Basketweave (pronounced bah-skit-weev (U) or bas-kit-weev (non-U))
(1) A plain woven pattern with two or more groups of warp
and weft threads are interlaced to render a checkerboard appearance resembling
that of a woven basket; historically applied especially (in garment &
fabric production) to wool & linen items and (in furniture, flooring etc), fibres
such as cane, bamboo etc.
(2) Any constructed item assembled in this pattern.
(4) In the natural environment, any structure (animal,
vegetable or mineral) in this pattern.
(5) In automotive use, a stylized wheel, constructed usually
in an alloy predominately of aluminum and designed loosely in emulation of the
older spooked (wire) wheels.
1920–1925: The construct was basket + weave (and used variously
as basketweave, basket-weave & basket weave depending on industry, product,
material etc). Basket was from the thirteenth
century Middle English basket (vessel
made of thin strips of wood, or other flexible materials, interwoven in a great
variety of forms, and used for many purposes), from the Anglo-Norman bascat, of obscure origin. Bascat
has attracted much interest from etymologists but despite generations of
research, its source has remained elusive.
One theory is it’s from the Late Latin bascauda (kettle, table-vessel), from the Proto-Brythonic (in
Breton baskodenn), from the Proto-Celtic
baskis (bundle, load), from the
primitive Indo-European bhask- (bundle) and presumably related to the Latin fascis (bundle, faggot, package, load) and a doublet of fasces. In ancient Rome, the
bundle was a material symbol of a Roman magistrate's full civil and military
power, known as imperium and it was adopted
as the symbol of National Fascist Party in Italy; it’s thus the source of the
term “fascism”. Not all are convinced, the
authoritative Oxford English Dictionary (OED) noting there is no evidence of
such a word in Celtic unless later words in Irish and Welsh (sometimes counted
as borrowings from English) are original.
However, if the theory is accepted, the implication is the original
meaning was something like “wicker basket”, wicker one of the oldest known
methods of construction. The word was
first used to mean “a goal in the game of basketball” in 1892, the use extended
to “a score in basketball” by 1898. In
the 1980s, as operating systems evolved, programmers would have had the choice
of “basket” or “bucket” to describe the concept of a “place where files are stored
or reference prior to processing” and they choose the latter, thus creating the
“download bucket”, “handler bucket” etc.
On what basis the choice was made isn’t known but it may be that baskets,
being often woven, are prone to leak while non-porous buckets are not. Programmers hate leaks.
A classic basketweave pattern.
Weave was from the Middle English weven (to weave), from the Old English wefan (to weave), from the Proto-West Germanic weban, from the Proto-Germanic webaną,
from the primitive Indo-European webh
(to weave, braid).
The sense of weave as “to wander around; not travel in a straight line”
was also in the early fourteenth century absorbed by the Middle English weven and was probably from the Old Norse veifa (move around, wave), related to the Latin vibrare, from vibrō (to vibrate, to rattle, to twang; to deliver or deal (a
blow)), from the Proto-Italic wibrāō, denominative of wibros, from the primitive Indo-European
weyp- (to oscillate, swing) or weyb-.
The root-final consonant has never been clear and reflexes of both are
found across Indo-European languages.
The verb sense of “something woven” dates from the 1580s while the meaning
“method or pattern of weaving” was from 1888.
The notion of “to move from one place to another” has been traced to the
twelfth century and was presumably derived from the movements involved in the
act of weaving and while it’s uncertain quite how the meaning evolved, it’s
documented from early fourteenth century as conveying “move to and fro” and in
the 1590s as “move side to side”, In pugilism
it would have been a natural technique from the moment the first punch was
thrown but formally it entered the language of boxing (as “duck & weave”)
in 1918, often as weaved or weaving. By
analogy, the phrase “duck & weave” came to be used of politicians attempting
to avoid answering questions. In the
military, weave was also used to describe evasive maneuvers undertaken on land
or in the air but not at sea, the Admiralty preferring zig-zag, as the pattern
would appear on charts. The fencing method known as teenage is a kind of basketweave. Basketweave is a
noun & adjective and (in irregular use) a verb and basketweaver is a noun;
the noun plural is basketweaves.
A basketweaver is of course “one who weaves baskets” but in
idiomatic use, basketweaver is used also to mean “one whose skills have been
rendered redundant by automation or other changes in technology”. The term “underwater basketweaving” is used
of university course thought useless (in the sense of not being directly
applicable to anything vocational) and is applied especially to the “studies”
genre (gender studies, peace studies, women’s studies et al). Beyond education, it can be used of anything
thought “lame, pointless, useless, worthless, a waste of time etc”. Basketweaving is also a descriptor of a long
and interlinked narrative of lies, distinguished from an ad-hoc lie in that in
a basketweave of lies, there are dependencies between the untruths and, done
with sufficient care, each can act to reinforce another, enabling an entire
persona to be constructed. It’s the most
elaborate version of a “basket of lies” and can work but, like a woven basket, if
one strand becomes lose and separates from the structure, under stress, the
entire basket can unravel, spilling asunder the contents.
