Ghost

Ghost (pronounced gohst)

(1) The soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined, usually as a vague, shadowy or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting living persons.

(2) A mere shadow or semblance; a trace; a remote possibility; a faint trace or possibility of something.

(3) A spiritual being; the principle of life; soul; spirit (sometimes initial capital letter).

(4) A secondary image, especially one appearing on a television screen as a white shadow, caused by poor or double reception or by a defect in the receiver (also called ghosting).

(5) In photography, a faint secondary or out-of-focus image in a photographic print or negative resulting from reflections within the camera lens (also called ghost image).

(6) In optics, a series of false spectral lines produced by a diffraction grating with unevenly spaced lines.

(7) In metalworking, a streak appearing on a freshly machined piece of steel containing impurities.

(8) In pathology, a red blood cell having no hemoglobin.

(9) In tax-avoidance and other frauds, a fictitious employee, business etc, fabricated especially for the purpose of manipulating funds.

(10) In literature (and especially quasi-literature), as ghost-write, to write a book, speech etc for another often without attribution.

(11) In engraving, to lighten the background of a photograph before engraving.

(12) In informal use (often associated with social media), suddenly to end all contact with a person without explanation, especially a romantic relationship; to leave a social event or gathering suddenly without saying goodbye.

(13) In digital technology, to remove comments, threads, or other digital content from a website or online forum without informing the poster, keeping them hidden from the public but still visible to the poster.

(14) In bibliography, as ghost edition, an entry recorded in a bibliography of which no actual proof exists.

Pre 900: From the Middle English gost, gast & goost (breath; good or bad spirit, angel, demon; person, man, human being", in Biblical use "soul, spirit, life”), from the Old English gāst (breath, soul, spirit, ghost, being), related to the Old High German gaist & geist (spirit) and the Sanskrit hēda (fury, anger).  The Proto-West Germanic gaist was derived from the Proto-Germanic gaistaz (ghost, spirit, (source also of the Old Saxon gest, the Old Frisian jest, the Middle Dutch gheest, the Dutch geest & the German Geist (spirit, ghost))), from the primitive Indo-European ǵhéysd-os, from ǵhéysd- (anger, agitation) and was cognate with the Scots ghaist (ghost), the Saterland Frisian Gäist (spirit), the West Frisian geast (spirit), the Dutch geest (spirit, mind, ghost), the German Geist (spirit, mind, intellect), the Swedish gast (ghost), the Sanskrit हेड (héḍa), (anger, hatred) and the Persian زشت‎ (zešt) (ugly, hateful, disgusting).  There’s no documentary evidence but the ultimate root is conjectured to be the primitive Indo-European gheis-, used in forming words involving the notions of excitement, amazement, or fear (source also of Sanskrit hedah (wrath), the Avestan zaesha- (horrible, frightful), the Gothic usgaisjan and the Old English gæstan (to frighten).  Ghost is a noun & verb (and used imaginatively as an adjective), ghoster is a noun, ghostly & ghosty are adjectives, ghosting is a noun & verb and ghosted is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is ghosts.

Ghost is the English representative of West Germanic words for "supernatural being" and in Christian writings in Old English it was used to render the Latin spiritus, a sense preserved by the early translators of the Bible in “Holy Ghost”.  The sense of a "disembodied spirit of a dead person", especially imagined as wandering among the living or haunting them, is attested from the late fourteenth century, a meaning-shift which returned the word to what was its probable prehistoric sense.  Most Indo-European words for "soul or spirit" also double with reference to supernatural spirits.  Many have also a base sense of "appearance" (the Greek phantasma; the French spectre; the Polish widmo, from Old Church Slavonic videti (to see), the Old English scin, the Old High German giskin (originally "appearance, apparition”), related to the Old English scinan & the Old High German skinan (to shine)).  Other concepts exist, including the French revenant (literally "returning" (from the other world)), the Old Norse aptr-ganga, (literally "back-comer") & the Breton bugelnoz (literally "night-child”).  The Latin manes (spirits of the dead) was probably a euphemism.

The gh- spelling appeared early in the fifteenth century in Caxton, influenced by Flemish and Middle Dutch gheest, but was rare in English before mid-1500s.  The sense of a "slight suggestion, mere shadow or semblance" (as in ghost image, ghost of a chance etc) is noted from the 1610s; the sense of "one who secretly does work for another" is from 1884 and ghost-write was a 1922 back-formation from the earlier (1919) ghost-writing.  The American Indian ghost dance was first noted in 1890, ghost town is from 1908, ghost story dates from 1811, the now extinct ghost-word (apparent word or false form in a manuscript due to a blunder) is from 1886.  The “ghost in the machine” was English philosopher Gilbert Ryle's (1900-1976) 1949 description of René Descartes' (1596-1650) mind-body dualism and the phrase "to give up the ghost" (to die or prepare to die) was well-known in Old English.  Synonyms include phantom, devil, demon, soul, shadow, spectre, vision, vampire, apparition, revenant, appearance, haunt, visitor, shade, spook, poltergeist, phantasm, wraith, daemon & manes.  There are a surprising number of uses of ghost, ghosted, ghosting etc said to be associated modern or internet slang covering fields as diverse as linguistic techniques and the art & science of smoking weed.  However, the most commonly used describes someone with whom one has been in contact suddenly stops responding, disappearing, as it were, like a ghost.  This can happen in conjunction with unfriending etc but can be an act in isolation.

