Cope

Cope (pronounced kohp)

(1) To struggle or deal, especially on fairly even terms or with some degree of success.

(2) To face and deal with responsibilities, problems, or difficulties, especially successfully or in a calm or adequate manner.

(3) To come into contact; to meet (archaic).

(4) A long mantle, especially of silk, worn by ecclesiastics over the alb or surplice in processions and on other occasions.

(5) Any cloak-like or canopy-like covering (now rare).

(6) The night sky or the sky (archaic except as a literary or poetic device, sometimes in conjunction with “heaven”).

(7) In metallurgy, the upper half of a flask.

(8) In woodworking, to join (two molded wooden members) by undercutting the end of one of them to the profile of the other so that the joint produced resembles a miter joint.

(9) To form a joint between such members in this way or to undercut the end of (a molded wooden member) in order to form a coped joint.

(10) In steel fabrication, to cut away a flange of a metal member so that it may be joined to another member at an angle.

(11) In falconry, to clip or dull the beak or talons of a hawk.

(12) In medieval military use, for infantry forces to meet in battle.

(13) In South Africa, an acronym for Congress of the People, a political party founded in 2008 by dissident members of the African National Congress (ANC).

(14) To buy, barter; make a bargain, exchange for value (obsolete since the seventeenth century.

1175-1225: From the Middle English capa (large outer garment, cloak, mantle) which by the late thirteenth century acquired the specific ecclesiastical sense of “large mantle of silk or other material worn by priests or bishops over the alb on special occasions” from the Medieval Latin capa (cloak), from the Late Latin cappa (hooded cloak) (and source of the Old English cāp and the modern cap).  In figuratively use it was used of the night (the idea of the “cloak” of night's darkness) which was later extended to the "vault of the sky", the notion of the sky enveloping the earth as a cape covers the body, hence the late fourteenth century poetic phrase “cope of heaven”.  Cope is a noun & verb and coping is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is copes.

In Medieval Europe, meanings evolved in parallel.  The verb emerged in the late fourteenth century as coupen (to quarrel) which in the early 1400s had meant “come to blows, deliver blows, engage in combat”, from the Anglo-French & Old French couper, from colper (to strike; to cut; a blow hit, punch), from colp (a blow).  The meaning evolved and by the eighteenth century meant “handle (successfully), deal with” and etymologists suspect this may have been under the influence of the obsolete use of cope to mean “to traffic, bargain for, buy”, in common use between the fifteenth & seventeenth centuries in North Sea trade, from the Flemish version of the Germanic source of English “cheap”.  The construct of København (literally “merchant's port”) (Copenhagen), the capital of Denmark, was køber (merchant (literally “buyer”)) + havn (port) (thus the idea in English of a port as a “haven in a storm”).  English picked up cope in the fifteenth century from its sense in Low German of "to buy, barter, make a bargain”, use lasting until late in the seventeenth.  The noun coping dates from the early seventeenth century as a term in architectural meaning “the top or cover of a wall, usually sloped to shed water”, an allusion to the function of a priest’s cloak-like cope in protecting the wearing from rain.  By the 1660s, this technical sense in building extended to a general description of the form and shape of a typical cope and the verb cope in this context was used to describe “forming a cope, bend as an arch or vault”.  The notion was picked up in carpentry in the 1880s as “coping saw”, a saw with a long, narrow blade used for cutting curved patterns.

Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) in red papal cope & mitre, worn when presiding over the ceremonies marking the opening of the Pauline Year, 29 June 2008.

The cope is a liturgical vestment, a long cloak, open in front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp, known as a morse.  Always made in a great variety of colors and patterns, the cope has never been restricted to the clergy and although now, in its more elaborate forms, it's most associated with bishops and cardinals, there's no doubt it was originally a functional garment designed for no higher purpose than to protect the wearer and his clothes from the elements.  In Ancient Rome, it was known in Classical Latin as pluviale (rain coat) or cappa (cape) and in design and construction has changed little in two-thousand years.

Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) in Cappa Magna with caudatario.

Among copes, the highlight of any ecclesiastical fashion parade in the Roman Catholic Church is the silk cappa magna (great cape).  Technically a jurisdictional garment, it’s now rarely seen and worn only in processions or when "in choir" (attending but not celebrating services).  Cardinals wear red and bishops violet and both cardinals and papal nuncios are entitled to a cappa magna of watered silk.  Well into the twentieth century, a cappa magna could stretch for nearly 15 metres, (50 feet) but Pius XII’s (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958) motu proprio (literally “on his own impulse”, essentially constitutionally the same as a royal decree which unilaterally creates law) Valde solliciti (1952) laid down that they should not be longer than 7m (23 feet) and later instructions from the Vatican banned them from Rome and curtailed their use elsewhere.  Valde solliciti translates literally as “very worried” and Pius in 1952 was clearly exactly that, concerned at complaints that the extravagance of the Church’s rituals was inappropriate at a time of such troubled austerity.  There was in 1952 still little sign of the remarkable post-war economic recovery which within a decade would be critiqued in Federico Fellini's (1920–1993) film La Dolce Vita (the sweet life, 1960).  Accordingly, Pius wrote:

Being greatly troubled by the peculiar conditions of our times, which laborious experiments and changes make daily more difficult and more difficult, and which make those wishes worthy of the greatest consideration and care, for the attainment of which many strive today with a noble anxiety, We have always thought it opportune and consistent with the duty of Our conscience to respond to them with warnings which arise from it: namely, that all, and in a special way from the sacred order of men, are directed to a more sober, moderate and austere way of life.

