(1) A compiler of or contributor to an
encyclopedia.
(2) One of the collaborators fn the French Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts, et des Métiers (now almost always used with initial capital letter).
(3) A dismissive term applied by KGB
specialists to generalists.
1645–1655: The construct was encycloped(ia)
+ -ist.Encyclopedia was attested from
the 1530s, from the New Latin encyclopaedia
(general education), from the Renaissance Ancient Greek ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία
(enkuklopaideía) (education in the
circle of arts and sciences (literally “training in a circle”)), a mistaken
univerbated form of the Koine Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδείᾱ (enkúklios paideíā) (education in the
circle of arts and sciences, the construct being ἐγκύκλιος (enkúklios) (circular (also “general”)) +
παιδείᾱ (paideíā) (child-rearing,
education), from pais (genitive paidos (child).The modern sense of a "reference work
arranged alphabetically" is from 1640s, the origin most associated with
the French Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire
raisonné des Sciences, des Arts, et des Métiers (Systematic Dictionary of
the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts (1751-1772)).Encyclopedism (or encyclopaedism) is the related noun and encyclopaedist
the alternative spelling, the Latin form surviving as a variant because many of
the most famous printed volumes had Latin names; as the printed editions fade
from use, except in historic references, encyclopedia is now by far the
prevalent spelling.The adjective
encyclopedic dates from 1816 while the truncation cyclopaedia is attested from
1728. Encyclopedist is a noun; the noun plural is encyclopedists.
The -ist suffix was from the Middle English
-ist & -iste, from the Old French -iste
and the Latin -ista, from the Ancient
Greek -ιστής (-istḗs), from -ίζω (-ízō) (the -ize & -ise verbal suffix) and -τής (-tḗs) (the agent-noun suffix).It was added to nouns to denote various
senses of association such as (1) a person who studies or practices a
particular discipline, (2), one who uses a device of some kind, (3) one who engages
in a particular type of activity, (4) one who suffers from a specific condition
or syndrome, (5) one who subscribes to a particular theological doctrine or
religious denomination, (6) one who has a certain ideology or set of beliefs,
(7) one who owns or manages something and (8), a person who holds very
particular views (often applied to those thought most offensive).
The original Encyclopedists
(encyclopaedists in historic British use) were the French Encyclopédistes, members of the Société
des gens de lettres (a literary association) who between 1751-1765 contributed entries for the Encyclopédie
ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts, et des Métiers, published
between 1751-1772, edited by noted art critic Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and
(until 1759 when one of his entries triggered an amusing ecclesiastical
turf-war), mathematician & musicologist Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert
(1717–1783)
KGB identity card, issued in 1982 for
British SIS defector Kim Philby (1912–1988).
The Soviet Union’s (USSR) KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti),
which translates literally at the “Committee for State Security” is better
understood as “political police”.It was
the last of an alphabet-soup of similar agencies (Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKGB, NKVD,
SMERSH & MGB) which, building on the models of the many secret-police
forces maintained by Tsarist Russia (1547-1917), was responsible for the USSR’s
internal security and beyond its borders, espionage, counter espionage and a
range of activities conducted in support of Soviet foreign policy (including
that not disclosed and that sometimes denied). In post-Soviet Russia, the KGB evolved into the Federal Security Service (FSB), comrade Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) honing his skills in the institution he apparently joined in 1975.
"Lubyanka building" on Lubyanka Square,
Meshchansky, Moscow, headquarters of various organs of the Soviet and Russian
security services since 1918, most infamously the KGB, 1954-1991. In Soviet times, it was referred to as "the Lubyanka", and noted especially for the basement cells where interrogations, torture and executions were conducted. In synecdochic use, "the Lubyanka" was a phrase often used to refer to the KGB.
As an internal
security agency, the KGB (like its predecessors) was always formidable and
usually effective in the suppression of dissent but in espionage and
counter-espionage, the record was patchy and increasingly so as the Cold War
(1947-1991) drew to its (anti-) climax.Most of the celebrated successes happened either before the Cold War
began or in its early years, the number and usefulness of ideologically
motivated defectors and traitors from the West sharply declining after Comrade
Khruschev’s (Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964) “Secret
Speech” at the 1956 Communist Party Congress in which he denounced Comrade
Stalin's (Joseph Stalin 1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) repressions and
purges, laying bare the nature of the his regime.The speech didn’t long stay secret, the
transcripts leaked to the West convincing all but the few most devoted of the
“useful idiots” their faith had been misplaced.After the interventions in Hungary that same year and Czechoslovakia in
1968, idea of a Soviet-like future became still less appealing, not only in the
West but also among the disillusioned in the USSR and its satellite states.
The KGB however continued to grow,
reflecting the need to increase the surveillance and internal control in order
for the party to maintain its authority over a system in decline.By the mid-1970s, in the Moscow region alone
the KGB establishment stood at some 50,000 (greater than the combined workforce
of their Cold War opponent’s CIA & FBI although other Western nations
also maintained large security establishments) and of the total force of half a
million-odd, some 220,000 guarded the USSR’s borders, not from fear of invasion
by a foreign power but to discourage escape attempts.Once an organization with a relatively simple
structure which, as late as the early 1960s was administered through three
directorates, the KGB grew to encompass a dozen, the geographical division of
the country by 1980 in twenty-one departments when once there had been
eight.Once consequence of this was a burgeoning
bureaucracy, the upper echelons staffed increasingly by party apparatchiks with
little knowledge of intelligence or espionage, the USSR’s equivalent of the
MBA-CEO class in the West.These the
experienced operators disparagingly called “encyclopedists”, the idea being
they knew just a little bit about many things and, being empire-builders as industrious as their imperialist lackey counterparts, fiefdoms proliferated. Apart from the documented decrease in efficiency, the growth of the KGB,
like that of the armed forces, the party and the military-industrial complex,
absorbed (unproductively), a rising share of the USSR’s diminishing financial
resources at a time of failing health care, food shortages and a general decline in living standards, one former KGB
general (Oleg Kalugin (b 1934)) later telling the joke which circulated within
the organization: The USSR was “the Congo with rockets”. The flagship of the second-world was tending towards the third and the structural imbalances fed off themselves, an economic viscous circle which led to the economic and moral bankruptcy which doomed the
USSR.Late in 1991, the KGB was
dissolved, having out-lasted the party by just weeks although, in the years
since, the successor organizations in both Russia and the states within its
sphere of influence have sometimes devolved towards the past.
Comrade Andropov.
General Kalugin did
however give credit where it was due.The KGB in 1979 had spies well-placed inside the intelligence apparatuses of a number of countries and one of these agents provided the intelligence the
wife of a Soviet diplomat had with some frequency been observed enjoying sex
with the family’s large pet (male) dog.The KGB agents were a worldly lot and might have had a chuckle before turning a blind eye but the source advised there were plans to obtain video evidence
with which the diplomat could be blackmailed.So sensitive was the matter that discussions involved the head of KGB
himself, Yuri Andropov (1914–1984; head of KGB 1967-1982, Soviet leader
1982-1984).Unable simply to recall
the couple lest it compromise the source and, in a nice touch, not wishing to burden the husband with the knowledge of his wife’s unusual predilection for canine-intimacy, no solution
seemed immediately obvious until, after for some time sitting in silence, comrade
Andropov suggested: “Kill the dog”.All
agreed this was a good idea so it was arranged for a KGB technician to visit
the house on some pretext to slip the hound some poisoned meat.The dose turned out to be wrong so instead of
killing the beast, just its hind quarters became paralyzed although that
obviously solved the problem; a tactical failure but a strategic success. It was a minor event in a long career and it's believed it played no part in comrade Andropov being the last leader of the USSR but one.
(1) Matters or things that are very unimportant,
inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; petty details, trifles, trivialities
(functions as both singular & plural).
(2) In the religion of Ancient Rome, (used as the epithet
Trivia) a name for the deity Diana: so called because she was trivius dea (goddess of three ways) and
also because she was regarded as a deity with three personae (Selene/Diana/Proserpine).In Greek mythology, the role (though not the epithet,
which is from the Latin) is associated with Artemis (the Greek equivalent of
Diana) and also with Hecate.
(3) A quiz game involving knowledge of (sometimes obscure)
facts, the best known of which is the commercially available Trivial Pursuit (and its forks).
