Exuberant

Exuberant (pronounced ig-zoo-ber-uh nt)

(1) Of people (and sometimes applied to animals), very high-spirited; effusively and almost uninhibitedly enthusiastic energetic and enthusiastic; extremely joyful and vigorous.

(2) In literary use, of things that grow, abundant, luxuriant, profuse.

(3) In medicine, profuse in growth or production.

1425-1475:  From the late Middle English, from the Middle French exubérant, from the Latin exūberantem (nominative exūberāns), (overabundance; superfluous; extraordinary),  the present active participle of exūberō (be abundant) snd present participle of exūberāre (be abundant, grow luxuriously).  The construct was ex- (out (though here probably in the special sense of "thoroughly)) + ūberāre (be fruitful) which was related to ūber (udder or fertile), from the primitive Indo-European root eue-dh-r-, the original idea being the image of a cow or she-goat which was producing so much milk it naturally dripped or sprayed from the udder.  From the 1510s it was used to mean "growing luxuriantly, and within decades it picked up the idea of describing "an overflowing", a borrowing from the contemporary French exubérance, from the Late Latin exuberantia (superabundance) the abstract noun from exuberare, this extending to the figurative sense of "affections, joyous emotions etc by the mid-seventeenth century (the noun euberancy noted since the 1610s).  Exuberant is a adjective and, exuberance and (the archaic) exuberancy are nouns, exuberating is a verb and exuberantly an adverb; the noun plural is exuberances

Fedspeak, Alan Greenspan and irrational exuberance

Dr Alan Greenspan (b 1926) between 1987-2006 served five terms as chairman of the US Federal Reserve (the US central bank), remarkably, under four presidents from both parties.  Among the Fed’s chairs, he remains the best remembered exponent of a specific fork of officialise: Fedspeak, the jargon-laced technique of expression described by economist Alan Blinder (b 1945) as "a turgid dialect of English" used by Fed chairs to make wordy and vague statements which, while reassuring, are designed not to encourage financial market traders to over-react; some labelled it “constructive ambiguity”.  The coinage is a nod to Newspeak in George Orwell’s (1903-1950) dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), the invented language of a totalitarian state constructed around a simplified grammar with a closed vocabulary set suitable for expressing only the ideas and concepts of the regime.

Blowing smoke.  Fed chairman Paul Volcker appearing before a congressional committee in 1986, a time one could smoke a cigar at such events.

Previous Fed chairs were well-aware those in financial markets attributed great value to statements from the governors and that could lead to some self-fulfilling prophecies.  To try to prevent this, in their public statements, governors adopted Fedspeak to deliver ambiguous and cautious statements, purposefully to obscure and detract meaning from the statement, Greenspan describing Fed-speak as learning “…to mumble with great incoherence.”  He may have been thinking of the (possibly apocryphal) remark by one pope: “When one is infallible, one has to be careful what one says”.  Once, when a US senator told Greenspan he understood what he’d just said, the chairman replied “Then I must have misspoken" and was delighted when different organs of the financial press reported his speeches using headlines with diametrically different meanings.  There’s always been the suspicion the style emanating from the Fed was intended also to deflect the attention of politicians, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) sometimes complained about the jargon-laden text issued by Arthur Burns (1904–1987; Fed chairman 1970-1978) and the formidable Paul Volcker (1927–2019; Fed chairman 1979-1987) was known to adopt Fedspeak to bat away unwelcome congressional enquiries although he was noted also for plain-speaking about inflation, the money supply and growing structural imbalances in the US economy, forcefully making his views known even to presidents.  In 1987, Ronald Reagan declined to offer Volker another term; perhaps the chairman should have used more Fedspeak.

It’s something of an irony that Greenspan’s best remembered phrase, "irrational exuberance", is really not Fed-speak although the two words were part of a long, complex speech, much of which certainly belongs to the genre.

Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets.  We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past.  But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?  (Tokyo, 5 December 1996).

Rational exuberance: Lindsay Lohan collecting an award, 2005 MTV Movie Awards, Los Angeles June, 2005.

