Sauce

Sauce (pronounced saws)

(1) Any preparation, now presented almost always as a liquid or semi-liquid, added in a variety of way to food to enhance (sometimes disguise) the taste or accentuate the texture.

(2) Stewed fruit, often puréed and served as an accompaniment to meat, dessert, or other food (always with a modifier: apple sauce, cranberry sauce et al).

(3) Figuratively, to make poignant; to give zest, flavor or interest to; to set off; to vary and render attractive.

(4) In informal use, (usually as saucy or sauciness), impertinence; impudence, defiant cheekiness etc.

(5) In the slang of bodybuilding, anabolic steroids or compounds with similar effects.

(6) In the slang of drug users, a variety of substances, usually those taken in liquid form.

(7) In slang (usually as “the sauce” or “on the sauce”) alcoholic drink.

(8) In slang as “the sauce” or “secret sauce”, some additive or attribute which imparts to someone or something a particular vitality or capability.

(9) In slang, to send or hand over (now rare).

(10) In the slang of the internet, an alternative form of source, often used when requesting the source of an image or other posted material (a use mysterious to those over a certain age).

(11) In art, a soft crayon for use in stump drawing or in shading with the stump.

(12) Garden vegetables eaten with meat (archaic and effectively extinct although examples have been cited in “retro” menus).

(13) To dress or prepare with sauce (historically also as “to season”.

(14) To make a sauce of (fruits, vegetables etc).

(15) To give piquance or zest to something (not necessarily something edible); To cause to relish anything, as if with a sauce; to tickle or gratify, as the palate; to please; to stimulate.

(16) To make something more agreeable or seem less harsh (often as “sauced up” or “sauce it up”).

1300–1350: From the Middle English, from the Middle French, from the Old French sauce, sausse & sause, from the Vulgar Latin salsa (things salted, salt food), noun use of feminine of the Latin salsus (salted), the past participle of sallere (to sprinkle with salt), from sāl (genitive salis), from the primitive Indo-European root sal-(salt).  The spelling sawce is obsolete.  Sauce is a noun & verb, sauced & saucing are verbs and oversauced & sauceless are adjectives; the noun plural is sauces.

Dave’s Gourmet White Truffle Marinara Sauce.

A pasta sauce said to be hand-made using artisanal techniques, it contains vine-ripened tomatoes, white truffle and edible gold flakes.  Offered only in a one-off limited-edition and supplied in a hand-crafted wooden box, the RRP (recommended retail price) was US$1000 per jar.

The original use of "sauce" was to describe the food condiment and until the early eighteenth century the spellings sawce & salse remained common in English, reflecting the influence of French cookery terms.  The seemingly mysterious seventeenth century use of sauce to mean “garden vegetables or roots” was a clipping of “garden-sauce”, the idea being that like a liquid sauce, the vegetables worked as a condiment to the meat.  From the late fourteenth century, it was used to describe “a curative preparation, medicinal salt”, referencing also the use in Antiquity to use (salsa) salt to preserve food.  The figurative meaning “something which adds piquancy to words or actions” was in use by the early sixteenth century while the sense of “impertinence” was first recorded in 1835 although etymologists note the connection of ideas in it is much older.  The use related to liquor (“back on the sauce” etc)" emerged during World War II (1939-1945).  The figurative phrase “serued with the same sauce” (subject to the same kind of usage) was in use by the 1520s while the more enduring “what’s sauce of the goose is sauce for the gander” (one who treats others in a certain way should not complain about receiving the same treatment) was first recorded in the 1670s.  William Shakespeare (1564–1616) used “saucy” to indicate a character’s was hot-tempered or impetuous, such as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1597) or Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew (1592).  That use persists but “saucy” is now used also (of women) to suggest a quality of a confident sexiness.

Swamp Dragon's Second Edition Private Reserve Hot Sauce.

The title of "world's hottest sauce" is often contested and chilli breeders are always working to create ever more aggressive peppers.  Blended with a measure of the over-proof dark rum once distilled for the Royal Navy, given the arms race in the field, whether it's still the hottest is doubtful but it apparently remains the most expensive yet advertised at US$500 per bottle.  Unfortunately, it's now sold out so doubtlessly a foodie collectors' item.

