Fluff

Fluff (pronounced fluhf)

(1) Light, downy particles, as of cotton.

(2) A soft, light, downy mass.

(3) In slang, a cloth diaper (nappy).

(4) In slang (New England region in the US), marshmallow crème, thus the local delicacy the “fluffernutter” (a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff), once a favorite of children’s school lunches but now likely to attract “mom shaming” on Instagram.

(5) In LGBTQQIAAOP slang, the passive partner in a lesbian relationship, known also as a “ruffle” (unfortunately the dominant partner is not known as a “flounce” which seems a missed linguistic opportunity).

(6) In slang, (Australia, New Zealand, Canada), a fart.

(7) In the slang of pop-culture fandom, fan fiction (in whole or in part) is “sweet and feel-good” in tone, often involving romance.

(8) In the slang (UK) of the role-playing game community, a form of role-playing that is inconsequential and not related to the plot; it's used sometimes in the context of (but not limited to)  “fulling in time”.

(9) In UK slang, short change deliberately given by a railway clerk (keeping the money for themselves), an clipping of “deliberate fluff” (obsolete).

(10) Figuratively, something of no consequence; insubstantial. 

(11) Figuratively (of literature, political argument, philosophy etc), a slight work or one of dubious artistic or intellectual value; unscholarly (used also as a polite euphemism for BS (bullshit), being less explicit than “cattle feces” (faeces in non-US English)).

(12) An error (flub, lapse, blooper, blunder, boo-boo, defect, error, fault, faux pas, gaffe, lapse, mistake, slip, stumble, brain-fart, brain-explosion), especially an actor's memory lapse in the delivery of lines (often in the form “fluffed their lines”).

(13) A young woman (often as “a bit of fluff”), the implication being of her providing a brief, amusing diversion rather than one sought for a permanent relationship).

(14) To make into fluff; shake or puff out (feathers, hair etc) into a fluffy mass (often followed by up).

(15) To make a mistake.

(16) To become fluffy; move, float, or settle down like fluff.

(17) To embellish (often as “fluffed up”).

1780s: From the earlier (or perhaps contemporary) floow (woolly substance, down, nap, lint (which appeared also as flough, flue & flew)), possibly from the West Flemish vluwe (an imitative modification of floow), of uncertain origin but which may be from the French velu (hairy, furry), from the Latin villūtus (having shaggy hair), from villus (shaggy hair, tuft of hair) and may be compared with the Old English flōh (that which is flown off, fragment, piece), linked to the later “flaw”.  Although undocumented, etymologists generally conclude the word may have been a blend of flue +‎ puff.  “Fluffy stuff” is a common phenomenon in the natural world and descriptors existed in many European languages including the possibly onomatopoeic Middle Dutch vloe, the dialectal English floose, flooze & fleeze (particles of wool or cotton; fluff; loose threads or fibres), the Danish fnug (down, fluff) and the Swedish fnugg (speck, flake).  Traces of the sound of the word “fluff” are found in other languages including the Japanese フワフワ (fuwafuwa) (lightly, softly), the Hungarian puha (soft, fluffy), the Polish puchaty (soft, fluffy) and the Romanian puf (down; peachfuzz; soft hair of some animals; powderpuff).  Fluff & fluffing are nouns & verbs, fluffed is a verb, fluffiness & fluffer are nouns, fluffless & flufflike are adjectives, fluffy is an adjective (and non-standard) noun and fluffily is an adverb; the noun plural is fluffs.

Fluffied: Lindsay Lohan in bikini embellished with faux fur, photo-shoot for the fifth anniversary of ODDA magazine, April 2017.

In idiomatic use there’s “fluff around” of “fluff about” (ineffectually to act or waste time”, “fluff off” (an affectionate form of “fuck off”), “fluff-ball” or “ball of fluff” (a fluffy kitten or puppy with the quality of “cuteness”), “bum fluff” or “belly-button fluff” (small particles the fabric of clothing which accumulates in body crevices), “fluffhead” (someone vague or confused (synonymous with “airhead”), “fluff up” (a polite version of “fuck up”).  The term “fluffy bunny” isn’t from lagomorphology (the scientific study of rabbits (small mammals in the family Leporidae)) although it may be assumed the term is used in pet shops.  Fluffy bunny (also as “fluff bunny” & “fluffbunny”) was an adaptable noun used to mean: (1) a synonym of chubby bunny (a competitive eating game in which contestants had to pronounce words or phrases (such as “Irish wristwatch”) while holding increasing numbers of marshmallows is their mouth), (2) in the strange world of quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement, which in theory can occur but may or may not happen because of "other physics" and (3) a derogatory descriptor of a casual, naive practitioner of Wicca (or other neo-pagan religions), especially one deemed to have only a superficial understanding.  The slang “bit of fluff” (young woman with whom one is enjoying or planning a brief affair) was first recorded in 1903 while the use to describe the marshmallow confection seems to date from at least 1920, noted in Massachusetts.  The verb in the sense of “to shake into a soft mass” was in use by 1875 (directly from the noun) while the meaning “make a mistake” dates from 1884 as theatre slang referring to actors who had forgotten or weongly spoken (fluffed) their lines.  The adjective fluffy (containing or resembling fluff) came into use in the 1820s.

