "slay in combat" emerged circa 1300 from the Biblical expression “smite to death”, first attested circa 1200.  The meaning "visit disastrously" is mid-twelfth century, also of Biblical origin; "strike with passion or emotion" dates from circa 1300.

It varies with the translation but there’s much smiting in the Bible, most versions having well over a hundred instances including: 

And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them (Deuteronomy 7:2)

And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence.  (Jeremiah 21:6)

 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. (Ezekiel 6:11)

And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth. (Ezekiel 7:9)

Smitten: Lindsay Lohan and husband Bader Shammas (b 1987).

In its original sense (daub, smear, smudge etc), smite is close to obsolete.  In the late sense of “strike”, it’s rare except in Biblical scholarship, long supplanted in English by an array of synonyms including afflict, knock, hit, chasten, chastise, sock, defeat, visit, attack, buffet, dash, swat, smack, slap, wallop, strike, clobber, blast, whack & belt.  A noun form is smiter, the other verbs being smote, smit, smitten & smiting, all obsolete except smitten which has survived in a poetic niche, usually to describe the first, fine, careless rapture of love.

Shadow

Shadow (pronounced shad-oh)

(1) A dark figure or image cast on the ground or some surface by a body intercepting light.

(2) Shade or comparative darkness, as in an area.

(3) As “the shadows”, darkness, especially that coming after sunset.

(4) A spectre or ghost.

(5) A mere semblance of something.

(6) A reflected image, as in a mirror or in water (now rare and restricted to literary or poetic use).

(7) In painting, drawing, graphics etc, the representation of the absence of light on a form.

(8) In art, the dark part of a picture, either representing an absence of illumination or as a symbolic device.

(9) In architectural depictions & renderings (as “shades and shadows”) a dark figure or image cast by an object or part of an object upon a surface that would otherwise be illuminated by the theoretical light source.

(10) In Jungian psychology, the archetype that represents man's animal ancestors; an unconscious aspect of the personality.

(11) In pop-psychology (1) a period or instance of gloom, unhappiness, mistrust, doubt, dissension, or the like, as in friendship or one's life or (2) a dominant or pervasive threat, influence, or atmosphere, especially one causing gloom, fear, doubt, or the like (often expressed as “shadow of fear”, “shadow of doubt” et al).

(12) A person who follows another in order to keep watch upon that person (in law enforcement, espionage etc).

(13) To overspread with shadow; to shade.

(14) To cast a gloom over; to cloud.

(15) To screen or protect from light, heat, etc; to provide shade.

(16) To follow and observe (a person).

(17) To represent faintly, prophetically etc. (often followed by forth).

(18) In democratic politics, (of or pertaining to a shadow cabinet or shadow minister) a system whereby an opposing politician formally is appointed to be responsible for matters relating to a particular minister’s areas of authority.

(19) As a modifier (shadow ban, shadow ticket, shadow docket, shadow price, shadow inflation etc), something effected unofficially or without public notice; characterized by secrecy or performed in a way that is difficult to detect; a clandestine approach.

(20) In typography, the “drop shadow” effect applied to lettering.

(21) An uninvited guest accompanying one who was invited (an obsolete, Latinism).

(22) In human resource management, the practice of new appointee accompanying an incumbent during the working day, so as to learn the job.

(23) In computer programming, to make (an identifier, usually a variable) inaccessible by declaring another of the same name within the scope of the first.

(24) In computing, in the graphical Workplace Shell (the WPS, successor to the Presentation Manager (PM)) of the OS/2 operating system, an object representing another object.

Pre-900: From the Middle English noun shadwe, shadu, shadue, shadowe shadow, from the Old English sċeaduwe, sċeadwe & sceadu, the oblique case forms of sċeadu (shadow, shade; darkness; protection).  The Middle English verbs were shadwen, shadwe, shadu & shadue (to shade, provide shade, cast a shadow, protect), from the Old English sceadwian (to cover with shadow, protect) (all derivative of the nouns), from the Proto-West Germanic skadu, from the Proto-Germanic skadwaz (shade, shadow), from the primitive Indo-European skeh & ḱeh- (darkness).  Contemporary forms included the Old Saxon skadowan & skadoian and the Gothic (ufar)skadwjan (to (over)shadow).  Similar forms in other Germanic languages included the Old Saxon skado, the Middle Dutch schaeduwe, the Dutch schaduw, the Old High German scato, the German schatten and the Gothic skadus (shadow, shade).  Shadow is a noun, verb & adjective, shadower is a noun, shadowdy, shadowless & shadow-like are adjectives; the noun plural is shadows.

