Blister

Blister (pronounced blis-tah or blis-ter)

(1) A thin vesicle on the skin, containing watery matter or serum and induced typically by caused by friction, pressure, burning, freezing, chemical irritation, disease or infection.

(2) In botany, a swelling on a plant.

(3) A swelling containing air or liquid, as on a painted surface.

(4) In medicine, something applied to the skin to raise a blister; a vesicatory (blister agent) or other applied medicine (mostly archaic).

(5) In glass-blowing, a relatively large bubble occurring during the process.

(5) In roofing, an enclosed pocket of air, which may be mixed with water or solvent vapor, trapped between impermeable layers of felt or between the membrane and substrate.

(7) In military jargon, a transparent bulge or dome on the fuselage of an airplane, usually for purposes of observation or mounting a gun but used sometimes as a housing for rearward air extraction.

(8) In photography, a bubble of air formed where the emulsion has separated from the base of a film, usually as a result of defective processing.

(9) In metallurgy, a form of smelted copper with a blistered surface.

(10) A dome or skylight on a building.

(11) The moving bubble in a spirit level.

(12) The small blister-like covering of plastic, usually affixed to a piece of cardboard or other flat sheet, and containing a small item (pens, hardware items etc).

(13) As “blister pack” or “blister card”, the packaging used for therapeutic or medicinal tablets in which the pills sit under small blister-like coverings, often labeled sequentially (1,2,3 or Mon, Tue, Wed etc) to aid patients.

(14) As “blister packaging” a type of pre-formed packaging made from plastic that contains cavities; a variant of bubble-wrap.

(15) In slang, an annoying person; an irritant.

(16) The rhyming slang for “sister”, thus the derived forms “little blister”, “big blister”, “evil blister” et al).

(17) In slang, a “B-lister” (ie a celebrity used for some purpose or invited to an event when it’s not possible to secure the services of an “A-Lister”.  In industry slang, the less successful celebrity managers are “blister agencies”.

(18) To raise a blister; to form or rise as a blister or blisters; to become blistered.

(19) To criticize or severely to rebuke (often as “blistering attack”).

(20) To beat or thrash; severely to punish.

(21) In cooking, to sear after blanching

1250–1300: From the Middle English blister & blester (thin vesicle on the skin containing watery matter), possibly from the Old French blestre (blister, lump, bump), probably from the Middle Dutch blyster & bluyster (swelling; blister), from the Old Norse blǣstri (a blowing), dative of blāstr (swelling).  All the European forms are from the primitive Indo-European bhlei- (to blow, swell), an extension of the root bhel- (to blow, swell).  The verb emerged late in the fifteenth century in the sense of “to become covered in blisters” and the medical use (of vesicatories) meaning “to raise blisters on” is in the literature from the 1540s.  The noun & adjective vesicatory dates from the early eighteenth century was from the Modern Latin vesicularis, from vesicula (little blister), diminutive of vesica (bladder).  In historic medicine, a vesicant (plural vesicants) or vesicatory (plural vesicatories) is used as an agent which induces blistering.  Typically a chemical compound, the primary purpose was intentionally to create a blister to draw blood or other bodily fluids to the surface, often in an attempt to relieve inflammation, improve circulation in a specific area, or treat various conditions indirectly by this counter-irritation technique.  Historically, vesicatories were commonly used with substances like cantharidin (from blister beetles) being applied to the skin to achieve this effect but in modern medicine the practice is (mostly) obsolete because more effective and less invasive treatments now exist.  Blister & blistering are nouns, verbs & adjectives, blistered is a verb & adjective, and blisterlike, blisterless & blistery are adjectives; the noun plural is blisters.

1968 MGC Roadster with bulge, blister and the bulge's curious stainless steel trim.

The MGC (1967-1969) was created by replacing the MGB’s (1962-1980) 1.8 litre four cylinder engine with a 2.9 litre (178 cubic inch) straight-six, something which necessitated a number of changes, one of which was the bonnet (hood) which gained a bulge to accommodate the revised placement of the radiator and, on the left-hand side, a small blister because the forward of the two carburettors sat just a little too high to fit even with the bulge.  Because to raise the whole bulge would have the bonnet look absurd, the decision was taken just to add a blister.  A blister (in this context) is of course a type of bulge and where a blister ends a bulge begins is just a convention of use, blisters informally defined as being smaller and of a “blister-like shape”, something recalling one appearing on one’s foot after a day in tight, new shoes.  A blister (which some seem to insist on calling a “teardrop” in they happen to assume that shape) also differs from a scoop in that it’s a enclosed structure whereas a scoop has an aperture to permit airflow.  There are however some creations in the shape of a typical blister which are used for air-extraction (the aperture to the rear) but these tend to be called “air ducts” rather than blisters.  MGC’s bulged and blistered bonnet has always been admired (especially by students of asymmetry) and both the originals (in aluminium which is an attraction in itself) and reproduction items are often used by MGB owners, either just for the visual appeal or to provide greater space for those who have installed a V8.  The apparently superfluous stainless steel trim piece in the bulge (there's no seam to conceal) is believed to be a motif recalling the small grill which was in a similar place on BMC’s (British Motor Corporation) old Austin-Healey 3000 (1959-1967), the MGC created because the 3000 couldn’t easily be modified to comply with the increasingly onerous US regulations.  Because there were doubts the cost of developing a replacement would ever be recovered, the decision was taken to build what was, in effect, a six-cylinder MGB.  The considerable additional weight of the bigger engine spoiled the MGB’s almost perfect balance and although a genuine 120 mph (195 km/h) machine, the MGC was never a critical or commercial success with only 8,999 (4,542 roadsters & 4,457 coupés) produced during its brief, two season life.