For this reason, which also concerns Us, it was decided to set an example in these matters: it was decided to moderate somewhat the external rites which belong to the fulfilment of Our Apostolic office, that is, to reduce the sacred ceremonies to a simpler and shorter form; and for this reason above all we are moved with joy, because we see all men of heart, when in the habit of acting of individuals, as well as in the actions of public life, even in regard to the clergy, more than pride, we are amazed at the painstaking concern for the needs of human society.

It is our intention, therefore, to issue some regulations concerning the vestments of the Cardinal Fathers, who indeed are very dear to Us, and are present to Us so much in the whole Church that we govern. Indeed, we know that they do not look to the admiration of their admirers, but to place their own excellent dignity and authority in their own light; and in the same way it was seen by Us not only to abhor them from empty luxury, but rather those who have attributed to them the piety of the ecclesiastical patrimony of the Christian faithful, and sometimes also family wealth, to spend liberally in projects of beneficence when they are deeply convinced of themselves, to respond to the precepts of evangelical wisdom, as those who the results that remain, even those that arise from a more moderate way of living and dressing, will be invested in divine worship, in charity, in the education of the youth, and in apostolic works.

Therefore, while we honor them with due honor, we think that We will make their laudable Christian plans and purposes easier by these, which we have established by Motu Proprio, norms pertaining to the attitude of the Cardinal Fathers:

(1) Of the robe of the Cardinal Fathers, the cord or tail is to be removed, either of a red or purple color.

(2) The string or tail of their cap, which will not be worn in the Supreme Pontifical Chapels, nor in the Sacred Consistory, should be reduced to half, considering its size, which is in use today.

(3) Their clothes of a purple color (talar clothes, mantles, mozeta) are woolen; that the Cardinal Fathers, who had previously had silk vestments of a purple color, may continue to wear them for the same period.

(4) The norms of the ceremonies in the Roman Court will be reintegrated, according to the habit of those Cardinal Fathers who are recruited into the Sacred College either from among the Canons Regular, or from the Clergy Regular, or from the Religious Congregations.

Amanda Seyfried (b 1985) in cloak, Red Riding Hood (2011).

The caudatari need a practical understanding of physics when dealing with the challenge of stairs; note the parabolic curve a Cappa Magna assumes in ascent.

Over the centuries, there was certainly a bit of mission creep in the cope.  Originally garments like other cloaks of at most of ankle-length, by the mid-twentieth century, those used by cardinal could trail for 7 metres (23 feet).  Formerly introduced as an ecclesiastical vestment by Pope Nicholas III (circa 1225–1280; pope 1277-1280), even when of more modest length, in those dustier, muddier times, the need for an aide (familiar in English as “Page of the Robes”), saw the appointment of those who would follow behind, carrying the tail of the robe and preventing it dragging on the ground.  The first aides were laymen but the role was later assigned to junior clerics, often trainee priests and, in the way of bureaucracy, as bishops and other more junior clerics began to lengthen their trains, their numbers grew, not least because sometimes two were required when a cardinal might be negotiating tricky obstacles like stairs.  In the Church these aides were styled as caudatario (plural caudatari), (from Italian and literally “train-bearer”) and their sole role was to carry the train of the cassock or cappa magna during solemn ceremonies but, again in the way bureaucracies tend to grow, they began to assume the role of a personal assistant (PA) taking charge of the vestments’ cleaning, repair and storage (the role in England of the “Master of the Robes”) and during services, holding the cardinal’s cap or books and prompting him to recall (as required) what came next in the order of service.  However, Pope John XXIII (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963), either moved by the spirit of La Dolce Vita or responding to cardinals complaining about their sartorial emasculation, restored things, setting the Cardinals' copes to 12 meters (40 feet) and the bishops’ to 7m (23 feet).  One quirk in the Orthodox Church is the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is required to don an ermine-lined winter cappa, because he is bound by the unalterable rules of the Status quo, an 1852 Ottoman firman (a word from the Persian (فرمان) meaning "decree") which regulates relations between the various religious groups caring for sites in the Holy Land.

Lindsay Lohan in Lavish Alice cape.  Lindsay Lohan is believed to have good coping skills.

In modern use, people seem often to use the words cloak & cape interchangeably, presumably because (1) both are now less common and (2) both are made from a single piece of fabric (though often lined), is sleeveless and hangs loose.  Properly though, capes are shorter, often of hip-length while cloaks are calf-length or descend to the floor.  Perhaps what misleads is the tendency in popular culture (especially film) to depict super-heroes (Superman and his many imitators) in flappy capes which extend sometimes almost to the ankles.  Cloaks also often have hoods which are less common on capes.  Cloak is from the French word cloche (bell), implying a wrap narrow at the top, flaring at the bottom and the envelopment they provide saw the word adopted to mean conceal, used in fields as diverse as coatings which resist detection by radar and masking agents used to suppress the presence of drugs.