The shadow-box was a protective display case, usually in the form of interlocking squares and wall-mounted was first advertised in 1892.  The term shadow-figure was a synonym of silhouette, dating from 1851.  Eye-shadow was a term invented for the commercial products which came onto the market in 1918, providing a convenient packaged product to achieve the look women (and apparently not a few men) had been creating for thousands of years.  Shadow-boxing was first noted in 1906, an update of the earlier (1768) shadow-fight.  The verb foreshadow (indicate beforehand was a figurative form, the idea apparently of a shadow thrown before an advancing material object as an image of something suggestive of what is to come.  It’s familiar also in the forms foreshadowed & foreshadowing and was used as a noun since at least 1831.  Although the meanings were different, in Old English there was forescywa (shadow) & forescywung (overshadowing).  The adjective shadowy was ultimately from late fourteenth century shadwi & shadewy (full of shadows, shaded (and also “transitory, fleeting, unreal (resembling a shadow)”).  From very late in the eighteenth century it conveyed the sense of “faintly perceptible”.  In The Old English there was sceadwig (shady) and the modern alternative is shadowiness but unfortunately, the marvelously tempting shadowous never caught on.  The noun shadowland came from a work of fiction in 1821 and meant “an abode of ghosts and spirits”, adopted from the early 1920s to mean an indeterminate or unhappy place”.  The noun shadowless was from the 1630s and meant literally “no shadow” the implication being of things ungodly or supernatural.

In idiomatic use shadow often appears.  To be a shadow of one's self is to have suffered some trauma meaning one is a lesser person than before.  One afraid of one’s own shadow is one of a skittish, nervous disposition.  If something is beyond a shadow of a doubt it is something certain.  The old expression sanctuary in the shadow of the church was not exactly literal: to seek sanctuary from the agents of the state by entering a church meant one had to pass through the door.  It referred to the noting that church soil in England was under the authority of the pope in Rome, not the King.  To throw (or cast) a shadow over someone is to seek to deny them visibility; to keep them out of the limelight.

1969 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

In continuous production until 1980, the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow was introduced in 1965 and with over 30,000 (including the less common but substantially identical Bentley T2 variant) built, it remains the Rolls-Royce made in the greatest volume.  Although there was little about the model which was cutting-edge, it was the first truly modern Rolls-Royce, forsaking the separate chassis, drum brakes and styling which used updated motifs from the 1930s; it was the template with which the company would underpin its products for the rest of century.  Although the huge Phantom V & VI limousines would continue to use a separate chassis until 1990, their annual production was measured (usually at most) in the dozens and it was the Silver Shadow and its derivatives which were the company’s bread and butter.  The adoption of unitary construction meant the end of the line for many specialist coachbuilders and some of the relics of the industry were absorbed by the factory, the Mulliner name still used by Bentley to adorn the even more expensive “special order” vehicles the 1% need to convey the message of wealth something "off the shelf" can’t manage.

1967 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow two-door saloon by James Young (left) and 1971 two door saloon by Mulliner Park Ward (MPW) (right).

However, on the Silver Shadow platform, James Young, one of the last surviving coachbuilders, did build 35 two-door saloons before the business was shuttered in 1968.  The quirk of the James Young Silver Shadows is truly they were just the standard car with the rear-doors removed and the front units lengthened and it suffered because the competition was the two-door designed by Mulliner Park Ward (MPW) which by then was a specialist division within the factory.  With greater resources and access to all the technical data, the MPW effort was more imaginative and judged universally to be more attractive, its “cow-hip” style (nobody ever suggested using the "cokebottle" appellation Chevrolet & Pontiac had a few years earlier made a trend) carried over when the car was in 1971 re-named Corniche and listed as a regular production model.  The Corniche proved the longest-lived of all the Silver-Shadow family, the convertible (even Rolls-Royce eventually gave up calling such things drophead coupés (DHC)) remaining available until 1996.

Applied with different colors in different ways, eye shadow can achieve various effects.  Lindsay Lohan demonstrates.

