Fishtail

Fishtail (pronounced fish-teyl)

(1) As "to fishtail" or "fishtailing", to swerve or skid from side to side, as the rear end of a car (an oversteering sequence).

(2) In aviation, to slow an airplane by causing its tail to move rapidly from side to side; such a maneuver.

(3) A gas burner having two jets crossing each other so as to produce a flame resembling a fish's tail.

(4) A device having a long, narrow slot at the top, placed over a gas jet, as of a Bunsen burner, to give a thin, fanlike flame.

(5) In nautical design, a propeller consisting of a single blade that oscillates like the tail of a fish while swimming.

(6) In jewelry design, a setting consisting of four prominent triangular corner prongs to hold the stone.

(7) In dance, a step in ballroom dancing in which the feet are quickly crossed

(8) In fashion design, a dress or skirt with a flowing, scalloped hemline sometimes longer at the back than at the front, flaring usually from about the knee.

(9) A kind of chisel with a flared blade.

(10) In hair-styling, a two-stranded braid.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English, the construct being fish + tail.  Fish the noun (strictly a vertebrate which has gills and fins adapting it for living in the water but the word came to be more widely applied, zoologically) was from the Middle English fisch, from the Old English fisċ (fish), from the Proto-West Germanic fisk, from the Proto-Germanic fiskaz (fish) (source also of the Old Saxon, the Old Frisian & the Old High German fisc, the Old Norse fiskr, the Middle Dutch visc, the Dutch vis, the German Fisch & the Gothic fisks) and related to the West Frisian fisk, the Danish, Norwegian & Swedish fisk, the Irish iasc & the Latin piscis; Root probably either the primitive Indo-European peysḱ- (fish) or pisk (a fish) but at least one etymologist, on phonetic grounds, has suggested it might be a northwestern Europe substratum word.  Fish the verb is from the Old English fiscian (to fish, to catch or try to catch fish), and was cognate with the Old Norse fiska, the Old High German fiscon, the German fischen & the Gothic fiskon, all derived from the noun.  In popular use, since Old English, fish has been used to apply to "any animal that lives entirely in the water," hence shellfish & starfish although, in English there’s an early fifteenth century document which describes fishes bestiales as "water animals other than fishes").  Today, aquatic mammals like dolphins are presumed fish by some.  The plural is fishes, but in a collective sense, or in reference to fish meat as food, the singular fish is commonly used as a plural so, except for the pedants, that battle is lost.  Regarding the heavens, the constellation Pisces is from the late fourteenth century.  The hyphenated form fish-tail is common.  Fishtail is a noun & verb and fishtailing & fishtailed are verbs; the noun plural is fishtails.  Presumably, were one to be employed to chop the tails off fish, one would be called a "fishtailer" but the term seems never to have been used. 

An artist's depiction of Lindsay Lohan as mermaid.

Tail was from the Middle English tail, tayl & teil (hindmost part of an animal), from the Old English tægl & tægel (tail), from the Proto-Germanic taglaz & taglą (hair, fiber; hair of a tail) (source also of the Old High German zagal, the German Zagel (tail), the dialectal German Zagel (penis), the Old Norse tagl (horse's tail) and the Gothic tagl (hair), from the primitive Indo-European doklos, from a suffixed form of the roots dok & dek- (something long and thin (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail & to tear, fray, shred)), source also of the Old Irish dual (lock of hair) and the Sanskrit dasah (fringe, wick).  It was cognate with the Scots tail (tail), the Dutch teil (tail, haulm, blade), the Low German Tagel (twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope), the dialectal Danish tavl (hair of the tail), the Swedish tagel (hair of the tail, horsehair), the Norwegian tagl (tail), the Icelandic tagl (tail, horsetail, ponytail), and the Gothic tagl (hair). In some senses, development appears to have been by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.  The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) suggested the primary sense, at least among the Germanic tongues, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees etc.  The alternative suggestion is that the notion common to all is that of the "long, slender shape."  It served as an adjective from the 1670s.  A long obsolete Old English word for tail was steort.

1952 Vincent Black Shadow with four-port “fishtail” exhaust extension.

An unmistakable look, the “fishtail tip” polarizes opinion; it really is a “love it or hate it” fitting but they retain great popularity in the Harley Davidson community, a crew as devoted to their machines as any.  There are many modern takes on the design; while all feature the characteristic vertical, narrow flare in the distinctive shape, many are upswept and some protrude from the back more than others.  As well as the look, fishtails often are advertised on the basis of their sound (loud) and internally, are tuned to create different resonances, the ears of Harley Davidson riders as sensitive to the variations as are collectors of Stradivarii.

1937 Norton Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (technically the Brooklands Silencer) (left) and 1934 MG Magnette 'K3' Specification Supercharged Roadster (right).

