Inkhorn

Inkhorn (pronounced ingk-hawrn)

A small container of horn or other material (the early version would literally have been hollowed-out horns from animals), formerly used to hold writing ink.

1350-1400: From the Middle English ynkhorn & inkehorn (small portable vessel, originally made of horn, used to hold ink), the construct being ink +‎ horn.  It displaced the Old English blæchorn, which had the same literal meaning but used the native term for “ink”.  It was used attributively from the 1540s as an adjective for things (especially vocabulary) supposed to be beloved by scribblers, pedants, bookworms and the “excessively educated”).  Inkhorn, inkhornery & inkhornism are nouns, inkhornish & inkhornesque are adjectives and inkhornize is a verb; the noun plural is inkhorns.

Ink was from the Middle English ynke, from the Old French enque, from the Latin encaustum (purple ink used by Roman emperors to sign documents), from the Ancient Greek ἔγκαυστον (énkauston) (burned-in”), the construct being ἐν (en) (in) + καίω (kaíō) (burn). In this sense, the word displaced the native Old English blæc (ink (literally “black” because while not all inks were black, most tended to be).  Ink came ultimately from a Greek form meaning “branding iron”, one of the devices which should make us grateful for modern medicine.  Because, in addition to using the kauterion to cauterize (seal wounds with heat), essentially the same process was used to seal fast the colors used in paintings.  Then, the standard method was to use wax colors fixed with heat (encauston (burned in)) and in Latin this became encaustum which came to be used to describe the purple ink with which Roman emperors would sign official documents.  In the Old French, encaustum became enque which English picked up as enke & inke which via ynk & ynke, became the modern “ink”.  Horn was from the Middle English horn & horne, from the Old English horn, from the Proto-West Germanic horn, from the Proto-Germanic hurną; it was related to the West Frisian hoarn, the Dutch hoorn, the Low German Hoorn, horn, the German, Danish & Swedish horn and the Gothic haurn.  It was ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ḱr̥h-nó-m, from ḱerh- (head, horn) and should be compared with the Breton kern (horn), the Latin cornū, the Ancient Greek κέρας (kéras), the Proto-Slavic sьrna, the Old Church Slavonic сьрна (sĭrna) (roedeer), the Hittite surna (horn), the Persian سر (sar) and the Sanskrit शृङ्ग (śṛṅga) (horn

Inkhorn terms & inkhorn words

The phrase “inkhorn term” days from the 1530s and was used to criticize the use of language in an obscure or way difficult for most to understand, usually by an affected or ostentatiously erudite borrowing from another language, especially Latin or Greek.  The companion term “inkhorn word” was used of such individual words and in modern linguistics the whole field is covered by such phrases as “lexiphanic term”, “pedantic term” & “scholarly term”, all presumably necessary now inkhorns are rarely seen.  Etymologists are divided on the original idea behind the meaning of “inkhorn term” & “inkhorn word”.  One faction holds that because the offending words tended to be long or at least multi-syllabic, a scribe would need more than once to dip their nib into the horn in order completely write things down while the alternative view is that because the inkhorn users were, by definition, literate, they were viewed sometimes with scepticism, one suspicion they used obscure or foreign words to confuse or deceive the less educated.  The derived forms are among the more delightful in English and include inkhornism, inkhornish, inkhornery inkhornesque & inkhornize.  The companion word is sesquipedalianism (a marginal propensity to use humongous words).

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Inkhorn words were in the fourteenth & fifteenth centuries known also as “gallipot words”, derived from the use of such words on apothecaries' jars, the construct being galli(s) + pot.  Gallis was from the Latin gallus (rooster or cock (male chicken)), from the Proto-Italic galsos, an enlargement of gl̥s-o-, zero-grade of the primitive Indo-European gols-o-, from gelh- (to call); it can be compared with the Proto-Balto-Slavic galsas (voice), the Proto-Germanic kalzōną (to call), the Albanian gjuhë (tongue; language), and (although this is contested) the Welsh galw (call).  Appearing usually in the plural a gallipot word was something long, hard to pronounce, obscure or otherwise mysterious, the implication being it was being deployed gratuitously to convey the impression of being learned.  The companion insult was “you talk like an apothecary” and “apothecary's Latin” was a version of the tongue spoken badly or brutishly (synonymous with “bog Latin” or “dog Latin” but different from “schoolboy Latin” & “barracks Latin”, the latter two being humorous constructions, the creators proud of their deliberate errors).  The curious route which led to “gallipot” referencing big words was via the rooster being the symbol used by apothecaries in medieval and Renaissance Europe, appearing on their shop signs, jars & pots.  That was adopted by the profession because the rooster symbolized vigilance, crowing (hopefully) at dawn, signaling the beginning of the day and thus the need for attentiveness and care.  Apothecaries, responsible for preparing and dispensing medicinal remedies, were expected to be vigilant and attentive to detail in their work to ensure the health and well-being of their patients who relied on their skill to provided them the potions to “get them up every morning” in sound health.  Not all historians are impressing by the tale and say a more convincing link is that in Greek mythology, the rooster was sacred to Asclepius (Aesdulapius in the Latin), the god of medicine, and was often depicted in association with him.  In some tales, Asclepius had what was, even by the standards of the myths of Antiquity, a difficult birth and troubled childhood.

