Kakistocracy

Kakistocracy (pronounced kak-uh-stok-ruh-see)

Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.

1644: From the Ancient Greek κάκιστος (kákistos (worst)), superlative of κακός (kakós (bad) +‎ κρατία (kratía (power, rule, government).  The word may have long existed in casual use but the earliest known use dates from 1644 in Paul Gosnold's A sermon Preached at the Publique Fast which included the fragment:  "... transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this againe into a newer Independency; and our well-temperd Monarchy into a mad kinde of Kakistocracy. Good Lord!".  Re-coined, it appeared in the 1829 novella The Misfortunes of Elphin by English author Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866).  The word spread, presumably because Spanish is kakistocracia, French kakistocratie, German Kakistokratie, and Russian kakistokratiya (какистократия).  The almost never used alternative spelling is cacistocracy.  Kakistocracy & kakistocrat are nouns and kakistocratical is an adjective; the noun plural is kakistocracies.

The possibility of a Lindsayocracy: In 2017 Lindsay Lohan posted on Instagram the possibility of running for President of the United States (POTUS) in 2020.  Among political scientists, there was no consensus about whether a Lindsayocracy would be (1) better, (2) worse or (3) pretty much the same as a Crookedhillaryocracy.  Her announcement was noted by the state-owned Russian News Agency Sputnik News but there was no comment from the Kremlin.  

Despite a history of governments of varying quality, usage outside of political science circles was rare until a 1980s spike associated with attacks on Ronald Reagan (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989) and Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990).  Later, perhaps surprisingly, George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) appears not to have induced a twentieth-first century revival; that had to wait.  One Fox News commentator liked applying kakistocracy to the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) although the rest of the crew seemed better to understand Fox’s audience should be spoken to with short, simple, repetitive words and phrases and it was Donald Trump's (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) election which brought the word a new popularity.

Variations on the Greek theme

Aristocracy: rule by the highest class
Barbarocracy: government or rule by barbarians
Bestiocracy: the rule of beasts
Chrysocracy: rule of the wealthy
Corporatocracy: rule or undue influence by commercial interests
Dementiaocracy: governmet by the senile
Dulocracy: government by slaves
Ergatocracy: government by the workers
Femocracy: government by feminists or femocrats
Gayocracy: government by the gays
Gerontocracy: the system of government by old men
Graocracy: government by an old woman or old women
Gynaecrocracy (or gynocracy): government by a woman or women
Hagiocracy: government by persons esteemed holy
Harlotocracy: government by harlots
Hetaerocracy: (1) rule of college fellows or (2) rule of courtesans
Jockocracy: government by the Scots or by former sports stars
Kakistocracy: the government of a state by the worst citizens
Khakistocracy: rule or undue influence by the military
Kleptocracy: government by thieves
Lindsayocracy: government by Lindsay Lohan (think about it)
Madocracy: government by the mad
Masonocracy: Government unduly influenced by the Freemasons
Mogocracy: a system of government in which words are the ruling powers
Mediocracy: government by the mediocre
Meritocracy: Government by the most able
Mesocracy: government by the middle classes
Ochlocracy: government by the populace, mob rule
Papyrocracy: government by excessive paperwork
Pedantocracy: the rule of pedants
Pornocracy: rule by prostitutes
Ptochocracy: a government elected by or consisting of the poor
Strumpetocracy: government by strumpets

Rounding up the recent suspects.

In politics, the term kakistocracy has become, like "fascist", one of those words used to convey a general disapproval of administrations rather than anything too specific.  Still, given the standard of some of the governments seen in recent decades, there may be a case to consider it as a literal descriptor and whether there was any better word to use of the brief, troubled administration of Liz Truss (b 1975; UK prime-minister Sep-Oct 2022) remains at least debatable.  However, one curious consequence of recent advances in technology might mean Joe Biden's (b 1942; US president since 2021) administration attracts the label less than might be expected.  The "deep fakes" had been around for a while but with artificial intelligence (AI) systems now able to generate convincing audio-visual content, such has been the proliferation of clips purporting to demonstrate the president's senility that people now seem to give him the benefit of the doubt because it's difficult to tell the difference between the fake news produced by AI and actual footage of examples of his cognitive decline.

Mach

Mach (pronounced mak, mahk or moch)

A number indicating the ratio of the speed of an object to the speed of sound in the medium through which the object is moving.  Also known as the Mach number; standard abbreviation is M.