One of the world’s first dedicated venues for motorsports and aviation, England’s Brooklands motor racing circuit was built in 1907, predating the IndianapolisMotor Speedway by two years.  Located in what had until then been the quiet little hamlet of Weybridge in the county of Surrey, some 20 miles (12 km) south-west of London, it sits 9 miles (14.5 km) south of Heathrow Airport and a portion of the original outer circuit (originally 2.75 miles (4.4 km) in length with the banking in places rising almost 30 feet (9.1 m) high) still exists.  Then, as now, Motorsport was a very noisy business and as the sport boomed in popularity after World War I (1914-1918), the tolerance of the inhabitants of Weybridge must have been tested because there’s a record of complaints about the noise (especially on Sundays and during the 24 hour events sometimes run) and eventually, in September 1924, a group commenced in the High Court an action in the tort of nuisance.  By July 2025 (reasonably brisk by the standards of the legal system), a settlement was agreed which included a permanent injunction limiting the days and hours of operation and the creation of the novel “Brooklands Can”, a design of muffler which could be adapted to both cars and motorcycles.  Were it created today, it'd likely be dubbed the “Brooklands Nimby” (not in my backyard).

1937 Norton Model 30 International with Brooklands Can (Left), diagram of Brooklands Can for a number of contemporary 1930s MGs close to the Magnette NE (1934) specification (centre) and a Luminous White male Guppy (right).

What the High Court’s injunction required was even on those days when racing was allowed, noise levels had to be reduced and the obvious solution was a muffler (in England then known optimistically as “silencers”) and the case turned out to be influential as the century progressed, often cited as the way a court might balance technological progress, any public nuisance created and the right of individuals to the “quiet enjoyment” of life in their homes.  Interestingly, the French (silencieux) and Italians (silenziatore) followed the English practice while the more practical Germans adhered to the realistic literalness of the Americans with Schalldämpfer (sound damper).  All Brooklands cans had two distinguishing characteristics: a rhomboidal receptacle located close to the engines header pipes which emerge from the exhaust manifold and a fishtail tip (although those used on some smaller capacity cars did terminated in a straight “dump pipe” and depending on the displacement (and thus the volume of exhaust gasses), the dimensions of the apparatus varied.  The “silencer” didn’t make the machines “quiet” in the accepted sense of the word; just less noisy.

Tilly Shilling on her Norton N30 500, Brooklands, July 1935.  Note the fishtail Brooklands Silencer.

Ms Beatrice “Tilly” Shilling (1909-1990) was a pre-modern rarity, a female engineer and amateur racing driver.  Even before gaining a MSc (Master of Science) in mechanical engineering, Ms Shilling had been building and racing motorcycles and it was on her modified (at one point even fitting a supercharger) 490 cm³ Norton M30, she lapped the Brooklands track at 106 mph (171 km/h), a feat for which she was awarded the BMRC (British Motorcycle Racing Club) Brookland Gold Star; she remains only one of three women to have lapped the famous banked circuit “at the ton” before it was closed in 1939.  With the coming of war, she returned the Norton to road use, riding in this form until 1953.

Battle of Britain (1940) era Hawker Hurricane Mk IIA (upper) and Supermarine Spitfire Mk II (lower).

In 1940, while employed as an engineer at the RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) at Farnborough, Ms Shilling worked on the "fuel delivery problem" reported by RAF (Royal Air Force) Fighter Command pilots, the Rolls-Royce Merlin V12s in their Hurricanes and Spitfires "cutting out" for as long as 1½ seconds during a "negative G-force maneuver" (pitching the nose hard down), the fuel being forced upwards to the top of the carburetor's float chamber rather than into the combustion chamber, leading to a loss of power.  If the negative G continued, the fuel would collect in the top of the float chamber, forcing the float to the bottom. This in turn would open the needle valve to maximum, flooding the carburetor with fuel, drowning the supercharger with an over-rich mixture which would shut down the engine, a serious matter in aerial combat.  While 1½ seconds doesn't sound long, in combat at altitude, travelling at hundreds of mph, inches and seconds can be critical: the difference between life and death.  The complete solution for fuel starvation was a pressurized fuel system such as the direct injection used by Daimler-Benz 600-series inverted V12s as used in the German fighters but such a development would take months to design, test, manufacture and install.

RAE Anti "G" carburetor restrictor plate instruction sheet.

As a stop-gap measure, Ms Shilling designed a flow restrictor: a small metal disc with a central orifice, looking much like a plain metal washer.  The restrictor orifice was sized to accommodate just the fuel flow needed for maximum engine power, the setting usually used during dogfights and it solved the immediate, critical, problem of the engine shutdowns following flooding.  Officially named the RAE Restrictor or RAE Anti “G” Carburetor, the device proved popular with pilots, who much preferred to call it Miss Shilling's orifice or the Tilly orifice.  The simple and elegant solution proved effective until pressurized carburetors (essentially throttle-body injection, a simplified version of the Daimler-Benz direct fuel injection) were developed which permitted even inverted flight.  With a backpack of RAE Restrictors, she toured RAF airfields on the same Norton N30 500 on which she'd once lapped Brooklands at 100 mph, instructing and assisting the maintenance crews with the installation of the devices.  Ms Shilling was a serious engineer making an important contribution to the war effort and was not amused by the nicknames for her invention but, reportedly regarded it as something typical of minds of men, rolled her eyes and carried on with her work.  The orifice was but a footnote in the history of the Merlin and the Allied war effort but did typify the improvisation and speed with which British industry developed "quick & dirty" solutions, especially in the early days of the war.