1700–1710: From the Latin trivia, feminine plural of trivius, from trivium (place where three roads meet; junction of three roads),
the construct being tri-(three) + -vium, from via (way, road).Tri- was from
the Ancient Greek τρεῖς (treîs), from the Proto-Hellenic tréyes,
from the primitive Indo-European tréyes.The Latin adjective triviālis was from trivium
and thus came to mean “appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar”.In English trivial seems first to have
appeared (in the same sense as triviālis)
in 1589 and within decades was in common use in the modern sense: “Matters of
little importance or significance” and thus far removed from the original Medieval
scholastic triumvirate of grammar, rhetoric, and logic.The adjective trivial meant “ordinary" in
the 1580s but by the turn of the century the sense had shifted to “insignificant,
trifling” and was from the Latin trivialis
(common, commonplace, vulgar (and literally “of or belonging to the crossroads”)).The verb trivialize dates from 1836 while the
noun triviality was known as early as the 1590s in the sense of “quality of
being trivial” and was at least influenced by the French trivialite or else from trivial, the phrases “a trivial thing”
& “a trivial affair” emerged during the 1610s.There is also the idea that because the trivium was an introductory-level
course, it became associated with things at their most basic and simple but
this notion came later and is thought by etymologists to be a grasp at linguistic
straws.Trivia is a noun (and proper
noun), trivial is a noun & adjective, triviality is a noun and trivialize,
trivialized; trivializing are verbs; the noun plural is trivias.
Trivial was picked up by Middle English (in the usual
haphazard way) but was used in senses different from the familiar modern
meaning.In the mid-fifteenth century
there was the phrase arte triviall an
allusion to the three liberal arts that comprised the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic), the lower division of the
seven (the advanced four (or quadrivium) being arithmetic, geometry, astronomy
& music.) taught in medieval universities, the link between pedagogy and
the Latin trivium (place where three
roads meet; junction of three roads) presumably the tradition of use in
Antiquity that the point at which the roads met was “a place of public resort”.Some etymologists also connect the very publicness
of such places with the pejorative association attached to “trivia”.
As a packaged commodity, trivia had long existed but it
began to labeled as such early in the twentieth century, the US-born British
essayist (and a genuine authority on the language) Logan Pearsall Smith
(1865–1946) in 1902 publishing Trivia
which was initially a commercial failure, his own mother’s critique of the text
that it “began nowhere, ended nowhere and
led to nothing” but for whatever reason it became so popular immediately
after the World War I (1914-1918) that in 1921 he released More Trivia, the two combined in a best-selling edition (with
annotations) in 1933.Whether so named
or not, books and later television series devoted to trivia (some quite
specialized) became an established niche in these industries and the most celebrated
product of all, the game Trivial Pursuit,
was released in 1981 and it begat literally dozens of thematically-specific editions
such as the “Horror Movie Edition” and “X”, a version described as “edgy” and “For
Adults” which Amazon recommends for, inter alia, “family games nights & kids
parties”.
Trivia by its nature attracted comic coinings.Administrivia
(the construct being adminis(trative) + trivia) was created in 1922 by a US academic lawyer to
refer to the administrative load (of mostly minor, procedural matters) carried by
a head of department or dean in a law school.A triviaphile (the construct being trivia + -phile) is a person excessively fond of trivia, often boring others by reciting (obscure or
unimportant facts) and the word for practical purposes may be synonymous with triviaholic (trivia + -holic on the model of alcoholic) and both can also refer
to those obsessed with the game Trivial Pursuit.Although of concern only to
a learned few (including one supposes, triviaphiles
& triviaholics) there is a
technical point about the use of administrivia.In formal use, trivia, as a derivative of a
Latin plural, required a plural verb but modern authorities ten now to be more
permissive, extending the same tolerance enjoyed by Latin plurals such as data;
the “game” sense has always been thought of as a singular noun.
(1) Of special beauty or charm, or rare and
appealing excellence and often associated with objects or great delicacy; of
rare excellence of production or execution, as works of art or workmanship; beautiful,
delicate, discriminating, perfect.
(2) Extraordinarily fine or admirable;
consummate.
(3) Intense; acute, or keen, as pleasure or
pain; keenly or delicately sensitive or responsive; exceeding; extreme; in a
bad or a good sense (eg as exquisite pleasure or exquisite pain).
(4) Recherché; far-fetched; abstruse (a now
rare early meaning which to some extent survives in surrealist’s exercise “exquisite
corpse”).
(5) Of particular refinement or elegance,
as taste, manners, etc or persons.
(6) A man excessively concerned about
clothes, grooming etc; a dandy or coxcomb.
(7) Ingeniously devised or thought out
(obsolete).
(8) Carefully adjusted; precise; accurate;
exact (now less common except as an adverb.
(9) Of delicate perception or close and
accurate discrimination; not easy to satisfy; exact; fastidious (related to the
sense of “exquisite judgment, taste, or discernment”.
1400–1450: From the Late Middle English
exquisite (carefully selected), from the Latin exquīsītus (excellent; meticulous, chosen with care (and literally “carefully
sought out”)), perfect passive participle of exquīrō (to seek out), originally the past participle of exquīrere (to ask about, examine) the
construct being ex- + -quīrere, a combining form of quaerere (to seek). The construct of exquīrō was ex- +quaerō (seek). The ex-
prefix was applied to words in Middle English borrowed
from the Middle French and was derived from the Latin ex- (out of, from) and was from the primitive Indo-European eǵ-
& eǵs-. It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ
(ex-, out of, from) from the
Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the
Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church
Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out), the Russian
из (iz) (from, out of). Exquisite is a noun & adjective,
exquisiteness is a noun and exquisitely an adverb; the noun plural is exquisites.
The etymology of the Latin quaerō (seek) is mysterious. It may be from the Proto-Italic kwaizeō, from the primitive
Indo-European kweh (to acquire) so
cognates may include the Ancient Greek πέπαμαι (pépamai) (to get, acquire), the Old Prussian quoi (I/you want)
& quāits (desire), the Lithuanian
kviẽsti (to invite) and possibly the
Albanian kam (I have). Some have suggested the source being the
primitive Indo-European kwoys & kweys (to see) but there has been little
support for this. The authoritative Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben
(Lexicon of the Indo-European Verbs (LIV)), the standard etymological
dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European languages, suggests it’s a derivation of hzeys (to seek, ask), via the form koaiseo. "Exquisite corpse" is a calque of the French
cadavre exquis (literally “exquisite cadaver”). Dating from 1925, it was coined by French surrealists
to describe a method of loosely structured constructivism on the model of the
parlour game consequences; fragments
of text (or images) are created by different people according to pre-set rules,
then joined together to create a complete text.
The name comes from the first instance in 1925: Le cadavre exquis boira
le vin nouveau (The exquisite corpse will drink new wine). Exquisite corpse is noted as a precursor to
both post-modernism and deconstructionist techniques.
Although not infrequently it appears in the
same sentence as the word “unique”, exquisite can be more nuanced, the comparative
“more exquisite, the superlative most exquisite” and there has certainly been a
change in the pattern of use. In
English, it originally was applied to any thing (good or bad, art or torture, diseases
or good health), brought to a highly wrought condition, tending among the more
puritanical to disapprobation. The common
modern meaning (of consummate and delightful excellence) dates from the late
1570s while the noun (a dandy, a foppish man) seems first to have been used in
1819. One interesting variant which didn’t
survive was exquisitous (not natural,
but procured by art), appearing in dictionaries in the early eighteenth
centuries but not since. The
pronunciation of exquisite has undergone a rapid change from ek-skwi-zit to ik-skwiz-it, the stress shifting to the second syllable. The newer pronunciation attracted the
inevitable criticism but is now the most common form on both sides of the
Atlantic and use seems not differentiated by class.
An exquisite and a wimp: Baldur Benedikt von
Schirach
Exquisite is used almost exclusively as an
adjective, applied typically to objects or performances but it’s also a noun,
albeit one always rare. As a noun it was
used to describe men who inhabited that grey area of being well dressed, well coiffured,
well mannered and somewhat effeminate; it was a way of hinting at something
without descending to the explicit. PG
Wodehouse (1881-1975) applied it thus in Sam
the Sudden (1925) and historians Ann (1938-2021) & John Tusa (b 1936) in
The Nuremberg Trial (1983) found no
better word to apply to former Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, noting his
all-white bedroom and propensity to pen poor poetry. The companion word to describe a similar chap
without of necessity the same hint of effeminacy is “aesthete”. In The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A
Personal Memoir (1992), Brigadier General Telford Taylor (1908–1998; lead
US counsel at the Nuremberg Trial) wrote of von Schirath that: “at thirty-nine,
was the youngest and, except perhaps for Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946;
Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) and Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953; Nazi
propagandist), the weakest of the defendants. If wimps had then been spoken of, Schirach
would have been so styled.”
Nazis at the Berghof: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), Martin Bormann (1900–1945), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), and Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945)), Berchtesgaden, Bavaria,
Germany, 1936. Of much, all were guilty as sin but von Schirach would survive to die in his bed at 67.