In idiomatic use, the now archaic Australian phrase “fair shake of the sauce bottle” was a complaint that one’s fish & chips, meat pie or whatever hadn’t been provided with enough tomato sauce, a cultural comment of some historic significance given the stuff’s role as the nation’s standard all-purpose additive.  The phrase fell from use and is remembered only by the boomer generation and their seniors but it garnered some brief attention when in a television interview Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013) used “fair suck of the sauce bottle”, a variant of “fair suck of the sav”, the idea of that the echo of a complaint once heard from children who believed their sibling might be taking more than their fair portion of a shared saveloy (a type of sausage which in Australia is something like a bigger and more seasoned frankfurter).  The word was a corruption of cervelat (Swiss smoked beef or pork sausage) or the French cervelas (a thick, short sausage) and the name is probably in some way connected with the region of Savoy (which, with border changes, now straddles areas in Italy, France & Switzerland).  Sucking from a sauce bottle is a vivid image, especially if it contains something like chilli sauce.

Quite how many varieties of sauce now exist or have existed isn’t known but it is certainly at least in the hundreds.  The classes include generic indications of use (fish sauce), color (pink sauce), alleged history (admiral's sauce), content (mint sauce), the manufacturer’s name (HP sauce), built in advertising (awesome sauce), identifier or warning (hot sauce), regionalism (Prussian sauce), occasion (coronation sauce), imagery (thousand island sauce), perception (fancy sauce), assertions (magic sauce), strength (XXX sauce) or a specific recipe type (Worcestershire sauce).  Sauce is served in a sauce boat; if serving gravy, then the implement is called a gravyboat.   Some can genuinely be mysterious such as Jezebel sauce, found mostly in the US, south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Made usually with a mix of pineapple preserves, apple jelly, horseradish, and mustard, it's a condiment with a hot, sweet & saucy character and thus thought an allusion to the reputation of the Biblical Jezebel, the wickedness of whom is recounted in 1 Kings 21:5–16.  She was sort of the crooked Hillary Clinton of her time.

In some markets, tomato sauce is called "tomato ketchup" (in general use almost always clipped to "ketchup").  In 2004, US food processing company HJ Heinz conducted its "Four stars fall for Heinz Ketchup" promotion with the debut of Heinz's new Celebrity Talking Labels.  Former Pittsburgh Steelers National Football League (NFL) quarterback Terry Bradshaw (b 1948), dual Olympic gold medalist, and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion Mia Hamm (b 1972), actor William Shatner (b 1931) and actor Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) were the subjects of the talking labels campaign and the range was released in what Heinz said were "limited-edition bottles of the condiment", each featuring labels with quotes from each celebrity.  The promotion was well-received and extended until 2006 when Heinz offered consumers the opportunity to create their own labels by ordering customized bottles through a page on the Heinz website.

Although lexicographers, chefs and the authors of cook books will tend to be precise, in general use there’s likely sometimes some overlap in the use of “dressing”, “sauce”, “gravy”, “mayonnaise” & “relish”.  As a general principle, the following characteristics of each is an at least indicative list:  A dressing is a liquid or semi-liquid mixture used to flavor and enhance salads or other dishes and made usually with a combination of oil, vinegar, herbs, spices, and other flavorings, the common types including vinaigrette, ranch & Caesar.  A sauce is a thickened liquid or semi-solid food item that accompanies or is used to enhance the flavor of other foods.  Sauces may be savory or sweet and are served both hot & cold, made from a close to limitless number of ingredients such as tomatoes, cream, stock, fruits, or vegetables.  As an example of the wide range of types, at the one meal one may encounter both barbecue sauce, and chocolate sauce.  Gravy is a particular type of sauce, made classically from juices of cooked meat combined with flour or cornstarch, combined sometimes with a liquid such as broth, milk or cream.  Most associated with meat, it’s commonly served also with chips or mashed potatoes and depending on the intended purpose gravies can be seasoned with herbs, spices or even flavorings such as fruit to enhance the taste.  Mayonnaise is a usually thick, creamy condiment made from oil, condensed milk, egg yolks, vinegar or lemon juice, and seasonings.  Most mayonnaise has a richness to the flavor although some can be sweet and some tart.  Relish is made from chopped fruits or vegetables that are pickled or cooked with vinegar, sugar, and spices and while most are in some way tangy with a hint of sweetness, there are some which are very sweet.  Relishes are extensively used in cooking but the most popular use is as a topping or accompaniment to dishes like hot dogs, hamburgers or sandwiches.  Pickled cucumbers are a popular ingredient as is corn and one of the best known relishes is chutney, of Indian origin and from the Hindi चटनी (caṭnī).