1933 Napier-Railton.

Driven by John Cobb (1899–1952), this car in 1935 set the Brooklands lap record for the Outer Circuit at 143.44 mph (230.84 km/h) a mark which will stand for all time because after being appropriated in 1939 for military purposes, the facility never re-opened.  The Napier-Railton was powered by a W12 (the so-called “broad arrow”) aero engine of 24 litres (1,461 cubic inch) and because the configuration had the cylinders in three banks of four, three of the Brooklands Cans had to be fitted and, with each bank displacing some 8 litres (487 cubic inch), each system was among the largest ever built.  Away from the delicate ears and aspidistras of Surrey's respectable residents, the machine sometimes ran “unsilenced”, including on the Bonneville Salt Flats where it ran with nothing more open stack exhausts, setting a world 24 hour record at an average speed of 158.6 mph (242 km/h).

1937 Rudge Special 500; like their aquatic sources of inspiration, the fishtail exhausts came in both symmetrical and asymmetric forms.

The sense in common law of tail (limitation of ownership) which endures mostly in the law of real property began as a legal term in English in the early fourteenth century (late thirteenth in Anglo-French & Anglo-Latin); in almost all cases it was a shortened form of entail.  The verb tail dates from the 1520s and was derived from the noun, the sense originally "attach to the tail", the meaning "move or extend in a way suggestive of a tail" dating from 1781.  The meaning “secretly to follow" is a US colloquial creation from 1907, borrowed from the earlier sense of "follow or drive cattle”.  The saying "tail off” (diminish) was noted in 1854.  The tail of a coin (reverse side; opposite the side with the head, hence “heads or tails”) appears to have been first described that was in the 1680s.  The more predictable "backside of a person, buttocks" is recorded from circa 1300, the slang sense of "pudenda" is from the mid-fourteenth century and as a term to refer to an “act of copulation with a prostitute”, it was first noted in 1846.  From circa 1933 it was applied to mean "woman as sex object" is from 1933.  In printing and typography, tail was the technical term to describe the descending strokes of letters from the 1590s.  As “tails”, the formal dress for men (coat with tails), the first advertisements appeared in 1857.  The tail-race, the part of a mill race below the wheel is from 1776.  The phrase “to turn tail” (take flight) dates from the 1580s and was originally from falconry, later to be adopted by the Admiralty and the army.  The image of the “tail wagging the dog” (a minor or secondary part of something which is controlling or dominating the whole or the main part) is from 1907 and was part of the jargon of political science.

A whale fluking its fluke (left) and 1987 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth (1986-1992).

Among the most photographed “fish tails” are those of whales, once hunted for their meat and oil, they’re now charismatic creatures and among nature’s most prolific content providers, their tails “fluking” (appearing above the surface just as a deep dive is about to begin) long an Instagram staple.  Whales are however not fish, all being mammals, they’re thus within the zoological class Mammalia, not Pisces.  The “whale tail” spoiler first appeared on Porsches in 1974 and is best remembered for its use on the 911 Turbo (930, 1974-1989), a vehicle which gained the nickname “widow-maker” because, in unskilled hands, the quirky handling (the 930 wasn’t exactly a “250 horsepower VW Beetle” but the layout was the same and the inherent characteristics thus exaggerated although (up to a point), well-tamed) could lead to “fishtailing” and worse.  The “whale tail” later evolved into the “tea tray” although the original nickname remains more widely used, even of later variants.

Fish appears often in idiomatic use.  The figurative sense of “fish out of water” (a person in an unfamiliar and awkward situation) is attested from the 1610s, the use extended from circa 1750, usually with a modifier (strange fish, queer fish, cold fish) but from at least 1722 it was used in reference to a person considered desirable to “catch”, a sense preserved in the phrase “plenty more fish in the sea”, a form picked up by one dating site.  To “drink like a fish” (one with a habitually high consumption of alcohol) is from 1744 and the “fishy story” (an incredible or extravagant narration) was first noted in 1819, a US colloquial form based on the tendency of anglers to exaggerate the size of “the one that got away”.  Having “other fish to fry” (having other things which demand one’s attention) is from the 1650s.  In optics, the fish-eye lens was patented in 1959.  Fish-and-chips seem first to have been advertised in 1876 and fish-fingers were first sold in 1962.

Lindsay Lohan in fishtail dresses.  Herbie: Fully Loaded premiere, El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, June 2005 (left); Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Morton’s West Hollywood, Los Angeles, March 2006 (centre); Liz & Dick premiere, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, November 2012 (right).

A fitted bodycon construction, the distinguishing feature of the fishtail dress is the flowing, scalloped hemline, often longer at the back and tending to flare from around the knee-line.  Because a successful implementation of the style depends most on length and volume, most fishtail dresses are floor length, many better described as gowns although some have tried shorter variations.  The bodice can vary but fitted waists are the most frequently seen.  The design was originally called the "fishtail train" and the early versions, first seen in the 1870s, all featured the asymmetric extension at the back and it wasn’t until the turn of the century the flaring lowered from mid-thigh to the knee.  Prior to the Victorian era, trains were not unknown but they were then worn only as evening gowns and were really an addition to existing garments.

Promotional shot of the author for Fierce: The History of Leopard Print (2018) by Jo Weldon (b 1962), founder of the New York School of Burlesque.