Convicted by the International Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT, 1945-1946) for crimes against humanity, von
Schirach received a twenty year sentence, escaping conviction for his role as
Nazi Party youth leader and head of the Hitlerjugend
(Hitler Youth), (though he was a good deal more guilty
than Socrates in corrupting the minds (and perhaps more) of youth), the sentence imposed for his
part in deporting Viennese Jews to the death camps while Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna. Had subsequently discovered evidence against
him been available at the trial, doubtlessly he’d have been hanged.
Exquisite: A style guide
Lindsay Lohan in a Gucci Porcelain Garden
Print Silk Gown with an all-over Dutch toile in blue and white, high ruffledcollar and bib, flared sleeves, pussy bow and a blue and red patent leather belt
around a high waist, Savoy Hotel, London, June 2017.The gown was said to have a recommended
retail price (RRP) of Stg£4,040 (US$7300).The occasion was the launch of the charitable organization One Family, dedicated to combating child
trafficking.
Within the one critique, the word exquisite
can appear, used as a neutral descriptor (an expression of extent), a paean to
beauty and even an ironic dismissal. A
gown for example can be “exquisitely detailed” but that doesn’t of necessity
imply elegance although that would be the case of something said to be an “exquisite
design”. That said, most were drawn to
the gown in some way, the references to Jane Austin many (although historians
of fashion might note Gucci’s creation as something evocative more of recent
films made of Jane Austin novels that anything representative of what was worn
in her era) and the fabric’s patterning & restraint in the use of color produced
a dreamily romantic look.
(1) Midday; twelve o'clock in the daytime or the
time or point at which the sun crosses the local meridian (the time of day when the sun is in
its zenith).
(2) Figuratively
(usually in literary or poetic use), the highest, brightest, or finest point or
part; culmination; capstone; apex.
(3)
The corresponding time in the middle of the night; midnight (archaic but
historic use means old documents with the word must be read with care, entries
appearing as both “noon” & “noon of the night”).
(4) Three o’clock in the afternoon (archaic).
(5)
To relax or sleep around midday (as “to noon” “nooning” or “nooned”) (archaic).
(6)
The letter ن in Arabic script.
(7)
Midday meal (archaic).
Pre 900: From the Middle English noen, none & non, from the Old
English nōn (the ninth hour), from a
Germanic borrowing of the Classical Latin nōna
(ninth hour) (short for nōna hōra),
the feminine. singular
of nonus (ninth), contracted from novenos, from novem (nine).It was
cognate with the Dutch noen, the (obsolete)
German non and the Norwegian non.Synonyms (some archaic) include apex, capstone, meridian, midday,
noontide, noonday, noontime, nones (the ninth
hour of daylight), midpoint (of the day), & twelve. Descendants include the Modern English none
and the Scots nane (none), Noon the
proper noun enduring as a surname. Noun
is a noun and noons, nooning & nooned are verbs; the noun plural is noons.
Although
derived from the Latin word for the number nine, the English word noon
refers to midday, the time when the sun reaches the meridian.The Romans however counted the hours of the
day from sunrise which, for consistency, was declared for this purpose to be
06:00; the ninth hour (nona hora) was
thus 15:00.The early Christians adopted
Jewish customs of praying at certain hours and when Christian monastic orders
formed, the ecclesiastical
reckoning of the daily timetable was structured around the hours for
prayer.In the earliest schedules, the
monks prayed at three-hour intervals: 6-9 pm, 9 pm-midnight, midnight-3 am and
3-6 am.The prayers are known as the
Divine Office and the times at which they are to be recited are the canonical
hours:
Vigils: night Matins: dawn Lauds: dawn Prime: 6 am (first hour) Terce: 9 am (third hour) Sext: noon (sixth hour) None: 3 pm (ninth hour) Vespers: sunset Compline: before bed
The shift in the common meaning of noon from 3 pm
to 12 noon began in the twelfth century when the prayers said at the ninth hour
were set back to the sixth, the reasoning practical rather theological, the unreliability of medieval
time-keeping devices and the seasonal elasticity of the hours of daylight in
northern regions meaning it was easier to standardise on an earlier hour. Additionally, in monasteries and on holy
days, fasting ended at nones, which perhaps
offered another administrative incentive to nudge it up the clock. An alternative explanation offered by social historians
is that it was simply the abbots deciding to align their noon meal with those
taken in the towns and villages, the Old English word non having assumed the meaning
“midday” or “midday meal” by circa 1140.
Whatever the reason, the
meaning shift from "ninth hour" to "sixth hour" seems to
have been complete by the fourteenth century, the same path of evolution as the
Dutch noen). Noon is an example of what etymologists call a fossil
word, one which that embeds customs of former ages.
The
use as a synonym for midnight existed between the seventeenth & nineteenth
centuries, apparently because the poetic phrase “noon of the night” entered
popular use.The noun forenoon (the
morning (ie (be)fore + noon)) applied especially the latter part of it, those
hours “when business is done”, the word emerging circa 1500.The noun noonday (middle of the day) was
first used by Myles Coverdale (1488–1569), the English cleric and
ecclesiastical reformer remembered for his printed translation of the Bible
into English (1535) and it was used as an adjective from 1650s. In the Old English there had been non tid (noon-tide, midday, noon) and non-tima (noon, noon-time, midday).The noun afternoon (part of the day from noon
to evening) dates from circa 1300 and it was subject to an interesting shift in
grammatical form.In the fifteenth &
sixteenth centuries it was used as “at afternoon” but from circa 1600 this
shifted to “in the afternoon”; it emerged as an adjective from the 1570s.In the Middle English there had been the
mid-fourteenth century aftermete (afternoon,
part of the day following the noon meal).
Lindsay
Lohan at nuncheon, Scott's Restaurant, Mayfair, London, 2015.
The
noun nuncheon was from the
mid-fourteenth century nōn-schench (slight
refreshment of food (with or without liquor) taken at midday, the name shifting
with the meal, nuncheon taken originally
in the afternoon (ie notionally the three o’clock meal), the construct being none (noon) + shench (draught, cup), from the Old English scenc, related to scencan
(to pour out, to give to drink) and cognate with the Old Frisian skenka (to give to drink) and the German
& Dutch schenken (to give). The most obvious descendent of nuncheon is luncheon (and thus lunch).
Lāhainā Noon is the solar phenomenon (known only in the tropics) when the Sun culminates at the zenith at solar noon, passing directly overhead, thus meaning objects underneath cast no shadow, creating a effect something like the primitive graphics in some video games. The name Lāhainā Noon (Lāhainā Noons the plural) was the winner in a contest organised by Hawai'i's Bishop Museum in 1990, the museum noting the word lāhainā (originally lā hainā) may be translated into English as “cruel sun” but makes reference also to the severe droughts experienced in that part of the island of Maui. The old Hawai'ian name for the event was the much more pleasing kau ka lā i ka lolo (the sun rests on the brains).
1919:
An Americanism said to be of utterly obscure origin, the entirely speculative attributions
of the word to Cajun (Louisiana) French, Italian, Hebrew, African American
English, Yiddish, barracks Latin or even gangster slang all lack any supporting
evidence.
Given
that the English language offers: pleasant, satisfactory, acceptable,
enjoyable, attractive, tempting, appetizing, cordial, OK, nice, fine, likable,
sweet, cheerful, convivial, satisfying, amusing, agreeable, pleasing,
pleasurable & amiable, copacetic filled no obvious gap although it was said
by some (without evidence) to be specific to a mood, or relationship without
problems. The richness of the English
vocabulary meant there were already plenty of ways of saying that and women have
anyway long been skilled in loading the word “fine” with just a change of
inflection, covering the spectrum from the first, fine careless rapture of love
to homicidal loathing.Copacetic
wouldn’t seem to improve on that but some tried to get it to catch on, the
alternative spellings including copasetic, copesetic & copesettic.Copacetic is an adjective.
Obscure
and unnecessary, copacetic exists mostly as a fetish word discussed between
consenting etymologists and lexicographers in the privacy of their chat
groups.It does occasionally appear in
literature or other places, either because the author is searching for
linguistic variation or just as the type of flourish Henry Fowler (1858–1933) condemned
in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926)
as a “pride of knowledge”, something he thought “a very unamiable
characteristic”, the display of which “sedulously should be avoided”.In other words, except between word-nerds,
copacetic need not be used (because there are so many alternatives) and should
not be used (because most won’t know what it means).Knowingly or not, most seem to have followed
his advice. Henry Fowler, although disapproving of much, may have been more tolerant of another wilful display of the obscure: Oojah-cum-spiff.Oojah-cum-spiff (all right; fine) appeared in PG Wodehouse's (1881-1975) novel Very Good, Jeeves (1930), possibly as an alteration of oojah-capivvy, Wodehouse's interpretation of an Indian or Persian expression of uncertain origin. Wodehouse remains something of a nerdish cult but oojah-capivvy is now as rare as copacetic.