“Fluff jobs” were those deemed of dubious worth or existing only to fulfil some government-imposed mandate, one marker of which was said to be the length of the job title (eg deputy regional assistant coordinator of diversity and inclusion).  The concept was satirised by Douglas Adams (1952–2001) in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992), the profession of “telephone sanitizer” being a classic “Fluff job”.  The the joke was that having exiled the fluffy (telephone sanitizers, advertising account executives, management consultants and such) the ancient civilization of the planet Golgafrincham being driven to extinction by the spread of a lethal pathogen through the vector of uncleaned telephone handsets.  The exiled “fluffies” ended up on Planet Earth where they became the ancestors of modern humans, explaining the proliferation of “fluff jobs” now so obvious.  

A Bit of Fluff (1963) by Kimberly Kemp.

Kimberly Kemp was a pseudonym adopted by Gilbert Fox (1917-2004) for his “lesbian pulp novels”, dozens of which were published during the 1960s & 1970s.  His other lesbian fiction (in a slightly different) vein appeared under names including Dallas Mayo and Violet Loring while for his “heterosexual erotica” he used Peter Willow and Paul Russo.  Unfortunately, the cover-art for his titles is unattributed and the publishers may have used many graphic artists while maintaining the thematic consistency (which was something like “Mills & Boon undressed”).  Mr Fox led a varied and interesting life and A Bit of Fluff (1963) was illustrative of the lesbionic component of his oeuvre, other titles including: Intimate Nurse; A World All Their Own; The Houseguest; My Secret Lesbian Life, Vol I; My Secret Lesbian Life, Vol II; Lesbian Obsession; Perfume and Pain; Private party; Different; The Last Resort; Coming Out Party; Pleasant Company; Operation: Sex; A Cunning Among Lesbians; Play With Me; Illicit Interlude; Two Women; The houseguest; Love like a Shadow; A labor of love; Party Time; Secret Cravings; Draw the Blinds; Two of a Kind, Virgin Wanted; Perfumed/Pampered.

Middlemarch by George Eliot, first edition, 1871 (vol I) & 1872 (Vol II, III & IIII).  Appearing originally in eight paper-bound instalments (1871-1872), the hardback editions (in four volumes) were published in parallel, something not at the time the industry's universal practice.

Mr Fox opted to use a feminine pen-name for his lesbian erotica to lend a touch of authenticity, suggesting what would now be called “lived experience” rather than the rather formulaic approach to the topic taken by male authors who tended often to indulge their own fantasies; definitely he was interested in attracting a female readership and reverse-gender pseudonyms have a history, the most famous probably George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880)).  Ms Evans adopted a masculine pen-name not because it wasn’t possible for women novelists to find publishers but because “women’s fiction” was at the time regarded as a “fluffy, trivial amusements” while she wanted to focus on the more challenging themes men were exploring in the “realism” genre then fashionable in European literature.  It’s good she did because, although dated, works like Romola (1862–1863) and Middlemarch (1871–1872) are rewarding and even valuable source documents for social historians.

Catch 22 (1961) by Joseph Heller: Polymesmeric but not fluffy.

Literary editors use the phrase “brushing the dog” to describe the process of “removing the fluff” from a manuscript, hopefully leaving only nice, glossy text.  Literary historians sometimes compare originals with the edited versions that appeared in print and although there’s sometimes come regret for some of what was lost, generally the view seem to be that editors produce a better book.  Once who suggested an editor should have used a stiffer brush was the old curmudgeon Norman Mailer (1923–2007) who, writing of Joseph Heller’s (1923-1999) Catch-22 (1961), joked that a reader wouldn’t notice were “100 pages pulled from the middle”, adding “not even the author could be certain they were gone.”  The non-lineal structure of Catch 22 certainly demanded some mental gymnastics from readers (one publisher coined “polymesmeric” for the blurb) and, pace Norman Mailer but it might have been more accurate to suggest the chapter order could have been re-arranged without compromising the literary value.  Even if those same readers might find 100 pages to remove, not all would agree on which 100 pages.

Watergate Fluff

Watergate fluff is one of the alternative terms for the dish “Watergate Salad”, the others including Green Fluff, Green Goddess, Fluff Salad and Funeral Salad, the last picked up reputedly because it was so often served at wakes.  It’s not clear how the culinary delight came to be called “Watergate Salad” although there’s no doubt the use was triggered by some association the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s which revolved around attempts by the administration of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974) to “cover up” the involvement of operatives connected to the White House with the break-in in June 1972 of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington DC’s Watergate Building.  Interestingly, although the scandal (in the public perception, although the legal proceedings would last longer) ended in August 1974 when Nixon resigned, the first known use of the term “Watergate Salad” dates from 1975 although in September 1974, Maryland's Hagerstown Daily Mail had published the recipe for “Watergate Cake”, also a similarly green-tinted dessert made with pistachio pudding in the mix and sometimes the icing.

Fluffy dice (in period 1970s brown) in 1974 Ford Mustang II Ghia.  It is a truth universally acknowledged, that of the seven generations of Ford Mustang produced since 1964, it is a second generation (Watergate scandal era) Mustang II (1973-1978) in which it is most likely a pair of fluffy dice will be hanging from the rear-view mirror.  If they're seen dangling in a Boss 429 (1969-1970), that's irony.