Republic P-47C Thunderbolt with the original colonnaded canopy (top) and the later P-47D with blister canopy (bottom).

When the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (1941-1945) entered service with the USAAF (United States Army Air Force) in 1942, it was the largest, heaviest, single seat, piston-engined fighter ever produced, a distinction it enjoys to this day.  However, one thing it did share with some of its contemporaries was the replacement in later versions of the colonnaded canopy over the cockpit by an all-enveloping single panoramic structure which afforded the pilot unparalleled visibility, something made possible by advances in injection molding to fabricate shapes in Perspex, then still a quite novel material.  These canopies were adopted also for later versions of the The Supermarine Spitfire (1938-1948) and the North American P-51 Mustang (1941-1946) but the historians of aviation seem never to have settled on a description, opinion divided between “bubble-top” and “blister top”.

In military aviation, “blister” is more familiar as a use to describe the transparent bulge (or dome) on the fuselage of an airplane, usually for purposes of observation or mounting a gun but used sometimes to house a rearward air extraction device.  However, because of other linguistic traditions in military design, the “blisters” used as gun mounting position were also described with other words, the use sometimes a little “loose”.  One term was barbette (plural barbettes), a borrowing from the French and used historically to mean (1) a mound of earth or a platform in a fortification, on which guns are mounted to fire over the parapet and (2) (in naval use), the inside fixed trunk of a warship's gun-mounting, on which the turret revolves and used to contain the hoists for shells and cordite from the shell-room and magazine.

Also used was turret, from the Middle English touret, from the Old French torete (which endures in Modern French as tourette), a diminutive of tour (tower), from the Latin turris.  In architecture (and later adoptions like electronic circuitry and railcar design), turrets tended to be variations of or analogous with “towers” but in military use there was a specific evolution.  The early military turrets were “siege towers”, effectively a “proto-tank” or APC (armoured personnel carrier) in the form of what was essentially a “building on wheels”, used to carry ladders, casting bridges, weapons and soldiers equipped with the tools and devices need to storm so fortified structure such as a fort or castle.  From this evolved the still current idea notion of an armoured, rotating gun installation on a fort or warship and as powered land vehicles and later flying machines (aircraft) were developed, the term was adopted for their various forms of specialized gun mountings.  In aircraft, the term blister came later, and allusion to the blister-like shape increasingly used to optimize aerodynamic efficiency, something of little concern to admiralties.

Mar-a-Lago, Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida.

Another military blister was the cupola (plural cupolas or cupolae), from the Italian cupola, from the Late Latin cūpula (a small cask; a little tub), from the Classical Latin cuppella, from cuppa & cūpa (tub), from the Ancient Greek κύπελλον (kúpellon) (small cup), the construct being cūp(a) + -ula, from the primitive Indo-European -dlom (the instrumental suffix) and used as a noun suffix denoting an instrument.  The origin in Latin was based on the resemblance to an upturned cup, hence the use to describe the rounded top of just about any structure where no specific descriptor existed.  In military use, a cupola is basically a helmet fixed in place and that may be on a building, a ship or an armored vehicle, the function being to protect the head while offering a field of view.  Sometimes, especially in tanks or armored cars, guns or flame-throwers were integrated into cupolas and in naval gunnery, there was the special use to describe the dome-like structures protecting a (usually single) gun mounting, something which distinguished them from the larger, flatter constructions which fulfilled the same purpose for multi-gun batteries.  Turrets and cupolas are among the architectural features of Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) winter palace on Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida.

Northrop P-61 Black Widow:  A prototype with the troublesome dorsal blister turret (left), the early production P-61A with the blister removed (upper right) and the later P-61B with the blister restored (lower right).

The attractive aerodynamic properties of the classic blister shape was an obvious choice for use in aircraft but even then, they weren’t a complete solution.  The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the first aircraft designed from a clean sheet of paper as a night-fighter, cognizant of the experience of the RAF (Royal Air Force) which during the Luftwaffe’s (the German air force) Blitz of London (1940-1941) had pressed into service day-fighter interceptors.  Designed to accommodate on-board radar, the Black Widow was heavily gunned and incorporated notable US innovations such as remote control firing mechanisms.  Part of the original was a remotely-controlled blister turret on the dorsal section which proved the shape’s aerodynamic properties worked only when pointed in the appropriate direction; when pointed at right-angles to the aircraft’s centre-line, the tail section between the twin-booms suffered severe buffeting.  Accordingly, the blister turret was deleted from the early production versions but the early experience of the military confirmed the need for additional firepower and after a re-design, it was restored to the slightly lengthened P-61B.  The integration of so many novel aspects of design meant the P-61 didn’t enter service until 1944 and, as the first of its breed, it was never a wholly satisfactory night-fighter but it was robust, had good handling characteristics and offered the advantage of being able to carry a heavy payload which meant it could operate as a nocturnal intruder with a lethal disposable load.  It was however in some ways a demanding airframe to operate, the manufacturer recommending that when fully-loaded in its heaviest configuration, a take-off run-up of 3 miles (4.8 km) was required.  Although its service in World War II (1939-1945) was limited, remarkably, like the de Havilland Mosquito (DH.98), the Black Widow was also a Cold War fighter, both in service until 1951-1952 because of a technology deficit which meant it wasn’t until then jet-powered night-fighters came into service.  The Black Widow was in 1949 (by then designated F-51), the first aircraft in service in the embryonic USADC (US Air Defense Command), formed to defend the country from any Soviet intrusion or attack.