Some in the industry refer to the “fishtail” as the “trumpet” or the more charming mermaid and there are those who insist on distinguishing between the three, based usually from the point at which the flare begins but the distinction escapes the many who use the terms interchangeably, regarding all as variations on a theme.  However described, the great advantage of the lines is that they create, on a suitable frame, an hourglass figure and one with a range of definition, all determined by the point at which the flare begins and the volume of material chosen for the fishtail; done properly it can render a feminine and flawless silhouette, perhaps the most persuasive reason it’s chosen by so many brides.  Some however are probably too easily persuaded, the fishtail really not suited to those either too short or too wide.  Successfully to wear a fishtail, it’s not necessary to be truly statuesque or actually thin but beneath a certain height, one starts to look like part of a condiment set; one must be realistic about what shapewear can achieve.  The recommendation is that the style can be worn by those of at least average height and it works best on those who are slim with small or medium size hips.  A good seamstress can adapt things to better suit other shapes but there’s a law of diminishing returns the more one is removed from the ideal; a deep but narrow cut can disguise only so much.

Fishtail braid in blonde.

The fishtail braid is a variation of the French braid, both with a smoothly woven appearance, the fishtail dividing the hair into two sections instead of the French three.  The technique essentially is that a small piece of each section is passed over to the other, the process repeated until the braid assumes its shape; in the nineteenth century this was known as the "Grecian braid".  The fishtail braid appears intricate because it's built with small strands but hairdressers say it's a simple, and essentially repetitive, nine-step process.  On great advantage of the fishtail is it lends itself well to a looser braid, one which over a couple of days will tend usually (and gradually) to deconstruct into a deliberately messy look, the attraction is technical as well as aesthetic: the messy fishtail is uniquely suited to act as a framework for hair extensions.

(1) Split the hair into two equal strands

(2) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(3) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(4) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(5) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(6) Pick up a small section of hair on the right side of the right strand

(7) Cross the small section over and add it to the left strand

(8) Pick up a small section of hair on the left side of the left strand

(9) Cross the small section over and add it to the right strand

(10) Repeat steps 2-9 until the end is reached.

Students and their mannequins, Pints & Ponytails, London, March 2026.  Presumably, there would be some inverse correlation between symmetry of braids and consumption of pints of beer.  As a quirk of English, while one doing the braiding is a braider, there is no companion word braidee for the one being braided; the same convention applies to plait.

Braiding and platting of hair has for some time been political because certain styles are claimed to have specific cultural or religious connections so anyone not of the background adopting those looks risk being accused of a gamut of offences ranging from microaggression to cultural appropriation.  Recently, the braid has also entered the “toxic masculinity” debate after self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate (b 1986 and dubbed by some the “high priest of toxic masculinity”) disapprovingly shared a video from a “Pints and Ponytails” event in London.  The novel P&Ps are conducted to train men in the art of creating their daughters’ braids, plaits and pony-tails, something which to most probably doesn’t look challenging until they make an attempt and find out it’s something of an art, the tresses just one component in a process which extends also to the mysteries of pins, brushes, detangler spray, leave-in conditioner and hair-ties.

A recent victim of inexpert braiding: More practice required.

To hairdressers, braids and plaits are a “basic style” taught to entry-level apprentices, but even for those familiar with tasks such as stranding cables, early results are likely to be disappointing; to assure those concerned, no daughter was damaged by the neophyte stylists, the P&P sessions conducted using the same mannequins salons use in their training.  The courses have proved popular with men as might be expected of any event including pints of beer but the serious rationale was an attempt to improve bonding between fathers and daughters as well as increasing the participation of men in child-raising chores.  As the organizers expected, the sessions also provided a time and place in which men could discuss the problems and challenges of fatherhood, the unique environment of drinking beer while learning to plait tending to encourage conversation on topics probably not often raised in situations where men gather; in other words, the sort of discussions familiar to young mothers.  Cultural critic Andrew Tate cast aspersions on the masculinity of the men taking part although one might have thought he’d see benefits in women being relieved of responsibility for the daily pony tail(s), thereby leaving them more time for cooking & cleaning.

Lichtdom

Lichtdom (pronounced lish-dumm)

A visual technique using light to emulate large-scale architecture.

1934: The construct of the German Lichtdom was licht + dom (literally “cathedral of light”).  Licht (variously light, effortless, freely, easy, free; luminous; eye, clear, sparse, bright, light, shiny, light colored; distinct, plain, obvious, explicit, lucid, straightforward) was from the Middle High German lieht and the Middle German līcht), from the Old High German lioht, from the Old Saxon lioht, from the Proto-West Germanic leuht, from the Proto-Germanic leuhtą, from the primitive Indo-European lewktom.  The descendants include the Dutch licht and the English light.  The obsolete alternative spelling was Liecht.  The colloquial uses include describing candles and (in hunting), the eye of (especially ground) game.  The usual plural is Lichter but Lichte operates as a plural when speaking of candles.  Dom (cathedral; church; big church building; dome, cupola) was from the French dôme, from the Italian duomo, from the Latin domus (ecclesiae (literally “house (of the church)”)), a calque of the Ancient Greek οἶκος τῆς ἐκκλησίας (oîkos tês ekklēsías).  Lichtdom is a compound noun.