The dish however predates the term.  Some claim the Kraft Foods Corporation deserves credit (apparently as a proud boast rather than an admission of guilt) as the creator because in 1975 they published a recipe called “Pistachio Pineapple Delight” as part of a promotional campaign to support the release that year of their “Pistachio Pudding Mix” (something with a long tradition, a whipped cream and pineapple concoction detailed in a Kansas newspaper in 1913, the year Richard Nixon was born).  At that point, history and myth become hard to untangle, one story saying the food editor of the Chicago Tribune named it to stimulate interest, suggesting it was the ideal snack to enjoy while watching the televised hearings of proceedings pursuant to the scandal while another claimed it was associative because the Watergate Hotel (in the by then infamous building) served the salad on their popular weekend buffets; no menus appear to have survived to prove or disprove that one.  Best suggestion was the name was chosen because the salad was “full of nuts” (like the crew involved in the scandal, including the memorable lawyer and Watergate burglary coordinator G Gordon Liddy (1930–2021) who wasn’t really “a nut” but often has been portrayed as one).  True or not, that’s the one which deserves to be accepted.

Aleita Dupree's Watergate Salad recipe

Ingredients

1 (3 ½ oz) box of instant pistachio pudding mix.
1 (20 oz) can of crushed pineapple with juice (most use sweetened).
1 (8 oz) container of cool whip, thawed.
1 heaped cup of miniature marshmallows.
½ cup of chopped pecan nuts.
Stemmed maraschino cherries for garnish (optional).

Instructions

(1) In glass serving bowl, mix crushed pineapple and juice with pistachio pudding mix.  Stir pudding until mix completely is dissolved and mixture is smooth.

(2) Fold in the thawed cool whip.  Gently fold until pudding and cool whip is completely blended.

(3) Add miniature marshmallows and pecans.  Cover and chill until salad is set (should take up to 30 minutes).

(4) To serve, garnish with stemmed cherries and extra chopped pecans (if desired).

Fluff in fashion

Fluffiness in fashion: Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022, left) and in New York to promote Irish Wish (Netflix, 2024, right).  The fluffy cream coat is by David Koma (Davit Komakhidze b 1985), a London-based, Georgian-born fashion designer (the label of his fashion house is stylized as DΛVID KOMΛ).  The crystal payette-embroidered layered cup bra hints at the profile of the customer base and did appear on sale at US$1250 (down from US$1750).  The fashion business is regarded by some as a bit “fluffy” (frocks and such) compared with “hard” industries (heavy engineering, nuclear weapons etc) but globally the annual turnover of the fashion industry is substantial.  The numbers bounce around a bit because it difficult to determine where “fashion” ends and “commodities” begin but estimates between US$1.5-2.5 trillion widely are quoted (In financial use, one trillion = 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million or 1,000 billion)).

Flamingo

Flamingo (pronounced fluh-ming-goh)

(1) Any of several aquatic wading birds of the family Phoenicopteridae (the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes), having very long legs and neck, webbed feet, a bill bent downward at the tip and pinkish to scarlet plumage; they tend to inhabit brackish lakes.

(2) In the color spectrum, a shade of reddish-orange but in commercial use, often various hues of pink.

1555–1565: From the Portuguese flamengo (flamingo) and Spanish flamenco (flamingo), from the Catalan & Old Occitan (Old Provençal) flamenc, (flame colored), the construct being the Latin flamma (flame) + the Germanic suffix -enc (-ing), denoting “descent from or membership of”.  Both the Portuguese flamengo and the Spanish flamengo translate literally as “flame-colored” (the Greek phoinikopteros (flamingo) literally was “red feathered").  The Portuguese, Spanish & Catalan forms were used adjectivally as an ethnonym meaning “Flemish”; Fleming (the Belgium region), seems originally to have been a jocular name, coined because the conventional Romance image of the inhabitants was of “those with a ruddy-complexion”.  Although the term is now uncommon (and rarely heard in commentary), in cricket, “flamingo shot” describes a ball "flicked" from outside off stump through midwicket.  The more serious types among the ornithologists say the collective noun for flamingos is “a stand” but most favor the more evocative “flamboyance” and one suspects the birds would prefer it too.  Flamingo is a noun & adjective and flamingoish is an adjective; the noun plural is flamingos or flamingoes.

In Spanish, flamenco can be used colloquially as an adjective meaning “robust, healthy-looking” and is a type of dance.  In an example of cultural cross-fertilization, flamenca (feminine singular of flamenco) seems to have been the original name for a form of Spanish poetry which came to be called seguidilla (the construct being seguida (sequence) + -illa (the diminutive suffix).  Seguidilla meant “series, sequence, list (a set of related things in an order)” and also described a “lively, triple-time, Spanish tune and dance”, the rhythm of which was the source of the metrical form of the verse.  Although the musical source is uncontested, because of the origins in folk culture (and thus there exists scant documentation), the exact structure of the early verse is uncertain but speculative reconstructions suggest flamenca began as a four-line strophe with alternating long and short lines (seven or eight syllables in the long lines; five or six in the short).  Literary historians are however certain that later (likely in the seventeenth century) three lines were added and the form became codified as a seven-line form, alternating seven and five syllables in the first part, and five, seven, five in the second.  Critics list it as the most elegant of the popular Spanish metrical forms and it’s unique in being the only generalized form of the seven-line verse.