The quest for the use of “plain English” is not new.  The English diplomat and judge Thomas Wilson (1524–1581) wrote The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), remembered as the “the first complete works on logic and rhetoric in English” and in it he observed the first lesson to be learned was never to affect “any straunge ynkhorne termes, but to speak as is commonly received.”  Wring a decade earlier, the English bishop John Bale (1495–1563) had already lent an ecclesiastical imprimatur to the task, condemning one needlessly elaborate text with: “Soche are your Ynkehorne termes” and that may be the first appearance of the term in writing.  A religious reformer of some note, he was nicknamed “bilious Bale”, a moniker which politicians must since have been tempted to apply to many reverend & right-reverend gentlemen.  A half millennium on, the goal of persuading all to use “plain English” is not yet achieved and a fine practitioner of the art was Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013): from no one else would one be likely to hear the phrase “detailed programmatic specificity” and to really impress he made sure he spoke it to an audience largely of those for whom English was not a first language.

An inkhorn attributed to Qes Felege, a scribe and craftsman.

Animal horns were for millennia re-purposed for all sorts of uses including as drinking vessels, gunpowder stores & loaders, musical instruments and military decoration and in that last role they’ve evolved into a political fashion statement, Jacob Chansley (b 1988; the “QAnon Shaman”) remembered for the horned headdress worn during the attack on the United States Capitol building in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.  Inkhorns tended variously to be made from the horns of sheep or oxen, storing the ink when not as use and ideal as a receptacle into which the nib of a quill or pen could be dipped.  Given the impurities likely then to exist a small stick or nail was left in the horn to stir away any surface film which might disrupts a nib’s ability to take in free-flowing ink, most of which were not pre-packaged products by mixed by the user from a small solid “cake” of the base substance in the desired color, put into the horn with a measure starchy water and left overnight to dissolve.  The sharp point of a horn allowed it to be driven into the ground because the many scribes were not desk-bound and actually travelled from place to place to do their writing, quill and inkhorn their tools of trade.

A mid-Victorian (1837-1901) silver plated three-vat inkwell by George Richards Elkington (1801–1865) of Birmingham, England.  The cast frame is of a rounded rectangular form with outset corners, leaf and cabuchons, leaf scroll handle and conforming pen rest.  The dealer offering this piece described the vats as being of "Vaseline" glass with fruit cast lids and in the Elkington factory archives, this is registered: "8 Victoria Chap 17. No. 899, 1 November 1841".

“Vaseline glass” is a term describing certain glasses in a transparent yellow to yellow-green color attained by virtue of a uranium content.  It's an often used descriptor in the antique business because some find the word “uranium” off-putting although inherently the substance is safe, the only danger coming from being scratched by a broken shard.  Also, some of the most vivid shades of green are achieved by the addition of a colorant (usually iron) and these the cognoscenti insist should be styled “Depression Glass” a term which has little appeal to antique dealers.  The term “Vaseline glass” wasn’t used prior to the 1950s (after the detonation of the first A-bombs in 1945, there emerged an aversion to being close to uranium) and what's used in this inkwell may actually be custard glass or Burmese glass which is opaque whereas Vaseline glass is transparent.  Canary glass was first used in the 1840s as the trade name for Vaseline glass, a term which would have been unknown to George Richards Elkington.

English silver plate horn and dolphin inkwell (circa 1909) with bell, double inkwell on wood base with plaque dated 1909.  This is an inkwell made using horns; it is not an inkhorn.

So inkhorns were for those on the move while those which sat on desks were called “ink wells” or “ink pots” and these could range from simple “pots” to elaborate constructions in silver or gold.  There are many ink wells which use horns as part of their construction but they are not inkhorns, the dead animal parts there just as decorative forms of structure.

Dr Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic cow horn fertilizer.

Horns are also a part of the “biodynamic” approach to agriculture founded by the Austrian occultist & mystic Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), an interesting figure regarded variously as a “visionary”, a “nutcase” and much between.  The technique involves filling cow horns with cow manure which are buried during the six coldest months so the mixture will ferment; upon being dug up, it will be a sort of humus which has lost the foul smell of the manure and taken on a scent of undergrowth.  It may then be used to increase the yield generated from the soil.  It’s used by being diluted with water and sprayed over the ground.  Dr Steiner believed the forces penetrating the digestive organ of cows through the horn influence the composition of their manure and when returned to the environment, it is enriched with spiritual forces that make the soil more fertile and positively affect it.  As he explained: “The cow has horns to send within itself the etheric-astral productive forces, which, by pressing inward, have the purpose of penetrating directly into the digestive organ. It is precisely through the radiation from horns and hooves that a lot of work develops within the digestive organ itself.  So in the horns, we have something well-adapted, by its nature, to radiate the vital and astral properties in the inner life.”  Now we know.