Reichsparteitag (Party Rally) Nuremberg, 1934.

Of all that was designed by Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), little was built and less remains.  Although he would later admit the monumentalism of the Nazi architectural model was a mistake, his statements of contrition seemed always tinged with a regret that in the years to come, all he was likely to be remembered for was his “immaterial lightshow”, used as a dramatic backdrop for the party rallies held at the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg.  Compared with what, had things worked out, he’d have been able to render in steel, concrete, marble and granite, Lichtdom (cathedral of light) was of course ephemeral but it’s undeniably memorable.  Speer created the effect by placing the Luftwaffe’s (the German air force) entire stock of 152 1500 mm (60 inch) searchlights around the stadium’s perimeter and maximized the exposure of the design by insisting as many events as possible be conducted in darkness.  The other other advantage was the interplay of light and shadow disguised the paunchiness of the assembled Nazis, many of whom were flabbier than the party’s lean, “Aryan ideal” (by which they meant something stereotypically “Nordic”) but that was anyway suspect; one joke spread by the famously cynical Berlin natives noting that empirically a better description of the Nazi reality was "as blonde as Hitler, as fit as Göring, as tall as Goebbels and as sane as Hess".  The use by the Nazis of the term “Aryan race” to describe people of “pure Germanic descent” was later extended to encompass “all non-Jewish Caucasians” but it was a pseudoscientific concept and one of a number of acts of Nazi misappropriation.  Aryan was a Sanskrit word from the Proto-Indo-Iranian áryas (the original Indo-Iranian autonym) and it entered English in the nineteenth century as a technical term used in structural linguistics, initially to describe Indo-Iranian languages and later extended to most Indo-European languages.

Reichsparteitag (Party Rally) Nuremberg, 1936.

The spectacle left few unimpressed.  Sir Neville Henderson (1882-1942; UK ambassador to Germany 1937-1939), the UK’s admittedly impressionable ambassador described the ethereal atmosphere as “…both solemn and beautiful… like being in a cathedral of ice.”  History though has preferred “cathedral of light” and brief views are captured in Hans Weidemann’s (1904-1975) Festliches Nürnberg (Festival of Nuremberg; a 1937 propaganda film chronicling the 1936 and 1937 events) which is mercifully shorter than Leni Riefenstahl’s (1902–2003) better-known works although the poor quality of the film stock used can only hint at the majesty achieved but the use of Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master-Singers of Nuremberg, 1868) as a musical accompaniment helps.  Riefenstahl actually claimed she suggested the idea to Speer and a much better record exists in her film Olympia (1938) which documented the 1936 Summer Olympics at which the technique was also used.  Architects had of course for millennia been interested in light but apart from those responsible for the placement of stained glass windows and other specialties, mostly they were concerned with function rather than anything representational.  It was the advances the nineteenth century in the availability and luminosity of artificial light which allowed them to use light as an aesthetic element not limited candles or the time of day and thus the angle of sunlight.

Fragment from Olympia (1938) with Lichtdom.

Speer had plenty of time to reflect on the past while serving twenty years in Berlin’s Spandau prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity, a sentence he was lucky to receive.  His interest in light persisted and with unrestricted access to the FRG's (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany, 1949-1990) technical libraries, he assembled close to a thousand pages of notes for a planned book on the history of the window in European buildings, musing on variables such as the cost and availability of glass at different times in different places, the shifting cost of the labor of glaziers & carpenters and market interventions such as England’s notorious “window tax” which resulted in some strange looking structures.  Ever drawn to the mathematics he’d in his youth intended to study until forced to follow his father into architecture, he pondered the calculations which might produce the changes in “what value a square meter of light had at different periods” and what this might reveal beyond the actual buildings.

Lindsay Lohan in a drone (UAV; unmanned aerial vehicle)) light show over Marina Bay, Singapore, generated by Google's Gemini generative AI (artificial intelligence).

It was a shame the book was never written.  He recalled also the effects he applied to the German pavilion he built for the Paris World’s Fair in 1937, bathing it at night with “…skilfully arranged spotlights.  The result was to make the architecture of the building emerge sharply outlined against the night, and at the same time to make it unreal... a combination of architecture and light.”  It was at the Paris event the German and Soviet pavilions sat directly opposed, something of a harbinger and deliberately so.  He was nostalgic too about the Lichtdom, thinking it recalled “a fabulous setting, like one of the imaginary crystal palaces of the Middle Ages” although wryly he would note history would remember his contributions to his profession only for the ephemeral, the “…idea that the most successful architectural creation of my life is a chimera, an immaterial phenomenon.”  Surprisingly, for someone who planned the great city of Germania (the planned re-building of Berlin) with its monumental structures, the news that all that remained in the city of his designs were a handful of lampposts (which stand to this day) seemed something almost amusing.  In all his post-war writings, although there’s much rejection as “a failure” of the plan of Germania and the rest of the “neo-Classical on a grand scale” which characterized Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) vision of representational architecture, it’s not hard to detect twinges of regret for the unbuilt and sometimes he admitted it.  As he was contemplating a return to the drawing board upon his impending release, he noted: “Although I have had enough of monumental architecture and turn my mind deliberately to utilitarian buildings, it sometimes comes hard for me to bid goodbye to my dreams of having a place in the history of architecture. How will I feel when I am asked to design a gymnasium, a relay station, or a department store after I planned the biggest domed hall in the world?  Hitler once said to my wife: ‘I am assigning tasks to your husband such as have not been given for four thousand years. He will erect buildings for eternity!’  And now gyms!”  As things transpired, not even a gym was built and he instead re-invented himself as an author, writing his history in text.  Of that piece of curated architecture, some were fooled and some not but what he wrote remains (selectively) useful.