One day, there may be Lindsay Lohan: The autobiography.

Ghostwriters (also as ghost-writer) are professional writers hired to create content (books, columns, posts or any other text-focused item), the authorship of which will ultimately will be credited to another.  Ghostwriters are used for a number of reasons including constraints of time, a lack of interest in the project (though not the profits) or, typically, a lack of the necessary skill with the written word.  Ghostwriting contracts can vary but focus on including terms of payment, non-disclosure of involvement, the notional author’s exercise of veto over all or some of the content and the rights to the finished work.  Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) is known to have used ghostwriters on several occasions and the arrangements are not always concealed, Paris Hilton (b 1981) in her 2023 memoir's acknowledgments thanking the ghostwriter who “helped me find my voice”.  Mr Trump made no mention of his ghostwriters.    

Holy Ghost vs Holy Spirit in Blblical Translation

Pentecostés (Descent of the Holy Spirit) (circa 1545), oil on canvas by Tiziano Vecelli (or Vecellio), (circa 1489-1576; known in English as Titian), basalica of Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.

The Trinity is one of Christianity’s central doctrines, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in the one Godhead.  One of the most important Christian affirmations about God, it’s rooted in the idea God came to meet Christians in a threefold figure: (1) as Creator, Lord of the history of salvation, Father, and Judge, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) as the Lord who, in the incarnated figure of Jesus Christ, lived among human beings and was present in their midst as the “Resurrected One”; and (3) as the Holy Spirit, whom they experienced as the helper or intercessor in the power of the new life.  In the Roman Catholic Church, the Sign of the Cross is made in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

It’s a myth that prior to the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965), the Third Person of the Trinity was always referred to in English as the Holy Ghost and one of the council’s decisions was to replace this with Holy Spirit.  Although it’s true Pope Pius XII (1876–1958, pope 1939-1958) authorized several bilingual rites which included Holy Spirit, this was merely procedural and a formalization of processes for the publishing of new editions of existing works. Well before the twentieth century, the shift to Holy Spirit had become almost universal in translation although use of the older form persisted because of the reverence for tradition among some congregations (if not always the clergy) and a fondness, particularly in the Anglican community, for earlier translations, especially the Book of Common Prayer (1549-1622) and the King James version of the Bible (KJV: 1611).

The change reflects the evolution of words. In the theological context, Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit mean exactly the same thing.  The early translators were influenced by ghost being of Germanic origin and, as the Old English gast inherited the original meaning “soul, life, breath, good or bad spirit, angel or demon”, they used gast to translate the Latin Spiritus, thus Holy Ghost.  Although the more modern sense of a disembodied dead person dates from the late fourteenth century, it long remained rare and when translating the Bible into English the scholars behind the KJV opted mostly to use Holy Ghost which enjoys ninety entries compared with seven for Holy Spirit.  Either as literature or theology, there’s nothing in the texts to suggest any difference of meaning between the two, the conclusion of biblical scholars being the choices were wholly arbitrary and probably an unintentional consequence of the KJV being translated from the Greek into English by different committees.  One committee translated hagion pneuma as Holy Spirit while the other preferred Holy Ghost and when the work of the two bodies was combined, the differences remained.  In English, the meaning shift of ghost was induced essentially by its adoption in literature and popular culture, the sense long universally understood to be that of the spectre of a deceased person or a demonic apparition, hardly an association the church found helpful.  It hasn’t wholly been replaced however, some editions of the Book of Common Prayer still are printed with the phrase “He may receive the benefits of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience.”

Unrelated to etymological matters however, there is one fine theological point about the Trinity.  It took some time for the Patristic Fathers (the early Christian writers of the period generally considered to run from the end of New Testament times or end of the Apostolic Age (circa 100 AD) to either the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) or the Second Council of Nicaea (787 AD)) to work out the Trinity was three persons, but one God.  The Old Testament foretold the visit to earthly life of the Messiah, but did not name him explicitly as Jesus, seeing the Holy Spirit as a manifestation of God, but did not see Him as a separate person of the one Godhead.  Despite the implications of that, at least since Augustine (354–430), it’s never been an orthodox view the Old Testament should be thought incomplete.  Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), always one to find a fine theological point, noted “Christians do not read the Old Testament for its own sake but always with Christ and through Christ, as a voyage to Truth through continuing Revelation.”