Frisbee

Frisbee (pronounced friz-bee)

(1) A brand of plastic concave disk, used for various games by sailing it through the air, thrown by making it spin as it's released with a flick of the wrist.

(2) By extension & genericization (without an initial capital), a disk-shaped gliding toy of any brand.

(3) The sport or pass-time involving flying disks.

1957: The brand name Frisbee was trademarked in 1959 and later acquired by Wham-O.  Frisbee was an alteration of Frisbie, the name applied to the disk game by students who tossed the pie plates which came with the “Mrs Frisbie’s Pies” from the Frisbie Pie Company which operated from the Frisbie Bakery in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Frisbie supplied pies to Yale University and it was at Middlebury College in Vermont during the 1930s a campus craze started for tossing empty pie tins stamped with the company's logo, the aeronautical qualities apparently uniquely good (students at both Yale and Princeton claiming to have discovered the aerodynamic properties).  The spelling of the name was changed on legal advice and frisbee is a genericization of the trademark.  Frisbee is a noun & verb and frisbeeing & frisbeed are verbs; the noun plural is frisbees.  The adjectives frisbesque & frisbeeish are both non standard.

Lindsay Lohan carrying her frisbee in its protective case.

The family name Frisbie exists in English records from 1226, from a place name in Leicestershire (Frisby on the Wreak), attested from 1086, from the toponym attested 1086 in Frisby on the Wreak, Leicestershire, from the Old Danish Frisby (Frisian village; farmstead or village of the Frisians), from the Old Norse Frisa, genitive plural of Frisr.  Not unusually for the age, there were two hamlets in county Leicestershire called Frisby but genealogists seem certain the origin of the family name is associated with Frisby on the Wreak.  In the parish records of 1239 there is a priest named de Frysby who was vicar of the church at Welham, a village about 13 miles (21 km) south-east of the city of Leicester, England and he may be the same Roger de Frysbey who in 1246 was curate of the church at Barkestone, ten miles (16 km) north of Melson Mowbray.  As a geographical name, the now lost Frisbys were two of many in the British Isles which derived their names from the Old Norman frisir (someone from the area of Frisia or Friesland).  The names were illustrative of the vast movement of people from Europe after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.  A multitude of spelling variations characterize Norman surnames, many because the Old and Middle English lacked definite spelling rules and in an age of limited mobility, regional evolutions were common and gave rise to many dialectical forms (the introduction of Norman French to England also had an effect, as did the court languages of Latin and French).  It was not unknown for one person’s name to be spelled several ways during their single lifetime and Frisbie was just one of many including Frisbie, Frisby, Frisbee, Frisebie, Frisebye & Friseby.  The Frisbie motto was Semper fidelis (Always faithful).

Serial stalkers from Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) News Corp found US singer Billie Eilish (b 2001), wearing a Siouxsie and the Banshees T-Shirt and tossing a frisbee while on tour, Sydney, Australia, March 2025.  Siouxsie and the Banshees were an English post-punk band active between 1976-1966 (there was a 2002-2003 revival), the name from the lead singer Siouxsie Sioux (Susan Janet Ballion, b 1957).

At much the same time students in the north-east US were tossing Mrs Frisbie’s pie tins to each other, a young couple were enjoying similar fun with a popcorn can lid but, unlike the students, they had an entrepreneurial streak and began selling the cardboard bases sold to cake makers for five times the cost, changing only the labeling.  World War II (1939-1945) interrupted business between 1942-1945 but, once hostilities ceased, the designer applied to the re-purposed disk some lessons learned from service with the US Army Air Force (USAAF), improving the aerodynamic properties.  The zeitgeist of the late 1940s was also influential.  In June 1947, a commercial pilot claimed to have seen nine "flying discs" zipping across Washington state at a speed he estimated at 1,200 mph (1931 km/h) and, without waiting for verification, the Associated Press (AP) wire service distributed the story.  The Hearst press ran the piece with a "flying saucers" headline and that phrase went viral about as quickly as things now spread on social media.  Saucer-mania had begun and soon there were hundreds of reported sightings, a trend which continued, spiking in response to events such as the launch of the USSR’s Sputnik satellite in 1957.  Taking advantage, the prototype Frisbee, by then mass-produced in plastic, was renamed from Whirlo-Way to Flyin' Saucer.

Ms Effie Krokos, this time in black jacket.