Lindsay Lohan in Dubai in flamingo pink Aeire velour tracksuit with yoga mat, January, 2023.

The term “flamingo pink” has much commercial appeal because of the charismatic birds so use often is a bit opportunistic given the coloring of flamingos varies widely depending on their diet, many often more of an orange hue than red or pink.  There’s thus much variation on the color charts while garment manufacturers appear mostly to slot in “Flamingo pink” as a shade somewhat toned-down from “hot pink” or “fuchsia”.  Legislation in the UAE (United Arab Emirates, including Dubai) affords individuals significant protection from being photographed without their consent so there the paparazzi are noticeably less active than in most Western jurisdictions.  Thus an image of celebrity in a public place in Dubai can usually be assumed to have been staged or in some way authorized.  As a general principle, those in Dubai are (mostly) free to photograph the built environment, landscapes, tourist attractions and even street scenes but deliberately (or even inadvertently) photographing an identifiable person without their consent can potentially create legal liability.  This is the case especially if the image is deemed to constitute an invasion of privacy or is published or shared electronically.  The mere inclusion of people in photographs may not constitute an offence even if one or more is identifiable, a typical example being a shot of a tourist attraction in which one or more tourist appears; as in the West, this is an aspect of law in which intent is a factor.  Ms Lohan more than once has mentioned one of the attractions of Dubai is the level of protection from paparazzi afforded to public figures.

Flamingos in the Air

Safety in numbers: Wildlife photographer Ron Magill's (b 1960) image of flamingos in the Miami Zoo Public Bathroom, sitting (standing) out Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that struck Florida in August 1992.  It remains the most destructive weather event recorded in Florida but all in the flamboyance of flamingos sheltering in the bathroom survived.  Flamingos are omnivores, filter-feeding on brine shrimp and blue-green algae as well as larva, small insects, mollusks and crustaceans, their vivid pink or reddish feathers a product of the beta-carotenoids rich in this diet.  The birds usually stand on one leg with the other tucked beneath and why they do this is not understood.  One theory is that standing on one leg allows them to conserve more body heat, given they spend a significant amount of time wading in cold water, but the behavior is also observed in warm water and among birds ashore.  The alternative theory is that standing on one leg reduces the energy required for the muscular effort to stand and balance and flamingos demonstrate substantially less body sway in a one-legged posture.  The answer thus is “don't know” but it may reasonably be assumed they prefer it because it's easier.

Perhaps the world's only black flamingo.

In 2015, during a routine “flamingo count”, a black flamingo was observed on the salt lake at the Akrotiri Environmental Centre on the southern coast of Cyprus, zoologists noting it may be not merely rare but perhaps the only one in existence; it's assumed to be the same bird seen in Israel in 2014 (large flamingo flocks are known regularly to fly long distances).  The black plumage is a result of melanism, a genetic condition in which the pigment melanin is over-produced, turning the feathers black during development.  The opposite of melanism is albinism, when no melanin is made and the animal is colorless except for a faint hue (from red blood vessels) in the eyes.  There are many intermediate stages between melanism & albinism where various pigments partially are missing, resulting the patchy coloration known as leucism but albino and leucistic (partial albino) birds are not uncommon, unlike the genuine rarity of the melanistic flamingo.  Why flamingos are so rarely affected while black owls, woodpeckers, herons and many others often are observed isn't known but the condition appears to be most common in a some hawk species, jaegers and a few seabirds.  Pedants noted the much-travelled black flamingo actually had a few white tail feathers so suggested it should not be classified as a true instance of melanism but specialist ornithologists, while acknowledging there were aberrant white feathers, dismissed their presence with an observation something like “...a few, but then again, too few to mention”.

RAF (Royal Air Force) de Havilland DH.95 Flamingo Mark I.

First flown in 1938 before entering service in 1939, the de Havilland DH.95 Flamingo was a twin-engined, high-wing monoplane airliner, the design reflecting the then current thinking about short-haul civil aviation, the emphasis on passenger comfort and economy of operation, the latter still a consuming interest of carriers.  De Havilland’s designers used the US Douglas DC-3 (the Dakota, then the dominant airframe in civil use), as a model, the Flamingo a little scaled-down better to suit the economics of European operations.  Although never envisaged as a military platform, the Air Ministry placed an order for a small run to be used as transport and communications aircraft but production plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945) and the ministry directed de Havilland’s capacity should be re-allocated to manufacturing more urgently-needed machines.  So, only 14 Flamingos were built and those used by the Army and RAF all were struck from the active list before the war was over, some returned to civil use, the last remaining in service until the early 1950s.  The Flamingo is however over-represented in the wartime photographic record because it was a RAF Flamingo that was Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) preferred short-haul transport and in one he made his famous flights to France in May 1940 as he attempted to stiffen the resolve of the French cabinet to remain in the war.