A century apart: Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (left) and Paris Hilton's Rolls-Royce Ghost (Right).

The Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (1906-1926) was the car which cemented the company's reputation and sometime during its production, it may well have deserved to be regarded "the best car in the world", at term which long ago ceased to be useful but Rolls-Royce have probably always deserved to be thought "the best-made cars in the world".  Some might have matched the quality of the fit and finish but it's doubtful any have ever done it better.  Such was the reputation the Silver Ghost quickly gained that the name overtook the line.  Originally, the Silver Ghost had been but one model in a range available on their standard (40/50 hp) chassis but the name so captured the public imagination that eventually, the factory relented and when the first of the Phantom line was release in 1926, Silver Ghost for all the 40/50 cars it became.  Perhaps surprisingly, although in the subsequent century there were many uses of the "silver" adjective (Silver Wraith, Silver Dawn, Silver Cloud, Silver Shadow, Silver Spirit, Silver Spur & Silver Seraph), it wasn't until 2009 the "Ghost" name was revived and it remains in production still, the line augmented in 2011 by the Ghost Extended Wheelbase (EWB).

RAF Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost armored car, Iraq, circa 1936.

The Silver Ghost also had what may seem an improbable career as a military vehicle, the factory eventually building 120 armored cars on the chassis which was famously robust because of the need to survive on the often rough roads throughout the British Empire.  Although the period of intended service on the Western Front was shortened when the war of movement anticipated upon the outbreak of hostilities soon gave way to the effectively static trench warfare, the machines proved ideally suited to operations in the Middle East, the most famous the squadron used by TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia; 1888–1935) in battles against the Ottoman forces during World War I (1914-1918).  Lawrence remarked the Rolls-Royces were “more valuable than rubies” in desert combat and that he’d be content with one for the rest of his life were it to be supplied with tyres and petrol, the big, heavy Ghosts chewing rapidly through both.  In many parts of the empire, numbers of the armoured cars remained in service well into the 1930s, valued especially by the Raj in India.  The last one was retired from service with the Irish Free State in 1944, new tyres being unobtainable.

Harlequin

Harlequin (pronounced hahr-luh-kwin or hahr-luh-kin)

(1) A stock comic character, depicted usually wearing a black mask and dressed in multicolored, diamond-patterned tights, often with a wooden sword or magic wand (often with initial capital)

(2) In theater, the most famous of the zanni (the comic servant characters) from the Italian commedia dell'arte (from the Italian Arlecchino or one of its many variants (Arlechin, Arlechì et al) which was associated with the city of Bergamo.  In English the character is best known as the foppish lover of Columbine in the English harlequinade.  The original spelling in Italian was Harlicken.

(3) A jester; a buffoon or oaf-like character; the pantomime fool.

(4) Any of various small snakes having bright diamond-pattern scales.

(5) Anything fancifully varied in color, decoration etc and in commerce sometimes of a specific product (such as harlequin ice-cream) and the eighteenth century English adjective particoloured is a reference to the absurdity of a Harlequin’s costume.

(6) Of a greenish-chartreuse color (a specialized use in certain industries and used sometimes both as harlequin-green & harlequin-yellow).

(7) A clipping of “harlequin's mask”.

(8) In writing, something comic, ludicrous or absurd.

(9) In geology, a classification of opal,

(10) In fashion, the use of multi-color combinations in other than an obviously discernible pattern.

(11) In medicine, as harlequin-type ichthyosis, (also clipped as harlequin ichthyosis), a severe genetic disorder that results in thickened skin over nearly the entire body at birth (“harlequin baby” & “harlequin foetus” the historic medical slang although use of both is now often discouraged.

(12) In zoology (as a modifier in the names of certain animals) having a white or light-hued coat with irregular patches of black or other dark colors including various snakes, ducks (used informally), a bat, a moth, a species of darter fish, the mantis shrimp, some insects & beetles and any of various riodinid butterflies of the genera Taxila and Praetaxila.

(13) To remove or conjure away, as if by a harlequin's trick; to perform antics or play ludicrous tricks.