Traumatic

Traumatic (pronounced traw-mat-ik (U), truh-mat-ik or trou-mat-ik (both non-U))

(1) In clinical medicine, of, relating to, or produced by a trauma or injury (listed by some dictionaries as dated but still in general use).

(2) In medicine, adapted to the cure of wounds; vulnerary (archaic).

(3) A psychologically painful or disturbing reaction to an event.

1650–1660: From the French traumatique, from the Late Latin traumaticum from traumaticus, from the Ancient Greek τραυματικός (traumatikós) (of or pertaining to wounds, the construct being traumat- (the stem of τραῦμα (traûma) (wound, damage) + -ikos (-ic) (the suffix used to forms adjectives from nouns).  Now familiar in the diagnoses post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) & post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS), it was first used in a psychological sense in 1889.  Traumatic is an adjective & noun and traumatically is an adverb; the noun plural is traumatics.

PTSD, PTSS and the DSM

Exposure to trauma has been a part experience which long pre-dates the evolution of humans and has thus always been part of the human condition, the archeological record, literature of many traditions and the medical record all replete with examples, Shakespeare's Henry IV often cited by the profession as one who would fulfill the diagnostic criteria of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Long understood and discussed under a variety of labels (famously as shell-shock during World War I (1914-1918)), it was in 1980 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) added PTSD to the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III).  The entry was expected but wasn’t at the time without controversy but it’s now part of the diagnostic orthodoxy (though perhaps over-used and even something of a fashionable term among the general population) and the consensus seems to be that PTSD filled a gap in psychiatric theory and practice.  In a sense that acceptance has been revolutionary in that the most significant innovation in 1980 was the criterion the causative agent (the traumatic event) lay outside the individual rather than there being an inherent individual weakness (a traumatic neurosis).

However, in the DSM-III, the bar was set higher than today’s understanding and a traumatic event was conceptualized as something catastrophic which was beyond the usual range of human experience and thus able to be extremely stressful.  The original diagnostic criteria envisaged events such as war, torture, rape, natural disasters explosions, airplane crashes, and automobile accidents as being able to induce PTSD whereas reactions to the habitual vicissitudes of life (relationship breakdowns, rejection, illness, financial losses et) were mere "ordinary stressors" and would be characterized as adjustment disorders.  The inference to draw from the DSM-III clearly was most individuals have the ability to cope with “ordinary stress” and their capacities would be overcome only when confronted by an extraordinarily traumatic stressor.  The DSM-III diagnostic criteria were revised in DSM-III-R (1987), DSM-IV (1994), and DSM-IV-TR (2000), at least partly in response to the emerging evidence that condition is relatively common even in stable societies while in post-conflict regions it needed to be regarded as endemic.  The DSM-IV Diagnostic criteria included a history of exposure to a traumatic event and symptoms from each of three symptom clusters: intrusive recollections, avoidant/numbing symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms; also added were the DSM’s usual definitional parameters which stipulated (1) the duration of symptoms and (2) that the symptoms must cause significant distress or functional impairment.

#freckles: Freckles can be a traumatic experience.

The changes in the DSM-5 (2013) reflected the wealth of research and case studies published since 1980, correcting the earlier impression that PTSD could be thought a fear-based anxiety disorder and PTSD ceased to be categorized as an anxiety disorder, instead listed in the new category of Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders, the critical definitional point of which is that the onset of every disorder has been preceded by exposure to a traumatic or otherwise adverse environmental event.  It required (1) exposure to a catastrophic event involving actual or threatened death or injury or (2) a threat to the physical integrity of one’s self or others (including sexual violence) or (3) some indirect exposure including learning about the violent or accidental death or perpetration of sexual violence to a loved one (reflecting the understanding in the laws of personal injury tort and concepts such as nervous shock).  Something more remote such as the depiction of events in imagery or description was not considered a traumatic event although the repeated, indirect exposure (typically by first responders to disasters) to gruesome and horrific sight can be considered traumatic.  Another clinically significant change in the DSM-5 was that symptoms must have their onset (or a noticeable exacerbation) associated with the traumatic event.  Sub-types were also created.  No longer an anxiety disorder but now reclassified as a trauma and stressor-related disorder, established was the (1) dissociative sub-type which included individuals who meet the PTSD criteria but also exhibit either depersonalization or derealization (respectively alterations in the perception of one's self and the world) and (2) the pre-school subtype (children of six years and younger) which has fewer symptoms and a less demanding form of interviewing along with lower symptom thresholds to meet full PTSD criteria.

When the revised DSM-5-TR was released early in 2022, despite earlier speculation, the condition referred to as complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) wasn’t included as a separate item, the explanation essentially that the existing diagnostic criteria and treatment regimes for PSTD were still appropriate in almost all cases treated by some as CPTSD, the implication presumably that this remains an instance of a spectrum condition.  That didn’t please all clinicians and even before DSM-5-TR was released papers had been published which focused especially on instances of CPTSD be associated with events of childhood (children often having no control over the adverse conditions and experiences of their lives) and there was also the observation that PTSD is still conceptualized as a fear-based disorder, whereas CPTSD is conceptualized as a broader clinical disorder that characterizes the impact of trauma on emotion regulation, identity and interpersonal domains.