1937: Named after Austrian physicist and philosopher Dr Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach (1838–1916) who devised the system of speed measurement based on the Mach number. He’s remembered also as the founder of logical positivism, asserting the validity of a scientific law is proved only after empirical testing.  The Mach number is important in the understanding of fluid dynamics and represents the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound (Mach 1.0).  It’s most applied to aircraft which are classified:

Subsonic      Mach <1.0
Transonic     Mach =1.0
Supersonic   Mach >1.0
Hypersonic   Mach >5.0

The speed of sound varies, reducing at higher altitudes and if aircraft exceed about 250 mph (400 km/h), air near the aircraft is disturbed, locally changing the density.  This compression, increasing with speed, alters the force on the aircraft and is of great importance to aerodynamicists and structural engineers.  The Mach number is within the science of fluid dynamics because air is fluid and, at hypersonic speeds, the energy of the airframe affects the chemical bonds which hold together the nitrogen and oxygen molecules of air, the heated atmosphere becoming an ionized plasma of gas.  That’s why spacecraft re-entering earth’s atmosphere need to be insulated from high temperatures.  Mach 1 was first exceeded by an aircraft in level flight in 1947 but man-made objects travelling at that speed had long-existed, even before modern ballistics.  The crack of a whip is actually the sonic boom caused by the tip exceeding Mach 1.

The 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Unlike Ford’s later Boss 302 and Boss 429 Mustangs, both powered by genuine racing engines, 1969’s outwardly similar Mustang Mach 1 was a less ambitious machine for street and strip and available with a variety of engines, one of which, thanks to a little Dearborn mendacity, was very competitive in the then highly popular sport of pro-stock drag-racing.  A moniker like Mach 1 is known in contract law as mere puffery, the notion being that in advertising it's possible to assert things which (1) can be neither proven nor disproven or (2), are so absurd no reasonable person would take them seriously.  In 1969 nobody took literally the idea a Mustang could break the speed of sound which was just as well because, at ground level, Mach 1 is 767 mph (1235 km/h) while the top speed of the most powerful Mustang Mach 1 was about 130 mph (210 km/h) or Mach 0.171.  Actually, most were built for drag-racing and geared for acceleration rather than top-end speed so few were capable of more than around 115 mph (185 km/h) or Mach 0.151.

1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 with 428 (FE Series) CobraJet V8.

Hankering for a seven litre (427 cubic inch) version, Ford had added their 427 V8 (FE Series) to the Mustang’s option list for 1968 but none were built (although Shelby did one (or two depending on how such things are counted) and an uncertain number were fitted by dealers pursuant to customer request.  Probably now most remembered from service in the Ford GT40 and the AC Shelby Cobra, the 427 was a famously powerful and robust unit, a trophy winner on circuits from Daytona to Le Mans but was also cantankerous, noisy, an oil-burner and, perhaps most importantly for Ford, expensive to build because of its complex lubrication and cylinder width at the extreme limit of the block’s capacity.  It had also reached the end of its development so, until their new Boss 429 V8 (385 series) became available, Ford hotted-up the previously unremarkable 428 V8 (FE), used until then smoothly to propel big luxury cars like the Thunderbird and LTD.  Pleasingly for Ford, the 428 developed for the Mach 1 gained its increased output from bolt-on bits and pieces and was cheap to produce.

1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 with 351 (Windsor Series) V8.

Belying its dramatic appearance, the nose-heavy 428 Mach 1 was actually pretty bad at just about everything except the straight-line, quarter-mile sprints at which it excelled though Ford cheated to achieve even these 400 metre-long successes.  Upon its debut in 1968, the National Hot Rod Association (drag-racing’s sanctioning body) allocated vehicles to competition classes on the basis of manufacturers’ declared power-outputs.  Ford claimed the new 428 CobraJet generated 335 horsepower which was quite an understatement, something which allowed it to dominate that year’s national championships.  After that, the authorities cracked down and used their own assessments but by then the 428 CobraJet had done its job and such was the glow of the reflected glory that Ford sold over 70,000 Mach 1 Mustangs in 1969.  Not all were equipped with the big block 428 (a 390 cubic inch (6.5 litre) FE was also available which was about as heavy as the 428 but less powerful) and as road cars, those fitted with the small block (Windsor) 351 cubic inch (5.8 litre) V8 were probably more suited to what most people did most of the time.  Ford produced the Mustang Mach 1 between 1969 and 1978 although the 1974-1978 models are not well regarded, the name revived in 2003-2004 for a small production run and in 2021 the Mach 1 returned to the Mustang range.

Thrust SST, Nevada, 1997.