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 

Nu en Jaune (Nude in Yellow (1908)), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay, Musée d'Arts de Nantes (The Museum of fine arts, Nantes, France).

In the sense the colourful Volkswagens are understood, “harlequin” cars predate not only the ventures of the 1990s which came at the dawn of the internet as a mass-market commodity but even the advertisement of 1960.  French artist Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) was born in Odessa but was adopted by a rich uncle, became multi-lingual, toured the great capitals of Europe and at 18 entered the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe State Academy of Art) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.  After two years, she enrolled at the Académie de La Palette (The Palette Academy; 1888-1925) in Paris which had begun as a progressive art school but early in the century it evolved into a kind of finishing school (an “un foutu terrain de reproduction” (a damned breeding ground) according to some critics) for the avant-garde; the alumni of this short-lived institution is a notable list.

The Ball (1913 and originally Le Bal Bullier (a Parisian ballroom)), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay, Centre Pompidou, Paris.  Some 3½ m (12 feet) wide, it is a classic piece in the school of Orphism.   

Delaunay’s early work reflected both her academic training and the influences swirling around her but what was always striking was her use of color and a reluctance to adhere to the naturalistic.  These tendencies manifested especially in her role as one of the leading practitioners of Orphism, a fork of Cubism which usually is described as an exercise in pure abstraction rendered in vivid colors.  It was in part a reaction to the focus of the mainstream cubist artists on substantive subjects such as people or physical objects and their obvious aversion to using multiple color but as often seems to happen, Orphism did seem to evolve into of l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake).  Orphism seems to have been the at least the conduit through which Delaunay left the world of fine art an applied her talents to fashion, publications, fabrics, wallpaper industrial structures and machines, some of the most memorable of which were cars.

Escarpins (Court Shoes 1925) by Sonia Delaunay, Musée de la mode et du textile, Paris (Museum of Fashion and Textiles, 1905-1986) (left) and Propeller (Air Pavilion) (1937), oil on canvas by Sonia Delaunay, a wall-sized work painted for the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques (International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques Applied to Modern Life) (right). 

From Orphism she brought what she called “simultaneity”, the exercise of the interplay of colors, shapes and textures within the one visual space", a dynamic she would play with when posing with some of her creations, wearing clothing also rendered in the “simultaneity” style.  Even early in the century there had been “stunts” and debates about “what is art” and there is much in what Delaunay produced which can be seen as a precursor to later movements like surrealism and pop art although for those who want to deconstruct as reductively as the record allows, in a sense the path from some elements in prehistoric cave drawings to Dame Vivienne Westwood (1941–2022)  is lineal (with the odd diversion).

Vogue, January 1925, cover art by Georges Lepape.

Cars were among the many machines Delaunay decorated.  Triangles (and the diamond shapes they could combine to create) were one of the notable motifs of the art deco era.  From the start, Vogue was of course about frocks, shoes and such but its influence extended over the years to fields as diverse as interior decorating and industrial design.  The work of Georges Lepape (1887-1971) has long been strangely neglected in the history of art deco but he was a fine practitioner whose reputation probably suffered because his compositions have always been regarded as derivative or imitative which seems unfair given there are many who are more highly regarded despite being hardly original.  His cover art for Vogue’s edition of 1 January 1925 juxtaposed one of Delaunay’s (1885–1979) "simultaneous" pattern dresses and a Voisin roadster she'd decorated with an art deco motif.