As far
as is known, copacetic appeared first in the novel A Man for the Ages (1919) by Irving Bacheller (1859-1950).The author had a character, noted for her idiosyncratic
speech, twice use the word and added it and “coralapus” were “her peculiar property” and “prized possession”.Coralapus vanished without trace but copacetic
has never quite gone away, the novelty attracting journalists, headline writers
and songsmiths but the place it was first embedded was elaborated
African-American speech, especially among those associated with jazz music and
by the 1930s, it was regularly included in dictionaries of US slang and
etymological discussions in literary journals.At this time, the speculation seems to have begun, one of the earliest
claims of origin by a gentlemen from Milwaukee who claimed it was from the Cajun
(Louisiana) French couper-sètique (able to cope with), the correspondent even providing
a couplet from “a charming old Acadian poem.”
Lindsay
Lohan and her lawyer in court, during an "RU OK?" moment, Los
Angeles, 2012.
However,
this theory gained no support. Also
dismissed were other suggestions of origin including the Chinook Jargon copasenee (which seems actually to exist
in Chinook Jargon), the Israeli Hebrew hakol
beseder (all is in order (in a transliteration from the pointed spelling
ha-kōl bĕ-sēdher)), a calque on expressions in European languages such as the German
alles in Ordnung, the Polish wszystko w porządku and the Russian vsë v porjadke. All were debunked by one authority or another
and the consensus is that Irving Bacheller simply coined the word for his
character in the manner of the malapropisms Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
created as comic devices for his Mrs Malaprop in the play The Rivals (1775). What
supports this perhaps disappointing conclusion is that Mr Bacheller had a bit
of previous in such coinings, the construct of copacetic presumably a blend of
the Latin copia (plenty) + ceterum (otherwise, in other respects).
(1) Disrespectful or impudent; impertinent; insolent.
(2) Boldly stylish and smart; pert.
1830–1835: An invention of American English, the colloquialism
thought an alteration of “saucy” which in the context of human interaction could
mean either: (1) brazen, cheeky, discourteous & disrespectful, (2) audacious,
bold & assertive or (3) ribald.Sassy picked up these variations (although the use to hint at the mildly
erotic faded) and gained also the notion in fashion of something stylish or
avant-garde.Sassy is another of those
words in English which must seem strange to those learning the subtleties of the
language: It can be either a compliment or an expression of disapproval, used
sometimes variously to reference the same conduct.Of objects (usually in fashion), it’s less
ambiguous, sassy always said in admiration.The unrelated sasswood (or sassy wood) is a West African leguminous
tree, Erythrophleum guineense, with poisonous bark (sassy bark) and hard strong
wood; an alkaloid from this source used in pharmaceuticals.The etymology is thought to be from a language
of the Kwa family.The comparative is sassier
and the superlative sassiest.Sassy is an
adjective, sassiness is a noun and sassily an adverb.
On sale between 1988-1996, Sassy magazine was nominally
classed as a “teen magazine” but in terms of editorial content was aimed at the
“young women” targeted by the other glossies such as Seventeen and YM but with content
which attempted to straddle the gap between the emphasis on weight-loss, make-up
& clothes in such titles and what might be called “serious content”.That turned out to be something of a sweet
spot (a gap in the market as it were) because it turned out that what Sassy did
was validate that young women could simultaneously be interested both in
feminist issues and boy bands.It may
not sound remarkable now but at the time, including in such magazines articles
about suicide or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) was actually
subversive.Sassy also was of note in
that when Australian feminists Sandra Yates (b 1947) & Anne Summers (b
1945) took control, it was only the second only women-led management buyout in
US corporate history. To mark the significance
of suddenly being in the same business as Rupert Murdoch (b 1931), the bolshie pair
described themselves as “mogulettes” (in the sense of being on a smaller scale
than News Corporation rather than a feminized form) and Sassy was immediately
successful, circulation almost doubling within a year. Sassy's message was that girls didn't have to be sassy but if that's what they wanted, sassy they should be.
Sassiness: Lindsay Lohan with sassy Hermes Pink Ostrich Birkin Bag
& Charlotte Olympia Kitty moccasins in chestnut brown suede and leather,
London, 2015.
It was also quite innovative, people of color showing up on the
pages and sometimes even on the cover and Sassy anticipated crowd sourcing when
it published the December 1990 issue consisting wholly of “reader-produced”
content.However, if the daughters of
America were reading, their mothers were watching and groups representing evangelical
Christian women mobilized, claiming Sassy’s advice on sex would encourage promiscuity
and a flood of unwanted pregnancies.What Sassy printed was actually little different to what appears in the brochures
in doctors’ waiting rooms but, just as Sassy had achieved consistent
profitability, advertisers pulled their support, the threat of boycotts too
great a risk.Just as the printing
presses has started to roll in 1988, Sandra Yates had told the New York Times
(NYT) “I’m going to prove you can run a
business with feminist principles and make money” and briefly she did but, spooked
by Christians threatening to stop buying stuff, capitalism bit back and Sassy
never recovered, officially folded into `TEEN magazine with the coming of 1997
but actually quietly put into a burka.
Schizophrenia (pronounced skit-suh-free-nee-uh or skit-suh-freen-yuh)
(1) In psychiatry (also called dementia praecox), a severe mental disorder characterized by some, but not necessarily all, of the following features: withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and varying degrees of other emotional, behavioral, or in emotional blunting, intellectual deterioration, social isolation, disorganized speech and behavior, delusions, and hallucinations.
(2) A state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements; informal behavior that appears to be motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles.
(3) In informal use, used to suggest a split personality, identity or other specific forms of dualism.In popular usage, the term is often confused with dissociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personality disorder).
1908: From German Schizophrenie, from the New Latin schizophrenia and Coined by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) as an umbrella term covering a range of more or less severe mental disorders involving a breakdown of the relation between thought, emotion, and action and literally "a splitting of the mind", the construct being the Ancient Greek σχίζω (skhizein or skhízō) (to split), from the primitive Indo-European root skei (to cut, split apart), + φρήν (phrḗn) (genitive phrenos) (mind, heart, diaphragm) + -ia (the suffix from the Latin -ia and Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia), which forms abstract nouns of feminine gender). It's from phrḗn that English gained phrenes (wits, sanity) and hence phreno-.
The adjective schizophrenic (characteristic of or suffering from schizophrenia) dates in the medical literature from 1912 (in English translations of Bleuler's publications) and was immediately adopted also as a noun (schizophrenic patient). That survived but another noun formation in English was schizophrene which emerged in 1925, the construct presumably a tribute to Dr Bleuler's original work having been written in German. As such things became more publicized during the post-war years (and picked up in popular culture including film and novels), the transferred adjectival sense of "contradictory, inconsistent" emerged in the mid 1950s, applied to anything from the behavior of race horses and motor-cycles to the nature of musical composition. The jargon of psychology also produced schizophrenogenic (tending to spark or inspire schizophrenia). The adjective schizoid (resembling schizophrenia; tending sometimes to less severe forms of schizophrenia) dates from 1925, from the 1921 German coining schizoid (1921), the construct being schiz(ophrenia) + -oid. The suffix -oid was from a Latinized form of the the Ancient Greek
-ειδής (-eidḗs) & -οειδής (-oeidḗs) (the “ο” being the last vowel of the stem
to which the suffix is attached); from εἶδος (eîdos)
(form, shape, likeness). It was used (1) to
demote resembling; having the likeness of (usually including the concept of not
being the same despite the likeness, but counter-examples exist), (2) to mean
of, pertaining to, or related to and (3) when added to nouns to create
derogatory terms, typically referring to a particular ideology or group of
people (by means of analogy to psychological classifications such as schizoid). Schizophrenia is a noun, schizophrenic & schizoids are nouns & adjectives and schizophrenically is an adverb; the noun plural is schizophrenics.
Madness
Within
the profession of psychiatry, schizophrenia has a long (and technical)
definitional history although, in essence, it’s always been thought a severe
and chronic mental disorder characterized by disturbances in thought, perception
and behavior.Lacking any physical or
laboratory test, it can be difficult to diagnose as schizophrenia involves a
range of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional symptoms. In the
fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA)Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 (2013)), the lifetime
prevalence of schizophrenia is noted as 0.3%-0.7%, the psychotic manifestations
typically emerging between the mid-teens and mid-thirties, with the peak age of
onset of the first psychotic episode in the early to mid-twenties for males and
late twenties for females.The DSM-5 editors
also made changes to the criteria to make a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the
most significant amendments since DSM-III (1980).
Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought (1992),
by US clinical psychologist Louis A Sass (b 1949), was an exploration of why mystery
continues to shroud schizophrenia, which, despite advances in biological
psychiatry and neuroscience, appears little changed in the quarter-century
since. Sass quoted approvingly a
description of schizophrenia as "a
condition of obscure origins and no established etiology, pathogenesis and
pathology…" without "…even
any clear disease marker or laboratory test by which it can readily be
identified."