The Flamingo Pose

The flamingo pose, perfected by Gigi Hadid (b 1995).  Note hand braced against wall with fingers spread (both techniques borrowed from structural engineering), a way of “distributing the load”, lowering the centre of gravity, thus enhancing stability.

Among humans, the reason for the flamingo pose is well understood: Instagram.  It’s in the tradition of earlier “duck face”, “fish gape pose”, “T. rex selfie hand”, “Bambi pose”, “resting bitch face”, “ear scratch” and “migraine pose” etc, all of which (at least before becoming clichéd) had visual appeal while some offered functional advantages.  Humans don’t however enjoy the evolutionary heritage of flamingos and the pose can be a technical challenge if attempted while standing; models suggest using a wall or handrail for balance if the photo session is at all protracted.  A better alternative can be to pose while sitting, one leg extended with the other bent or tucked away in some fetching manner.

Flamingos on wheels

1961 Buick Flamingo.

Attendances had been declining at GM’s (General Motors) Motorama so 1961 would prove the final season for the traveling road show that, known originally as Autorama, had since 1949 been an annual event (except in the troubled years 1957-1958) in major cities (Boston, New York, Miami, San Francisco etc).  In those years more than ten million had visited the exhibits but the public’s taste in entertainment had shifted and by the 1960s the cars being displayed were no longer as entertaining, the wild, extravagant exercises which blended automobiles with styling cues from missiles and jet aircraft replaced by what were mostly blinged-up variants of vehicles already in production.  Rather than being a forum to excite the imagination, Motorama had descended into a kind of large-scale focus-group to “test the water”, gauging reaction to innovations or gimmicks that might later appear in showrooms.

Testing the water: 19 members of the Brighton Swimming Club, in their top hats and swim trunks, East Sussex, Brighton, England, 1863, photograph by Benjamin William Botham (1824-1877).  Note chap (fourth from left) adopting flamingo pose: there’s one in every crowd.

Buick’s 1961 Flamingo was very much in the vein of a “test the water” exercise.  It was based on a standard-production Electra 225 convertible but finished in a pearlescent pink, the paint mixed using the same techniques as the West Coast hot rod community: exotic pigments & toners with metal-flakes, challenging enough to perfect for a one-off and years away from being viable for large-scale production.  While an extensive use of pink paint and accessories had not much increased the appeal of the Dodge La Femme (1955-1956) among the female demographic in which US commerce was taking an increasing interest, Buick's product planners must have decided there was life in the “women like pink” approach.  Cynical that may have been but the sparkling color must have been eye-catching under the lights and the Flamingo was one of the most photographed exhibits when the 1961 Motorama opened its swansong season at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, then the final home of General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964).  The Flamingo’s interior certainly complimented the paint, the two-tone upholstery in pink leather and cranberry brocade while the front bucket seats were separated by a wide console trimmed in bright metal, a feature Detroit widely would adopt although in 1961 Buick kept the transmission’s shift level on the column; “T-bar” shifts and such soon would come.

1961 Buick Flamingo.

Structurally, the Flamingo's most obvious novelty was the pivoting passenger seat, able to turned 180^o and thus more easily permit a conversation with those in the rear compartment, an design aspect to ponder given it was before seatbelts were universal but well after the publication of Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) First Law of Motion (known also as the Law of Inertia: “An object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in motion will continue in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced external force”).  It was also a time before Ralph Nader’s (b 1934) book Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) prompted politicians to take their legislative axe to such ventures.  Swivelling front seats had actually been around for a while but their extent of rotation had been only the few degrees required to afford easier ingress and egress although Chrysler did later include a passenger seat able to rotate the full 180^o.  Offered as part of the “Mobile Director Package” and available exclusively on the 1967-1968 Imperial Crown Coupe, demand was subdued and even had it not been obvious the new safety rules would outlaw such things, the option would not have been carried over to the new generation of “Fuselage” cars in 1969.  What became of the Buick Flamingo isn’t known.  It was mechanically identically to any other Electra 225 convertible so it may have been used by Buick’s engineers for other purposes and the consensus is it was likely scrapped and sent to the crusher, the fate of many such machines.

Chevrolet Firenza Can-Am advertisement, 1973.

Internationally, the South African automotive industry of the 1960s and early 1970s remains best known for improving cars from Europe by installing larger capacity V8 engines sourced from the US, the most noted including the Perana (the Mark I Ford Capri (1969-1974) but fitted with a 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) V8) some 500 of which were built until the first oil shock (1973) put a stop to the fun and the Chevrolet Firenza Can-Am (a coupé variant of the HC Vauxhall Viva (1970-1979) which used the Chevrolet Z/28 302 V8 that had in the US become surplus when the rules of the Trans-Am competition were relaxed to permit racing teams to de-stroke larger displacement units to meet the 5.0 litre (305 cubic inch) class limit), 100 produced in 1973 as a homologation exercise for use in local competition.  Fondly those brutish machines still are recalled by those who remember how things used to be done but, years before, there had also been the rather more delicate GSM Flamingo.