Xanax (Alprazolam), a fast-acting benzodiazepine.  It is marketed as anti-anxiety medication and supplied in blister packs.

Lindsay Lohan released the track Xanax in 2019.  With a contribution from Finnish pop star Alma (Alma-Sofia Miettinen; b 1996), the accompanying music video was said to be “a compilation of vignettes of life”, Xanax reported as being inspired by Ms Lohan’s “personal life, including an ex-boyfriend and toxic friends”.  Structurally, Xanax was quoted as being based around "an interpolation of" Better Off Alone, by Dutch Eurodance-pop collective Alice Deejay, slowed to a Xanax-appropriate tempo.

Xanax by Lindsay Lohan

I don't like the parties in LA, I go home

In a bad mood, pass out, wake up alone

Just to do it all over again, oh

Looking for you

Only one reason I came here

Too many people, I can't hear

Damn, I got here at ten

Now it's 4 AM

I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care about us

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe

No, I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care 'bout us

 

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe, yeah

 

But you're like Xanax to me

When you kiss me, I can't breathe

 

I try to stay away from you, but you get me high

Only person in this town that I like

Guess I can take one more trip for the night

Just for the night

 

Only one reason I came here

Too many people, I can't hear

Damn, I got here at ten

Now it's 4 AM

 

I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care about us

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe

No, I can't be in this club

It's too crowded and I'm fucked

Ain't nobody here for love

Ain't nobody care 'bout us

 

I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah

Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe, yeah

 

But you're like Xanax to me

When you kiss me, I can't breathe

 

But you're like Xanax to me

When you kiss me, I can't breathe

Xanax lyrics Universal © Music Publishing Group

Quartervent

Quartervent (pronounced kwawr-ter-vent)

A small, pivoted, framed (or semi-framed) pane in the front or rear side-windows of a car, provided to optimize ventilation.

1930s: The construct was quarter + vent.  Dating from the late thirteenth century, the noun quarter (in its numerical sense) was from the Middle English quarter, from the Anglo-Norman quarter, from the Old French quartier, from the Latin quartarius (a Roman unit of liquid measure equivalent to about 0.14 litre).  Quartus was from the primitive Indo-European kweturtos (four) (from which the Ancient Greek gained τέταρτος (tétartos), the Sanskrit चतुर्थ (caturtha), the Proto-Balto-Slavic ketwirtas and the Proto-Germanic fedurþô).  It was cognate to quadrus (square), drawn from the sense of “four-sided”.  The Latin suffix –arius was from the earlier -ās-(i)jo- , the construct being -āso- (from the primitive Indo-European -ehso- (which may be compared with the Hittite appurtenance suffix -ašša-) + the relational adjectival suffix -yós (belonging to).  The suffix (the feminine –āria, the neuter -ārium) was a first/second-declension suffix used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  The nominative neuter form – ārium (when appended to nouns), formed derivative nouns denoting a “place where stuff was kept”.  The Middle English verb quarteren, was derivative of the noun.  Dating from the mid fourteenth century, vent was from the Middle English verb venten (to furnish (a vessel) with a vent), a shortened form of the Old French esventer (the construct being es- + -venter), a verbal derivative of vent, from the Latin ventus (wind), in later use derivative of the English noun.  The English noun was derived partly from the French vent, partly by a shortening of French évent (from the Old French esvent, a derivative of esventer) and partly from the English verb.  The hyphenated form quarter-vent is also used as may be preferable.  Quartervent is a noun; the noun plural is quartervents.  In use, the action of using the function provided by a quartervent obviously can be described with terms like quarterventing or quartervented but no derived forms are recognized as standard.

The 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz of course had quarter vents (“vent windows” to the Americans) but unlike most in the world, they were electrically-activated.  This was a time when the company's slogan “Standard of the World” really could be taken seriously.

The now close to extinct quarter vents were small, pivoted, framed (or semi-framed) panes of glass installed in the front or rear side windows of a car or truck; their purpose was to provide occupants with a source of ventilation, using the air-flow of the vehicle while in motion.  The system had all the attributes of other admirable technologies (such as the pencil) in that it was cheap to produce, simple to use, reliable and effective in its intended purpose.  Although not a complex concept, General Motors (GM) in 1932 couldn’t resist giving the things an impressively long name, calling them “No Draft Individually Controlled Ventilation” (NDICV being one of history’s less mnemonic initializations).  GM’s marketing types must have prevailed because eventually the snappier “ventiplanes” was adopted, the same process of rationality which overtook Chrysler in 1969 when the public decided “shaker” was a punchier name for their rather sexy scoop which, attached directly to the induction system and, protruding through a carefully shape lacuna in the hood (bonnet), shook with the engine, delighting the males aged 17-39 to whom it was intended to appeal.  “Shaker” supplanted Chrysler’s original “Incredible Quivering Exposed Cold Air Grabber” (IQECAG another dud); sometimes less is more.  Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) suggested a good title for his book might be Viereinhalb Jahre [des Kampfes] gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit (Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) but his publisher thought that a bit ponderous and preferred the more succinct Mein Kampf: Eine Abrechnung (My Struggle: A Reckoning) and for publication even that was clipped to Mein Kampf.  Unfortunately, the revised title was the best thing about it, the style and contents truly ghastly and it's long and repetitious, the ideas within able easily to be reduced to a few dozen pages (some suggest fewer but the historical examples cited for context do require some space).