However,
in a departure from most writings on mental illness, Sass explored the "striking similarities" between the
seemingly bizarre universe of schizophrenic experiences and the sensibilities
and structures of consciousness revealed in the works of modernist artists and
writers such as Kafka, Valery, Beckett, Robbe-Grillet, de Chirico and Dali.Applying the techniques of psychology to
modernism, he traced similar cognitive configurations reflected in
schizophrenia and modern art & literature, finding both artist and
schizophrenic characterized by a pronounced thrust to deconstruct the world and
subjectively to reconstruct human experience without reference to objective
reality.Layers of reality, real and
constructed, co-exist and interact, frequently fusing into each-other, producing
an acute self-awareness Sass called "hyperreflexivity",
as well as a profound sense of alienation from the empirical world. Sass allowed
his analysis to reach its logical conclusion, that there is a tenuous, though
clearly discernible, connection between modern culture and madness, speculating
that insanity might be “…a disease of
certain highly advanced forms of cultural organization, perhaps a part of the
price we pay for civilization?"His thesis wasn’t without critics although most acknowledged Madness and Modernism was at least a minor literary
classic.
As the DSM makes clear, not all schizophrenics are the same. In 2011, Lindsay Lohan was granted a two-year
restraining order against alleged stalker David Cocordan. The order was issued some days after she
filed complaint with police who, after investigation by their Threat Management
Department, advised the court Mr Cocordan (who at the time had been using at
least five aliases) “suffered from schizophrenia”, was “off his medication” and
had a "significant psychiatric history of acting on his delusional beliefs.”That was worrying enough but Ms Lohan may
have revealed her real concerns in an earlier tweet on X (then known as Twitter) in which she
included a picture of David Cocordan, claiming he was "the freemason
stalker that has been threatening to kill me- while he is TRESPASSING!", adding "im actually scared now- the blood in the 'cults' book was too much. All my fans, my supporters, please stand by me. (sic)". Being stalked by a schizophrenic
is bad enough but the thought of being hunted by a schizophrenic Freemason truly is frightening. Apparently an unexplored matter in the annals of psychiatry, it seems the question of just how schizophrenia might particularly manifest in Freemasons awaits research so there may be a PhD there for someone, the obvious question to explore being (1) does Freemasonry tend to attract schizophrenics or (2) does Freemasonry tend to induce schizophrenia? As far as is known, there have been no further reports of Ms Lohan being a victim of Masonic stalking but few doubt the Freemason will have kept open their "Lindsay Lohan file".
(1) Any of numerous insects of the order Coleoptera, having
biting mouthparts and characterized by hard, horny forewings modified to form
shell-like protective elytra forewings that cover and protect the membranous
flight wings.
(2) Used loosely, any of various insects resembling true beetles.
(3) A game of chance in which players attempt to complete
a drawing of a beetle, different dice rolls allowing them to add the various
body parts.
(4) A heavy hammering or ramming instrument, usually of
wood, used to drive wedges, force down paving stones, compress loose earth etc.
(5) A machine in which fabrics are subjected to a
hammering process while passing over rollers, as in cotton mills; used to
finish cloth and other fabrics, they’re known also as a “beetling machine”
(6) To use a beetle on; to drive, ram, beat or crush with
a beetle; to finish cloth or other fabrics with a beetling machine.
(7) In slang, quickly to move; to scurry (mostly UK),
used also in the form “beetle off”.
(8) Something projecting, jutting out or overhanging
(used to describe geological formation and, in human physiology, often in the
form beetle browed).
(9) By extension, literally or figuratively, to hang or
tower over someone in a threatening or menacing manner.
(10) In slang, the original Volkswagen and the later
retro-model, based on the resemblance (in silhouette) of the car to the insect;
used with and without an initial capital; the alternative slang “bug” was also analogous
with descriptions of the insects.
Pre 900: From the late Middle English bittil, bitil, betylle & bityl, from the Old English bitula, bitela, bītel & bīetel (beetle (and apparently
originally meaning “little biter; biting insect”)), from bēatan (to beat) (and related to bitela, bitel & betl,
from bītan (to bite) & bitol (teeth)), from the Proto-West
Germanic bitilō & bītil, from the Proto-Germanic bitilô & bītilaz (that which tends to bite, biter, beetle), the construct
being bite + -le. Bite was from the Middle English biten, from the Old English bītan (bite), from the Proto-West
Germanic bītan, from the
Proto-Germanic bītaną (bite), from
the primitive Indo-European bheyd-
(split) and the -le suffix was from the Middle English -elen, -len & -lien, from the Old English -lian
(the frequentative verbal suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -lōną (the frequentative verbal suffix)
and was cognate with the West Frisian -elje,
the Dutch -elen, the German -eln, the Danish -le, the Swedish -la and
the Icelandic -la.It was used as a frequentative suffix of
verbs, indicating repetition or continuousness.The forms in Old English were cognate with the Old High German bicco
(beetle), the Danish bille (beetle), the
Icelandic bitil & bitul (a bite, bit) and the Faroese bitil (small piece, bittock).
In architecture, what was historically was the "beetle brow" window is now usually called "the eyebrow". A classic example of a beetle-brow was that of Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi deputy führer 1933-1941).
Beetle in the sense of the tool used to work wood,
stonework, fabric etc also dates from before 900 and was from the Middle
English betel & bitille (mallet,
hammer), from the Old English bītel,
bētel & bȳtel which was cognate with the Middle
Low German bētel (chisel), from bēatan & bētan (beat) and related to the Old Norse beytill (penis). The adjectival
sense applied originally to human physiology (as beetle-browed) and later extended
to geological formations (as a back-formation of beetle-browed) and
architecture where it survives as the “eyebrow” window constructions mounted in
sloping roofs. The mid-fourteenth
century Middle English bitelbrouwed (grim-browed,
sullen (literally “beetle-browed”)) is thought to have been an allusion to the
many beetles with bushy antennae, the construct being the early thirteenth
century bitel (in the sense of "sharp-edged,
sharp" which was probably a compound from the Old English bitol (biting, sharp) + brow, which in
Middle English meant "eyebrow" rather than "forehead." Although the history of use in distant oral
traditions is of course murky, it may be from there that the Shakespearean
back-formation (from Hamlet (1602)) in the sense of "project,
overhang" was coined, perhaps from bitelbrouwed. As applied to geological formations, the
meaning “dangerously to overhang cliffs etc” dates from circa 1600. The alternative
spellings bittle, betel & bittil are all long obsolete. Beetle is a noun & verb & adjective,
beetled is a verb, beetling is a verb & adjective and beetler is a noun;
the noun plural is beetles.
Gazing back.
Even before
he went mad (something of a calling among German philosophers) Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844–1900) would warn the impressionable: “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the
abyss gazes also into you.”In some European towns, gaze for long at the houses and Rudolf Hess also
gazes at you.Attending the first Nuremberg
Trial (1945-1946) as a journalist, the author Rebecca West (1892–1983) perceived
an abyss in Hess, writing he was “…so plainly mad… He looked as if his mind had no surface,
as if every part of it had been blasted away except the depth where the
nightmares lived.”Imprisoned
for life (Count 1: Conspiracy & Count 2: Crimes against peace) by the IMT
(International Military Tribunal), Hess would spend some 46 years in captivity
and when in 1987 he took his own life, he was the last survivor of the 21 who
has stood in the dock to receive their sentences.Opinion remains divided over whether Hess was
“mad” in either the clinical or legal sense but his conduct during the trial
and what is known of his decades in Berlin’s Spandau prison (the last 20-odd
years as the vast facility’s sole inmate) does suggest he was at least highly
eccentric.
The Beetle (Volkswagen Type 1)
First built before World War II (1939-1945), the Volkswagen
(the construct being volks (people) +
wagen (car)) car didn’t pick up the
nickname “beetle” until 1946, the allied occupation forces translating it from
the German Käfer and it caught on,
lasting until the last one left a factory in Mexico in 2003 although in
different places it gained other monikers, the Americans during the 1950s
liking “bug” and the French coccinelle
(ladybug) and as sales gathered strength around the planet, there were
literally dozens of local variations, the more visually memorable including:
including: bintus (Tortoise) in
Nigeria, pulga (flea) in Colombia, ඉබ්බා (tortoise) in Sri Lanka, sapito (little toad) in Perú, peta
(turtle) in Bolivia, folcika (bug) in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, kostenurka (turtle)
in Bulgaria, baratinha (little
cockroach) in Cape Verde, poncho in
Chile and Venezuela. buba (bug) in
Croatia, boblen (the bubble), asfaltboblen (the asphalt bubble), gravid rulleskøjte (pregnant
rollerskate) & Hitlerslæden
(Hitler-sled) in Denmark. cepillo
(brush) in the Dominican Republic, fakrouna
(tortoise) in Libya, kupla (bubble)
& Aatun kosto (Adi's revenge) in
Finland, cucaracha (cockroach) in Guatemala,
El Salvador and Honduras, Kodok
(frog) in Indonesia, ghoorbaghei (قورباغهای) (frog) in Iran, agroga عكروكة (little frog) & rag-gah ركـّة (little turtle) in Iraq, maggiolino (maybug) in Italy, kodok (frog) in Malaysia, pulguita (little flea) in Mexico and much
of Latin America, boble (bubble) in
Norway, kotseng kuba (hunchback car)
& boks (tin can) in the Philippines,
garbus (hunchback) in Poland, mwendo wa kobe (tortoise speed) in
Swahili and banju maqlub (literally “upside down bathtub”) in Malta.