Almost fifty years to the day after US Air Force (USAF) pilot Chuck Yeager (1923-2020), flying a rocket-powered Bell X-1 aircraft, broke the sound barrier in Earth's atmosphere, RAF Pilot Andy Green (b 1962) set the absolute land speed record (LSR) driving the Thrust SST to a speed of 763.035 mph (1,227.985 km/h) over the stipulated flying mile (1.6 km).  It was the first time a land vehicle officially broke the sound barrier.  Powered by two afterburning Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engines (the same type used by the British version of the F-4 Phantom II jet fighter) developing a net thrust of some 50,000 lb/f (223 kN) which equates to something in excess of 100,000 bhp (76 MW), the Thrust SST's record still stands.  Weighing a impressive 10 tons, at full throttle the fuel burn-rate was some 4.0 gallons (4.8 US gallons; 18 litres) per second or a tiny fraction of a mile per gallon.  Under the LSR rules mandated by the World Motor Sport Council, for a record officially to be sanctioned, there must be two runs in opposite directions within a certain elapsed time and the council confirmed the speed of sound was exceeded on both runs on 15 October 1997 at Black Rock Desert, Nevada (USA).

The only known photograph of the Anglo-French Concorde flying at Mach 2 (at 25,000 feet (7600 m) Mach 2 is 1,356 mph; 2,186 km/h; 1,185 knots), taken from a Royal Air Force (RAF) Panavia Tornado fighter while over the Irish Sea, April 1985.

Machboos

Lindsay Lohan in an interview published in the November 2022 edition of Cosmopolitan magazine revealed her favorite Middle-Eastern dish to cook was machboos, part of Arab cuisine throughout the region and prepared almost always with chicken with rice and vegetables.  A kind of blend of biryani and risotto, the rice is cooked in the spiced broth of the meat or chicken, melding the spices and ingredients.  Rice is a core component of Arabic cooking and interestingly, in Arabic it’s known as ruz but in the Khaleeji dialect it is aish (life) while in Egyptian Arabic, aish refers to bread, an indication of its centrality to the diet.  Like hummus, between nations (and even families) in the Middle East, there’s often disagreement about how machboos should be prepared, most of the arguments revolving around the bzar (the spice mix) but it’s certainly adaptable, able to be served with achaar (mango or lime pickle), daqoos (a spicy tomato sauce), or yoghurt with chopped cucumber and mint.

Ingredients (for serving 4-6) (from Table Tales: Exploring Culinary Diversity in Abu Dhabi (Rizzoli)).

6 tablespoons plain yogurt, divided
2 tablespoons Emirati bzar spice mix, divided
1½ kg chicken, cut into pieces
500 g basmati rice
80 mls vegetable oil
5 cardamom pods, crushed
1 cinnamon stick
10 black peppercorns
2 whole lumi, cracked
450 grams onions, chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, crushed
1 tablespoon garlic, crushed
4 small green chilies, halved
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander powder
285 grams canned tomatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
Cooking oil as required
450 grams potatoes, peeled and cubed
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped

Garnish

3 tablespoons cooking oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
85 grams raw cashews
55 grams raisins
Fresh coriander, chopped

Instructions

(1) Combine 4 tablespoons of yoghurt with 1 tablespoon of the bzar in a large bowl.  Coat the chicken and then marinade for 1 hour or longer.  Rinse the rice and soak in enough water to cover for 1 hour; drain.

(2) Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, peppercorns and lumi and stir for 2 minutes.  Add the onions and sauté until golden.  Add ginger, garlic, and green chilies and stir for 2 minutes.

(3) Add the chicken and marinade and then cook for a few minutes on each side.  Sprinkle in the turmeric, the remaining bzar, cumin, and the coriander powder.

(4) Add the tomatoes, salt, and 2 cups of water; bring to a boil.  Cover, lower the heat, and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, until the chicken is done.  Transfer the chicken to a roasting pan.

(5) Remove the cinnamon stick and lumi from the stock and discard.  Add the potatoes and fresh coriander and boil until the potatoes are just tender.  Adjust the stock to get a one-to-one ratio with the rice.  Stir in the remaining yoghurt until dissolved and then add the rice.  Seal the Dutch oven with aluminum foil, cover, and cook over low heat for 30 minutes until the rice is done.

(6) Turn on the oven broiler.  Brush the chicken with some oil and broil until golden.  Serve the rice on a platter with the chicken pieces on top.  Garnish with sautéed onions, cashews, raisins, and fresh coriander.

Garnish Instructions

(7) Place a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the oil and onions; sauté until they are dark brown, but not burnt.  Remove the onions with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.  Sauté the cashews in the same oil until golden brown.  Finally, add the raisins during the last few minutes to complete.

Gay

Gay (pronounced gey)

(1) Of a happy and sunny disposition (probably obsolete except for historic references).

(2) Given to or abounding in social or other pleasures (probably obsolete except for historic references).