The baroque meets mid-century modernism: 1954 Hudson Italia by Carrozzeria Touring.  

Given how well the things worked, there’s long been some regret at their demise, a process which began in the 1960s with the development of “through-flow ventilation”, the earliest implementation of which seems to have appeared in the Hudson Italia (1954-1955), an exclusive, two-door coupé co-developed by Hudson in Detroit and the Milan-based Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring.  Although some of the styling gimmicks perhaps haven’t aged well, the package was more restrained than some extravagances of the era and fundamentally, the lines were well-balanced and elegant.  Unfortunately the mechanical underpinnings were uninspiring and the trans-Atlantic production process (even though Italian unit-labor costs were lower than in the US, Touring’s methods were labor-intensive) involved two-way shipping (the platforms sent to Milan for bodies and then returned to the US) so the Italia was uncompetitively expensive: at a time when the bigger and more capable Cadillac Coupe de Ville listed at US$3,995, the Italia was offered for US$4,800 and while it certainly had exclusivity, it was a time when there was still a magic attached to the Cadillac name and of the planned run of 50, only 26 Italias were produced (including the prototype).  Of those, 21 are known still to exist and they’re a fixture at concours d’élégance (a sort of car show for the rich, the term an unadapted borrowing from the French (literally “competition of elegance”) and the auction circuit where they’re exchanged between collectors for several hundred-thousand dollars per sale.  Although a commercial failure (and the Hudson name would soon disappear), the Italia does enjoy the footnote of being the first production car equipped with what came to be understood as “flow-through ventilation”, provided with a cowl air intake and extraction grooves at the top of the rear windows, the company claiming the air inside an Italia changed completely every ten minutes.  For the quartervent, flow-through ventilation was a death-knell although some lingered on until the effective standardization of air-conditioning proved the final nail in the coffin.

1965 Ford Cortina GT with eyeball vents and quartervents.

The car which really legitimized flow-through ventilation was the first generation (1962-1966) of the Ford Cortina, produced over four generations (some claim it was five) by Ford’s UK subsidiary between 1962-1982).  When the revised model displayed at the Earls Court Motor Show in October 1964, something much emphasized was the new “Aeroflow”, Ford’s name for through-flow ventilation, the system implemented with “eyeball” vents on the dashboard and extractor vents on the rear pillars.  Eyeball vents probably are the best way to do through-flow ventilation but the accountants came to work out they were more expensive to install than the alternatives so less satisfactory devices came to be used.  Other manufacturers soon phased-in similar systems, many coining their own marketing trademarks including “Silent-Flow-Ventilation”, “Astro-Ventilation” and the inevitable “Flow-thru ventilation”.  For the Cortina, Ford took a “belt & braces” approach to ventilation, retaining the quartervents even after the “eyeballs” were added, apparently because (1) the costs of re-tooling to using a single pane for the window was actually higher than continuing to use the quartervents, (2) it wasn’t clear if there would be general public acceptance of their deletion and (3) smoking rates were still high and drivers were known to like being able to flick the ash out via the quartervent (and, more regrettably, the butts too).  Before long, the designers found a way economically to replace the quartervents with “quarterpanes” or “quarterlights” (a fixed piece of glass with no opening mechanism) so early Cortinas were built with both although in markets where temperatures tended to be higher (notable South Africa and Australia), the hinged quartervents remained standard equipment.  When the Mark III Cortina (TC, 1970-1976) was released, the separate panes in any form were deleted and the side glass was a single pane.

Fluid dynamics in action: GM's Astro-Ventilation.

So logically a “quartervent” would describe a device with a hinge so it could be opened to provide ventilation while a “quarterpane”, “quarterlight” or “quarterglass” would be something in the same shape but unhinged and thus fixed.  It didn’t work out that way and the terms tended to be used interchangeably (though presumably “quartervent” was most applied to those with the functionality.  However, the mere existence of the fixed panes does raise the question of why they exist at all.  In the case or rear doors, they were sometimes a necessity because the shape of the door was dictated by the intrusion of the wheel arch and adding a quarterpane was the only way to ensure the window could completely be wound down.  With the front doors, the economics were sometimes compelling, especially in cases when the opening vents were optional but there were also instances where the door’s internal mechanisms (the door opening & window-winding hardware) were so bulky the only way to make stuff was to reduce the size of the window.

1976 Volkswagen Passat without quartervents, the front & rear quarterpanes fixed.

The proliferation of terms could have come in handy if the industry had decided to standardize and the first generation Volkswagen Passat (1973-1980) was illustration of how they might been used.  The early Passats were then unusual in that the four-door versions had five separate pieces of side glass and, reading from left-to-right, they could have been classified thus: (1) a front quarterpane, (2) a front side-window, (3) a rear side-window, (4) a rear quarterpane and (5) a quarterwindow.  The Passat was one of those vehicles which used the quarterpanes as an engineering necessity to permit the rear side-window fully to be lowered.  However the industry didn’t standardize and in the pre-television (and certainly pre-internet) age when language tended to evolve with greater regional variation, not even quarterglass, quartervent, quarterwindow & quarterpane were enough and the things were known variously also as a “fly window”, “valence window”, “triangle window” and “auto-transom”, the hyphen used and not.