A ground beetle (left), a first generation der Käfer (the Beetle, 1939-2003) (centre) and an "New Beetle" (1997-2011). Despite the appearance, the "New Beetle" was of front engine & front-wheel-drive configuration, essentially a re-bodied Volkswagen Golf. The new car was sold purely as a retro, the price paid for the style, certain packaging inefficiencies.
A handy (and
potentially life-saving) accessory for wartime KdF-Wagens was a passenger-side mount for a MP 40/41 Maschinenpistole (submachine gun),
usually dubbed the Schmeisser by Allied
troops on the basis German weapons designer Hugo Schmeisser (1884–1953) was
responsible for the earlier and visually similar MP 18 (the world’s first mass-produced
submachine gun). Although he was not
involved in the development of the MP 40, that weapon did use a magazine
produced in accordance with one of his patents.
The Beetle (technically, originally the KdF-Wagen and later the Volkswagen
Type 1) was one of the products nominally associated with the Nazi regime’s Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude (KdF,
“Strength Through Joy”), the state-controlled organization which was under the
auspices of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront
(German Labor Front) which replaced the independent labor unions. Operating medical services, cruise liners and
holiday resorts for the working class, the KdF envisaged the Volkswagen as a
European Model T Ford in that it would be available in sufficient
numbers and at a price affordable by the working man, something made easier
still by the Sparkarte (savings
booklet) plan under which a deposit would be paid with the balance to be met in
instalments. Once fully paid, a
Volkswagen would be delivered. All this
was announced in 1939 but the war meant that not one Volkswagen was ever
delivered to any of those who diligently continued to make their payments as
late as 1943. Whether, even without a
war, the scheme could have continued with the price set at a politically sensitive
990 Reichsmarks is uncertain. That was
certainly below the cost of production and although the Ford Model T had
demonstrated how radically production costs could be lowered once the
efficiencies of mass-production reached critical mass, there were features
unique to the US economy which may never have manifested in the Nazi system,
even under sustained peace although, had the Nazis won the war, from the Atlantic to the Urals they'd have had a vast pool of slave labor, a obvious way to reduce unit labor costs. As it was, it
wasn’t until 1964 that some of the participants
in the Sparkarte were granted
a settlement under which they received a discount (between 9-14%) which could
be credited against a new Beetle.
Inflation and the conversion in 1948 from Reichsmark to Deutschmark make
it difficult accurately to assess the justice of that but the consensus was
Volkswagen got a good deal. The settlement was also limited, nobody resident in the GDR (The German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany (1949-1990)) or elsewhere behind the iron curtain received even a Reichspfennig (cent).
Small, life-size & larger than life: A scale model (left), a 1955 Volkswagen Beetle (centre) and the “Huge Bug”, on the road
with the 1959 Cabriolet used as a template.
Produced or
assembled around the world between 1938-2003, over 21.5 million Beetles were
made and there were also untold millions of scale models, ranging from small,
colorful molded plastic toys distributed in cereal boxes (an early form of “indirect
marketing” to children) through the ubiquitous “Matchbox Toys” to some highly
detailed and expensive renditions, some powered by electric motors.However, as far as in known, there's been
only one “up-scaled” Beetle and so impressive was it in execution, until seen
with objects (ideally a standard Beetle) to give some sense of the size, it’s
not immediately obvious the thing is some 40% bigger.While it may be tempting to call this a “Super
Beetle” that would only confuse because the factory applied that label to a
version introduced in 1970 and customers nick-named those “Super Bug” so that’s
taken too; maybe “Big Bug” is best although the builders liked “Huge Bug”.
The Huge Bug
was created by a Californian father and son team who disassembled a 1959 Beetle
Cabriolet so the relevant components could be scanned and digitized, enabling versions
40% larger to be fabricated.Built on
the chassis of a Dodge Magnum, mechanical components were carried over so the
Huge Bug features a specification which would have astonished Germans (or
anyone else) in 1957, including a 345 cubic inch (5.7 litre) Hemi V8, automatic
transmission, power steering, heated seats, air conditioning & power
windows.Not unexpectedly, whenever
parked, the Huge Bug attracts those wanting a unique backdrop for selfies. If the Huge Bug seems too conventional (if large) an approach, others have allowed their imagination to wander in other directions.
Herbie, the love bug
Lindsay
Lohan (left) among the Beetles (centre) on the red carpet for the Los Angeles premiere
of Herbie Fully Loaded (2005), El
Capitan Theater, Hollywood, Los Angeles, 19 June 19, 2005.The Beetle (right) was one of the many
replica “Herbies” in attendance and, on the day, Ms Lohan (using the celebrity-endorsed
black Sharpie) autographed the glove-box lid, removed for the purpose.
In a Beetle
it’s a simple task quickly to remove and re-fit a lid but unfortunately it was
upside down when signed.Autographs on glove-box
lids (and other parts) are a thing and the most famous (and numerous) are those
of Carroll Shelby (1923–2012) on Shelby American AC Cobras and Mustangs.Many are authentic because for a donation to
the Shelby foundation (typically around US$250) an owner could send to Shelby American
headquarters in California a lid with a SSAE (stamped, self-addressed envelope)
and it would come back duly signed and with a letter of authenticity (though
one owner noted dryly the felt pen (silver ink) he’d enclosed wasn’t returned.There are many slight variations in the signatures
which hints they were done by hand and not an auto-pen although those that
differ most are the ones signed while the lid was fixed to the car; for most it’s
an unnatural action to sign on other than a flat, horizontal surface.There are also some of questionable provenance,
not all of which are one Cobra replicas built long after Carroll Shelby’s death
and “Carroll Shelby glove-box signature vinyl transfer tapes” are available on-line in black, white and silver for
as little as US$6.00.Beware of
imitations one might say but given there are over 50,000 “imitation” Cobras
against a thousand-odd originals, the fake signature industry is sort of in the
same spirit.
One of the cars
used in the track racing sequences, now on display in the Peterson Automotive
Museum on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California (left), a Disney Pictures
promotional image (centre) and a Herbie “replica” (with glove-box lid signed by Lindsay Lohan) built on a modified 1964
Beetle (right).
Before the
release in 2005 of Herbie: Fully Loaded,
following the first "Herbie" film (The Love Bug (1968)), there had been three sequels and a television
series so the ecosystem of Herbie replicas (clones, tributes etc) was
well-populated and as a promotional gimmick Disney Pictures invited fans to
bring their replicas to line the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere.Producing a “true” Herbie replica is
technically possible but not all will be the same because even within each film
there were variations in the appearance because a number of Beetles were
required for the filming with not all identical in every visual aspect.In post-production, there is a “continuity
editor” who is tasked with removing or disguising such inconsistencies but
minor details, especially if not in any way significant, often slip through
something which delights the film obsessives who curate sites documenting the “errors”.Among Beetle (especially the pre 1968 models)
collectors there’s a faction of originality police (as uncompromising as any
found in the communities patrolling vintage Ferraris, Corvettes, Jaguars,
Porsches and such) and when the Herbie “replica” (above right) was offered for
sale (as a “Herbie-Style 1964 Volkswagen
Beetle Sunroof Sedan”) they were there to pounce, noting:
(1) The last
year for the Golde folding sunroof was 1963, 1964 Sunroof Sedans fitted with a steel,
sliding-roof. The consensus was either the
roof from an earlier Sunroof Sedan was spliced on or a hole was cut for
salvaged Golde assembly to be installed.
Neither would be technically difficult for someone with the parts and
skill but an inspection would be required to know which and on the basis of the
photographs the work had been done well.
(2) The
hood (“bonnet” over the frunk) was from an earlier model (with a pre-1963 Wolfsburg
crest).
(3) The
licence plate light was from 1963 (the updated engine and conversion to 12-volt
electrics (both common in early Beetles) were disclosed in the sales blurb).