Immediately after the speech, the local market unexpectedly dropped 3%, exchanges around the world following the Nikkei’s lead.  The reaction however was short-lived and a major slump didn’t happen for another three years, the biggest dip on the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) composite, the tech-heavy board listing many of the stocks Greenspan thought priced at levels induced by irrational exuberance.   It was only in retrospect the phrase became well-remembered and part of colloquial speech.  Given the history of Fedspeak, "Greenspeak" briefly gained currency but never caught on, presumably because “green” was so vested with connotations in its usual (modern) context and thus easily and erroneously associated with concepts such as “greenwash” & "green-sheen".  Indeed, although Greta Thunberg (b 2003; Swedish weather forecaster) in her critique of COP26 (The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, Glasgow, October-November 2021) provided "blah, blah, blah" as a memorable sound-bite, "greenwash" remains the preferred (dismissive) term with which to refer to any superficial or insincere display of concern for the environment, especially one issued by individuals or institutions whose activities remained environmentally destructive.  Constructions like "Greenspanspeak", "Greenspannian", "Greenspanistic" or "Greenspanesque" all just too much of a mouthful, Fedspeak had to do.

All the chairman’s men: Dr Greenspan and his presidents

Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989).

George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; US president 1989-1993).

Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1992-2001).

George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009).

Since the Greenspan epoch, the meaning has shifted, Fedspeak now very much in the tradition of Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's (1832-1898) Alice Through the Looking-Glass (the 1871 sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)) which are two of the most marvelous books ever written

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

The governors claim post-Greenspan Fedspeak is an exercise in imparting meaning in simple, plain-English with no (intended) attempt to obfuscate.

Panglossian

Panglossian (pronounced pan-glos-ee-uhn or pan-glaws-ee-uhn)

(1) A naïve or unreasonably optimistic view (can be used negatively, neutrally, or positively).  

(2) Of or relating to the view that this is the best of all possible worlds (can be used negatively, neutrally, or positively).  

1758: From the character of the philosopher and tutor Dr Pangloss, in Voltaire's (the nom de plume of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778)) satirical novella Candide (1759), the construct being Pangloss +‎ -ian.  Pan in this context is in the sense of “all”, the Modern English from the Middle English panne, from the Old English panne, from the Proto-West Germanic pannā, from the Proto-Germanic pannǭ.  It was cognate with the West Frisian panne, the Saterland Frisian Ponne, the Dutch pan, the German & Low German Panne & Pann, the German Pfanne, the Danish pande, the Swedish panna and the Icelandic panna.  Gloss is probably from a North Germanic language, the influence perhaps the Icelandic where the word was glossi (spark, flame) & glossa (to flame) or the from the dialectal Dutch gloos (a glow, flare), related to the West Frisian gloeze (a glow), from the Middle Low German glȫsen (to smolder, glow), ultimately from the Proto-Germanic glus- (to glow, shine), from Proto-Indo-European gael- (to flourish; be green or yellow); related to the modern glow.  The Greek glōssa translates literally as "tongue”.  The –ian suffix is from the Latin -iānus (the alternative forms were -ānus, -ēnus, -īnus & -ūnus); it was used to which form adjectives of belonging or origin from a noun.  Panglossian is an adjective and Panglossianism is a noun.

Voltaire's Dr Pangloss (an aptronym al la Mr Talkative & Mr Worldly Wiseman in John Bunyan’s (1628–1688) 1678 Christian allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress) was a construct of Pan in the sense of “all” and gloss in the figurative sense of something “superficially or deceptively attractive appearance”.  The comparative is more Panglossian, the superlative most Panglossian; the most commonly used synonym is Pollyannaish (from the eponymous character in the 1913 novel by US author Eleanor H Porter (1868-1920); the little girl who no matter what misfortune befalls her, manages always to find something about which to be glad).  Although a critique rather than anything hagiographic, Candide was very much a work of the Enlightenment, controversial and in some places, like the author, banned.  Voltaire created Pangloss as a parody of the German philosopher Gottfried von Leibniz (1646-1716) who claimed this is the best of all possible worlds (there are those who blame Leibniz for starting the tradition of German philosophers going mad (eg Nietzsche, Weber and (at least debatably) Hegel)).  Just to emphasize the point for English readers, some of the early translations subtitled: Candide: All for the Best (1759) & Candide: The Optimist (1762), the last re-used even in 1947.