1963 GSM Flamingo, note the elevated stance and disproportionate windscreen height.

Capetown-based GSM (Glassport Motor Company) was formed in 1958 with a business model following the approach of many small-scale “cottage industry” producers in the UK: Diminutive sports cars with small-displacement engines that achieved competitive performance through the light weight of their bodies constructed with the then still novel fibreglass in shapes which, although often not wind-tunnel tested, certainly looked aerodynamic.  GSM had enjoyed some success with their Dart sports car (1958-1964) but when in 1962 the company expanded the range to include the Flamingo, it followed the approach which doomed more than one concern: A larger coupé, fitted with some of the creature comforts better to appeal to a wider market than their uncompromising little roadsters, the native environment of the latter a race track.  Had it been possible to fit the Flamingo with Ford’s Cologne V6 engine the car might have enjoyed greater commercial success but for various reasons it appeared instead with the corporation’s 1.5 & 1.7 litre (92 & 102 cubic inch) four cylinder units.  Although the low mass and clearly slippery aerodynamics made it possible for some Flamingos to achieve a then exceptional 110 mph (175 km/h), in getting there it lacked the refinement buyers of coupés in its price range had come to expect and production ended in 1964.

1963 GSM Flamingo.

Entertaining though it was acknowledged to be, the target market wanted also to be pampered and there were too many aspects of the Flamingo that betrayed its “backyard” origins.  The cars sat higher on the chassis than was intended because of a measurement error when the molds were created (shades of the later Hubble Space Telescope) which meant a somewhat “jacked-up” look and, more seriously, a higher centre of gravity which had to be compensated for by adjustments to the suspension settings, exactly what MG was in 1974 compelled to do to make its Midget (1963-1979) and MGB (1962-1980) comply with US headlight height rules.  Had resources been available, the flawed molds would have been scrapped and re-cast using correct dimensions but by then cash-flow was more of a priority than perfection.  Additionally, the windscreen, while offering commanding visibility, was aesthetically too big for the shape, economic realities dictating the “best fit available” being bought “off the shelf”, in this case the glass from BMC’s (British Motor Corporation) Austin A40 Farina (1958-1967, the Countryman version of which was one of the earliest “hatchbacks”).  Coincidentally, Nissan in 1968 created a similar look when adding a taller windscreen to their Fairlady roadster (1963-1970 and in some markets sold as the “Sports”, “1500”, “1600” or “2000” (the latter three designations denoting engine displacement)), preferring that to fitting a third windscreen wiper as the UK industry did to render the Austin Healey Sprite (1958-1971) & MG Midget compliant with US regulations.  The A40's re-purposed windscreen made things a little ungainly but the “split rear screen” was, visually, more satisfying and the car’s most memorable feature.

1963 GSM Flamingo.  As well as providing structural integrity, at speed, the central fin would have contributed to straight-line stability.

Common in the inter-war years, most split rear screens were gone by the mid-1950s although there was a quixotic revival by GM which included the look on the C2 Chevrolet Corvette (1963-1967).  The cause at the time of internecine squabbles within the division, the “anti-splitty” faction prevailed and the 1964 models appeared with a single piece of glass but, in a sense, the “splitty” faction had the last laugh because, apart from limited production exotics like the GS Sport (5) and L88 (20), it’s the 1963 coupes that are the most sought-after C2 Corvettes.  At the time, the GSM Flamingo probably was thought to be a final fling for the split-screen but the feature appeared (mounted in a pair of hood covers which opened a la gullwing doors) on the achingly lovely De Tomaso Mangusta (1967-1971) and behind the Iron Curtain, as late as 1975, in Czechoslovakia (the Warsaw Pact’s improbable source of the avant-garde) Tatra still was producing the 603 (1956-1975), the last car in series production with a split rear screen.

Road test of GSM Flamingo V8, Car Magazine, February 1967.

It’s the treatment of the rear glass that tends to dominate the design; the distinctive swept point, splitting the window, created a dramatic, “double-scalloped” rear deck and what was, in effect, a fin.  That was not a whimsical stylistic flourish but a structural necessity to achieve the desired strength without increasing weight by adding reinforcing steel to support the fibreglass skin and was GSM's second attempt to style the rear, the original “breadvan” look having been considered and discarded.  That was indicative of the high development costs and, in an attempt to amortize the investment, production was increased but demand never reached to level necessary to sustain the business and GSM in 1965 ceased trading after building 128 Flamingos and 116 of the earlier Dart roadsters.  That meant the planned version of the Flamingo with a 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) Ford V8 never came to fruition but one prototype was built using a 221 cubic inch (3.6 litre) version.  It had been a 221 AC in England had been given to install in an Ace; that became the first Shelby American Cobra prototype which, after being shipped to Shelby's Los Angeles operation received a 260, becoming “the first Cobra”.  A V8 Flamingo of course sounds an enticing prospect but when it’s remembered Shelby’s Cobra was financially viable to the extent it was only because of Ford’s corporate support, its prospects of success would likely have been limited to racetracks.

Poison & Venom

Poison (pronounced poi-zuhn)

(1) A substance with an inherent property that can impair function, cause structural damage, or otherwise injure or destroy life or impair health.

(2) Something harmful or pernicious, as to happiness or well-being.

(3) A slang term for alcoholic liquor.

(4) To administer poison to (a something living).

(5) To ruin, vitiate, or corrupt.