(4) The radio antenna was
on the driver’s side whereas in the film it appears on the passenger’s side and
there were many detail differences (decals and such) but there were inconsistencies
also in the film.
Professor Porsche
There were many Volkswagens produced during the war but
all were delivered either to the military or the Nazi Party organization where
they were part of the widespread corruption endemic to the Third Reich, the
extent of which wasn’t understood until well after the demise of the regime.The wartime models were starkly utilitarian and
this continued between 1945-1947 when production resumed to supply the needs of
the Allied occupying forces, the bulk of the output being taken up by the
British Army, the Wolfsburg factory being in the British zone.As was the practice immediately after the
war, the plan had been to ship the tooling to the UK and begin production there
but the UK manufacturers, after inspecting the vehicle, pronounced it wholly
unsuitable for civilian purposes and too primitive to appeal to customers.Accordingly, the factory remained in Germany
and civilian deliveries began in 1947, initially only in the home market but within
a few years, export sales were growing and by the mid-1950s, the Beetle was a success even in the US market, something which must have seem improbable in 1949 when two were sold.The
platform proved adaptable too, the original two-door saloon and cabriolet augmented
by a van on a modified chassis which was eventually built in a bewildering array
of body styles (and made famous as the Kombi and Microbus (Type 2) models which became
cult machines of the 1960s counter-culture) and the stylish, low-slung
Karmann-Ghia (the classic Type 14 and the later Type 34 & Type 145 (Brazil), sold as a 2+2 coupé and convertible. Later there would be attempts to use more modern body styling while preserving the mechanical layout (the Type 3, 1961-1973 and Type 4 (411/412), 1968-1974) but the approach was by the early 1970s understood to be a dead end although the concept was until 1982 pursued by Volkswagen's Brazilian operation.
Herr
Professor Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) explaining the Beetle to Adolf Hitler
(1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head
of state 1934-1945) during the ceremony marking the laying of the foundation
stone at the site of the Volkswagen factory, Fallersleben, Wolfsburg in
Germany's Lower Saxony region, 26 May 1938 (which Christians mark as the
Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, commemorating the bodily Ascension
of Christ to Heaven) (left). The visit would have been a pleasant diversion for Hitler who was at the time immersed in the planning for the Nazi's takeover of Czechoslovakia and later the
same day, during a secret meeting, the professor would display a scale-model
of an upcoming high-performance version (right).
The Beetle also begat what are regarded as the classic Porsches (the 356 (1948-1965), the 911 (1964-1998) and 912 (1965-1969 & 1976)).Although documents filed in court over the
years would prove Ferdinand Porsche’s (1875-1951) involvement in the design of
the Beetle revealed not quite the originality of thought that long was the stuff of
legend (as a subsequent financial settlement acknowledged), he was attached to the concept and for reasons of economic necessity
alone, the salient features of the Beetle (the separate platform, the
air-cooled flat engine, rear wheel drive and the basic shape) were transferred
to the early post-war Porsches and while for many reasons features like liquid
cooling later had to be adopted, the basic concept of the 1938 KdF-Wagen is still identifiable in today’s 911s.
The Beetle had many virtues as might be surmised given
it was in more-or-less continuous production for sixty-five years during which
over 20 million were made.However,
one common complaint was the lack of power, something which became more
apparent as the years went by and average highway speeds rose.The factory gradually increased both
displacement & power and an after-market industry arose to supply those who
wanted more, the results ranging from mild to wild.One of the most dramatic
approaches was that taken in 1969 by Emerson Fittipaldi (b 1946) who would
later twice win both the Formula One World Championship and the Indianapolis
500.
The Fittipaldi 3200
Team Fittipaldi in late 1969 entered the Rio 1000 km race at
the Jacarepagua circuit, intending to run a prototype with an Alfa Romeo engine but after
suffering delays in the fabrication of some parts, it was clear there would be insufficient
time to prepare the car.No other
competitive machine was immediately available so the decision was taken to
improvise and build a twin-engined Volkswagen Beetle, both car and engines in
ample supply, local production having begun in 1953.On paper, the leading opposition (Alfa Romeo
T33s, a Ford GT40 and a Lola T70 was formidable but the Beetle, with two tuned
1600 cm3 (98 cubic inch) engines, would generate some 400 horsepower
in a car weighing a mere 407kg (897 lb) car.Expectations weren't high and other teams were dismissive of the threat yet
in qualifying, the Beetle set the second fastest time and in the
race proved competitive, running for some time second to the leading Alfa Romeo
T33 until a broken gearbox forced retirement.
Fittipaldi 3200, Interlagos, 1969. The car competed on Pirelli CN87 Cinturatos (which were for street rather than race-track use) tyres which was an interesting choice but gearbox failures meant it never raced long enough for their durability to be determined.
The idea of twin-engined cars was nothing new, Enzo Ferrari
(1898-1988) in 1935 having entered the Alfa Romeo Bimotor in the Grand Prix
held on the faster circuits.At the time
a quick solution to counter the revolutionary new Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union race
cars, the Bimotor had one supercharged straight-eight mounted at each end, both
providing power to the rear wheels.It
was certainly fast, timed at 335 km/h (208 mph) in trials and on the circuits
it could match anything in straight-line speed but its Achilles heel was that
which has beset most twin-engined racing cars, high fuel consumption & tyre
wear and a tendency to break drive-train components. There were some successful adoptions when less powerful engines were used and the goal was traction rather than outright speed (such as the Citroën 2CV Sahara (694 of which were built between 1958-1971)) but usually there were easier ways to achieve the same thing. Accordingly, while the multi-engine idea
proved effective (indeed sometimes essential) when nothing but straight line speed was demanded (such as
land-speed record (LSR) attempts or drag-racing), in events when corners needed to be
negotiated, it proved a cul-de-sac. There was certainly potential as the handful of "Twinis" (twin-engined versions of the BMC (British Motor Corporation) Mini (1959-2000) built in the 1960s demonstrated. The original Twini had been built by constructor John Cooper (1923–2000 and associated with the Mini Cooper) after he'd observed a twin-engined Mini-Moke (a utilitarian vehicle based on the Mini's platform) being tested for the military. Cooper's Twini worked and was rapid but after being wrecked in an accident (not directly related to the novel configuration), the project was abandoned.
Still, in 1969, Team Fittipaldi had nothing faster
available and while on paper, the bastard Beetle seemed unsuited to the task as
the Jacarepagua circuit then was much twistier than it would become, it would
certainly have a more than competitive power to weight ratio, the low mass likely to
make tyre wear less of a problem.According
to Brazilian legend, in the spirit of the Q&D (quick & dirty) spirit of
the machines hurried assembly, after some quick calculations on a slide-rule,
the design process moved rapidly from the backs of envelopes to paper napkins
at the Churrascaria Interlagos Brazilian Barbecue House where steaks and red wine were ordered. Returning to the workshop, most of the chassis was fabricated against
chalk-marks on garage floor while the intricate linkages required to ensure the
fuel-flow to the four Weber DC045 carburetors were constructed using cigarette
packets as templates to maintain the correct distance between components.In the race, the linkages performed
faultlessly.
Fittipaldi 3200: The re-configuration of the chassis essentially transformed the rear-engined Beetle into a mid-engined car, the engines between the driver and the rear-axle line, behind which sat the transaxle.
The chassis used a standard VW platform, cut just behind
the driver’s seat where a tubular sub-frame was attached. The front suspension and steering was retained
although larger Porsche drum brakes were used in deference to the higher speeds
which would be attained.Remarkably, Beetle type swing axles were used at the rear which sounds frightening but
these had the advantage of providing much negative camber and on the smooth and
predictable surface of a race-track, especially in the hands of a race-driver,
their behavior would not be as disconcerting as their reputation might
suggest.Two standard 1600cm3
Beetle engines (thus the 3200 designation) were fitted for the shake down tests
and once the proof-of-concept had been verified, they were sent for tuning, high-performance
Porsche parts used and the displacement of each increased to 2200cm3
(134 cubic inch).The engines proved
powerful but too much for the bottom end, actually breaking a crankshaft (a
reasonable achievement) so the stroke was shortened, yielding a final
displacement only slightly greater than the original specification while maintaining the ability to sustain higher engine speeds.
Fittipaldi 3200 (1969) schematic (left) and Porsche 908/01 LH Coupé (1968–1969) (right): The 3200's concept of a mid-engined, air-cooled, flat-eight coupe was essentially the same as the Porsche 908 but the Fittipaldi 3200's added features included drum brakes, swing axles and a driver's seat which doubled as the fuel tank. There might have been some drivers of the early (and lethal) Porsche 917s who would have declined an offer to race the 3200, thinking it "too dangerous".