1580–1590: From the French harlequin, from the Middle French arlequin & harlequin, semantically (and in part phonetically), from the Italian arlecchino, from the Middle French, phonetically continuing unattested the Old French mesniee Herlequin (more often appearing as la maisnie Hellequin (the household of Hellequin) although the spellings Harlequin, Halequin, Herlequin, Hierlekin & Hellekin also appear) (a malevolent spirit; leader of band of demon horsemen who rode at night (literally “Hellequin's escort”)), perhaps from the Middle English Herle (the (unattested) King Herle, a figure of legend identified with Woden), from the Old English Herla Cyning (or Herela Cyning; Helle cyn) (King Herle), rendered in the Anglo-Latin as Herla rex and related to the Middle English Hurlewain (a mischievous sprite or goblin).  Although it’s uncertain, etymologists think it likely the Old English forms were related to the Old Frisian helle kin and the Old Norse heljar kyn (the kindred of Hell).  One quirk noted in the theatrical history is the earliest known depictions of Harlequin are of a crass and bumbling servant rather than the amusing and magical hero familiar in the nineteenth century which would imply the accepted story of the origin being with the world of demonic horsemen and dark spirits might be suspect.  The other curiosity is the earliest known reference in a French text but it lists him among Italian characters, so the Italian origin remains probable.  .  Because of its origin in the name of an Italian theatrical character, Harlequin is often used as a proper noun (although the appearance of the initial capital is often incorrect).  Harlequin is a noun & adjective, harlequinade, harlequinery & harlequinism are nouns, harlequining & harlequined are verbs and harlequinesque & harlequin-like are adjectives; the noun plural is harlequins.

The logo and home-kit colors of Harlequin Football Club (1866).  A rugby union club and usually referred to as “Harlequins”, they're based at the Twickenham Stoop in south-west London.

The Germanic links includes the Old High German Herilo (a personal name, derivative of heri (armed forces) and the ultimate source of the Modern German Herres (Army), thus the World War II (1939-1945) institution OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres; the army high command), the companion structures being OKL (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe: the air force high command) & OKM (Oberkommando der Marine: the navy high command), all three structurally subordinate to OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht: the armed forces high command).  To the Allies that was a familiar military structure and it was only after the war it came to be understood how little coordination was imposed by OKW.

Clockwise from main image: Arlecchino, Arlequine, Arlequin & Colombine.  Commedia dell'arte costumes from Maurice Sand's Masques et Bouffons (Masks & Jesters), Paris 1860.

The English comic theatrical genre harlequinade evolved between the seventeen & nineteenth centuries and was a form in which clowns (not all of them in traditional harlequin garb) were the principal protagonists & antagonists.  Originally a physical form of comedy very much in the tradition of the Italian commedia dell'arte in which there were five main characters, the most celebrated of which were Harlequin and his lover Columbine, it evolved from a mime performance with music and a form of dance which, although choreographed, was designed to appear to the audience as unstructured and sometimes chaotic.  Dialogue was introduced as the appeal began to wane but the focus was always on the colorful visual spectacle, usually as relatively brief, intense performances being staged as a prelude to longer musicals, operas or even ballet.  In English theatre, the popularity of harlequinade endured until World War I (1914-1918), historians of theatre noting its successful adaptation to changing conditions in what was becoming a more crowded environment by incorporating increasingly elaborate stage effects.  The advent of cinema in the 1920s was the death knell for harlequinade which, labor-intensive and demanding a large inventory of props and equipment, had become an expensive production although the legacy lingers in the some aspects of the Christmas pantomimes which in the UK remain popular annual events.  The words pantomime entered English in the sixteenth or seventeenth century and was from the Latin pantomīmus, from the Ancient Greek παντόμιμος (pantómimos), the construct being πᾶς (pâs), (each, all) + μιμέομαι (miméomai) (I mimic), thus analyzed as “all on stage miming”, the name persisting as a generic description even after dialogue had been introduced to the performances.

1960s Volkswagen advertizing in the US: inverted snobbery.

In a brief era of unprecedented and not since repeated general affluence, Volkswagen in 1960s America wasn’t able to compete with the domestic manufacturers with advertizing emphasizing the qualities they liked to project: power, speed, style and in some cases, sheer size.  Instead they used a technique the industry called “inverted snobbery” which wasn’t new but the Volkswagen advertizing of the time is thought still a classic example of the type.  Knowing the Beetle had a reputation for being slow, small and anything by stylish, the campaign took those perceptions and presented them as virtues, with wry humor emphasizing practicality and economy of operation.

1960s Volkswagen advertizing in the US, the first VW “Harlequin” (the term not then used).

Also, at a time when Detroit made annual changes, often with no purpose other than to ensure the new cars in the showrooms looked different for last year’s model so status-conscious buyers would be stimulated to update, Volkswagen made a point of the Beetle looking much the same from season-to-season, one from 1954 barely distinguishable from the 1964 model.  For a number of reasons, the company choose usually to run the copy in black & white but there was one which really had to be in color: it featured a Beetle assembled with various panels from models made over five years, each in a different color, the harlequinesque effect said to have been achieved with physical paint on metal rather than air-brushing a photograph (doubts have be cast).  As well as the subliminal messaging about timelessness, there was the practical aspect of parts interchangeability which, so it was asserted, made spare parts more readily available, something which should presumably was intended to work in unison with the advertisement suggesting the most likely need for those parts would be if one let one’s wife drive.  That one might not be published today.