(6) In chemistry, a substance that retards a chemical reaction or destroys or inhibits the activity of a catalyst or enzyme).

(7) In nuclear physics, a substance that absorbs neutrons in a nuclear reactor and thus slows down the reaction.  It may be added deliberately or formed during fission.

(8) Variously in computing (often as "poison message"), a routine or instructing which can stop processes; the "poison queue" is a place to which these are diverted to prevent the running (a similar concept to a "quarantine zone").

1200-1250: From the Middle English poisoun, poyson, poysone, puyson & puisun (a deadly potion or substance (and figuratively, "spiritually corrupting ideas; evil intentions,"), from the twelfth century Old French poison & puison (drink, especially a "medical drink" (later "a (magic) potion; a poisonous drink"), from the Latin potionem (nominative potio) (a drinking, a drink) (and also "a poisonous drink"), from potare (to drink), from the primitive Indo-European root poi- & po- (to drink).  The earliest Lastin forms were pōtiōn (drink, a draught, a poisonous draught, a potion), from pōtō (I drink) & pōtāre (to drink).   The Middle English forms displaced the native Old English ator.  The Latin pōtiōn is the stem of pōtiō, the derive forms being pōtio & pōtiōnis.  The adjective poisonsome is obsolete and poisonous is used for all purposes.  Poison is a noun & verb, poisonousness & poisoner are nouns, empoison is a verb, poisoning is a noun & verb, poisoned is a verb & adjective, poisonous, poisonlike & poisonless are adjectives and poisonously is an adverb; the noun plural is poisons. 

Dry Cooder, Ronald Reagan, Can of Poison Meat.  The edited recording was sampled from a long interview conducted by US journalist Bill Moyers (1934–2025; White House Press Secretary 1965-1967) on 14 May 1979, some months before Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) had declared his candidacy for POTUS. In the transcript the phrase is written as "can of poison meat" but the recording does suggest Mr Reagan (correctly) said "can of poisoned meat".

The evolution from Latin to French followed the pattern of other words (eg raison from rationem), the Latin word also the source of Old Spanish pozon, the Italian pozione and the Spanish pocion.  The modern and more typical Indo-European word for this is represented in English by virus and the slang sense of "alcoholic drink" is an Americanism dating from 1805.  Figurative use was first noted in the late fifteenth century although it appears not to have been applied to persons until 1910.  It was used as an adjective from the 1520s; with plant names from the eighteenth century.  Poison ivy first recorded 1784; poison oak in 1743, poison in 1915.  Poison-pen, the trolling of the time, was popularized 1913 by a notorious criminal case in Pennsylvania although the phrase dates from 1898.  The sense evolution was from "drink" to "deadly drink".  In some Germanic languages "poison" is aligned with the English gift (eg the Old High German gift, the German Gift, the Danish & Swedish gift and the Dutch gift & vergift).  This shift may have been partly euphemistic and partly the influence of the Greek dosis (a portion prescribed (literally "a giving")), used by Greek physicians to mean "a quantum of medicine".  Of persons detested or regarded as exerting baleful influence, poison and poisonous were in use by 1910 while the slang meaning "alcoholic drink" recorded as an an early nineteenth century invention of American English (as in "what's your poison?"); potus as a past-participle adjective in Latin meant "drunken".  The verb in the sense of "to poison, to give poison to" dates from the circa 1300 poisonen, from the Old French poisonner (to give to drink) and directly from the noun poison.  The figurative use in the sense of "to corrupt" emerged in the late fourteenth century.

Three portraits of Lindsay Lohan as Poison Ivy by Alex Ross.  Poison Ivy is a comic book character in works published by US company DC Comics.  Poison Ivy is one of Batman's many enemies.

In idiomatic use, the phrase “poisoned chalice” (a large drinking cup) refers to something which at first glance seems desirable but later is revealed to be disadvantageous or harmful.  It’s now used often in politics to describe the situation in which the leadership of a party is offered to someone even though it seems clear the prospects of success are slight.  This is a modern variant on the original sense in which things initially seemed benign, only later to cause harm or even death.  The earliest known use was by William Shakespeare (1564–1616) in The Tragedy of Macbeth (Macbeth, circa 1606) in the speech in which Macbeth flinches from the prospective murder of King Duncan.  “Poisoned compliment” is synonym of “asterism” or “left-handed compliment”; an insult disguised as a compliment or a compliment which can be interpreted as an insult.  “Damning with faint praise” can be used in the same way.  A “poisonmonger” was “one who peddles poison” and while that could be literal (ie a merchant who trades in poisons), it’s more often used figuratively of those who speak with a “poison tongue” or who wield a “poison pen”.  A “taste of one's own poison” was synonymous with “taste of one's own medicine” and referred to harsh treatment inflicted on one who previously made other suffer the treatment.  To “pick (or “choose”) one’s poison” was to be compelled to choose between two unappealing options.  The variant “a man must be permitted to choose his own poison” was a summation of “liberal” periods of rule within the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) when the consumption of alcohol was tolerated (at least for infidels who were anyway destined for Hell).  To say “one man’s meat is another’s poison” is to admit people have differing tastes; what pleases one person may displease another. 