1927 Voisin C14 Lumineuse,

One collector in 2015 was so taken with Pepape’s image that when refurbishing his Voisin C14 Lumineuse (literally “light”, an allusion to the Voisin’s greenhouse-inspired design which allowed natural light to fill the interior), he commissioned Dutch artist Bernadette Ramaekers to hand-paint a geometric triangular pattern in sympathy with that on the Vogue cover in 1925.  Ms Ramaekers took six months to complete the project and in 2022 the car sold at auction for £202,500 (US$230,000).  Produced during the whole inter-war period (1919-1939), the Voisin cars were among the most strikingly memorable of the era although for a variety of reasons, commercial viability was often marginal.  The demise was unfortunate because a manufacturer which once contemplated production of a straight-twelve engine deserved to survive.

Making the strange stranger.

There have been a few French cars which looked weirder than the Matra 530 (1967-1973 and not to be confused with the rather faster Matra R.530 air-to-air missile after which it was named) but the small, mid-engined sports car was visually strange enough although, almost sixty years on, it has aged rather well and the appearance would by most plausibly be accepted as something decades younger.  In 1968, Matra's CEO Jean-Luc Lagardère (1928–2003) commissioned Delaunay to use a 530 as a canvas and she delivered a harlequinesque creation.  The Matra is sometimes displayed though it wasn’t an exhibit at the Sonia Delaunay Tate Modern retrospective (April-August 2015), remarkably the first time her work had been showcased by an English gallery.  Had she been a man, it’s likely she’d be more celebrated.

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.

TikToker

TikToker (pronounced tik-tok-ah)

(1) One who is a regular or frequent viewer of the content posted on the short-form video (which, with mission-creep, can no been up to ten (10) minutes in duration) sharing site TikTok.com.

(2) One who is a regular or frequent content provider on the TikTok platform.

(3) With a variety of spellings (ticktocker, tictoker, tiktoka etc), a slang term for a clock or watch, derived from the alternating ticking sound, as that made by a clock (archaic).

(4) In computing, with the spelling ticktocker (or ticktocker), slang for a software element which emulates the sound of a ticking clock, used usually in conjunction with digitals depictions of analogue clocks.

2018: The ancestor form (ticktock or tick-tock) seems not to have been used until the mid-nineteenth century and was purely imitative of the sound of mechanical clocks. Tick (in the sense of "a quiet but sharp sound") was from the Middle English tek (light touch, tap) and tock was also onomatopoeic; when used in conjunction with tick was a reference to the clicking sounds similar to those made by the movements of a mechanical clock.  The use of TikToker (in the sense of relating to users (consumers & content providers) of the short-form video (which, with mission-creep, can be up to ten (10) minutes in duration) sharing site TikTok.com probably began in 2018 (the first documented reference) although it may early have been in oral use.  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  TikToker is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is TikTokers (the mixed upper & lower case is correct by commercial convention but not always followed).  The PRC- (People’s Republic of China) based holding company ByteDance is said to have chosen the name “TikTok” because it was something suggestive of the “short, snappy” nature of the platform’s content; they understood the target market and its alleged attention span (which, like the memory famously associated with goldfish might be misleading).

Billie Eilish, Vogue, June, 2021.

Those who use TikTok (whether as content providers & consumers) are called “tiktokers” and the longer the aggregate duration of one’s engagement with the platform, the more of a tiktoker one is.  The formation followed the earlier, self-explanatory “YouTuber” and the use for similar purposes (indicating association) for at least decades.  So the noun tiktoker is a neutral descriptor but it can also be used as a slur.   In February 2024, at the People’s Choice Awards ceremony held in Los Angeles, singer Billie Eilish (b 2001) was filmed leaning over to Kylie Minogue (b 1968) ,making the sotto voce remark “There’s some, like, TikTokers here…” with the sort of distaste Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) might have displayed if pointing out to her sympatetic the unpleasing presence of peasants.  The clip went viral on X (formerly known as Twitter) before spreading to Tiktok.  Clearly there is a feeling of hierarchy in the industry and her comments triggered some discussion about the place of essentially amateur content creators at mainstream Hollywood events.  That may sound strange given that a platform like TikTok would, prima facie, seem the very definition of the “people’s choice” but these events have their own history, associations and implications and what social media sites have done to the distribution models has been quite a disturbance and many established players, even some who have to some extent benefited from the platforms, find the intrusion of the “plague of TikTokers” disturbing.