Tribute in Light annual commemoration, New York.

Dramatic though it was, the exact effect Speer achieved in the 1930s is so tainted by its association with the Nazis that few have attempted to recycle the motif although one pop-star used the effect as a visual backdrop in 1976 when he was going through “his right-wing phase” which later he came to think of as “an unpleasantness” and preferred “never to speak of it again”.  Those affected badly by having seen “something nasty in the woodshed” will understand how he felt.  Isolated or clustered beams are however often used and one display is an annual “Tribute in Light” to commemorate the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  It demonstrates the way the dynamics can be used; depending on conditions, the light can bounce off the clouds, creating a very different effect than that afforded by a clear sky and it’s possible to render in those clouds a virtual oculus.

Tribute in Light annual commemoration, New York: The oculus effect.  Note the circling birds.

One problem with high intensity light the Tribute in Light has high-lighted is the way temporarily it messes each year with the migration of hundreds of thousands of songbirds.  The memorial uses 88 focused spotlights, the beams of which reach some 6¼ miles (10 km) into the sky and are visible from as far away as 60 miles (100 km).  Traditionally, the display was illuminated from dusk to dawn but of late it’s been switched off for 20 minute intervals in deference to the songbirds which in mid-September make their long flight from breeding grounds in Canada's boreal forests to their winter homes in the southern US, Mexico, and Central & South America.  They fly mostly by night and it’s thought they’ve evolved to navigate by the stars but, unfortunately, are much attracted to light.  The Tribute in Light having more light than anything else at altitude, the display seems to confuse the birds and it was noted the death toll from birds crashing into New York windows increased every 9/11.  Observers found there was also an element of sound involved, the birds in the light issuing the call associated with distress, this tending to draw more songbirds to the light.

Tribute in Light annual commemoration, New York: Songbirds "caught" in the light.

Researchers used radar to quantify the effect.  Typically, the skies within a ¼ mile (400 metre) of the un-illumined memorial contained around 500 birds but when lit, within 20 minutes, there were almost 16,000.  Extrapolating the data, it was estimated some 1.1 million migrating songbirds had been affected between 2008-2016, even accounting for the lights since 2009 having been shut-off for 20 minutes whenever volunteer birders count more than 1,000 in the beams.  It’s thought the death–toll from birds crashing into buildings is relatively low but there’s concern also the creatures are compelled to expend energy when circling the site, burning up vital resources needed for their long flights.  Shutting off the lights is thought to allow the birds to re-focus on their guiding stars to find their bearings and continue the migration south.  Birders would prefer searchlights not be used at all and some sites have agreed not to use them during the migration season but there’s obviously much sensitivity around the 9/11 commemoration.  Human development of the built environment has for a long time influenced the migration path, the radar data confirming birds disproportionately choose to fly over cities, the researchers referring to the “almost magnetic pull of birds to light.”  We need to remember it's their planet too.

Sable

Sable (pronounced sey-buhl)

(1) An Old World, small, carnivorous, weasel-like mammal, Mustela zibellina, of cold regions in Eurasia and the North Pacific Islands, valued for its fur which exists in shades of brown.  They are solitary & arboreal, with a diet largely of eat small animals and eggs.

(2) A marten, especially the Mustela americana & Martes zibellina.

(3) The fur of the sable.

(4) A garment made from sable (as descriptor or modifier)

(5) An artist's brush made from the fur of the sable.

(6) A type of French biscuit of a sandy texture and made with butter, sugar, eggs & flour.

(7) The stage name of Rena Marlette-Lesnar (née Greek, formerly Mero; b 1968), a US model & actress, best known for her career (1996-1999 & 2003-2004) as a professional wrestler.

(8) The color black, especially when in heraldic use.

(9) The color of sable fur (a range from yellowish-brown to dark brown).

(10) A locality name in North America including (1) a cape at the southern Florida (the southern-most point of the continental US and (2) the southernmost point of Nova Scotia, Canada.

(11) In the plural (as sables), black garments worn in mourning.

(12) In literary use, dark-skinned; black (archaic when used of people but used still in other contexts).

(13) In figurative use, a “black” or “dark” mood; gloominess (now rare).

1275–1325: From the Middle English sable, saibel, sabil & sabille (a sable, pelt of a sable; (the color) black), from the Old French sable, martre sable & saibile (a sable, sable fur), from the Medieval Latin sabelum & sabellum (sable fur), from the Middle Low German sabel (the Middle Dutch was sabel and the late Old High German was zobel), from a Slavic or Baltic source and related to the Russian со́боль (sóbol), the Polish soból, the Czech sobol, the Lithuanian sàbalas and the Middle Persian smwl (samōr).  Sable is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is sables or sable.