“Well poisoning” still is practiced and means literally “to make the water supply undrinkable by means of adulteration” (not necessarily with “poison” in the narrow technical sense).  A wartime technique known since at least antiquity, it was used both as an offensive weapon (a terror tactic to disrupt and depopulate a target area) and defensively (as a scorched earth tactic to deny an invading army sources of clean water). Historically, rotting corpses (animal and human) were thrown down wells, making it an early example of biological warfare and that was an especially potent technique because corpses known to have died from transmissible diseases (common during the "age of epidemics" that was the Medieval period) such as bubonic plague or tuberculosis often were available to be "weaponized".  Figuratively, “to poison the well” was pre-emptively to raise ad hominem arguments in order to discredit someone, the concept thus a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is presented to an audience with the intention of devaluing what they’re about to say.  That makes it a certain type of argumentum ad hominem and the phrase was first in this sense used by convert Roman Catholic theologian Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) in Apologia Pro Vita Sua (A defence of one's own life, 1864).  The proverb “The damage that a substance causes is determined more by its quantity than by its essence” is from toxicology and references the phenomenon that while some substances may for life be beneficial or even essential, in certain quantities they can be damaging or even fatal; for humans, ingesting even pure water can prove lethal if enough is consumed in a certain period, toxicity for healthy adults reached with as little as 20 litres (4.4 imperial gallons, 5.3 US gallons) taken over a few hours.

Venom (pronounced ven-uhm)

(1) The poisonous fluid that some animals, as certain snakes and spiders, secrete and introduce into the bodies of their victims by biting, stinging etc.

(2) Something resembling or suggesting poison in its effect; spite; malice.

(3) Poison in general (inaccurate, now archaic).

(4) To make venomous; envenom (archaic).

(5) Malice, spite.

1175–1225: A variant of the Middle English venim & venym (poison secreted by some animals and transferred by biting) from the Anglo-Norman & Old French venim, venin (poison; malice), from the Vulgar Latin venīmen (source also of the Italian veleno and the Spanish veneno), from the Latin venēnum (magical herb or potion, poison (and in pre-Classical times "drug, medical potion" also "charm, seduction" probably originally "love potion")).  Root was the Proto-Italic weneznom (lust, desire), from the primitive Indo-European wenh (to strive, wish, love) from wen (to desire; to strive for).  Related forms included the Sanskrit वनति (vanati) (gain, wish, erotic lust) and the Latin Venus.   The various deformations in post-Latin languages happened apparently by process of dissimilation with the modern spelling in English more or less standardized by the late fourteenth century.  In figurative use, to have "venom in one's voice" was to express thoughts or feelings marked by spite or malice (vitriolic talk); that of course has been common in human discourse since even before structured language developed but the use of "venom" or "venomous" as a descriptor has been in use since at least the late twelfth century.  The adjective venomosalivary (relating to venom and saliva) is now rare and appears only in historic references while the adjective venonsome is obsolete and venomous is used for all purposes.  Venom is a noun, verb & adjective, venomousness, venomization & venomosity are nouns, venomless, venomlike, venomosalivary, venomsome, venomous & venomic are adjectives, venomize, venoming & envenomate are verbs, venomed is a verb & adjective and venomously is an adverb; the noun plural is venoms.

Sometimes similar consequences but linguistically not interchangeable

A venomous white-lipped pit viper (Trimeresurus insularis), ready to strike; the lovely blue ones are rare; most are green.  That may be an example of survival of the fittest given the environments in which they dwell tend more to be green than blue.  As a footnote, the phrase “survival of the fittest” often is attributed to Charles Darwin (1809-1882) but nowhere does in appear in his epoch-making On the Origin of Species (1859); it was coined by English polymath Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), first used in his Principles of Biology (1864).  Sometimes misunderstood, “fittest” means “best fitted to the environment”, not “strongest, fastest, or most physically fit”.  In other words, organisms most likely to survive as a species are those best adapted to their niche or able to adapt to environmental change.

Poison and venom often are used interchangeably because once in the body, the chemicals can do similar damage, attacking the heart, brain or other vital organs but the meanings are different.  That said, there are many venoms which can be ingested without ill-effect because they are dangerous only if entering the bloodstream although that can happen through a minor cut in the mouth so the practice is not without risk.  Typically, venomous creatures bite, sting or stab their victims whereas for poisonous organisms to affect the living, they have to be bitten, inhaled or touched.  The venomous thus need a way in, like fangs or teeth.  The useful rule is: If one bites something and one dies, what one bit contained poison; if something bites one and one dies, one was bitten by something venomous.  Of course one is just as dead whether the cause was ingesting poison, the bite of a venomous snake or being murdered by the Freemasons but the difference is important for those signing death certificates.

Lindsay Lohan in pink orchid veavage swimsuit next to potted pink orchid, Phuket, Thailand, December, 2017.  It was during this holiday the wire services reported “Lindsay Lohan bitten by snake on holiday in Thailand” and almost instantly the grammar Nazis tweeted on X (then known as Twitter) demanding proof the snake really was taking a vacation; standards have fallen since sub-editors went extinct but errors like this may vanish as AI (artificial intelligence) bots replace flesh & blood journalists.  Ms Lohan made a full-recovery; there was no word on the fate of the (presumably non-venomous) serpent.