1967 Chevrolet Camaro 327 with vent windows (left), 1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 without vent windows (centre) and Lindsay Lohan & Jamie Lee Curtis (b 1958) in Chevrolet Camaro convertible during filming of the remake of Freaky Friday (2003) (provisionally called Freakier Friday), Los Angeles, August 2024.  The Camaro can be identified as a 1968 or 1969 model because the vent windows were deleted from the range after 1967 when “Astro-Ventilation” (GM’s name for flow-through ventilation) was added.  In North American use, the devices typically are referred to as “vent windows” while a “quarter light” is a small lamp mounted (in pairs) in the lower section of the front bodywork and a “quarter vent” is some sort of (real or fake) vent installed somewhere on the quarter panels.

Ford Australia’s early advertising copy for the XA Falcon range included publicity shots both with and without the optional quartervents (left).  One quirk of the campaign was the first shot released (right) of the “hero model” of the range (the Falcon GT) had the driver’s side quartervent airbrushed out (how “Photoshop jobs” used to be done), presumably because it was thought to clutter a well-composed picture.  Unfortunately, the artist neglected to defenestrate the one on the passenger’s side.

Released in Australia in March 1972, Ford’s XA Falcon was the first in the lineage to include through-flow ventilation, the previously standard quartervent windows moved to the option list (as RPO (Regular Production Option) 86).  Because it’s a hot place and many Falcons were bought by rural customers, Ford expected quite a high take-up rate of RPO86 (it was a time when air-conditioning was expensive and rarely ordered) so the vent window hardware was stockpiled in anticipation.  However, the option didn’t prove popular but with a warehouse full of the parts, they remained available on the subsequent XB (1973-1976) and XC (1976-1979) although the take-up rate never rose, less the 1% of each range so equipped and when the XD (1979-1983) was introduced, there was no such option and this continued on all subsequent Falcons until Ford ceased production in Australia in 2016, by which time air conditioning was standard equipment.

Slant

Slant (pronounced slant or slahnt)

(1) A surface, structure, line etc at a slope or in an oblique direction.

(2) In (US) football, an offensive play in which the ball-carrier runs toward the line of scrimmage at an angle (known also as the “slant-in”, a pass pattern in which a receiver cuts diagonally across the middle of the field).

(3) In prosody, as “slant rhyme”, a synonym for the “half rhyme”, “near rhyme” & “quasi-rhyme” (a form of imperfect rhyme in which the final (coda) consonants of stressed syllables (and, in modern English poetry, any following syllables to the end of the words) are identical in sound, but the vowels of the stressed syllables are not.

(4) In typography, a synonym of slash ( / ⟩, particularly in its use to set off pronunciations from other text (not used in IT where the distinctions are between the forward-slash (/) and the back-slash (\) which nerds call respectively the slash and the slosh.

(5) In biology, a sloping surface in a culture medium.

(6) In hydro-carbon extraction, as “slant drilling”, a technique in which the drilling is undertaken at an oblique angle rather than the traditional vertical orientation.

(7) In extractive mining, as type of run in which a heading is driven diagonally between the dip and strike of a coal seam.

(8) In informal use, a glance or look.

(9) To veer or angle away from a given level or line, especially from a horizontal; slope (in to incline, to lean).

(10) Figuratively, to have or be influenced by a subjective point of view, bias, personal feeling or inclination etc (often as “slant towards”, “slanted view” etc); a mental leaning, bias, or distortion (“feminist slant”, “MAGA slant”, “liberal slant”, “business slant” et al).

(11) To cause to slope.

(12) Figuratively, to distort information by rendering it unfaithfully or incompletely, especially in order to reflect a particular viewpoint (more generously sometimes described as “spin” or “massaged”).  The concept is known also as “angle journalism” (the particular mood or vein in which something is written, edited, or published).  In Scots English, the meaning “to lie or exaggerate” captures the flavor.  When used to describe the composing, editing, or publishing of something to attract the interest of a specific sub-group (a “slanted” story), “slanted towards” is necessarily pejorative if used only to suggest something optimized to appeal to a certain market segment or demographic (ie it’s more like “aimed at” or “intended for”).

(13) In slang, as “slant eye” (a racial slur now listed as disparaging & offensive), a reference to people from the Far East (applied historically mostly to the Chinese & Japanese), based on the shape of the eyes.  The variants included “slit eye”, “slitty-eyed” & “slopehead”, all equally offensive and now proscribed.

(14) In painting (art) a pan with a sloped bottom used for holding paintbrushes; a depression on a palette with a sloping bottom for holding and mixing watercolors; a palette or similar container with slants or sloping depressions.

(15) In US regional slang, a sarcastic remark; shade, an indirect mocking insult (archaic).

(16) In US slang, an opportunity, particularly to go somewhere (now rare).

(17) In historic Australian colonial slang, a crime committed for the purpose of being apprehended and transported to a major settlement.

Circa 1480s: From the Middle English –slonte or -slonte, both aphetic (in phonetics, linguistics & prosody, “of, relating to, or formed by aphesis” (the loss of the initial unstressed vowel of a word)) variants of aslant, thought to be of Scandinavian origin.  The other influence was probably the earlier dialectical slent, from the Old Norse or another North Germanic source and cognate with the Old Norse slent, the Swedish slinta (to slip) and the Norwegian slenta (to fall on the side), from the Proto-Germanic slintaną (which, in turn, was probably in some way linked with aslant.  Slant & slanting are nouns, verbs & adjectives, slanted is a verb & adjective, slantish is an adjective, slantwise is an adjective & adverb and slantingly & slantly are adverbs; the noun plural is slants.  The pleasing adjective slantendicular is listed by some as non-standard and presumably is proscribed in geometry and mathematics because it's an oxymoron; it’s a portmanteau word, the construct being slant + (perp)endicular.  It may be useful however in commerce or engineering where it might be used to describe something like a tool with a shaft which at some point assumes an oblique or skewed angle.   So it’s there to be used and slantindicular should be applied to stuff which is neither wholly nor fully slanted and in architecture, such structures are numerous.  In commerce, it could be used as a noun.