The archeological evidence suggests eye shadow is one of humanity’s oldest forms of make-up, worn (usually but not exclusively by women) for thousands of years, and the preparations have included oils and a variety of substances to create the desired colours including minerals & vegetable extracts although charcoal is thought to have been one of the most accessible and popular materials.  The usual rationale for applying eyes shadows is that it’s essentially the same technique as chiaroscuro, a trick used by painters, photographers & film-makers to use real & emulated light and dark to achieve the perception of depth.  Because shadows are inherent to the shape of the eye-socket, eye shadow can be use to accentuate or soften the effect and, if applied with expertise, can even alter perceptions of size and shape.  With a sympathetic choice of shade, the color of the eyes can also be used as a contrast, some taking advantage of colored contact lens to create a look impossible with their natural irises.  Done well, there's no other way to describe the combination of eye shadow and purple contact lens that "eye catching".  Eye shadow can draw attention to the eyes, most trying to make them appear larger, more vibrant, or more expressive.  Despite the name, eye shadow is a flexible product and often used to create a visual illusion on body parts such as the cheeks or décolletage.

Shadow Volumes

Example of shadow mapping with Python summarized by FinFET.

In computer graphics, shadow volume is a technique used to render realistic shadows in three-dimensional (3D) renderings which is employed primarily when dynamic, interactive real-time movement is needed, most obviously in gaming.  Essentially, generating shadow volumes involves determining those addresses in a scene which need to appear as shadows, then rendering them accordingly.  The technique relies on the concept of extruding the boundaries of shadow-casting objects to create a "shadow volume" that represents the space occluded by the object.  In static scenes this was always easy (if once time-consuming) to achieve but when objects nwere moving, until recent decades, the graphics capabilities of computers were insufficient for them to be rendered in anything close to being real-time.  The process essentially is:

(1) Determining shadow casters: The rendering engine identifies objects in the scene capable of casting shadows by calculating the object's position and shape and its relationship to the positions of light sources.

(2) Creating shadow volumes: For each shadow-casting object, the engine constructs a shadow volume based on extending the object's silhouette (defined by the address of the boundaries) in the direction opposite to the light source.  The silhouette is determined by the math of the boundaries viewed from the perspective of the relevant light sources.

(3) Intersecting shadow volumes: The shadow volumes are then intersected with other objects in the scene to determine which parts of those need to be inside or outside the shadow.

(4) Rendering shadows: The shadow volumes are assembled, rendered with darker hues or modified shading techniques to simulate the shadowed regions.

Shadow volumes can be implemented using more than one different algorithm, the most commonly used the z-pass and the stencil buffer.  All techniques are computationally intensive and have been made possible by the advances in the sheer power and complexity of modern graphical processing units (GPUs).

The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)

The handy Nirsoft Utilities includes a Shadow Copy viewer.

Microsoft introduced Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) with Windows XP (2001).  It worked in conjunction with the High Performance File System (HPFS) and allowed for the creation of point-in-time snapshots or copies of files and volumes on a disk.  What was in 2001 still something of a novelty for most users was the snapshots were taken while the files were in use, enabling access to previous versions or the restoration of files to a specific state, even if they have been been modified or deleted.  The process sequence was:

(1) Snapshot creation: VSS creates a snapshot of a volume or individual files on a disk.  This snapshot represents a "shadow" of the data at a moment in in time.

(2) Copy-on-write mechanism: As files are modified or deleted on the original volume, the VSS utilizes a copy-on-write mechanism.  It stores the original data in the snapshot, allowing users to access the unchanged version while the new changes are written to the live volume.  The lag induced by this can be measured with the appropriate but except with the largest files or on a busy network, it’s not usually something which affects the user.

(3) Shadow copy storage: The shadow copies are stored in a separate location on the disk, typically in a hidden system folder. The storage space occupied by is system-managed by the system, older copies automatically deleted as space is demanded for newer versions.

(4) User accessibility: Users can access the shadow copies through various means, most obviously the "Previous Versions" tab in file properties or the "Previous Versions" feature in Windows Explorer. These interfaces allow users to browse and restore files from a previous point in time.

Shadow copies provided one of the first forms of dynamic file backups for most users and were a convenient form of data recovery without the need of third-party software or external devices.  At scale, similar processes are used by software by companies such as StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect which system administrators can configure in a way that the potential data-losses can be minimized to windows as short as a few minutes.  Combined with off-site backups on large capacity media, it’s still a pest practice approach to data preservation.

Lindsay Lohan's strangely neglected film Among the Shadows (Momentum Pictures, 2019) was also released in some markets as The Shadow Within and it's not known what prompted the change (although there was a film in 2007 called The Shadow Within).  Given the two titles under which the film was distributed have quite different meanings, presumably either the title is incidental to the content or equally applicable.  A dark and gloomy piece about murderous werewolves and EU politicians (two quite frightening species), perhaps both work well and no reviewer appears to have commented on the matter and given the tone of the reviews, it seems unlikely there'll be a sequel to resolve things.