The modern funeral: @edgylittlepieces take on the sable.  Their funeral dress included a mode in which it could be “tightened up to make it super modest for the funeral”, later to be “loosened back down for the after-party.”  The promotional clip attracted many comments, some of which indicated scepticism about whether funerals had “after-parties” but the wake is a long-established tradition.  Wake (in this context) was from the Middle English wake, from the Old English wacu (watch), from the Proto-Germanic wakō and wakes could be held before or after the funeral service, depending on local custom.  In James Joyce's (1882–1941) Finnegans Wake (1939), Tim Finnegan's wake occurs before the funeral service so the young lady would have “loosened” first before “tightening” into “super modest” mode for the ceremony.  “Modest” is of course a relative term and it's literature's loss Joyce never had the chance to write about this sable although how he'd have interpolated it into the narrative of Finnegans Wake is anyone's guess but fragments from the text such as “…woven of sighed sins and spun of the dulls of death…” and “…twisted and twined and turned among the crisscross, kisscross crooks and connivers, the curtaincloth of a crater let down, a sailor’s shroud of turfmantle round the pulpit...” lend a hint.

In Western culture black is of course the color of mourning so funeral garments came to be known as “sables” but the curious use of sable to mean “black” (in heraldry, for other purposes and in figurative use) when all known sables (as in the weasel-like mammal) have been shades of brown (albeit some a quite dark hue) attracted various theories including (1) the pelt of another animal with black fur might have been assumed to be a sable, (2) there may in some places at some time have been a practice of dying sable pelts black or (3) the origin of the word (as a color) may be from an unknown source.  It was used as an adjective from the late fourteenth century and in the same era came to be used as a term emblematic of mourning or grief, soon used collectively of black “mourning garments”.  In the late eighteenth century it was used of Africans and their descendants (ie “black”) although etymologists seem divided whether this was originally a “polite” form or one of “mock dignity”.

AdVintage's color chart (left) and a Crusader Fedora hat in True-Sable with 38mm wide, black-brown grosgrain ribbon, handcrafted from Portuguese felt (right).

The phrase “every cloud has a silver lining” was in general use by the early nineteenth century and is used to mean even situations which seem bad will have some positive aspect and thus a potential to improve.  That’s obviously not true and many are probably more persuaded by the derivative companion phrase coined by some unknown realist: “Every silver lining has a cloud” (ie every good situation has the potential to turn bad and likely will).  “Every cloud has a silver lining” dates from the seventeenth century and it entered popular use after the publication of John Milton’s (1608–1674) masque Comus (1634) in which the poet summoned the imagery of a dark & threatening cloud flowing at the edges with the moon’s reflected light of the moon, symbolizing hope in adversity:

I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were
To keep my life and honor unassailed.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

Who wore the sable-trimmed coat better?  The Luffwaffe's General Paul Conrath (1896–1979, left) with Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945, centre), Soviet Union, 1942 and Lindsay Lohan at New York Fashion Week, September 2024.  

Given modern sensibilities, Ms Lohan's “sable” presumably was faux fur and appeared to be the coat's collar rather than a stole but the ensemble was anyway much admired.  Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1943) wasn’t an impartial observer of anything German but he had a diarist’s eye and left a vivid description of the impression the Reichsmarschall made during his visit to Rome in 1942: “At the station, he wore a great sable coat, something between what motorists wore in 1906 and what a high grade prostitute wears to the opera.”  Ciano was the son-in-law of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) who later ordered his execution, a power doubtlessly envied by many fathers-in-law.

Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), during his famous trip to China in 1972, visiting the tomb of the Wanli Emperor.  The Wanli Emperor (Zhu Yijun, 1653-1620; Emperor of China 1572-1620) was the 14^th of the Ming dynasty and his 48 years on the throne was the eighth longest in Chinese history and the most enduring of the Ming dynasty.

Nixon’s sable-collared coat was well cut but it can be guaranteed the cloth wasn’t vicuña because he’d have recalled the scandal in 1958 when Dwight Eisenhower’s (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) chief of staff (Sherman Adams (1899-1986)) was revealed to have accepted as a gift an expensive vicuña coat.  Adams was as a consequence dismissed although in his memoirs Nixon observed while there was no doubt most Americans had no idea whether vicuña was animal, vegetable or mineral, just the perceived mystique of the word was enough to convince them it was something expensive and therefore corrupting.  There was a curious footnote to the affair in that Nixon claimed it was him to whom Eisenhower delegated the handing to Adams his pink slip while other sources maintain the hatchet man was lawyer Meade Alcorn (1907–1992), then serving as chairman of the RNC (Republican National Committee).  Nixon certainly didn’t forget the business and would later cite Eisenhower’s reluctance to do his own dirty work to explain why, as the Watergate scandal in 1973 closed in on the White House, rather than fire his own chief of staff (HR Haldeman (1926–1993; White House chief of staff 1969-1973)), he requested a letter of resignation although there were other dynamics also at play, Nixon relying on Halderman more than Eisenhower ever did on Adams.

The Ford Taurus & Mercury Sable

1996 Mercury Sable.  The styling of the third generation Sable (and the Ford Taurus) was upon its release controversial and, unlike some other designs thought “ahead of their time”, few have warmed to it.  To many, when new, it looked like something which had been in an accident and was waiting to be repaired.