Still, the DSM is never a static document and the committee has much to consider.  There is now the notion of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS) which occurs within the thirty-day technical threshold the DSM establishes for PTSD, clinicians noting PTSS often goes unrecognized until a diagnosis of PTSD is made.  There is also the notion of generational trauma said to afflicting children exposed repeatedly to the gloomy future under climate change and inter-generational trauma Screening tools such as the PTSS-14 have proven reliable in identifying people with PTSS who are at risk of developing PTSD. Through early recognition, providers may be able to intervene, thus alleviating or reducing the effects of a traumatic experience.  Long discussed also has been the effect on mental health induced by a disconnection from nature but there was no name for the malaise until Professor Glenn Albrecht (b 1953; one-time Professor of Sustainability at Murdoch University (Western Australia) and now honorary fellow in the School of Geosciences of the University of Sydney) coined psychoterratic, part of his lexicon which includes ecoagnosy (environmental ignorance or indifference to ecology and solastalgia (the psychic pain of climate change and missing a home transforming before one’s eyes).  The committee may find its agenda growing.

Saved by a “traumatic” transmission

In the 1960s, “the ocean was wide and Detroit far away” from Melbourne which is why Holden was authorized to design and built its own V8 rather than follow the more obviously logical approach of manufacturing a version of Chevrolet’s fully-developed small-block V8.  The argument was the Chevrolet unit wouldn’t fit under the hood of Holden's new (HK) range which was sort of true in that there wasn’t room for both engine and all ancillaries like air-conditioning, power brakes and power steering although it would have been easier and cheaper to redesign the ancillaries rather than embark on a whole new engine programme but this was the 1960s and General Motors (GM) was in a position to be indulgent.  As it was, Holden’s V8 wasn’t ready in time for the release of the HK in 1968 so the company was anyway forced in the interim to use 307 cubic inch (5.0 litre) and 327 (5.3) Chevrolet V8s, buyers able to enjoy things like power steering or disk brakes but not both.

The "Tasman Bridge" 1974 Holden Monaro GTS (308 V8 Tri-matic).  The HQ coupé was Holden's finest design. 

Also under development was a new three-speed automatic transmission to replace the legendarily robust but outdated two-speed Powerglide.  It was based on a unit designed by GM’s European operation in Strasbourg and known usually as the Turbo-Hydramatic 180 (TH180; later re-named 3L30-C & 3L30-E) although, despite the name, it lacked the Powerglide-like robustness which made the earlier (1964) Turbo-Hydramatic 400 (TH400) famous.  Holden called its version the Tri-matic (marketed eventually without the hyphen) and, like the early versions of the TH180 used in Europe, there were reliability problems although in Australia things were worse because the six and eight cylinder engines used there subjected the components to higher torque loadings than were typical in Europe when smaller displacment units were used.  Before long, the Tri-matic picked up the nickname “traumatic” and in the darkest days it wasn’t unknown for cars to receive more than one replacement transmission and some even availed themselves of their dealer’s offer to retrofit the faithful Powerglide.  The Tri-matics’s problems were eventually resolved and it became a reliable unit, even behind the 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) Holden V8 (although no attempt was ever made to mate it with the 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) Chevrolet V8 Holden offered as an option until 1974).  As a footnote, even today the old Powerglide still has a niche because it's well suited to drag-racing, the single gear change saving precious fractions of a second during ¼ mile (402 metre) sprints.  

Whatever its troubled history, the “traumatic” did on one occasion prove a lifesaver.  In the early evening of 5 January 1975, the bulk carrier Lake Illawarra, while heading up Hobart's Derwent River, collided with the pylons of the Tasman Bridge which caused a 420 foot (128 m) section of the roadway to collapse onto the ship and into the river, killing twelve (seven of the ship's crew and five occupants of the four cars which tumbled 130 feet (40 m) into the water.  Two cars were left dangling precariously at the end of the severed structure and it emerged later that the 1974 Holden Monaro was saved from the edge only because it was fitted with a Tri-matic gearbox.  Because the casing sat lower than that used by the manual gearbox, it dug into to road surface, the frictional effect enough to halt progress.

The tragedy had a strange political coda the next day when, at a press conference in The Hague in the Netherlands, the Australian prime-minister (Gough Whitlam, 1916-2014; Australian prime-minister 1972-1975) was asked about the event and instead of responding with an expression of sympathy answered:

I sent a cable to Mr Reece, the Premier of Tasmania, I suppose twelve hours ago and I received a message of thanks from him.  Now you have the text I think.  I expect there will be an inquiry into how such a ludicrous happening took place.  It's beyond my imagination how any competent person could steer a ship into the pylons of a bridge.  But I have to restrain myself because I would expect the person responsible for such an act would find himself before a criminal jury. There is no possibility of a government guarding against mad or incompetent captains of ships or pilots of aircraft.