(3) Of relating to, or exhibiting sexual desire or behavior directed toward a person or persons of one's own sex; homosexual.  Technically gender and sex-neutral but use tends now to be restricted to males.

(4) Of, indicating or supporting homosexual interests or issues.

(5) Slang term among certain classes of youth for something thought bad or lame, use now frowned upon in polite society.

1275-1325: From the Middle English gay, from the Old French gai (joyful, laughing, merry), usually thought to be a borrowing of Old Occitan gai (impetuous, lively), from the Gothic gaheis (impetuous), merging with earlier Old French jai (merry) and Frankish gāhi, both from the Proto-Germanic ganhuz and ganhwaz (sudden).  Origin was the primitive geng or ǵhengnh (to stride, step”), from ǵēy or ghey (to go), cognate.  Word was cognate with Dutch gauw (fast, quickly) and the Westphalian Low German gau and gai (fast, quick) which became the German jäh (abrupt, sudden), familiar in the Old High German gāhi.  There is alternative view, promoted by Anatoly Liberman, that the Old French gai was actually a native development from the Latin vagus (wandering, inconstant, flighty) as in French gaine (sheath).  The meaning "full of joy, merry; light-hearted, carefree" existed from the beginning but "wanton, lewd, lascivious (though without any suggestion of homosexuality) had emerged at least by 1630 and some claim it can be traced back to the work of English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400).  The word gay has had various senses dealing with sexual conduct since the seventeenth century. Then, a gay woman was a prostitute, a gay house a brothel and, a gay man was a womanizer.  Gay is a noun, verb, adjective & adverb, gayness & gaiety are nouns, gayify is a verb and gayest is an adjective; the noun plural is gays.  Irregular forms like gaydar or gaynessness are coined as required but in many cases, use outside the gay (or in certain cases the the broader LGBTQQIAAOP community) is socially proscribed.

A brief history of gay

There’s a widespread perception that gay shifted meaning from describing happy folk or events to a chauvinistic assertion of group identity as an overtly political act dating from the late 1960s.  The specific use actually dates from the 1920s, the years immediately after the First World War when first it appeared as an adjective.  It was used thus by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) in Miss Furr & Miss Skeene (1922), becoming widespread in certain circles in US cities by the late 1930s.  Academic literature picked this up and reports of gay as slang began to be cited in psychological journals in the late 1940s.  Later, archivists found the term gay cat existed as early as 1893 among itinerants in north-east American cities and the use clearly persisted, attested to in Erskine's 1933 dictionary of Underworld & Prison Slang.  Nothing is known about the author of this work and the name N. Erskine may be a pseudonym, one assumption being he had served time in prison.

Admiring glance: Lindsay Lohan during her "L" phase with former special friend Samantha Ronson. 

It wasn’t gay’s first fluidity in meaning; for centuries it’d been used in reference to various flavors of sexual conduct, ranging from female prostitutes to womanizing(!) men, all while the traditional use continued in parallel.  The most recent shift, essentially an appropriation for political purposes, ended the duality and has become so entrenched this may be final.  This final shift began in the late 1960s and quickly won the linguistic battle, use of gay in the new sense being common, though not universal, throughout the English-speaking world within a decade.  Other things changed too, some quickly, some not.  When in 1974 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) issued the seventh printing of second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II (1968)), they (sort of) de-listed homosexuality as a mental disorder although it wasn't wholly removed the publication of until the DSM-III in 1980; legislative changes unfolded over many decades.  One practical effect of removing homosexuality from the DSM's list of mental disorders was that overnight, tens of millions of people instantly were "cured", a achievement which usually would glean someone the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.    

LGBTQQIAAOP: The Glossary

L: Lesbian: Women attracted only attracted to women.

G: Gay: Men attracted only to men (historically gay can used to describe homosexual men and women but modern convention is still to use lesbian for women although many lesbians self-describe as gay).

B: Bisexual: A person attracted to both sexes.

T:Transgendered: A person who has or is transitioning to the opposite sex, as they were born as the wrong sex, in the wrong body.  The most obvious category to illustrate sex and gender are not synonymous.

Q: Queer: A non-heterosexual person who prefers to call themselves queer.  Often used by those in the queer art movement, especially by those who maintain there is a distinct queer aesthetic.  Queer used to be a term of disparagement directed at certain non-heterosexuals but (like slut in another context), became a word claimed and re-purposed.

Q: Questioning: Someone questioning their sexual orientation, either unsure of which gender to which they’re attracted or not yet ready to commit.

I: Intersex: Anyone anywhere on the spectrum which used to be defined by the term hermaphrodite.  Intersex is now the accepted term and hermaphrodite should be used only where necessary in the technical language of medicine.