Der Polo Harlekin: Home market propaganda, 1995.

Whether carefully bolted together or just an air-brushed photograph, the harlequinesque Beetle might have remained a footnote in the annals of advertizing had not something apparently unrelated appeared in the 1990s.  It’s all a bit murky but it’s clear that somewhere within Volkswagen (the tales vary), as an allusion to the soon to be announced “block construction” concept (green=paintwork; blue=engines & chassis; yellow=interior; red=special equipment), ten of the new VW Polos were built using panels of four different colors (Chagallblau (Chagall Blue, LD5D), Flashrot (Flash Red, LP3G), Ginstergelb (Ginster Yellow, L132) & Pistazie-grün (Pistachio Green, LD6D) for use as promotional vehicles.  A popular attraction after first appearing at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the much photographed cars generated so much publicity a further ten were built the following year to meet the demand from dealers who wanted one to display in their showrooms.  Selfies weren’t then a thing but many turned up to be snapped by a camera wielding companion and, most unexpectedly, dealers were reporting customers actually wanting to buy one.

Polo Harlekin color chart.

Despite this, Volkswagen’s corporate management wasn’t convinced there would be sufficient demand to make a production run viable but the inquiries from the public continued so a market study was conducted which confirmed the cult was real and it was announced that if 1000 were ordered, 1000 would be produced.  As a novelty, there were also 1000 key-chains with numbered certificates and this was to rationalize the production process because the buyers couldn’t choose the base color (ie the welded components: the color of the chassis, identified by roof, C-pillars, rocker panels & what lay beneath the plastic moldings, carpets and engine bay which was of some legal significance because it was the colored associated with ownership title and VIN (Vehicle Identification Number).  The 1000 were thus produced but in a what sounds a remarkably inefficient way, each Polo Harlekin painted as used on the standard production-line in the base color and then by hand disassembled and reassembled in accordance with the schedule of the Polo Harlekin color chart, the trick being that no two removable panels of the same color were touching.  In the 1960s, the colors had been about engineering; by the 1990s, it was all art.

Polo Harlekin brochure.  The look does seem something which wouldn't appeal to the stereotypical German; it may be they sold well to Bavarians, it being hard to imagine a Prussian driving one. 

Despite the labor intensive nature of production, presumably the accountants would have calculated things and worked out it was less expensive than disrupting the production lines, the same conclusion the Ford Motor Company had reached in 1969 when arranging a small run of Mustangs with the Boss 429 engine.  In the manner typical of such “specials”, added touches included a bright blue leather for the steering wheel, “Joker” plaid upholstery for the sport seats (so admired it would later appear in the “Joker” edition Polo), a Harlekin sticker on the hatch, blue piped floor mats, and Harlekin gear-shift knob.  The other options were the usual array for the Polo, the only surprise for one being which of the four color combinations one would receive when arriving to collect one’s Polo Harlekin.  The 1000 however didn’t satisfy demand so a further 2806 ended up being built, some even with right-hand-drive (RHD), all of which appear to have been sold in the UK, buyers in Australia, Japan and New Zealand denied the pleasure of their own Polo Harlekin.

1996 Volkswagen Golf Harlequin (US market).  The Americans didn't take to the cult as the Europeans had.

Inspired by the European’s embrace of the Harlekin concept, Volkswagen’s North American operation decided the new world too shouldn’t be denied the particoloured treat and in 1996, 264 Mark 3 Golfs (the VW formerly and briefly later known as the Rabbit) were produced for sale in the US, all of course configured with left-hand-drive (LHD), the main visual difference being the use of Tornadorot (Tornado Red, LY3D) while in accordance with local habits, most had automatic gearboxes.  Demand never went close to matching that in Europe and some sat in dealer stock for some time and one dealer in Georgia with eight on his hands had them re-made into single-color cars to attract buyers, the only remaining hint of difference the unique pattern in the gray upholstery.  It echoes what some Plymouth dealers resorted to in 1970 & 1971 to shift the remaining outlandish looking Superbirds (now expensive collectable), buyers of the standard Road Runner then easier to find.  The Golf Harlequins haven’t attained quite that status but the oddballs have a following among VW enthusiasts and seem now to command a small price premium.

Made in Mexico.  1996 Volkswagen Beetle Harlequin.

There was one more Volkswagen Harlequin and it was the rarest of all.  Although production in Germany ended in 1978 (the last cabriolets sold in the US the following year), Beetle production in Brazil lasted until 1996 and in Mexico until 2003.  Officially, all of the Beetle Harlequins were produced in Mexico for the home market and it seems some 141 were made, apparently hand painted on Ginster Yellow bases.  Some have been photographed in Brazil but the factory denied involvement and, given Brazil’s long tradition of improvisation in such matters, it’s likely they were efforts by enterprising owners although it’s not impossible at least some were Mexican imports.