The noun slant by the 1650s was used to mean “an oblique direction or plane” and began in geography & civil engineering (of landforms, notably ski-slopes), developed from the verb or its adjective.  The now familiar (in the Fox News sense) meaning “way of regarding something, a mental bias” dates from 1905 while the derogatory slang sense of “a person of Asian appearance” came into use some time in the 1940s, a direct descendent from the earlier "slant-eyes", documented since 1929.  The verb slant is documented since the 1520s in the sense of “obliquely to strike (against something)”, an alteration the late thirteenth century slenten (slip sideways), the origin of which is murky but etymologists have concluded it came (via a Scandinavian source (noting the Swedish slinta (to slip)) and the Norwegian slenta (to fall on one side), from the Proto-Germanic slintanan.  The intransitive sense of “to slope, to lie obliquely” was in use by the 1690s, while the transitive sense of “to give a sloping direction to” had emerged by the early nineteenth century.  As early as the late fifteenth century forms were in use as an adverb, the adjectival use attested from the 1610s.  The technical use in literary theory as “poetic slant rhyme” was first used in the mid 1920s (assonance or consonance) although such lines had appeared for centuries, used sometimes deliberately as a device, sometimes not.  In the following stanza by English poet Peter Redgrove (The Archaeologist, published in Dr Faust's Sea-Spiral Spirit (1972)), the second and third lines contain a form of slant rhyme while the first and fourth have pure rhymes:

So I take one of those thin plates
And fit it to a knuckled other,
Carefully, for it trembles on the edge of powder,
Restore the jaw and find the fangs their mates.

You are watching Fox.

While it’s unlikely volumes of the poetry of Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) sit upon the bookshelves of those members of the Fox News audience who have bookshelves, they likely would concur with her words: “Tell the truth but tell it slant.”  “Slanted reporting” has become something which in recent years has attracted much attention (and much hand-wringing by the usual suspects) as an increasingly polarization of positions has been alleged to be a feature of political discourse in the West.  There is little doubt the effect (as reported) is obvious but there’s some debate about both the mechanics and the implications of the phenomenon.  As long ago as 2018, a study found that although the tenor and volume of things on X (formerly known as Twitter) was found to be increasingly toxic and surging, the number of active users engaged in these political polemics was found to be tiny and their effect was distorted by (1) the huge number of tweets they tended to post, (2) the propensity of their fellow-travelers to re-tweet and (3) the use of bots which were more prolific still.  If anything, recent voting patterns suggest it would seem the views of the general population appear to be trending away from the extremes towards the more centralist positions offered by independents or small-parties, something most obvious in Australia where compulsory voting exists.  Outfits like Fox News offer a slanted take on just about everything (and promote country & western music which truly is inexcusable) but this is something which has been identifiable in the news media as long as it’s existed and their blatant bias is hardly subversive or threatening, simply because it is so blatant.  What was most interesting in what emerged from the recent defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News suggested the network’s stance on things was motivated more by the financial imperative than ideological purity.  Intriguingly, what some analysts concluded was that if the universe shifted and the Fox News audience transformed into a bunch of seed-eating hippies, there would follow Fox’s editorial position, the slant being towards the advertising revenue rather than a particular world view.  Of course, there are some slants which are unalterable and dictated by ideological purity but with commercial media, it’s likely sometimes cause is confused with effect.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa (left) and Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap (1998) in front of London’s perpendicular Big Ben (1859) (right).  The architect’s original name for the latter was a typically succinct “Clock Tower”, chosen because it housed the “Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster” but it was in 2012 renamed “Elizabeth Tower”, marking the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022), something little noted by Londoners or those beyond who continue to prefer the nickname “Big Ben” although strictly speaking that’s a reference only to the “Great Bell” a 13.5 ton (13.7 tonne) casting in bell metal (a bronze which is an alloy of about 77% copper & 23% tin).  The origin of the nickname is contested but there are no romantic tales, all the possible inspirations being worthy white men as was the Victorian way.

Although in Italy alone there are seven leaning towers (three of which stand (ie lean) in Venice), it’s the torre di Pisa (Tower of Pisa) which is by far the best-known and a frequent Instagram prop.  Built between 1173-1372, the structure in the Piazza del Duomo (Pisa’s Cathedral Square) is the campanile (the freestanding bell tower) of the adjacent Pisa Cathedral and the famous lean of some 4^o (actually somewhat less than its greatest extent after more than a century of compensating engineering works) was apparent even during construction, the cause the softness of the sub-surface.  That geological feature has however contributed to the tower’s survival, the “rubber-like” sponginess below acting to absorb movement and despite a number of severe earthquakes in the region over the centuries, the tower remains.  It is of course known as the leaning tower than a sloping, oblique or slanted tower, probably because of the conventions of use which evolved in English.