A: Asexual: A person not sexually attracted to anyone or anything (sometimes styled as aromantic).

A: Allies: A straight person who accepts and supports those anywhere in the LGBTQQIAAOP range(s).

O: Objectum: A person attracted to an inanimate object.  Curiously, despite being the only category which, by definition, can't harm another, objectum is now the most controversial entry on the spectrum.

P: Pansexual: A person attracted to a person because of their personality; sex and gender are both irrelevant.

The generally accepted oral shorthand used to be “LGBT” but any truncation can suggest issues around the politics of hierarchy and exclusion.  The modern practice seems to be to use variations of “LGBTQI plus” (often written as LGBTQI+).

Hillman Minx, 1955 (Rootes Corporation).  "Go gay" was an advertising slogan and not an editorial imperative; at this time, advertising was carried on the covers of magazines.  It was not until the 1960s that the relationship between cover photography and the news-stand sales of magazines became better understood.

Materiel

Materiel (pronounced muh-teer-ee-el)

(1) In military use, arms, ammunition, and military equipment in general.

(2) The aggregate of things used or needed in any business, undertaking, or operation as distinguished from personnel (rare).

1814: A borrowing from the French matériel (equipment; hardware), from the Old French, from the Late Latin māteriālis (material, made of matter), from the Classical Latin māteria (wood, material, substance) from māter (mother).  Ultimate source was the primitive Indo-European méhtēr (mother).  Technically, materiel refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply chain management, and typically supplies and equipment only in a commercial context but it tends most to be used to describe military hardware and then to items specific to military use (ie not the office supplies etc used by armed forces personnel).  Materiel is a noun; the noun plural is materiels.

Illustrating military materiel: Lindsay Lohan does Top Gun by BlueWolfRanger95 on Deviant Art.  An aircraft is materiel as is a pilot's flight kit.  Just about every piece of equipment in this photo would be classed as materiel except perhaps the aviator sunglasses (may be a gray area).  Even non-combat, formal attire like dress shirts and ties are regarded by most military supply systems as materiel so materiel can be made from material.

Materiel is sometime notoriously, scandalously and even fraudulently expensive, tales of the Pentagon's purchase of US$1000 screwdrivers, toilet seats and such legion.  Of late though, there have been some well-publicized economies, the US Navy's latest Virgina-class submarine using an Xbox controller for the operation of its periscope rather than the traditional photonic mast system and imaging control panel.  The cost saving is approximately US$38,000 and there's the advantages (1) replacements are available over-the-counter at video game stores world-wide, (2) the young sailors operating the controller are almost all familiar with its feel and behavior and (3) the users report its much better to use than the heavy, clunky and less responsive standard device.  In the military context, materiel refers either to the specific needs (excluding manpower) of a force to complete a specific mission, or the general sense of the needs (excluding personnel) of a functioning force.  Materiel management is an all-encompassing term covering planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, controlling, and evaluating the application of resources to ensure the effective and economical support of military forces. It includes provisioning, storing, requirements determination, acquisition, distribution, maintenance, and disposal.  In the military, the terms "materiel management", "materiel control", "inventory control", "inventory management", and "supply management" are synonymous.

DPRK personnel: DPRK female soldiers stepping out, seventieth anniversary military parade, Pyongyang, September 2018.  Note the sensible shoes, an indication of the Supreme Leader’s thoughtfulness.

The French origins of materiel and personnel are usefully illustrative.  The French matériel (the totality of things used in the carrying out of any complex art or technique (as distinguished from the people involved in the process(es))) is a noun use of the adjectival matériel and a later borrowing of the same word that became the more familiar noun material. By 1819, the specific sense of "articles, supplies, machinery etc. used in the military" had become established.  The 1837 personnel (body of persons engaged in any service) is from the French personnel and was originally specific to the military, a contrastive term to materiel and a noun use of the adjectival personnel (personal), from the Old French personel.

DPRK materiel: Mock ups of the Pukguksong-5 SLBM displayed at military parade Thursday to mark the conclusion of the North Korea’s Workers’ Party congress (the first since 2016), Pyongyang, January 2021.

In January 2021, the DPRK (North Korea) included in a military parade, what appeared to be mock-ups of what’s described as the Supreme Leader’s latest submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the supposedly new Pukguksong-5.  Apparently, and predictably, an evolution of the Pukguksong-4 paraded a few months earlier, although retaining a similar 6 foot (1.8m) diameter, the payload shroud appeared about 28 inches (700mm) longer, suggesting the new SLBM’s estimated length is circa 35 feet (10.6m).  Given the constraints of submarine launch systems, the dimensions are broadly in line with expectations but do hint the DPRK has yet to finalise a design for its next-generation SLBM.  Nor have there been recent reports of the regime testing any big solid-rocket motors, this thought to confirm the views of Western analysts that development is in the early stages.