Lindsay Lohan in harlequin mode.  How fashion critics will react to anything beyond the defined parameters of what's thought within their range of "right" is hard to predict: most seemed to like this.

Lindsay Lohan in November 2022 appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America to promote the Netflix movie, Falling for Christmas.  What caught the eye was her outfit, the harlequinesque suit in a gallimaufry of colors from Law Roach’s (b 1978) Akris’ fall 2022 ready-to-wear collection, the assembly including a wide-lapelled jacket, turtleneck and boot cut pants fabricated in a green, yellow, red & orange drei teile (three parts) print in an irregular geometric pattern.  The distinctive look was paired with a similarly eclectic combination of accessories, chunky gold hoop earrings, a cross-body Anouk envelope handbag, and Giuseppe Zanotti platform heels.

The enveloping flare of the trousers concealed the shoes which was a shame, the Giuseppe Zanotti (b 1957) Bebe-style pumps in gloss metallic burgundy leather distinguished by 2-inch (50 mm) soles, 6-inch (150 mm) heels, open vamp, rakish counters and surprisingly delicate ankle straps.  The designer's need for the cut of the trousers to reach to the ground is noted but the shoes deserved to be seen.

Rabbit

Rabbit (pronounced rab-it)

(1) Any of several soft-furred, large-eared, rodentlike burrowing mammals of the family Leporidae, allied with the hares and pikas in the order Lagomorpha, having a divided upper lip and long hind legs, usually smaller than the hares and mainly distinguished from them by bearing blind and furless young in nests rather than fully developed young in the open.

(2) Any of various small hares.

(3) The fur of a rabbit or hare, often processed to imitate another fur.

(4) A runner in a distance race whose goal is chiefly to set a fast pace, either to exhaust a particular rival so that a teammate can win or to help another entrant break a record; pacesetter.

(5) In sport, a person poor at a sport; in cricket specifically, an unskilled batter (also as “batting bunny”, usually clipped to bunny).

(5) As Welsh rabbit, an alternative form of Welsh rarebit & Welsh ribbit (A snack made of cheese melted with a little ale and served on toast).  Welsh rabbit was the original form but was erroneously marked as a corruption in a dictionary published in 1785 although it’s not clear if the editor made the assumption or drew the conclusion from oral evidence.

(6) In nuclear engineering, a pneumatically-controlled tool used to insert small samples of material inside the core of a nuclear reactor.

(7) In computing theory, a large element at the beginning of a list of items to be bubble sorted, and thus tending to be quickly swapped into the correct position.

(8) In northern English regional slang, as “rabbit catcher”, a midwife or one who by force of circumstance assists in the delivery of a baby.

(9) As “rabbit ears”, the indoor dipole television antenna which typically sat atop the early analogue sets which received a terrestrial signal.

(10) Incessantly or nonsensically to talk.

(11) To hunt rabbits.

(12) In US slang, to flee.

1375-1425: From the late Middle English rabet & rabette, from the Anglo-Latin rabettus, from the Middle French rabouillet (baby rabbit), from the dialectal Old North French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe (rabbit, seal), of uncertain origin but which may be an imitative verb (perhaps robben or rubben (to rub)) and used to allude to a characteristic of the animal.  The related forms include the French rabot (plane), the Middle Dutch robbe (rabbit; seal (from which Modern Dutch gained rob (seal (also “rabbit”), the Middle Low German robbe & rubbe (rabbit), the later Low German Rubbe (seal), the West Frisian robbe (seal), the Saterland Frisian Rubbe (seal) and the North Frisian rob (“seal”) eventually borrowed as the German Robbe (seal).  Early dictionary editors thus described the word as “a Germanic noun with a French suffix”.  Rabbit is a noun & verb, rabbitiness is a noun, rabbited is a verb, rabbitlike & rabbity are adjectives and rabbiting is a noun & verb; the noun plural is rabbits and (especially in the collective) rab·bit.

Lindsay Lohan with rabbit.