Candide was a young man who had led a sheltered, idyllic life being tutored with Leibnizian optimism by Dr Pangloss, “the greatest philosopher of the Holy Roman Empire”.  The theme being what happens when philosophy meets the real world, the work describes Candide's slow and mournful disillusionment as he witnesses and endures the vicissitudes of earthly existence, ending with the realization that while we certainly don’t live in Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds”, it’s still a place in which “we must cultivate our garden" and make the best of what is which Candide expresses as “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds”.  Panglossianism is thus a byword for excessive, even exuberant, optimism and authors have had fun with it ever since, the cheeky term "panglossian pessimism" describing the idea that because this is the best of all possible worlds, improvement is impossible, a theme Joseph Heller (1923-1999) explored in one of the memorable exchanges in Catch-22 (1961).  Some 260 years on, Candide remains a pleasure to read and such is Voltaire's touch that modern readers will find much with which to identify, scenes such as the glum dinner in Vienna where the guests are all deposed ex-Kings could easily have been written any time in the last century.  One of Voltaire’s many memorable lines is in Candide, his explanation of why the Royal Navy had one of their own admirals, John Byng (1704–1757) executed by firing squad his own quarterdeck: "...mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de tems en tems un Amiral pour encourager les autres.” (...but in this country it is found good, from time to time, to kill one Admiral to encourage the others).  However, like Shakespeare and Churchill, some quotes are attributed to him on the basis merely that they sound Voltairesque.  He really did say the “…agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." but the story that when on his death bed a priest appeared to administer the last rites and asked: "Do you accept God, renouncing the Devil and all his works?", he answered: "This is hardly the time to be making enemies" is apocryphal.  Before it was first attributed to Voltaire in the 1970s, the joke had circulated for over a century, the dying man said variously to be Machiavelli (Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, 1469–1527), the US Author Wilson Mizner (1876–1933) and some unidentified Irishmen and Scotsmen.

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

While one of the seminal texts of the Enlightenment, Candide is also an irony-laden attack on the optimistic hopes and faith of Enlightenment thought. Voltaire’s criticism of Leibniz’s philosophy is directed mostly as his principle of sufficient reason, which maintains that nothing can be so without there being a reason why it is so, the consequence of which is the belief that the actual world must be the best one humanly possible.  Later, structural functionalists would start in much the same place and reach other conclusions.

Viscacha or vizcacha

Viscacha or vizcacha (pronounced vi-skah-chuh)

A gregarious burrowing hystricomorph rodent (Lagostomus maximus), of the genera Lagidium and Lagostomus, within family Chinchillidae, about the size of a groundhog, inhabiting the pampas of Paraguay and Argentina and allied to the smaller chinchilla, also from the family Chinchillidae.  It’s known also at the mountain viscacha, a related rodent of the genus Lagidium (of the Andes), about the size of a squirrel, having rabbit-like ears and a squirrel-like tail.

1595–1605: From the Spanish viscacha from Quechua wisk’acha or Quechuan wiskácha.  The Spanish Quechua is from qhichwa (literally “temperate valley”).  With use depending on prevailing practice, both the spellings viscacha & vizcacha are used in various branches of biology and zoology, the older alternatives biscacha, biscacho & bizcacha now rare except in historic citation.  The noun plural is viscachas and the derived term is viscachera (plural viscacheras) which describes a warren inhabited by viscachas.

Vizcacha moments: Time for the world weary to take a nap; Lindsay Lohan (left) joining a viscacha (right) in a yawn.

The viscachas or vizcachas, of which there are five extant species, are rodents of the genera (Lagidium and Lagostomus) within the family Chinchillidae.  Native to South America, despite looking similar to rabbits or hares, they’re not related to either and are thus of interest to evolutionary biologists because they’re an example of convergent evolution.  When biologists first saw the viscacha they noted the question of heritage: mammals part of the Leporidae family (rabbit) or the Chinchillidae family (Chinchilla)?  Sharing the large ears, powerful hind legs, and small front paws, Vizcachas do bear a striking resemblance to the rabbit family but are distinguished by their long bushy tail, a trait unique to the Chinchillidae family.  Helpful for biologists as a species indicator, for the small rodent, it’s a marker of their state of mind, the tail is extended when distressed and curled when at ease.