The words “sloping”, “oblique”, “slanted”, & “leaning” all describe something not vertical or horizontal there tend to be nuances which dictate the choice of which to use.  Sloping generally is used of something which inclines or declines at a gentle or continuous angle, the implication being of a gradual or smooth transition from elevation to another, such as the way a hillside rises gradually rises to its summit.  Oblique is mostly a matter of specific angles and is thus common is mathematics, geometry and engineering.  Again, it’s a reference to something neither parallel nor perpendicular to a baseline but it tends to be restricted to something which can be defined with an exact measurement; in geometric or technical use, an oblique line or angle is one neither 90^o nor perfectly horizontal.  Slanted describes something positioned at a diagonal, often used to imply a more noticeable or sharp angle but also is widely used figuratively, metaphorically and in idiomatic phrases.  Leaning refers to something tilted or positioned at an angle due to external pressure, the object in an unstable position and in need of support.  The implication carried is that something which “slants” is designed thus to do while something which “leans” does so because of some design flaw or unexpected external force being applied so it’s the leaning and not the sloping tower of Pisa, even though the structure has assumed quite a slope.

Slanting Engines

On a slant: Diagram of the mounting of the M194 straight-six engine in the Le Mans winning Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W194) canted at a 40^o slant (left); the Mercedes-Benz M196 straight-eight engine schematic (centre) and installed in a 1954 W196R "Streamliner" (right) at a at a 53^o slant (right).  The two large donut-like objects at the front are the inboard, finned brake drums; at the time, the engineers maintained disk brakes were "not yet ready for use". 

There are “slant” engines and they exist in three configurations.  The first is simply a conventional in-line engine (straight-six, straight-eight etc) which, when installed in a vehicle, is fitted with the block canted to the left or right, the objective being a lower hood line which means a better aerodynamic outcome.  A classic example was the Mercedes-Benz W196R Formula One racing car (1954-1955) in which the straight-eight was canted to the right at a 53^o angle, the technique carried over when the same structure was used to produce the W196S (1955) used to contest the World Sports Car Championship.  Rather opportunistically, the W196S was dubbed the 300 SLR (one of which in 2022 became the world's most expensive used car, selling at a private auction for US$142 million) as a form of cross promotion with the 300 SL (W198, 1954-1956) Gullwing then in production, even though the two types shared little more than nuts, bolts and a resemblance.  The 300 SL did however also have its straight-six engine sitting at a slant, this time canted at a 50^o angle and although the factory never published an estimate of the reduction in drag, it’s long been presumed to be “at least several percent”.  Another advantage of the configuration was it made possible the use of “long-tube” runners for the induction system, taking advantage of the properties of fluid dynamics to permit them to be tuned either for mid-range torque or top-end power.  The concept used math which had been worked out in the nineteenth century and had often been used in competition but it wasn’t until 1959 when Chrysler in the US released their picturesque induction castings that the system, imaginatively named the “Sonoramic”, reached a wider audience.

Chrysler Slant Six (170 cid, 1963) schematic.

The “true” slant engines were those with a slanted block atop an otherwise conventional arrangement of components, the best known of which was Chrysler’s long-serving “Slant Six”, produced in displacements of 170 cubic inch (2.8 litre, 1959-1969), 198 cubic inch (3.2 litre, 1970-1974) and 225 cubic inch (3.7 litre, 1960-2000).  The block of the Slant Six was canted to the right at a 30^o and like Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler took advantage of the space created to the left to produce some wide induction runners, the most extravagant those used by the special Hyper Pack option package which used a four barrel carburetor, enabling the engine to produce power which made it competitive with many V8 powered machines.  Although the name “Slant Six” became famous, it was only in the mid-sixties it caught on, Plymouth originally calling the thing a 30-D (a reference to the a 30^o slant), hardly very catchy and something to which only engineers would relate and Slant Six was soon preferred although the aficionados really like “tower of power” and the engine even today still has a devoted following.

Chrysler Slant Six with Hyper Pak in 1962 Plymouth Valiant V-200.

Chrysler didn’t restrict the Sonoramics to the big-block V8s, using it also on the short-lived (1960-1962) Hyper Pak performance option for the both 170 cubic inch (2.8 litre, 1959-1969) and 225 cubic inch (3.7 litre, 1987-2000) versions of the Slant Six, the engineers taking advantage of the space afforded by the canted block to permit the curvaceous intake runners nearly to fill the engine bay.  The Hyper Pak wasn't seen in showrooms but was available as an over-the-counter kit (literally a cardboard box containing all necessary parts) from Dodge & Plymouth spare parts departments and its life was limited because it became a victim of its own success.  Although less suitable for street use because it turned the mild-mannered straight-six into something at its best at full throttle, in the race events for which it was eligible it proved unbeatable, dominating the competition for two years, compelling the sanctioning body cancel the series.

Manifold porn: The Slant Six's angle meant there was much space available to the left and a range of intake manifolds followed, some of which remain available to this day.  Using variations of the sonoramic tuning, manifolds were produced for single, two & four barrel carburetors and between 1965-1968, Chrysler's Argentine operation produced the Slant Six in a version with twin single barrel carburetors.  The use of the properties of fluid dynamics to gain power or torque as desired quickly was adopted by the industry as an engineering orthodoxy.

Some myths seem to have become attached to the Hyper-Pak.  What seems to be true is the original kit, sold in 1960 for the 170 engines used in competition, was a genuine homologation exercise and as well as the intake manifold & Carter AFB four barrel carburetor, it included all the internal parts such as the high-compression pistons, the high-lift camshaft and the valve train components needed to support the consequently higher engine speeds.  Because the competition rules allowed modifications to the exhaust system, on the track the cars ran tubular steel headers which fed an open exhaust, terminating in the racers' preferred “dump pipe”.  After the requisite number of “complete” kits were sold, thus fulfilling the homologation demands, the kits were reconfigured and included only the “bolt-on” parts such as the induction system and a camshaft which, while more aggressive than the standard unit, wasn’t as radical as the one used on the track but could be used in conjunction with the standard valve train and Chrysler’s TorqueFlite automatic, thus expanding the Hyper-Pak’s appeal.