Pop Crave's clip of the moment, Billie Eilish & Kylie Minogue, People's Choice Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, February 2024.

There will be layers to Ms Eilish’s view.  One is explained in terms of mere proximity, the segregation of pop culture celebrities into “A List”, B List, D List” etc an important component of the creation and maintenance of one’s public image and an A Lister like her would not appreciate being photographed at an event with those well down the alphabet sitting at the next table; it cheapens her image.  Properly managed, these images can translate into millions (and these days even billions) of dollars so this is not a matter of mere vanity and something for awards ceremonies to consider; if the TikTokers come to be seen as devaluing their brand to the extent the A Listers ignore their invitations, the events either have to move to a down-market niche or just be cancelled.  Marshall McLuhan’s (1911-1980) book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) pre-dates social media by decades but its best-remembered phrase (“The medium is the message”) could have been designed for the era, the idea being that the medium on which content is distributed should be first point of understanding significance, rather than actual content.  McLuhan’s point was that the initial assessment of the veracity or the value of something relies on its source.  In the case of pop music, this meant a song distributed by a major label possessed an inherent credibility and prestige in a way something sung by a busker in a train station did not.  What the existence of YouTube and TikTok meant was the buskers and the artists signed to the labels suddenly began to appear on the same medium, thus at some level gaining some sort of equivalency.  On TikTok, it’s all the same screen.

Ms Eilish and her label has been adept at using the socials as tool for this and that so presumably neither object to the existence or the technology of the sites (although her label (Universal Music) has only recently settled its dispute with TikTok over the revenue sharing) but there will be an understanding that while there’s now no alternative to in a sense sharing the digital space and letting the people choose, that doesn’t mean she’ll be happy about being in the same photo frame when the trophies are handed out.  Clearly, there are stars and there are TikTokers and while the latter can (and have) become the former, there are barriers not all can cross.

1966 Jaguar Mark X 4.2 (left), 1968 Dodge Charger RT 440 (centre) and 1981 Mercedes-Benz 500 SLC (right).  Only the Americans called the shared tachometer/clock a “Tic-Toc Tach”.

Jaguar had long been locating a small clock at the bottom of the tachometer but in 1963 began to move the device to the centre of the dashboard, phasing in the change as models were updated or replaced.  By 1968 the horological shift was almost complete (only the last of the Mark II (now known as 240, 340 & Daimler V8 250 models still with the shared dial) and it was then Chrysler adopted the idea although, with a flair the British never showed, the called it the "Tic-Toc-Tachometer.  Popularly known as the “Tic-Toc Tach”, it was also used by other US manufacturers during the era, the attraction being an economical use of dash space, the clock fitting in a space at the centre of the tachometer dial which would otherwise be unused.  Mercedes-Benz picked up the concept in 1971 when the 350 SL (R107) was introduced and it spread throughout the range, universal after 1981 when production of the 600 (W100) ended.  Mercedes-Benz would for decades use the shared instrument.  A tachometer (often called a “rev counter”) is a device for measuring the revolutions per minute (RPMs) of a revolving shaft such as the crankshaft of an internal combustion engine (ICE) (thus determining the “engine speed”).  The construct was tacho- (an alternative form of tachy-, from the Ancient Greek ταχύς (takhús) (rapid) + meter (the suffix from the Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron) (measure) used to form the names of measuring devices).