Mr Whitlam’s government had at the time been suffering in the polls, the economy was slowing and ten days earlier Cyclone Tracy had devastated the city of Darwin.  The matter didn’t go to trial but a court of marine inquiry found the captain had not handled the ship in a proper and seamanlike manner, ordering his certificate be suspended for six months.

Aftermath:  Hobart clinical psychologist Sabina Lane has for decades treated patients still traumatized by the bridge’s collapse in 1975.  Their condition is gephyrophobia (pronounced jeff-i-ro-fo-bia), from the Ancient Greek γέφυρα (géphura) (bridge) + -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing), from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later) which describes those with an intense fear of driving over a bridge (which in the most severe cases can manifest at the mere thought or anticipation of it), sometimes inducing panic attacks.   Ms Lane said she had in the last quarter century treated some seven patients who suffered from gephyrophobia trigged by the trauma associated with the tragedy, their symptoms ranging from “...someone who gets anxious about it all the way to someone who would turn into complete hysterics."  Some, she added, were unable “…even to look at a photo of the Tasman Bridge.”  She noted the collapse remains “still quite clear in everybody's mind, and that's perhaps heightened by the fact that we stop traffic when we have a large boat passing beneath it."  Her treatment regime attempts to break the fear into manageable steps, having patients sketch the bridge or study photographs before approaching the structure and finally driving over it.

Bikini

Bikini (pronounced bih-kee-nee

(1) A two-piece bathing suit for women.

(2) A style of brief fitted low on the hip or slightly below.

(3) The name of an atoll in the North Pacific; one of the Marshall Islands and the site of two-dozen odd US nuclear weapon tests between 1946-1958 (with initial capital).

(4) As Bikini State, the UK Ministry of Defence's alert state indicator (1970-2006).

(5) In the retail coffee trade, barista slang applied to smaller variations such as a demitasse (or demi-tasse (half cup), used traditionally to serve espresso).

(6) In engineering & design, a casual term used sometimes for any shape deemed even vaguely bikiniesque. 

1946:  Although known as the Eschscholtz Atoll until 1946, the modern English name is derived from the German colonial name Bikini, adopted while part of German New Guinea and was a transliteration from the Marshallese Pikinni (pʲi͡ɯɡɯ͡inʲːi), a construct of Pik (surface) + ni (coconut or surface of coconuts).  Bikini is a noun and bikinied, bikinilike and bikiniless are adjectives (bikiniesque is non-standard); the noun plural is bikinis.

1970 Monteverdi Hai 450 SS.

In medicine, the “bikini-cut” or “bikini line incision” is doctor’s slang for the “Pfannenstiel incision”, a surgical incision permitting access to the abdomen, the exact location chosen for the optimal aesthetic outcome; it was named after German gynaecologist Hermann Johannes Pfannenstiel (1862–1909), who in 1900 invented the technique.  The modern slang is a reference to the “bikini line” (the part of a woman's pubic region not covered by a swimsuit (the fashion being it’s usually waxed, lasered or shaved to be free of pubic hair)).  In the UK, the technique was popularized by Professor John Munro Kerr (1868–1960) who published his results in 1920 (having first applied the method in 1911) and that's why in the English-speaking world the terms “Kerr incision” “Pfannenstiel–Kerr incision” are sometimes used.  In the slang of fat-shaming, a “fatkini” is a bikini larger a certain size and regarding the cut-off point where bikini becomes fatkini, some critics are more uncompromisingly stern than others.  The skimpiness of the fabric used in a bikini's construction meant it could be used as a point of emphasis.  When in 1970 the Swiss boutique manufacturer Monteverdi displayed their prototype Hai (German for "shark"), one journalist acknowledged the stunning speed but noted the lack of practicality, storage space judged to be sufficient for a “topless bikini”.  

Proliferation; variations on the theme of bikini

Bikinis: Lindsay Lohan (right) with former special friend Samantha Ronson (left), (both with bare feet), Los Cabos, Mexico, October 2007.

The swimwear was first so named in 1946, the brief as a stand-alone garment adopting the term in 1960 while the trikini, dating from 1967, was a variation with separate bra cups fastened by Velcro.  A lack of structural integrity doomed the design for the mass-market but trikinis continue to be used by the fashion industry, mostly in static photography where movement is minimalized.  Trikini was at the time etymologically wrong because falsely it presumed bikini a compound with a bi prefix, an assumption not unreasonable because the English prefix bi is derived from the Classical Latin bi, which, like the Ancient Greek counterpart di, means “two”.  However, trikini is now etymologically correct because (1) bikini and its variations have been wholly been absorbed into English with compounds coined as needed and (2) progress in the fashion industry proved so prolific a new suffix (apparently first suggested by US author Bill Safire (1929–2009)), emerged: -kini.  Those thus far seen have included:

Monokini (a one-piece swimsuit in a variety of designs which tends to be variations on the notion of a bikini top and bottom in some way connected with (a usually minimal) piece of fabric although for the catwalks, designers have showed "bikinis" in which coverage is afforded to only one breast.