In 2019, Ms Effie Krokos (b 1999) and her fiancé were in the front yard of his house in Loveland (a wonderful name), 40 miles (64 km) north of Denver, enjoying some frisbee tossing.  Because it was a hot day, she removed her shirt and continued to play while topless.  Several hours later, a Loveland police officer (there are comedic possibilities in that) arrived and issued an indecent-exposure citation, invoking a city ordinance prohibiting exposure in public places or places open to public view.  Ms Krokos told the officer of a recent circuit court ruling against the public nudity ordinance in the neighboring city of Fort Collins but the officer maintained the ruling didn’t apply in Loveland.

Loveland Police cruiser: these are the Loveland Police.

Denver civil rights attorney David Lane (b 1954) agreed to take the case as part of the #FreetheNipple movement, explaining the Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in February 2019 that Fort Collins’ public nudity ordinance, which had no restrictions on male toplessness but prohibited women from baring their breasts, was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  Free the Nipple v City of Fort Collins (17-1103 (10th Cir. 2019)) established that ordinances based on gender are unconstitutional.  “Anywhere it’s legal for a man to appear in public topless, it’s legal for a woman to do the same” Lane said.  Loveland accepted the offer of a US$50,000 settlement in Krokos’ case in to prevent a federal lawsuit.  The case was dismissed with prejudice (meaning that it cannot be reintroduced in another lawsuit) and the city suspended enforcement of the provision, pending a review.  Ms Krokos said she wants to show that "it isn’t fair for women to be treated differently than men by law enforcement" and hopes that the case will make more women aware of their rights.

Boston University's women’s "Ultimate Frisbee" team (the Lady Pilots), ran an "I Need Feminism Because..." campaign.  The campaign was an effort to draw attention to the need for gender equity, apparently prompted by crooked Hillary Clinton's (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) loss in that year’s presidential election to a man whose reported comments about women would have ended the political career of anyone else.  Each of the players wrote their own message on the underside of a frisbee.

By the mid 1950s, the design had been refined to the form which exists to this day and had the changes were judged sufficiently innovative to be granted a US design patent; this was the product released as the Pluto Platter and the final evolution of the name came in 1957 when the named Frisbee was applied.  Remarkably, it had taken until then for the knowledge of the casual student game of the 1930s to become known to the manufacturers after an article appeared in a newspaper which revealed students were calling the Pluto Platter the Frisbie.  It was clearly a catchier name and it caught on, persuading the manufacturers to adopt the name to Frisbee, the change in spelling on legal advice, lest the pie makers object though that would soon become moot, the Frisbie Pie Company ceasing operations in 1958, something apparently unrelated to flying disks and attributed to the sharp US recession of that year.

Paige Pierce about to execute a backhand drive.

Because Frisbee is a registered trademark, the name isn’t use in formal competition.  The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) applied to the Olympic Organizing Committee, seeking inclusion in the program of the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles but didn’t make the short list which was restricted to baseball, softball, break dancing, cricket, flag football, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsport and squash.  WFDF expressed disappointment, noting that “Flying Disc sports is actively practiced on a competitive level in 103 countries in the world and appeared to satisfy all of the objective criteria agreed between the IOC and LA28. These criteria included not adding cost and complexity to the games by utilizing full venue sharing on the beach or grass stadium, having total gender equality with our gender-balanced mixed format, having youth appeal, and ensuring that the top athletes were involved. There are few other sports that can boast an equivalent Californian DNA as frisbee and we felt our Ultimate 4s format requiring a total athletes’ quota of only 48 would fit well given the overall cap on the Games. We are also strongly convinced that our sport is unique in upholding integrity and fairness with our self-refereeing concept of Spirit of the Game.”  The WFDF have indicated they’ll make representations to be included in the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, Australia.  The game is certainly growing and a tiny elite are already finding Flying Disk a lucrative pursuit, the top athletes attracting sponsorship deals from disk manufacturers.  Paul Mcbeth’s (b 1990) contract is worth a reported US$10 million over five years while the highest paid woman is Paige Pierce (b 1991), earning US$3 million over three years.  Both are under contract to Discraft.

1973 Maserati Bora 4.9 with the early (1971-1975) aluminium wheels fitted with "frisbee" (not dogdish) hubcaps (left), 1977 Maserati Bora 4.9 with the later (1975-1978) aluminium wheels without frisbees (centre) and 1974 Maserati Merak 3.0 (right), a model never frisbeed.