Pukguksong-4, October 2020.

As a brute force device, with performance measured merely by explosive force, based on the dimensions, it’s possible the DPRK could match similarly sized Western SLBMs.  However, the US Navy’s Poseidon multiple-warhead SLBM, which uses two solid-fuel stages and has a range of over 2800 miles (4800 km), uses very high-energy propellants and a light-weight structure, directed by sophisticated navigation, guidance and control systems.  It features also some very expensive engineering tricks such as rocket exhaust nozzles submerged within the rocket stages, reducing the length, thereby allowing it to be deployed in the confined launch tube.  Lacking the US’s technological and industrial capacity, the Pukguksong-5 is expected to be more rudimentary in design, construction, and propellant technology, range therefore likely not to exceed 1900 miles (3000 km) and almost certainly it won’t be capable of achieving the same precision in accuracy.

Breadvan

Breadvan (pronounced bred-vann)

(1) A delivery vehicle adapted for carrying loaves of bread or other bakery items for delivery to retail outlets, hotels, cafés etc.

(2) As the Ferrari 250 GT SWB (short wheelbase) “Breadvan”, a one-off vehicle produced in 1962.

(3) As a descriptor of the “breadvan” style applied to the rear of vehicles to seek aerodynamic advantages in competition, variously applied, mostly during the 1960s.

1840s: The construct was bread + van.  Bread was from the Middle English bred & breed (kind of food made from flour or the meal of some grain, kneaded into a dough, fermented, and baked), from the Old English brēad (fragment, bit, morsel, crumb), from the Proto-West Germanic braud, from the Proto-Germanic braudą (cooked food, leavened bread), from the primitive Indo-European berw- & brew- (to boil, to see).  Etymologists note also the Proto-Germanic braudaz & brauþaz (broken piece, fragment), from the primitive Indo-European bera- (to split, beat, hew, struggle) and suggest bread may have been a conflation of both influences.  It was cognate with the Old Norse brauð (bread), the Old Frisian brad (bread), the Middle Dutch brot (bread) and the German Brot (bread), the Scots breid (bread), the Saterland Frisian Brad (bread), the West Frisian brea (bread), the Dutch brood (bread), the Danish & Norwegian brød (bread), the Swedish bröd (bread), the Icelandic brauð (bread), the Albanian brydh (I make crumbly, friable, soft) and the Latin frustum (crumb).  It displaced the non-native Middle English payn (bread), from the Old French pain (bread), having in the twelfth century replaced the usual Old English word for "bread," which was hlaf.  Van was short for caravan, from the Middle French caravane, from the French caravane, from the Old French carvane & carevane, (or the Medieval Latin caravana), from the Persian کاروان‎ (kârvân), from the Middle Persian (kārawān) (group of desert travelers), from the Old Persian ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ker- (army).  Most famously, the word was used to designate a group of people who were travelling by camel or horse on the variety of routes referred to as the Silk Road and it reached the West after being picked up during the Crusades, from the Persian forms via the Arabic qairawan and connected ultimately to the Sanskrit karabhah (camel).  Breadvan (also as bread-van) is a noun; the noun plural is breadvans.

Breadvans various

Horse-drawn breadvan.

The breadvans were first horse-drawn and came into use in the in the 1840s.  These vans were used to transport freshly baked bread from bakeries to homes and businesses in cities and towns in the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia.  The breadvan was adopted as an efficiency measure, being a significant improvement on the traditional system of delivery which was usually a “baker’s boy” carrying baskets of bread on foot to customers.  The horse-drawn breadvans allowed bakers increase production and expand their customer base.  The construction of the vehicles was not particularly specialized but they did need to be (1) waterproof to protect the goods from the elements and (2) secure enough that the bread was accessible either to opportunistic birds, dogs or thieves.

Breadvan: Morris Commercial J-type (1949-1961).

Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) is famous for the cars which carry his name but his imperious attitude to customers and employees alike led to a number of them storming out of Maranello and creating their own machines.  Some, like Lamborghini survived through many ups & downs, others like Bizzarrini survived for a while and ATS (Automobili Turismo Sport) produced a dozen exquisite creations before succumbing to commercial reality.  Another curious product of a dispute with il Commendatore was the Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”.

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”.