Bikini (a two-piece swimsuit with top & bottom)

Trikini (a type swimsuit which uses three, strategic-placed fabric triangles, sometimes achieved with the use of an adhesive)

Facekini (a piece of swimwear worn on the head and covering the face and head)

Burkini (a full body bathing suit which includes a hood; a kind of figure-hugging Burqa for swimming of which not all muftis & mullahs (and certainly no ayatollahs) approve)

Mankini (a kind of sling bikini for men)

Bandkini (a swimsuit consisting of strapless bandeau top and bikini bottom)

Halterkini (a swimsuit consisting of halter top and bikini bottom)

Tankini (a bathing suit composed of tank top and the lower half of a bikini)

Skirtini (a two-piece swimsuit consisting of top and short, skirted bottom)

Microkini (a very skimpy bikini)

Nokini (an casual identifier for beach which permits toplessness for women)

Slingkini (a one-piece swimsuit resembling the Y-shape frame of a slingshot which is supported by fabric at the neck)

Stringkini (a two-piece swimsuit attached by strings that is scantier and more revealing than a regular bikini)

Sidekini (a swimsuit designed to optimize the side-boob effect)

Camikini (a swimsuit consisting of thin-strapped camisole top and bikini bottom)

Flagkini (a swimsuit top informally created by the wrapping of a flag)

Duckini (a swimsuit made of a stick-on material (not to be confused with Kim Kardashian's endorsement of gaffer’s tape for use as ad-hoc corsetry))

Numokini (a bikini worn without the top (also called Unikini))

Underkini (a swimsuit designed to optimize the under-boob effect (not suitable for all))

Seekini (a translucent or semi-translucent swimsuit)

Hikini (s swimsuit with a higher-profile bottom)

Poligrill's helpful identification chart which illustrates the bikini's mix-and-match potential, wearers able to choose the styles best suited to different parts of the body and no longer is it expected (except by dictatorial types like Vogue's editors) the color or fabric of top need match bottom.

Louis Réard (1896-1984) was a French engineer who took over his mother's lingerie business, the bathing ensemble he designed debuting in 1946; as a concept it wasn’t new, such things documented by many cultures since antiquity but Réard’s design was minimalist by the standards of the time.  It was at the time suggested he choose the name because an exploding A-bomb was his preferred simile for the effect on men but in subsequent interviews he claimed his mind was focused on what he expected expected to be an "explosive commercial and cultural reaction" to his design.  That's a significant distinction but both were based on the detonated device.  Although originally Réard’s registered trademark (patent number 19431), bikini has long been generic. When first displayed at Paris's Piscine Molitor (a large swimming pool complex) in July 1946, so scandalous did the established catwalk models find the notion of exposed navels that all declined the job so Monsieur Réard was compelled to hire Mademoiselle Micheline Barnardini (b 1927), then an exotic (ie not infrequently nude) dancer from the Casino de Paris.  For Mlle Barnardini even the skimpiest bikini was more modest than her usual professional lack of attire.   

Model Adriana Fenice (b 1994) in olive green bikini.

Le Monde Illustré in August 1947 applied a little of their bourgeois intellectual thuggery in comparing the denuding of the surface of Bikini Atoll by the bomb’s blast wave with the near-elimination of flesh-covering material in the swimsuit:  “Bikini, ce mot cinglant comme l’explosion même...correspondait au niveau du vêtement de plage à un anéantissement de la surface vêtue; à une minimisation extrême de la pudeur”.  (Bikini, a word now of explosions, compares the effect of the state of the clothing at the beach to an annihilation of the dressed surface; an extreme minimization of modesty.)  Even then however it wasn't something all that novel, two-piece swimwear often seen since at least the 1930s and French fashion designer Jacques Heim (1899–1967) early in 1946 had staged a re-launch of his pre-war two-piece swimsuit which he named the Atome, (atoms then much in the public imagination as something very small yet possessing great power) advertising it as "the world's smallest bathing suit".  However, unlike Réard's creation, it covered the navel, most of the buttocks and more of the breasts, enabling M. Réard truthfully to claim the bikini was "smaller than the smallest bathing suit".  The rest is history.

Land yachts: 1972 Imperial LeBaron two-door hardtop (left) and 1978 Chrysler New Yorker two-door hardtop (right).  Although even at the time derided by critics as wastefully absurd, for those inside they were a cosseting cocoon which appealed to many.

The term “land yacht” came into use in the 1970s to describe the huge, luxury automobiles which the major US manufactures all produced and they were strong sellers in early Nixon-era America, surviving the first oil shock (1973-1974) to remain a profitable segment until late in the decade driven extinct by the government edict, the CAFE (corporate average fuel efficiency) dooming the breed.  The Cadillacs and Lincolns were the most emblematic and numerous of the breed but on the basis of length, at 235¼ inches (5975 mm), the 1973 Imperial was actually the biggest.  All were highly inefficient and, despite the dimensions, frequently were transport only for one or two although, once inside, passengers enveloped by leather or velour and the driving experience, although not fast by the standards of today was truly effortless, smooth and quiet.  So isolated from the outside world were occupants from that a frequent comment was they seemed “to float down the road”, hence the term “land yacht”.