Between 1971-1975, the mid-engined Maserati Bora (Tipo AM117; 1971-1978) was equipped with removable, polished stainless steel hubcaps (which the Maserati cognoscenti call frisbees) on its 7½ x 15 inch (190.5 x 381 mm) Campagnolo aluminium wheels.  Although structurally different, the less expensive Merak (Tipo AM122; 1972-1983) used a similar body but was equipped with 2.0 & 3.0 V6 engines rather than the Bora’s 4.7 & 4.9 litre V8s, the smaller engines meaning the Merak was able to be fitted with two rear seats (most suitable for small children or contortionists).  The Merak used wheels in the same general style though without the frisbees and after 1975 this configuration extended to the Bora.  Rarely has there been a hubcap plainer than the those used on the Bora but anyone calling it a “poverty cap” (slang in the US for the least elaborate hubcaps) would be shocked by the price they command as used parts; on the rare occasions they’re available, they've been listed at US$700-2000 a set.  Unlike the Merak which was named after a star in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Bora borrowed its name from a wind which blows along the Adriatic coast, the company over the years having used the names of a number of (usually hot) winds from North Africa and the Middle East including Ghibli, Khamsin, Shamal and Karif.

Guillotine

Guillotine (pronounced gil-uh-teen)

(1) An apparatus designed efficiently to carry out executions by decapitation.

(2) In medicine, an instrument used surgically to remove the tonsils.

(3) Any of various machines in which a vertical blade between two parallel uprights descends to cut or trim metal, stacks of paper etc.

(4) To truncate or cut.

(5) A technical procedure permitted in some parliaments which provides for an early termination of the time usually allocated to debate a bill, forcing an immediate vote.

(6) In philosophy, as “Hume's guillotine”, a synonym of “Hume's law”, the idea that what ought to be the case cannot be deduced from what is already the case; named after the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711–1776).

(7) In law, as “guillotine clause”, a contractual stipulation that the adoption of the overall contractual package requires adoption of all of the individual treaties or contracts within it; the clause often appears in international treaties or agreements between sub-national entities.

(8) In historic French slang, as “dry guillotine”, the deportation to a penal colony.

Circa 1791: The guillotine was named after Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), the French physician who advocated its adoption.  The surname Guillotin was of French origin and was from the Old French personal name Guillot, a diminutive of "Guillaume" (the French form of William, meaning “will” or “desire” + “helmet” or “protection” which, macabrely, is amusing given the later association with the guillotine). The “-in” suffix is a common diminutive in French surnames, meaning “little” (in the sense of “younger”) or “son of”.  Still today, the surname Guillotin is found primarily in western France, particularly in regions like Brittany (Bretagne), Normandy, and the Loire Valley and probably began as a patronymic, identifying the bearer as “the son of Guillot”.  Guillotine & guillotining are nouns & verbs and guillotined is a verb; the noun plural is guillotines.  Although use of the verb is attested only from 1794, etymologists seem to agree it would have come into oral use simultaneously with the noun.

The classic guillotine consists of a tall, upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended.  The condemned person is secured with stocks at the bottom of the frame, positioning the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly to fall, forcefully decapitating the victim in a single pass, the head falling into a basket below.  In 1789, having witnessed the sometimes prolonged suffering caused by other methods of execution, Dr Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), then a deputy in the National Assembly, had commended the guillotine to the authorities, his notes at the time indicating he was concerned with (1) efficiency of process, (2) a humanitarian concern for the victim and (3), the effect less expeditious methods had on executioners (and of the three, it was only the first and third which would later induce the Nazis to abandon mass-shootings of the Jews and instead create an industrialized process).  The French administration agreed and several guillotines were built in 1791, the first execution the following year.  Approvingly reporting the efficiency of the machine, the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure in January 1793 noted "The name of the machine in which the axe descends in grooves from a considerable height so that the stroke is certain and the head instantly severed from the body."  The device also affected Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) who, in his seminal French Revolution (1837), was moved to observe "This is the product of Guillotin's endeavors, ... which product popular gratitude or levity christens by a feminine derivative name, as if it were his daughter: La Guillotine! ... Unfortunate Doctor! For two-and-twenty years he, unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to outlive Cæsar's."  For better or worse, historians no longer write like that.

Sterling silver cigar cutter (1994) by Theo Fennell (b 1951).

A finely crafted piece, the upright frame contained a sprung, angled blade with retaining chain, the cigar tip tumbling into a gilded silver basket after the blade descends to the stocks.  The base was of honed, black slate with a sterling silver cartouche ready for engraving, the unit supplied in a bespoke, two-door presentation case.  At auction, it sold for Stg£2,000 (cigar not included).