Ferrari’s 250 GTO became available to customers in 1962 and one with his name on the list was Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata (b 1938), principal of the Scuderia Serenissima Republica di Venezia (ssR) operation but when Enzo Ferrari found out Volpi was one of the financial backers of the ATS project, he scratched the count’s name from the order book.  Through the back channel deals which characterize Italian commerce. Volpi did obtain a GTO but he decided he’d like to make a point and decided to make something even better for his team’s assault on the 1962 Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic.  In the ssR stable was what was reputed to be the world’s fastest Ferrari GT SWB (serial number 2819 GT) and it was decided to update this to to a specification beyond even that of the GTO, a task entrusted to Giotto Bizzarrini (1926-2023) who, with remarkable alacrity, performed the task in the workshops of noted coachbuilder Piero Drogo (1926–1973).

The Breadvan leading a 250 GT SWB, the car on which it was based.

The changes were actually quite radical.  To obtain the ideal centre of gravity, the 3.0 litre (180 cubic inch) V12 engine was shifted 4¾ inches (120 mm) rearward, sitting entirely behind the front axle and mounted lower, something permitted by the installation of a dry sump lubrication system.  Emulating the factory GTO, six downdraft, twin choke Weber carburetors sat atop the inlet manifold, the tuned engine generating a healthy 300 bhp.  Given the re-engineering, on paper, the car was at least a match for the GTO except it lacked the factory machine’s five-speed gearbox, running instead the standard four-speed.  What really caught the eye however was body Bizzarrini’s striking bodywork, the sharp nose so low Perspex cover had to be fabricated to shield the cluster of a dozen velocity stacks of the Webers that protruded above the bonnet-line.  Most extraordinary however was the roofline which extended from the top of the windscreen to the rear where it was sharply cut-off to create what remains perhaps the most extreme Kamm-tail ever executed.

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”.

The count was impressed, the creation matching the GTO for power while being 100 kg (220 lb) lighter and aerodynamically more efficient.  Accordingly he included it in the three-car Ferrari team he assembled for Le Mans along with the GTO and a 250 TR/61 and it appearance caused a sensation, the French dubbing it la camionnette (little truck) but it was the English nickname “Breadvan” which really caught on.  To a degree the count proved his point.  Under pressure from Ferrari the organizers forced the Breadvan to run in the prototype class against pure racing cars rather than against the GTOs in the granturismo category but in the race, it outpaced the whole GT field until, after four hours, a broken driveshaft forced its retirement.  It was campaigned four times more in the season scoring two GT class victories and a class track record before being retired.  Volpi sold the car in 1965 for US$2,800 and its current value is estimated to be around US$30 million.  It remains a popular competitor on the historic racing circuit.

1965 Ford GT40 Mark I (left) 1966 Ford J Car (centre) & 1967 Ford GT40 Mark IV (right).

As well as the ATS, Lamborghinis and Bizzarrinis, Enzo Ferrari’s attitude to those who disagreed with him also begat the Ford GT40, a well-known tale recounted (with a little license) in the 20th century Fox film Ford vs Ferrari (2019).  In 7.0 litre (427 cubic inch) form, the GT40 Mark II won at Le Mans in 1966 but Ford’s engineers were aware the thing was overweight and lacked the aerodynamic efficiency of the latest designs so embarked on a development program, choosing the project name “J Car”, an allusion to the “Appendix J” regulations (one of the FIA’s few genuinely good ideas) with which it conformed.  The aluminum honeycomb chassis was commendably light and, noting the speed advantage gained by the Ferrari Breadvan in 1962, a similar rear section was fabricated and testing confirmed the reduction in drag.  Unfortunately, the additional speed it enabled exposed the limitation of the breadvanesque lines: above a certain speed the large flat surface acted like an aircraft’s wing and the ensuing lift provoked lethal instability and one fatal crash in testing proved the lightweight chassis also was fragile.  The “J Car” was thus abandoned and a more conventional approach was taken for both the chassis and body of the GT40 Mark IV and it proved successful, in 1967 gaining the second of Ford’s four successive victories at Le Mans (1966-1969).

The modern Ferrari "breadvans"

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan” (left) and 2013 Ferrari FF (right).