Ford Australia advertisement for Landau (1974).  By the time of its release in August 1973, nobody else in Australia did make anything quite like it and the industry's consensus was Ford was welcome to the uncontested market sector.

In the US, the term “land yacht” tended to be applied derisively by those who disapproved of the excess, inefficiency and general environmental thuggery the ownership of such things was thought to convey.  It was only in the twenty-first century when they were close to a vanished species the term became almost affectionate as their dubious qualities meant they came to be thought charming nostalgia pieces.  While they were in production however, in promotional material, the manufacturers never called them “land yachts”, preferring words like “luxury” or “exclusive” but in Australia, Ford did run one such associative advertisement for its take on the land yacht: the Landau (manufacturer’s code JG70, 1973-1976).  The advertisement with juxtaposition of Landau and yacht ran in 1974 and there’s nothing to suggest the agency’s idea was anything other than wishing to associate the car with another product on the shopping lists of the rich (or at least the “lease list”, the tax accountant’s tending to provide clients with the “3F Rule” (“If it flies, floats or fornicates, rent or lease, don’t buy.”).  Still, unlike some other cars which might have appealed to the “yacht demographic”, once fitted with a tow bar, the Landau would have been better than many at towing a decent-sized boat.

1973 Ford Landau and 1975 Ford LTD.  The bright colors were not typical of the time and only six Landaus were finished in Wild Violet (paint code Z, Shade 13305).

With only some 1400 made, commercially, the Landau was impressively unsuccessful although the companion four door model (LTD) enjoyed not only solid sales but high profitability because, structurally, it was little more than an elongated Falcon laden with gorp (the word “bling” not then in use).  Dating from the late 1950s, the pleasing “gorp” was a re-purposing (as a noun & verb) by US car designers of the acronym GORP which stood for “granola, oats, raisins, peanuts”, a popular nutritional mix carried by hikers, bush-walkers and such (the designers' notion being the adding of a bit of every decorative thing).  In that spirit, like the LTD, the Landau gained lashings of velour or real leather, fake wood, hidden headlights, a coat of arms of dubious provenance, the novelty of a 24-hour analogue clock and a padded vinyl roof (one of the high points of 1970s fashion).

Ford LTD (P5 & P6) and Landau (ZG70) air-conditioning controls.

Actually, the padding was a really bad idea because the foam tended to trap moisture (especially in the country’s more tropical northern regions) and rust thus became inevitable; on the Landau the use of a vinyl roof was particularly cynical because it was cheaper to glue one on than it would have been properly to finish the “plugs” crudely welded in to reduce the size of the rear side windows, rendering a more “formal” roof-line.  The LTD and Landau did though have some worthwhile features including four-wheel disk brakes (a first for Australia and they were very good) and a set of aviation-style sliding controls for the air-conditioning, dismissed by some as “an affectation” but really quite fetching.  Surprisingly, although built on the “compact” (in US terms) 111 inch (2819 mm) wheelbase rather than the full-sized platforms of the US land yachts which could have a wheelbase almost 18 inches (457 mm) longer, except in width, the Landau’s interior space was little different.  The dinosaurs of the 1970s however weren’t the first of the species, a US-French hybrid the MRCA (most recent common ancestor).  

1948 Le Yacht de la Route "Bikini" by Henri Chapron on the chassis of a 1937 Packard Super Eight.

Before in 1940 taking over his mother’s lingerie business, Louis Réard was an automobile engineer for Renault and one with a flair for publicity so to promote his new swimsuit, he in 1948 commissioned coach-builder Henri Chapron (1886-1971 and in the 1960s to become famous for his various lines of Citroën DS & ID coupés & cabriolets) to build what he called Le Yacht de la Route (the yacht of the road).  Chapron’s design included an actual boat bow, a cabin with portholes, a mast from a yacht and a rear deck where models would pose in bikinis when the car was driven around France on promotional tours.  Originally the coachwork was mounted on the chassis of a 1948 Hotchkiss Artois but its 3.5 litre (212 cubic inch) straight-six proved inadequate to propel to heavy load so it was swapped for that of a 1937 Packard Super Eight, the torquey 6.3 litre (384 cubic inch) straight-eight able effortlessly to cope.  It may have been someone in Detroit was taken with the Portholes because in 1956 a pair appeared (as a “delete option”) on the 1956 Ford Thunderbird’s fibreglass hard-top.  On the Thunderbird they were added to enhance rearward visibility but by the 1970s, reshaped first and ovals before assuming other shapes, they were re-named “opera windows” and became an almost inevitable addition to two-door land yachts.

Model Adriana Fenice in another bikini, created ad-hoc with a neon-green & black combo.  Note the difference in the fabric of the two pieces, the mix-and-match "ensemble" approach often taken by bikini-wearers because when, sold in sets, the size which accommodates one part, isn't always a good fit for another.