At the same time, the availability was extended to the larger 225 which between 1961-1963 was also available with an aluminum block, thus becoming one of the small number of engines configured with the combination of an aluminum block with a cast-iron head.  US manufacturers were at the time aware the trend was for cars to continue getting bigger so they were interested in ways to reduce weight.  However, despite saving some 70 lbs (32 KG), Chrysler’s aluminum block was, like General Motors’ (GM) 215 cubic inch (3.5 litre) V8, short-lived (though the V8 after being sold to Rover enjoyed a long, lucrative and prolific second life, not finally laid to rest until 2006) for not only were teething troubles encountered with the still novel method of construction, the accountants made clear using cast iron was always going to be cheaper so the industry just accepted weight gain and whenever required, increased displacement to compensate, an approach which persisted until the first oil shock of the early 1970s.

1970 Dodge Challenger (1970-1974) with 225 Slant Six.

Until 1973, both the Challenger & the corporation's companion pony car (the Plymouth Barracuda (1964-1974)) was available with the Slant Six (198 & 225) although the fitment rate was under 10%, unlike the early pony cars (Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and the early Barracudas) where the six-cylinder versions would at times be close to 40% of production.  Many of the surviving Slant Six Challengers & Barracudas have been "re-purposed" as clones of the more desirable versions with big-block V8s.

Although it was the longer lived 225 version which gained the Slant Six its stellar reputation for durability and the ease with which additional power could be extracted, there's always been a following for the short-stroke 170 because of its European-like willingness to rev, the characteristics of the over-square engine (unique among the slant-six's three displacements (170-198-225)) unusually lively for a US straight-six.  Despite some aspects of the specification being modest (there were only four main bearings although they were the beefy units used in the 426 cubic inch Street Hemi V8), for much of its life it used a tough forged steel crankshaft and high-speed tolerant solid valve lifters; it proved a was a famously robust engine and one remarkably tolerant of neglect.  Despite that, after the Hyper Pak affair, Chrysler in the US showed little interest in any performance potential, knowing the US preference for V8s, something which doomed also Pontiac's short-lived single overhead camshaft (SOHC) straight-six (1966-1969).  A version of the 225 with a two-barrel carburetor (rated at 160 horsepower, an increase of 15 over the standard unit) was offered in some non-North American markets where V8 sales were not dominant and it proved very popular in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Central & South America but only when tighter US emission regulations forced its adoption did a 225 with a two barrel carburetor appear in the home market though there it was installed to restore the power losses suffered after the emission control plumbing was added rather than seek gains.

Pontiac Trophy 4 cutaway.

Making a straight-eight or V8 by combining two in-line fours has been done a few times and many have been successful (although Triumph managed to create a truly horrid one for the otherwise lovely Stag).  Less common is making a four from an eight but that’s what Pontiac did when they conjured their 194.5 cubic inch (3.2 litre) four by using one bank of their 389 cubic inch (6.4 litre) Trophy V8 and it was (just about) literally cut in half, meaning the cylinders were canted to the right by 45^o (the V8 obviously in a conventional 90^o configuration.  To emphasize the family connection with the highly regarded Pontiac Trophy V8, the smaller offspring was called the Trophy 4 (although it was at time also dubbed the Indy 4 or Indianapolis 4 which even at the time sounded ambitious).  It did work and the economic advantages for the manufacturer (use of common components and the same assembly line) were compelling but the limitations inherent in a four-cylinder of such a large displacement were apparent in the rough-running and wear on critical parts and it was available only between 1961-1963, only in the compact Tempest.

Diagram showing balance shaft locations.

Large displacement four cylinder engines have been built.  Fiat in 1910 built two of their S76s to contest the world LSR (land speed record) and they were an hefty 28.4 litres (1730 cubic inch), the “Beast of Turin” using its then impressive 290 horsepower (216 kW) to attain a one-way speed of 132.27 mph (213 km/h) but, because it was not possible for the team to make the “return run” (ie in the opposite direction) within the stipulated one hour, the LSR remained with the Blitzen Benz which in 1909 had set a mark of 125.94 mph (202.65 km/h).  On land, never again would anyone build a four with the capacity to match the Beasts of Turin but units with displacements approaching 5.0 litres (305 cubic inch) were not uncommon during the inter-war years.  However, the technology of the internal combustion engine (ICE) greatly advanced during World War II (1939-1945) and one consequence of that was engine speeds rose and less displacement was required for a specific output, both factors which conspired to make the big fours unfashionable.  They did however make a comeback in the 1970s when the clever trick of “balance shafts” enabled the inherently chronic second order harmonic vibrations to be “dampened out” and Porsche between 1991-1995 produced a 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) range which used the technique.  The balance shaft was invented early in the twentieth century by English engineer Frederick Lanchester (1868–1946) but it was Mitsubishi which in the 1970s patented their “Silent Shaft” system and although Porsche developed their own version, they worked out the Japanese design was superior so used that instead, paying Mitsubishi a small royalty (under US$10) for each one installed.  A balance shaft uses two counterweights (looking something like small hockey pucks with the shaft running through them), set some 1½ inches (40 mm) apart and turns at twice the engine-speed.  With one shaft mounted high on one side of the engine and the other low on the opposite side, the pair counter-rotates, balancing the large reciprocating mass.