Until the late nineteenth century, the meaning was exclusively what would now be understood as “a young rabbit” but it came to be used of the whole species, replacing the original coney, owing to the latter's resemblance to and use as a euphemism for cunny (“vulva” and linked obviously with “cunt” although despite that the preferred slang with some zoological allusion came to include “beaver”, “camel toe” and (especially) “pussy”, rather than “bunny”).  The noun coney dates from the early thirteenth century and was abstracted from the Anglo-French conis and the Old French coniz, (plurals of conil (long-eared rabbit; (Lepus cunicula)) from the Latin cuniculus, the source also of the Spanish conejo, the Portuguese coelho and the Italian coniglio), the small, Spanish variant of the Italian hare (Latin lepus).  The word may ultimately be from the Iberian Celtic although classical writers said it was Hispanic.  In Middle English the two forms were cony & conny (the derivations including coning, cunin & conyng) while the Old French had conil alongside conin.  The evolution seems to be that the plural form conis (from conil, with the -l- elided) was taken into English and regularly single-ized as cony.  The Old French form was borrowed in the Dutch konijn and the German Kaninchen (a diminutive), and is preserved in the surname Cunningham (from a place-name in Ayrshire).  Rabbits not being native to northern Europe, there was no Germanic word for them.  In the fourteenth century “rabbit” came to describe the young of the species and over the centuries came to supplant coney, a process complete by the early nineteenth.  It was another of those exercises in sanitization because in English & Welsh slang, coney had been adopted as a punning synonym for cunny (cunt).  That was complicated by it appearing in the Book of Proverbs in the King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611) so the work-around was to change the pronunciation of the original short vowel (rhyming with honey, money) to rhyme with bony, stony.  In the Old Testament, the word translates the Hebrew shaphan (rock-badger).

When Volkswagen in 1974 introduced the Golf in the North American market, it was named the Rabbit, apparently because it would thought the name would suggest qualities such as “agility, speed & playfulness” which were positive attributes in what was then (by US standards) a very small car, much smaller than the more recent versions.  Because of the international success of the Golf, when the revised model was released in 1983, the North American cars switched to that name and it’s been marketed that way since except between 2003-2008 when the Rabbit badge was revived.  The revival was in retrospect a curious choice given the obvious advantages offered by using the one name globally but at the time VW America had a rationalization: “We think we have some opportunities to do something creative with the Rabbit nameplate and recognizes the Golf nameplate has never really caught on with North American consumers as it was overshadowed by the Jetta sedan and wagon.  Volkswagen customers want a relationship with their cars and names like The Thing, Beetle, Fox and Rabbit support this."  Whatever the opportunities may have been, the linguistic experiment wasn’t continued and since 2009, it’s been Golfs all the way.

US market VW Golfs: 1974 Rabbit L (Generation 1)  (left) and 2007 Rabbit TSI (Generation 5).

There was some linguistic irony in VW’s choice because as the US satirist & critic HL Mencken (1880–1956) pointed out in The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (1919): “Zoologically speaking, there are no native rabbits in the United States; they are all hares. But the early colonists, for some unknown reason, dropped the word hare out of their vocabulary, and it is rarely heard in American speech to this day. When it appears it is almost always applied to the so-called Belgian hare, which, curiously enough, is not a hare at all, but a true rabbit.”

The White Rabbit was a character in Lewis Carroll’s (1832–1898) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and one which appears often, always in a waistcoat with pocket watch and in a hurry, fearful always of the impending fury the duchess will visit upon him should he be a moment late.  It’s the white rabbit which Alice follows down the rabbit hole, leading to the bizarre adventures recounted.  One of popular culture’s best-known rabbits gave rise to the phrase “bunny boiler”, a reference to the scene in the film Fatal Attraction (1987) in which a scorned woman revenged herself upon her adulterous ex-lover by tossing his daughter’s pet rabbit into a pot of boiling water; he arrives home to discover a boiled bunny.  The Warner Brother cartoon character Bugs Bunny first appeared on the screen in 1938 and is often described by his shotgun wielding antagonist, the lisping Elmer Fudd, as "that wascally wabbit".

In idiomatic use there’s “pull a rabbit out of the hat” (to find or obtain a sudden solution to a problem), “rabbit-hearted” (someone timid or inclined to be flighty), “rabbit food” (a disapproving view of vegetables held by some meat-eaters), “the rabbit test” (an early pregnancy test involving the injection of the tested woman's urine into a female rabbit, then examining the rabbit's ovaries a few days later for changes in response to a hormone (“the rabbit died” the phrase indicating a positive test or an admission of one’s pregnancy)), “breed like rabbits” (slang for an individual, family, or sub-group of a population with a high birth-rate), “down the rabbit hole” (a time-consuming tangent or detour, often one from which it’s psychologically difficult to extricate oneself), “lucky rabbit’s foot”, (the carrying of a luckless bunny’s preserved rabbit’s foot as a lucky charm), “like a rabbit warren” (a confusingly labyrinthine environment (used literally & figuratively)), “rabbit in the headlights” (an allusion to the way rabbits (like some other wildlife) sometimes “freeze” when caught in the light of an oncoming vehicle’s headlamps) and the inevitable “rabbit fucker” (a general term of disparagement (although it could be applied literally in the right circumstances)).

The “earless” rabbit with “eared” companions.