Born in Saintes, Dr Guillotin emerged as a prominent member of the Constituent Assembly in Paris and although philosophically opposed to capital punishment, he was a realist and wished executions done in a more humane manner and, very much in the spirit of the times, for the one method to be used for all social classes.  He recommended a machine known at the time as the “Louison” or “Louisette”, the nickname derived from the French surgeon and physiologist Dr Antoine Louis (1723-1792) who designed the prototype although it was built by German engineer and harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt, the process typical of the division of labor in Europe at the time.  It was Herr Schmidt who suggested using a diagonal blade rather than the round shape borrowed from the executioner’s axe and, with his knowledge of anatomy, Dr Louis calculated what came to be known as the “angle of Louis”, an alternative term for the "sternal angle" (the point of junction between the manubrium and the body of the sternum).  The advocacy of Dr Guillotin however received more publicity and, much to his regret, “Guillotine” captured the public imagination, his family so embarrassed by the connection they later changed the family name.  A confessed Freemason, Dr Guillotin died of natural causes in his Paris home, aged 75 and was buried in the city’s Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

One of the kitten-heel shoes worn by Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) on the day of her execution, 16 October 1793.  

While ascending the stairs to the guillotine, she tripped, stepped on the executioner's foot and lost her shoe, something of a harbinger to what she’d lose a few moments later.  The shoe was later recovered and is now on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen.

Although Dr Guillotin regretted his name being associated with the contraption, the true origin wasn't even French.  While the date such a thing was first used is unknown it seems almost certainly a medieval creation, an early English record indicating a mechanical beheading device was in use in Halifax in West Yorkshire; then called the Halifax Gibbet, the decapitation of an unfortunate Mr John Dalton recorded in 1286.  A sixteenth century engraving named The Execution of Murcod Ballagh Near to Merton in Ireland 1307 shows a similar machine suggesting use also in medieval Ireland and Scotland, from the mid-sixteenth century until the abolition of use circa 1710; it was called the Maiden which seems to have been functionally identical to the Halifax Gibbet.  In Italy, most un-euphemistically, it was called the Mannaia (cleaver).  Over the years, it attracted many nicknames, some sardonically deployed as the equivalent of gallows humour including La Monte-à-regret (The Regretful Climb), Le Rasoir National (The National Razor), La Veuve (The Widow), Le Moulin à Silence (The Silence Mill), La Bécane (The Machine), Le Massicot (The Cutter), La Cravate à Capet (Capet's Necktie (Capet being Louis XVI (1754–1793; King of France 1774-1792)) & La Raccourcisseuse Patriotique (The Patriotic Shortener).

Marie Antoinette's execution on October 16, 1793 (Unknown artist).

The carts famously used to take victims to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror (the period in the mid-1790s after the declaration of the First Republic, marked by massacres, public executions, anti-clericalism and internecine political struggle) were called tumbrels although many illustrations depict the use of four-wheeled carts rather than tumbrels.  Presumably both types were used but historians generally believe it was usually the tumbrel because the revolutionaries preferred the symbolism of something used usually for moving dung or rubbish and suggest artists preferred the four-wheelers simply for compositional reasons.  The noun tumbrel (two-wheeled cart for hauling dung, stones etc) was from mid-fifteenth century French, a name, curiously perhaps, used in the early thirteenth century to describe what some eighteenth century dictionaries described as a mysterious “instrument of punishment of uncertain type” but which turned out to be (1) a name for the cucking stool used, inter alia, to conduct the dunking in water of women suspected of this and that and (2) was a type of medieval balancing scale used to weigh coins.  It was from the Old French tomberel (dump cart) (which exists in Modern French as tombereau), from tomber ((let) fall or tumble), possibly from a Germanic source, perhaps the Old Norse tumba (to tumble), the Old High German tumon (to turn, reel).

Public guillotining of Eugen Weidmann, Versailles, 1939.

The records from the early days of the revolution are understandably sketchy but the first guillotine was likely that crafted by German harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt which first was used on 25 April 1792, the term “guillotine” appearing first in print in a report by the journalist Louis René Quentin de Richebourg de Champcenetz (1759-1794) who, in another journalistic scoop, was later guillotined.  Although synonymous with the French Revolution, during which some seventeen thousand were beheaded, the guillotine remained the nation's official method of capital punishment until the death penalty was abolished in 1981.  The highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier (circa 1756–1792) was the first victim while the last public guillotining was of Eugen Weidmann (1908-1939) who, convicted of six murders, was beheaded in Versailles on 17 June 1939.  The final drop of the blade came when murderer Hamida Djandoubi’s (1949-1977) sentence was carried out in Marseille on 10 September 1977.

Boucles d'oreilles pendantes guillotine en laiton (guillotine drop earrings in brass), cut and engraved, Paris, circa 1880.

In France, until the onset of modernity with the coming of the twentieth century, artistic and decorative representations of the guillotine proliferated because the bloody events of the 1790s had made the instrument a symbol of republican patriotism.  Methods of execution now appear less as fashion items although there was a revival associated when the punk movement went mainstream in the mid-1970s (anarchists, revolutionaries and such less inclined to trivialize what they intended soon to be a serious business). In recent years, models in nooses have however strutted the catwalks generating outrage which, measured in column inches, photographs and clicks, was of course the point of them donning the macabre accessory.  For those nostalgic for the days of la révolution, made with a variety of materials, guillotine drop earrings are available on-line.