The rear engine was attached in a conventional
arrangement through a Porsche five-speed transaxle although first gear was
blanked-off (shades of the British trick of the 1950s which discarded the "stump-puller" first gear to create a "close ratio" three-speed box) because of a noted
proclivity for stripping the cogs while the front
engine was connected to the rear by a rubber joint with the crank phased at 90o
to the rear so the power sequenced correctly. Twin oil coolers were mounted in the front
bumper while the air-cooling was also enhanced, the windscreen angled more
acutely to create at the top an aperture through which air could be ducted via flexible channels in the roof.Most
interesting however was the fuel tank.To satisfy the thirst of the two engines, the 3200 carried 100 litres (26.4
(US) / 22 (Imperial) gallons) of a volatile ethanol cocktail in an aluminum
tank which was custom built to fit car: It formed the driver’s seat!
Incongruity: The Beetle and the prototypes, Interlagos, 1969
In the Rio de Janeiro 1000 kilometre race on the Guanabara
circuit, the 3200, qualified 2nd and ran strongly in the race, running
as high as second, the sight of a Beetle holding off illustrious machinery
such as a Porsche special, a Lola-Chevrolet R70, and a Ford GT40, one of
motorsport’s less expected sights.
Unfortunately, in the twin-engined tradition, it proved fast but
fragile, retiring with gearbox failure before half an hour had elapsed. It raced once more but proved no more
reliable.
How to have fun with a Beetle.
Caffeine
addiction is one of humanity’s most widespread vices and it extends to those
driving cars. In famous tort case, Stella Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants,
P.T.S., Inc. and McDonald's International, Inc (1994 Extra LEXIS 23
(Bernalillo County, N.M. Dist. Ct. 1994), 1995 WL 360309 (Bernalillo County,
N.M. Dist. Ct. 1994), a passenger in a car (a 1989 model with no cup holders)
received severe burns from spilled coffee, just purchased from a McDonald’s
drive-through. Although the matter
received much publicity on the basis it was absurd to be able to sue for being
burned by spilling what was known by all to be “hot” and the case came to be cited
as an example of “frivolous” litigation, there were technical reasons why some
liability should have been ascribed to McDonalds. The jury awarded some US$2.6 million in
damages although this was, on appeal, reduced to US640,000 and the matter was
settled out of court before a further appeal.
How to have coffee in a Beetle
Hertella Auto Kaffeemachine, 1959. What could go wrong?
In the twenty-first century,
some now judge cars on the basis of the count, capacity & convenience of its
cup-holders but in the less regulated environment of the FRG (Federal Republic
of Germany, the old West Germany, 1949-1990) of 1959, one company anticipated
the future trend by offering a dashboard-mounted coffee maker for the
Volkswagen Beetle. The Hertella
Auto Kaffeemachine was not a success, presumably because even those not
familiar with Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) First Law of Motion (known also as
the Law of Inertia: “An object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in
motion will continue in motion with the same speed and in the same direction
unless acted upon by an unbalanced external force”) could visualise
the odd WCS (worst case scenario).
A happy caffeine
addict, pouring himself a cup of coffee in his VW Beetle.
That it was in 1959 available in 6v & 12v versions
is an indication Hertella may have envisaged a wider market because VW didn’t offer
a 12v system as an option until 1963 and the company seems to have given some thought
to Newtonian physics, the supplied porcelain cups fitted at the base with a
disc of magnetic metal which provided some resistance to movement although the
liquid obviously moved as the forces were applied. The apparatus was mounted with a detachable
bracket, permitting the pot to be removed for cleaning. The quality of the coffee was probably not
outstanding because there’s no percolation; the coffee added in a double-layer
screen and “brewed” on much the same basis as one would tea-leaves and for
those who value quality, a thermos-flask would have been a better choice but
there would have been caffeine addicts willing to try the device. The trouble was there clearly weren’t many of
them and even in the FRG of the Wirtschaftswunder (the post war “economic
miracle”) the fairly high price would have deterred many although now, one in
perfect condition (especially if accompanied by the precious documents or
packaging) would command a price well over US$1000.
How to advertise a Beetle
Although
the popular perception of motoring in the US during the 1960s is it was all about
gas-guzzling behemoths and tyre-smoking muscle cars no less thirsty, Detroit’s advertising
did not neglect to mention fuel economy and the engineers always had in the
range a combination of power-train and gearing options for those for whom that
was important; it was a significant if unsexy market. However, the advertising for domestic
vehicles, whatever the segment, almost always emphasised virtues like
attractiveness and, in the era of annual product updates, made much of things
being “new”.Volkswagen took a different
approach, centred around the “Think Small” campaign, created by the
advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). Positioning VW Beetle ownership as a kind of
inverted snobbery, the campaign embraced simplicity and honesty, quite a contrast
with the exaggerations common at the time.The technique was ground-breaking and its influences have been seen in
the decades since.
The key
theme was one of self-deprecating humor which took the criticisms of the car
(quirky, small, ugly, lacking luxuries) and made a headline of them,
emphasising instead attributes such as reliability, fuel efficiency, and
affordability, all done with some wry observations. Whether making a virtue of the by then dubious qualities of swing axles (centre right) convinced many is uncertain but the "Why are the wheels crooked" one dates from 1962, some three years before the publication of Ralph Nadar's (b 1934) Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) in which a chapter was devoted to the troubling behavior swing axles induced in the Chevrolet Corvair (1960-1969). Still, the focus on authenticity had real appeal in
a consumerist age when agencies produced elaborate graphics and full-color
photographs taken in exotic locations: VW’s monochromatic look was emblematic
of the machine being advertised, one which in 1969 still looked almost identical
to one from 1959.A key to the success
of the campaign was the template: most of the upper part of the page usually a
single image of a Beetle, a caption beneath and then the explanatory text.
Spoof in National Lampoon's Encyclopedia of Humor (1973).
The US
magazine National Lampoon (1970-1998) ran a parody in the style of VW’s
campaign in their Encyclopedia of Humor
(1973).The "If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he'd be
President today" piece not only borrowed the template but also
reprised VW’s claim of “watertight construction” which had appeared in one of
the manufacturer’s genuine advertisements.Although what the magazine did was protected under the constitution’s
first amendment (freedom of speech; freedom of the press) other legal remedies
beckoned and Volkswagen filed suit claiming (1) violations of copyright and
their trademark and (2) defamation. Apparently, a number of those who had seen the
spoof believed it to be real and the company was receiving feedback from the
outraged vowing never to buy another VW, a reaction familiar at scale in the
age of X (formerly known as Twitter) but which then required writing a letter,
putting it in an envelope, affixing a postage stamp and dropping it in the
mailbox.So pile-ons happened then but
they took longer to form.In a
settlement, National Lampoon undertook to (1) withdraw all unsold copies of the
450,000 print run (2) destroy the piece’s hot plate (in pre-digital printing, a
physical “plate” was created onto which ink was laid to create the printed
copy) and (3) publish in the next issue Volkswagen's explanatory disclaimer of
involvement. National Lampoon was also estopped from using the spoof for any subsequent purpose.
The 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 which Ted Kennedy crashed into the water under Dike Bridge Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts.
The Oldsmobile belonged to Kennedy's mother, despite old Joe Kennedy (1888–1969) once having asserted "The Kennedys drive Buicks!". By the time Mary Jo Kopechne died, the company had already retired the Delmont nameplate after a two-year run.
The
notorious incident the parody referenced was the “Chappaquiddick Incident” in which
Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) drove off a bridge, shortly before midnight on 18 July
1969, after the then senator had left a cocktail party in the company of Miss Mary
Jo Kopechne (1940-1969) who had worked on Robert F Kennedy’s (RFK, 1925–1968;
US attorney general 1961-1964) presidential campaign in 1968.Miss Kopechne died in the crash, Senator
Kennedy not reporting the matter for more than ten hours after he left the
scene.Kennedy received a two month,
suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident but while his political
career continued for decades, he never succeeded in his attempts to become
president and his conduct in the Chappaquiddick Incident contributed to that although as one
notorious interview in 1979 revealed, apart from his sense of entitlement, he
could disclose no good reason why he should be POTUS.
Volkswagen's genuine "watertight construction" advertisment which inspired National Lampoon. It was one of the few in the series to be run in color and that was because water really didn't look like "water" in monochrome.
Years after
the Chappaquiddick Incident, when Ted was only of the brothers left alive, in an interview,
Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) compared the three , pronouncing
Ted the best and most natural politician while Robert was driven and intense, “like a
seventeenth century Jesuit priest”, a phrase he attributed to Theodore
Roosevelt’s (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) daughter Alice Lee
Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980).John
Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) he thought “quite a shy
person” for whom the public aspect of politics was “an effort”,
albeit one he performed very well.Nixon
was a flawed character but in his (enforced) retirement, he was a fair judge of
the politicians he knew.