In May 2011, some weeks after the meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant which suffered severe damage in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, a video of an “earless rabbit” began to circulate, purportedly captured in an area just beyond the crippled plant’s exclusion area.  The immediate speculation was of course the creature’s unusual state was a result of a radiation-induced genetic mutation.  Geneticists however had a less troubling explanation.  Although there’s no doubt the radiation emitting from Fukushima Dai-ichi (some 225 kilometres (140 miles) north-east of Tokyo) represents a major risk to health and the long-term environmental effects remain unclear, the scientists say not only is it unlikely to be linked with the earless rabbit, such creatures are far from unusual.  According to a  statement issued from Colorado State University's Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences: “…radiation can cause mutations that can be occasionally expressed as obvious birth defects, such as shown in the video.  However, to say this is the result of contamination from the Fukushima accident is a stretch, because natural radiation, as well as many other chemical substances in the environment and other factors, can also be mutagenic.  In most cases, the cause of congenital birth defects in humans and other animals cannot be determined and as far as science has shown, there have never been mutations produced by ionizing radiations that do not occur spontaneously as well.”

Rabbits used in nuclear reactors: Polyethylene 1-inch (25 mm) rabbit (left), Polyethylene 2-inch (50 mm) rabbit (centre) and Titanium 2-inch (50 mm) rabbit.

The rabbit does though have a place in nuclear engineering.  In the industry, the term “rabbit” is used to describe a range of pneumatically controlled tools which are used remotely to insert or retrieve items from a nuclear reactor or other radioactive environments.  The name is thought to come from the devices being tubular (on the model of the rabbit borrow) which allows samples rapidly to be injected into the periphery of a reactor core, the injectables moving “with the speed of startled rabbits” although there may also be the implication of rabbits as expendable creatures, the tool essential for maintenance, inspection, and repair tasks in nuclear facilities, where direct human intervention is either dangerous or impossible because of high radiation levels.

Winston Churchill inspecting the progress of project White Rabbit No, 6, Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, England, November 1941.

The World War II (1939-1945) era White Rabbit No. 6 was an engineering project by the British Admiralty although as a security measure the official code-name was changed to Cultivator No. 6 to make it sound less mysterious and more like a piece of agricultural equipment.  It was a military trench-digging machine and an example of the adage that “generals are always preparing to fight the last war” and although designed exclusively for army use on (and at least partially under) land, it came under the auspices of the Royal Navy because it was a brainchild (one of many) of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who, between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his assumption of the premiership some months later, served as First Lord of the Admiralty (the service’s civilian head).  Trenches and artillery had been the two dominant features of World War I (1914-1918) and Churchill had spent some months (1915-1916) in one of the former while under fire from the latter while commanding a battalion; before the implications of mechanization and the German’s Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics were apparent, he assumed the new war in France would unfold something like the old, thus the interest in something which would “revolutionize trench warfare”.  Trench warfare however wasn’t repeated so White Rabbit No.6 was soon realized to be already obsolete and the project was abandoned and although the most fully developed of the prototypes did perform according to the design parameters, whether it would have been effective remains doubtful; remarkably, work on these things wasn’t wholly abandoned until 1942.  The “White Rabbit” project codes came from Churchill’s sense of humor, his ideas coming, as he said: “like rabbits I pull from my hat” and he supported many, some of which were of great military value while others, like the “floating runways” (artificial icebergs made with a mixture of shards of timber & frozen water), were quixotic.

White Rabbit © Copperpenny Music, Mole Music Co

Surrealistic Pillow album cover, 1967.

White Rabbit was a song by Grace Slick (b 1939) and released on the album Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane.  The lyrics were inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871).  It was the psychedelic era and drug references were common in popular music and in the case of White Rabbit it may have been appropriate if the speculation the books been written while the author was under the influence of Laudanum (a then widely-available opiate-infused drug) is true (there's no evidence beyond the circumstantial).  Given the imagery in the text, it’s not difficult to believe he may have been on something and among authors and poets it was a popular way to stimulate the imagination, inspiring at least some of one of the most beloved fragments of English verse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) Kubla Khan (1797) which ends abruptly at 54 lines.  According to Coleridge, he was unable to recall the rest of the 300-odd which had come to him in an opium-laced dream (the original publication was sub-titled “A Vision in a Dream”) because he was interrupted by “a person on business from Porlock” (a nearby Somerset village).  Grace Slick would have sympathized with an artist being intruded on by commerce.

White Rabbit lyrics:

One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small

And the ones that mother gives you

Don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice

When she's ten feet tall

 

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall

Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call

Call Alice

When she was just small

 

When the men on the chessboard

Get up and tell you where to go

And you've just had some kind of mushroom

And your mind is moving low

Go ask Alice

I think she'll know

 

When logic and proportion

Have fallen sloppy dead

And the White Knight is talking backwards

And the Red Queen's off with her head

Remember what the dormouse said

Feed your head