Rather than the 250 Breadvan, it was probably market research which inspired the Ferrari FF (2011-2016), the Italian factory's first take on the shooting brake concept although over the decades, there had been more than a dozen "variations on the theme of a Ferrari station wagon" by a number of coachbuilders, all in their own way distinctive but none improved the lines of the donor car on which they were based, unlike the Jaguar XJS shooting brakes which looked so good it was remarkable one never appeared in the catalogue.  According to the factory, "FF" stood for "Ferrari Four" a reference to the AWD (all wheel drive) configuration although it may also have been intended to remind potential buyers the thing could seat four and the promotional material included pictures of ski-racks and even a roof-mounted “ski-box”, able to hold ski-gear for four.  Clearly, the combination of AWD traction and the carrying capacity was a hint this was a car for those who liked to drive to the ski-fields.  The Ferrari FF "shooting brake" (the factory seems not to have used the term although most journalists seems to thought it best except the better informed who referenced the 250 "Breadvan") was very much in the same vein, its capaciousness closer to that of a “big coupé” rather than any size of station wagon although the factory did circulate photographs of the rear-compartment comfortably (if snugly) packed with a set of golf-clubs and a half dozen-odd travel bags; with folding rear seats, Ferrari claimed a trunk (boot) capacity of 450-800 litres (16-28 cubic feet).

1966 Jensen FF Series 1 (left) and 2017 Ferrari GTC4Lusso (right).

Despite the name, there was apparently no intention to link the car with the Jensen FF (1966-1971) a pioneering machine which featured both all wheel drive (AWD although then still called 4WD (four wheel drive)) and anti-lock brakes (an early, mechanical implementation derived from use in aviation which was most effective).  Anti-lock braking is essentially a form of “pressure modulation” and the modern abbreviation "ABS" doesn’t reference the often quoted  “Anti-Lock Braking System”; the correct source is Anti-Bloc System, the name adopted in 1966 when Daimler-Benz and the Heidelberg electronics company Teldix (later absorbed by Bosch) began a co-development of a hybrid analogue-electronic system.  The system used on the Jensen FF was an early, mechanical implementation derived from use in aviation which have proved effective for aircraft landing on icy runways)

The Jensen FF really wasn’t a shooting brake although the huge and distinctive rear window was also a hatch so it did offer some of the advantages.  Despite the high price, the Jensen FF sold remarkably well but its market potential was limited because all Ferguson’s development work had been done in England using right-hand-drive (RHD) vehicles and the system was so specific it wasn’t possible to make a left-hand-drive (LHD) FF without re-engineering the whole mechanism which was so bulky the passenger's front seat was narrower than that of the driver so much did things intrude.  Consequently, only 320 were built, apparently at a financial loss.  Ferrari did better with their FF, over 2000 sold between 2011–2016 and although the packaging may have been remarkably efficient, with a 6.3 litre (382 cubic inch) V12 it was never going to be economical, listed by the 2013 US Department of Energy as the least fuel-efficient car in the midsize class, sharing that dubious honor with the bigger, heavier (though not as rapid) Bentley Mulsanne.  For owners, the 335 km/h (208 mph) top speed was presumably sufficient compensation.  When production ended, the FF was replaced by the conceptually similiar GTC4Lusso (2016-2020) and, unusually, in 2017 the factory announced the GTC4Lusso T, the appended "T" a reference to it being powered by a twin-turbocharged V8 rather than its older sibling's V12; the V8 was RWD (rear wheel drive) but did retain the four-wheel steering (4WS) system.  The last of the pair left the factory late in 2020 and were not replaced so there have been no Ferrari Breadvans since.    

Homemade breadvans

Ford Anglia, Rallye Monte-Carlo, 1962 (left) & Ford Anglia "breadvans" built for New Zealand Allcomer racing during the 1960s. 

Marketing opportunity for niche players: A Lindsay Lohan breadvan, Reykjavik, Iceland.

In the US, at a time with a million dollars was still a lot of money, Ford spent probably at least a million on the GT40’s abortive breadvan but in New Zealand, it doubtful the amateur racers in the popular “Allcomers” category (a close cousin of the admirable Formula Libre) spent even a hundred in the development of their “breadvans”.  In the Allcomer category, the “breadvans” (again a nod to the Count Volpi’s 1962 Ferrari) were Ford Anglias with a rear section modified to gain some aerodynamic advantage.  The English Ford Anglia (1959-1968) had an unusual reverse-angle rear-window (borrowed from some of the corporation's US Lincolns & Mercurys), a design chosen to optimize headroom for back-seat passengers.  That it did but it also induced additional drag which, while of no great consequence at the speeds attained in rallying or on public roads, did compromise the top speed, something of great concern to those who found the light, agile machines otherwise well-suited to racing.  In the spirit of improvisation for which New Zealand Allcomer racing was renowned, “breadvans” soon proliferated, fabricated variously from fibreglass, aluminum or steel (and reputedly even paper-mache although that may be apocryphal and based on the use of the technique to create molds for a fibreglass structure) and the approach was successful, Anglias competitive in some forms of racing well into the 1970s by which time some had, improbably, been re-powered with V8 engines, an Allcomer solution for just about any problem.