A classic basketweaver is George Anthony Devolder Santos (b 1988) who, in the 2022 mid-term elections for the US Congress, was elected as a representative (Republican) for New York's 3rd congressional district. Although he seems to have passed untroubled through the Republican Party’s candidate vetting process, after his election a number of media outlets investigated and found his public persona was almost wholly untrue and contained many dubious or blatantly false claims about, inter-alia, his mother, personal biography, education, criminal record, work history, financial status, ancestry, ethnicity, sexual orientation & religion. When confronted, Mr Santos did admit to lying about certain matters, was vague about some and ducked and weaved to avoid discussing others, especially the fraud charges in Brazil he avoided by fleeing the country. Although a life-long Roman Catholic, Mr Santos on a number of occasions claimed to be Jewish, even fabricating stories about his family suffering losses during the Holocaust. Later, after the lies were exposed, he told a newspaper “I never claimed to be Jewish. I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.” In the right circumstances, delivered on-stage by a Jewish comedian, it might have been a good punch-line.
Few are laughing however and Mr Santos is under investigation
by both Brazilian and US authorities.
However, despite many calls (from Republicans and Democrats alike) that
he resign from Congress, Mr Santos has refused and the Republican house
leadership, working with an unexpectedly paper-thin majority, has shown no enthusiasm
to pursue the matter. What Mr Santos has
done is expose the limitations of the basketweaving technique. While a carefully built construct can work,
it relies on no loose threads being exposed and while this can be manageable
for those not public figures, for anyone exposed to investigation, in the
twenty-first century such deceptions are probably close to impossible to
achieve and Mr Santos was probably lured into excessive self-confidence
because, in relative anonymity, he had for years managed to deceive, fooling many
including the Republican Party and perhaps even himself. In retrospect, he might one day ponder how he
ever thought he’s get away with it. One
thing that remains unclear is how he should be addressed. Members of the House of Representatives typically
are addressed as "the honorable" in formal use but this is merely a courtesy
title and is not a requirement. The use
is left to individual members and as far as is known, Mr Santos has not yet
indicated whether he wishes people to address him as “the honorable George Santos”.
Borrani wire wheels on 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 (Daytona) coupé (far left), “Hotwire” wheels on 1974 Holden Torana SL/R 5000 (centre left), “Basketweave” wheels on 1990 Jaguar XJS coupé (centre right) & 1986 Holden Piazza (far right).
Basketweave wheels remain popular (although some feelings
may be strained when it comes time to clean the things) but the use of “basketweave”
to describe the construction was a bit of a stretch and some prefer “lattice”
which seems architecturally closer. Were
the motif of the classic basketweave to be applied to a wheel it would look
something those used on the Holden Piazza, briefly (1986-1989) available on the
Australian market. Because it’s not easy
successfully to integrate something inherently square or rectangular into a
small, circular object, such designs never caught on although variations were
tried. The “basketweave” wheels which
did endure owed little to the classic basketweave patters although there are
identifiable hints in the construction so people understand the connection and
rather than thought of as a continuation of the design elements drawn from the traditions
of weaving, the wheels really established a fork of the meaning. As a design, they were an evolution of the “hotwire”
style popular in the 1970s when was a deliberate attempt to echo the style of
the classic spoked (wire) wheels which, being lighter and offering better brake
cooling properties than steel disk wheels, were for decades the wheel of choice
for high performance vehicles. That
changed in the 1960s as speeds & vehicle weight rose and tyres became wider
and stickier, a combination of factors which meant wire wheels were no longer
strong enough to endure the rising stresses.
Additionally, the wire wheel was labor intensive to make in an era when
that beginning to matter, wheels cast from an alloy predominately of aluminum
were cheaper to produce as well as stronger.
Lindsay Lohan in Miami, clothes by Amiparism, Interview Magazine, December 2022. The car is a Jaguar XJS convertible with the factory-fitted basketweave (or lattice) wheels.
1988 Porsche 911 (930) Turbo Cabriolet (left) and Hans Stuck (1900–1978) in Auto Union Type C (6.0 litre V16), Shelsley Walsh hill climb, Worcestershire, England, June 1936 (right).
The Porsche is fitted with three-piece, 15 inch BBS RS basketweave wheels with satin lips: The rear units are 11 inches in width (running 345/35 tyres) while at the front the wheels are 9 inches wide (mounted with 225/50 tyres). Although advances in electronics since 1988 have made the behaviour of the most powerful rear-engined Porsches easier to tame, in 1988, the best way to ameliorate the inherent idiosyncrasies of the configuration was to fit wider wheels, increasing the rubber’s contact area with the road. The idea was not new, both the straight-eight Mercedes-Benz W125 and the V16 Type C Auto-Union Grand Prix cars of 1937 using twin rear tyres when run in hill climbs. The Porsche 930 (1975-1989) quickly gained the nickname “widow maker” but the Auto Union, which combined 520 horsepower and a notable rearward weight bias with tyres narrower than are these days used on delivery vans, deserved the moniker more. Fitting the second set of rear wheels did help but the handling characteristics could never be made wholly benign and it wasn’t until the late 1950s that mid-engined Grand Prix cars became manageable and notably, they had about half the power of the German machines of the 1930s.
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