Conventions in English and Ablaut Reduplication

In 2016, the BBC explained why we always say “tick tock” rather than “tock-tic” although, based on the ticking of the clocks at the time the phrase originated, there would seem to be no objective reasons why one would prevail over the other but the “rule” can be constructed thus: “If there are three words then the order has to go I, A, O.  If there are two words then the first is I and the second is either A or O which is why we enjoy mish-mash, chit-chat, clip-clop, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, tip-top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tic tac, sing song, ding dong, King Kong & ping pong.  Obviously, the “rule” is unwritten so may be better thought a convention such as the one which dictates why the words in “Little Red Riding Hood” appear in the familiar order; there the convention specifies that in English, adjectives run in the textual string: opinion; size; age; shape; colour; origin; material; purpose noun.  Thus there are “little green men” but no “green little men” and if “big bad wolf” is cited as a violation of the required “opinion (bad); size (big); noun (wolf)” wolf, that’s because the I-A-O convention prevails, something the BBC explains with a number of examples, concluding “Maybe the I, A, O sequence just sounds more pleasing to the ear.”, a significant factor in the evolution of much that is modern English (although that hardly accounts for the enduring affection some have for proscribing the split infinitive, something which really has no rational basis in English, ancient or modern.  All this is drawn from what is in structural linguistics called “Ablaut Reduplication” (the first vowel is almost always a high vowel and the reduplicated vowel is a low vowel) but, being English, “there are exceptions” so the pragmatic “more pleasing to the ear” may be more helpful in general conversation.

Lindsay Lohan announces she is now a Tiktoker.

Rolls-Royce, the Ford LTD and NVH

Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II, 1959.  Interestingly, the superseded Silver Cloud (1955-1958) might have been quieter still because the new, all-aluminium 6¼ litre (380 cubic inch) V8 didn’t match the smoothness & silence of the previous cast iron, 4.9 litre (300 cubic inch) straight-six.

The “tick-tocking” sound of a clock was for some years a feature of the advertising campaigns of the Rolls-Royce Motor Company, the hook being that: “At 60 mph (100 km/h) the loudest noise in a Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”.  Under ideal conditions, that was apparently true but given electric clocks can be engineered to function silently, the conclusion was the company fitted time-pieces which made a deliberately loud “tick-tock” sound, just to ensure the claims were true.  They certainly were, by the standards of the time, very quiet vehicles but in the US, Ford decided they could mass-produce something quieter still and at the fraction of the cost.  Thus the 1965 Ford LTD, a blinged-up Ford (intruding into the market segment the corporation had previously allocated to the companion Mercury brand), advertised as: “Quieter than a Rolls-Royce”.  Just to ensure this wasn’t dismissed as mere puffery, Ford had an independent acoustic engineering company conduct tests and gleefully published the results, confirming what the decibel (dB) meters recorded.  Sure enough, a 1965 Ford LTD was quieter than a 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III.  Notably, while Rolls-Royce offered only one mechanical configuration while the Ford was tested only when fitted with the mild-mannered 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) V8; had the procedure included another variation on the full-size line which used the 427 (7.0) V8, the results would have been different, the raucous 427 having many charms but they didn’t include unobtrusiveness.

1965 Ford LTD (technically a “Galaxie 500 LTD” because in the first season the LTD was a Galaxie option, not becoming a stand-alone model until the 1966 model year).

Ford did deserve some credit for what was achieved in 1965 because it wasn’t just a matter of added sound insulation.  The previous models had a good reputation for handling and durability but couldn’t match the smoothness of the competitive Chevrolets so within Ford a department dedicated to what came to be called HVH (Noise, Vibration & Harshness) was created and this team cooperated in what would now be understood as a “multi-disciplinary” effort, working with body engineers and suspension designers to ensure all components worked in harmony to minimize NVH.  What emerged was a BoF (Body on Frame) platform, a surprise to some as the industry trend had been towards unitary construction to ensure the stiffest possible structure but the combination of the frame’s rubber body-mounts, robust torque boxes and a new, compliant, coil rear suspension delivered what was acknowledged as the industry’s quietest, smoothest ride.  Ford didn’t mention the tick-tock of the clock.