The curiously named "Bikini State" was the system by which an alert state was defined by the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) to warn of non-specific forms of threat, including civil disorder, terrorism or war.  Introduced in 1970, it was in use until 2006 and the MoD's official position has always be "bikini" was a code name selected at random by a computer; those who accept that story are presumably not familiar with the long military tradition of providing misleading answers, either to amuse themselves or confuse others.  There were five Bikini alert states: (1) White which meant essentially there was no indication of a specific or general threat, (2) Black which referred to a situation in which there was heightened concern about internal or external threats, (3) Black Special which indicated an increased likelihood of the conditions which triggered a Black Alert, (4) Amber which confirmed the existence of specific threats or the higher probability of entering a state of armed conflict and (5) Red which covered everything from a specific threat (including the target(s) to actually being in a state of war and at risk of a nuclear strike.  The need for a system which was better adapted to providing advice to the whole population rather than just the military & civil service was acknowledged after the 9/11 attacks in the US when it was recognised the threat environment had shifted since the Cold War and that the whole country should be regarded as "target rich" in much the way the security services treated Northern Ireland.  Accordingly in 2006, the Government adopted a new five layer system: (1) Low, last seen in the brief, optimistic era between the end of the "troubles" in Northern Ireland (1998) and the week of the 9/11 attacks, (2) Moderate which is about as close to "normal" as anyone now reasonably aspires to achieves and suggests folk should be "alert but not alarmed", (3) Substantial which indicates some event is likely, (4) Severe which indicates a heightened level of threat beyond the substantial and (5) Critical which suggests there is intelligence to indicate an imminent attack and security precaution should be elevated to their highest level.

Many countries have similar systems in place although most maintain different arrangements for civilian & military purposes, the latter always tied to specific protocols and procedures.  Some are trans-nation such as those used by the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and five-layers used to be the preferred option although this has changed.  In the US the military's DEFCON (defense readiness condition) uses five color-coded levels ranging effecting from "stand easy" to "global thermo-nuclear war is imminent or already begun".  The now defunct civilian Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS; 2002-2011) used a five-level approach but it was much criticized and since 2011 the US has used National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) which is event specific and defined by start and end dates, rather than maintaining the country in some nominal state of alert.

Sala delle Dieci Ragazze (Room of the Ten Girls), a first century AD mosaic in Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily.  For whatever reason, it was a later addition, added atop what's thought to be a conventional geometric mosaic.  

The bikini might in the popular imagination be thought a symbol of Western freedom and something which liberated women from the demands they remain as invisible as possible but the concept of the garment is truly ancient.  Some 2 miles (3.2 km) from the Sicilian town of Piazza Armerina lie the ruins of what would once have been the impressive Roman villa, Villa Romana del Casale.  A UNESCO World Heritage Site thought to have been built early in the fourth century AD, it contains one of the most extraordinary collections of ancient Roman mosaics, all though the works of African artists and artisans.  One creation which has proved of great interest is that which sits in what is popularly known as the Sala delle Dieci Ragazze (Room of the Ten Girls), depicting ten women, nine of whom wearing something in the style of two-piece bathing suits, archeologists suggesting the bottom being a loincloth made cloth or leather and known as a subligaculum, a scanty version of the male perizoma worn both as underwear and sometimes by athletes and slaves.  It was a design which is thought to have spread throughout the empire because archaeologists in Britain discovered during the dig of an old well a leather “thong” that was found to date from shortly after the time of Christ.  Its size and shape was exactly that of a modern bikini bottom and it’s now an exhibit at the Museum of London.

The top part was essentially a breast-band, known also to have been worn in Greece where the garment was known as a mastodeton or apodesmos (a strophium to the Romans).  In deference to comfort, mastodetons are thought often to have been made from linen and they were in essence the "sports bras" of Antiquity.  The contribution to fashion is one thing but what interested historians was that the women are clearly participating in sports, their “bikinis” activewear and not swimwear.  Some of the activities are ambiguous but it’s obvious some are running, another is in the throes of throwing a discus while two are engaged in some form of ball sport.  Interestingly, the ball is multi-colored but whether this reflected the nature of sporting equipment in Antiquity or was a piece of artistic license isn’t known.  Of political interest are the young ladies with crowns of roses and palm-fronds, traditionally the prizes awarded to those victorious in athletic competitions so the events were, to some degree, apparently structured.  It’s a myth women in the Roman Empire were always banned from sport although there were restrictions in that men and women competed separately and while, in Athenian tradition, men generally competed naked (something outside the home not permitted for women), the ancient “bikinis” were a compromise which afforded comfort while avoiding unduly exciting any man whose glance might fall upon female flesh.

That the US nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll made the swimsuit a world-wide success was noted by one Australian entrepreneur who, after the British conducted their own tests in October 1952 in the Montebello Archipelago, some 60 miles (100 km) off the north-west coast of Western Australia, attempted to promote his own variation: the Montebello suit (actually a bikini under another name.  The tests, known as Operation Hurricane, came about because the British, fearful of (1) a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, (2) a possibly resurgent Germany and (3) a one-day un-interested United States, were anxious to possess their own independent nuclear deterrent.  The British project proved a success and the UK to this day maintains a boutique-sized but strategically significant array of nuclear weapons and a delivery system which permits them to be aimed at any target on the planet.  The Montebello swimsuit of the early 1950s was not a success but the name has be revived and bikinis using the name are now available.