Paper trimming guillotine.

The device was used in many European countries until well after the Second World War but, perhaps predictability, none were as enthusiastic as the Nazis.  Having been used in various German states since the seventeenth century and being the preferred method of execution in Napoleonic times (circa 1799-1815), guillotine and firing squad were the legal methods of execution during both the Second Reich (1871–1918) and the Weimar Republic (1919–1933).  For the Nazis however, it was just another way to industrialize mass-murder and under the Third Reich (1933-1945), 16,500 were guillotined including 10,000 in 1944–1945 alone although, after the attempt on his life in July 1944, Hitler wasn’t at all attracted to an efficient or humanitarian dispatch of the surviving plotters and for them specified a more gruesome method.  The guillotine was used for the last time in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990) in 1949 though use in the GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) persisted until 1966, mostly by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi) for secret executions.

Brandenburg prison fallbeil now on display at the Deutsche Historisches Museum.  Unlike most of the Tegel machines, it's un-painted and not fitted with a blade shield although the rather crude construction (using unfinished wood planks and four hefty, unadorned wooden legs) is characteristic of the Tegel design.  Some other Tegel fallbeils have had some of the timber members replaced with square metal tubing.

The German for guillotine is fallbeil (literally "axe-method" which is pleasingly informative).  The Nazis increased the number of capital offences in the criminal code and consequently, there was a drastic increase in the number of executions in the Reich.  To meet the demand, many prisons were designated as execution sites, sixteen gazetted by 1942, all equipped with metal (Mannhardt) fallbeils, the standardized procedure for execution as typically exact and bureaucratic as anything in the German civil service.  The first fallbeils were made from wood and built by the inmates of the Tegel prison in Berlin (hence the name) while the later Mannhardt design (fabricated from steel) was more sophisticated, including an external pulley frame and, thoughtfully, a hinged sheet-metal cover to protect the executioner from "blood spray".

The help admiring a SWB 600.

It’s at least arguable the Mercedes-Benz 600 (M100, 1963-1981) was the last car which, upon its introduction, could be called “the best car in the world”.  Some publications used exactly that phrase when their road-test reports appeared and about all the review in US magazine Road & Track found to complain about was (1) the choice of where to place the driver’s ashtray was obviously the decision of a non-smoker and (2) the air-conditioning (AC) was primitive compare with what was installed in Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials (or for that matter, Chevrolets, Fords and Plymouths).  The factory did improve ashtray placement (before social change drove them extinct) but it took decades for it to produce AC systems as good as those from Detroit although, impressionistically, probably nothing has ever matched the icy blasts possible in 1960s Cadillacs and such.

A 600 Pullman on location, 2011.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Grant Bowler (b 1968) during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012), a “biopic” of the famously tempestuous relationship between the actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) & Richard Burton (1925–1984).  The car is a Mercedes-Benz 600  four-door Pullman with the vis-a-vis seating.  The flagstaffs (installed in this instance above the front wheel arches) were usually fitted to cars used by governments or the corps diplomatique.

An extraordinary technical achievement, despite its run of 18-odd years, the 600 was a commercial failure with only 2677 built, the 408 (345 sedans & 63 Pullmans) which left the line in the first year of full production (1965) an encouraging start but that proved the high point, the decline precipitous after 1972 when the 600 was withdrawn from the US market, the costs of complying with the new regulations (as well as uncertainty about what was to come) just too onerous to be justified for such a low-volume model.  Although there were examples of special coachwork (armour plating, higher roof versions and even a couple of coupés)  the 600 appeared in three basic forms, the SWB ("short" wheelbase) four-door sedan, the LWB (long wheelbase) Pullmans (in four & six door form) and the Pullman Landaulets (with two lengths of retractable roof); the breakdown was 2,190 sedans, 428 Pullmans and 59 Landaulets.

The car of kings, dictators and real estate developers.

The 1970 Pullman Landaulet (one of twelve known informally as the "presidential" because the folding portion of the roof extended to the driver's compartment, the other 58 Landaulets having a convertible top only over the rear seat) was purchased by the Romanian government and used by comrade president Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party 1965-1989) until he and his wife were executed (by Kalashnikov assault rifle) after a “people's tribunal” held a brief trial, the swiftness of which was aided by the court-appointed defense counsel who declared them both guilty of the genocide of which, among other crimes, they were charged.  Considering the fate of other fallen dictators, their end was less gruesome than might have been expected.  Comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980) had a similar car (among other 600s) but he died undisturbed in his bed.  The blue SWB (short wheelbase) car to the rear is one of the few SWB models fitted with a divider between the front & rear compartments including hand-crafted timber writing tables and a refrigerated bar in the centre console.  It was delivered in 1977 to the Iranian diplomatic service and maintained for the Shah’s use.  The 1969 sedan to the right (identified as a US market car by the disfiguring headlight treatment) had a less eventful past, purchased by a California real estate developer, who took advantage of the Mercedes-Benz European Delivery Program (discontinued in 2020 after some sixty years), collecting the 600 from the Stuttgart factory.

KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) footage of the DPRK Youth Parade, Pyongyang, DPRK, 2012.  The KCNA (its headquarters at 1 Potonggang-dong in Pyongyang's Potonggang District) may be the world's most productive state news agency and is the best source for new Kim Jong-Un content. 

At the 2012 Youth Parade, all in the full stadium were happy and enthusiastic, delighted no doubt to be the only audience on the planet able to see two long-roof Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulets together.  The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) should not be confused with the "puppet state" RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)).  Kim Il-Sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK 1948-1994) purchased a brace of presidential Landaulets which he passed down the line (along with the rest of North Korea) to his descendants Kim Jong-Il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK1994-2011) & Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK since 2011).    Evil dictators and real estate developers are one thing but the television personality Jeremy Clarkson (b 1960) also owned a (SWB) 600 and from that the car's reputation may never have recovered.  

Staged publicity shot of 1966 Mercedes-Benz 600s.

A four-door Pullman (left) and SWB (right) parked outside the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, Munich, Bavaria, FRG.  This shot illustrates the difference between the two platforms, the Pullman's additional length all in the wheelbase (the Pullman's was 3,900 mm (153½ inches) against the sedan's 3,200 mm (126 inch).  The factory initially called the sedans “limousines” because that was the traditional German term for a four door sedan (or saloon) but they’re commonly referred to also as the SWB (short wheelbase), the Pullmans very definitely a LWB (long wheelbase).

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 SWB, Place de la Concorde, Paris, France.

The 600’s famously smooth ride and remarkably capable handling was achieved with a suspension system using air-bellows but more intricate still was the engine-drive hydraulic system with which could be controlled the raising and lowering of the windows and central divider (installed on all but one of the Pullmans and optional on the SWBs), the setting of the shock absorbers (dampers), the opening and closing of the sun-roofs (it was possible on Pullmans to order two!) and the positions of the seats.  Additionally, the closing of the trunk (boot) lid and doors were hydraulically controlled although the hood (bonnet) needed to be raised manually; the factory was clearly more concerned for the comfort of passengers than mechanics.  To achieve all this, the plumbing’s fittings included 30 hydraulic switches, 12 double-acting hydraulic cylinders, 10 single-acting cylinders, six self-resetting single-acting units, a pump, a reservoir, and an accumulator, all connected by 3.5 mm (⅛ inch) internal-diameter lines coursing with hydraulic oil at a pressure of 2,176 psi (150-bar).  As might be imagined, to even experienced automotive engineers & mechanics, the schematic appeared of Byzantine complexity but to those accustomed to the hydraulics of heavy machinery it seemed simple, the only novelty being components unusually small.  The pressure of the system was high enough (twice that of a typical fire hose), if ruptured, to pierce human flesh although, reassuringly, below what’s needed to cut through bone.  Just to prove safety warnings are not something recent, the high pressure warranted a passage in a notably thick publication: Workshop Manual, Type 600, The Grand Mercedes: “It cannot be too highly stressed that it is mortally dangerous to open the oil-pressure container!”  Although the silently operating hydraulic system did offer the advantage of eliminating the noise which would have been generated had electric motors been used, the real attraction was the elimination of an estimated 800 metres (2600 feet) of wiring and more than a dozen motors (and it would have been a challenge to fit them all in the existing structure).

The Guillotine.

A Mercedes-Benz 600 sedan in the now closed Kemp Auto Museum in Saint Louis, Missouri, is used to demonstrate why the hydraulically activated trunk (boot) lid was known to wary technicians as “the guillotine”.  This is the lid closing with the hydraulics on the most hungry setting.

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman Landaulet with the shorter of the two folding roofs.

The trunk-lid’s single hydraulic cylinder can bring the steel panel down with alarming force so service personnel decided it deserved to be nicknamed “the guillotine”.  It was however adjustable to reduce the potential to damage fingers (at least there was an attempt to minimize risk; from certain manufacturers, some of the early electric windows didn’t include a clutching mechanism and were capable of crushing the match boxes often used to demonstrate the danger to dawdling digits).  The 600’s hydraulic system was well-built and used high quality components but the factory knew nothing is indestructible and every car included in the trunk a box containing (1) four wedges to force between the glass and the jambs to keep the windows up and (2) a set of pins which could be inserted to keep the squabs of the front seats upright.  Indeed, the door closing apparatus proved troublesome (tales of expensive dresses ruined by a squirt of hydraulic fluid part of the 600 legend) and wasn’t fitted after 1967 but the guillotine remained standard equipment until the end.