Over five generations (1986–1991; 1992–1995; 1996–1999; 2000–2005 & 2008–2009), the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) produced the Mercury Sable, a companion (and substantially “badge-engineered”) version of the Ford Taurus (discontinued in the US in 2016 but still available in certain overseas markets).  Dreary and boring the FWD (front wheel drive) Taurus & Sable may have been but they were well-developed and appropriate to the needs of the market so proved a great success.  The Mercury brand had been introduced in 1939 to enable the corporation better to service the “medium-priced” market, its approach until then constrained by the large gap (in pricing & perception) between Fords and Lincolns; at the time, General Motors’ (GM) “mid-range” offerings (ie LaSalle, Buick, Oldsmobile & Pontiac (which sat between Chevrolet & Cadillac)) collectively held almost a quarter of the US market.  Given the structure of the industry (limited product ranges per brand) at the time it was a logical approach and one which immediately was successful although almost simultaneously, Ford added the up-market “Ford De Luxe” while Lincoln introduced the “Lincoln Zephyr” at a price around a third what was charged for the traditional Lincoln range.  It was a harbinger of what was to come in later decades when product differentiation became difficult to maintain as Ford increasingly impinged on Mercury’s nominal territory.  After years of decline, Ford took the opportunity offered by the GFC (Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2011) and in 2010 closed-down the Mercury brand.

Midler v. Ford Motor Co., 849 F.2d 460 (Ninth Circuit Federal Courts of Appeal, 1988)

Apart from the odd highlight like the early Cougars (1967-1970), Mercury is now little remembered and the Sable definitely forgotten but it does live on as a footnote in legal history which, since the rise of AI (Artificial Intelligence), has been revisited because of the advertising campaign which accompanied the Sable’s launch in 1996.  The case in which the Sable featured dates from 1988 and was about the protectability (at law) of the voice of a public figure (however defined) and the right of an individual to prevent commercial exploitation of their “unique and distinctive sound” without consent.  FoMoCo and its advertising agency (Young & Rubicam Inc (Y&R)) in 1985 aired a series of 30 & 60 second television commercials (in what the agency called “The Yuppie Campaign”, the rationale of which was to evoke in the minds of the target market (30 something urban professionals in a certain income bracket) memories of their hopefully happy (if often impoverished) days at university some fifteen years earlier.  To achieve the effect, a number of popular songs of the 1970s were used for the commercials and in some cases the original artists licenced the material but ten declined to be involved so Y&R hired “sound-alikes” who re-recorded the material.  One who rejected Y&R’s offer was the singer Bette Midler (b 1945).

Sable (the stage name of Rena Marlette-Lesnar (née Greek, formerly Mero; b 1968)); promotional photograph issued by WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) to which she was contracted.

Y&R had from the copyright holder secured a licence to use the song, Do You Want to Dance which Ms Midler had interpreted on her debut album The Divine Miss M (1972) and neither her name nor an image of her appeared in the commercial.  Y&R’s use of the song was under the terms of settled law; the case hung on whether Ms Midler had the right to protect her voice from commercial exploitation by means of imitation.  At trial, the district court described the defendants' conduct as that “...of the average thief...” (“If we can't buy it, we'll take it”) but held there was no precedent establishing a legal principle preventing imitation of Midler's voice and thus gave summary judgment for the defendants.  Ms Midler appealed.

Years before, a federal court had held the First Amendment (free speech) to the US constitution operated with a wide latitude in protecting reproduction of likenesses or sounds, finding the “use of a person's identity” was central; if the purpose was found to be “informative or cultural”, then the use was immune from challenge but if it “serves no such function but merely exploits the individual portrayed, immunity will not be granted.”  Moreover, federal copyright law overlays such matters and the “...mere imitation of a recorded performance would not constitute a copyright infringement even where one performer deliberately sets out to simulate another's performance as exactly as possible.”  So Ms Midler’s claim was novel in that it was unrelated to the copyrighted material (the song), thus excluding consideration of federal copyright law.   At the time, it was understood a “voice is not copyrightable” and what she was seeking to protect was something more inherently personal than any work of authorship.  There had been vaguely similar cases but they had been about “unfair competition” in which people like voice-over artists were able to gain protection from others emulating in this commercial area a voice, the characteristics of which the plaintiffs claimed to have “invented” or “defined” (the courts never differentiated).

On appeal, the court reversed the original judgment, holding it was not necessary to “…go so far as to hold that every imitation of a voice to advertise merchandise is actionable.  We hold only that when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs and have committed a tort in California.  Midler has made a showing, sufficient to defeat summary judgment, that the defendants here for their own profit in selling their product did appropriate part of her identity.”  What this established was an individual's voice can be as integral to their identity as their image or name and that is reflected in recent findings about AI-generated voices that mimic specific individuals; they too can infringe on similar rights if used without consent, particularly for commercial or deceptive purposes.  The “AI generated voice” cases will for some time continue to appear in many jurisdictions and it’s not impossible some existing (and long-standing) contracts might be declared void for unconscionability on the grounds terms which once “signed away in perpetuity” rights to use a voice will no longer enforced because the technological possibilities now available could not have been envisaged.