Residing throughout southern and western South America, they tend to stay close to their underground burrows but possess surprising dexterity as climbers, able to jump from rock to rock so effortlessly and with such alacrity observers report their progress is hard to track with the naked eye.  They live in colonies that can be barely a dozen or number in the hundreds and have acquired an extensive repertoire of vocalizations used in social interactions.  Small they may be but Vizcachas are voluble and, belying their sleepy appearance, are noted for their gregarious behavior.

Up to two feet (.6 m) in length and weighing typically around 3.5 lbs (1.6 kg), Vizcachas are relatively large by rodent standards but are small compared to their carnivorous neighbors, the Puma and Culpeo Fox.  These two are fierce predators but the fast, agile Vizcacha has the advantage of inhabiting a mountainous environment littered with boulders and rocks which is difficult hunting ground so doesn’t suffer greatly from predation induced population decline.  The main threat is humans, less from the habitat loss which threatens some species but because of illegal hunting for their meat and fur, luxury items in some markets.

There are spiritual traditions in which exists the concept of the spirit animal, a creature the spirit of which is said to help guide or protect a person on a journey and the characteristics of which that person shares or embodies.  The apparently ancient concept is prominent in a number of indigenous (notably Native American) religions and cultures and was embraced by Pagan and Wiccan communities as recently as the 1990s and the term totem was sometimes used.  Totem was from the Native North American Ojibwe ᑑᑌᒼ or ᑑᑌᒻ (doodem) and referred to a sacred object, symbol or spirit and in a sense can be thought of as the equivalent of a flag (in the case of a tribe) or coat of arms (in the case of a clan).  The word totem became widely used by anthropologists when discussing cultural practices in many places (and not just in North America).  In academic use where it's a neutral descriptor this is usually not controversial but in general use it can be a form of cultural misappropriation.  In the West, the idea of spirit animals was picked up in the weird world of the new age, dolphins and other charismatic creatures predictably popular.  The concept turned out also to have appeal to some among the less spiritual who adopted the viscacha as their spirit animal because there is seemingly no living thing on earth with an appearance which so encapsulates the qualities of the melancholic, world-weariness and the need to take a nap.

Vizcacha moments: Jiang Zemin (1926–2022; General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (and thus paramount leader) 1989-2002 & President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) 1993-2003), yawning (left) and resting his eyes (right) during one of the less interesting speeches delivered as part of the otherwise riveting proceedings of the nineteenth congress of the CCP, Beijing, October 2017.  Western diplomats noted that, unusually among those in the senior echelon of the CCP, Mr Jiang could at times seem almost "exuberant" (a contrast to his two more dour successors) but in retirement he may have adopted the viscacha as his spirit animal, the creature quite suited to his more somnolent lifestyle.

The Ciano Diaries, 1939-1943.  Although a literary genre not always renowned for accuracy, historians regard Ciano's among the more reliable.

One can understand Mr Jiang taking a moment to rest his eyes during the congress.  After half a lifetime in politics, some of it in the era when “a fatal error” was not a figurative phrase, he’d probably heard it all before and could sense when he could “tune out” for a while.  Cases have often been documented of those for whom continued attention becomes just too much and one who caused more vizcacha moments than most was Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) whose repetitive and seemingly endless monologues (touching discursively on subjects such as art, architecture, dog breeding, artificial honey, the church, philosophy and vegetarianism) came to be dreaded by almost all compelled to sit and endure a session.  Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944; Italian foreign minister 1936-1943 (and the son-in-law of Benito Mussolini who ordered his execution)) was, like us all, a flawed character but he had a diarist’s eye and in his entries left some of the most vivid recollections of the World War II era.  In the Austrian city of Salzburg in May, 1942 he attended a series of meetings along with Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943), General Ugo Cavallero (1880–1943; Chief of the Italian General Staff 1940-1943) and the two senior figures from the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the German military's high command)), Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946; chief of OKW 1938-1945) and Generaloberst (Colonel General) Alfred Jodl (1890–1946, chief of the OKW operations staff 1939-1945), noting in his diary one “epic struggle”:

“Hitler talks, talks, talks, talks.  Mussolini suffers - he, who is in the habit of talking himself, and who, instead, practically has to keep quiet.  On the second day, after lunch, when everything had been said, Hitler talked uninterruptedly for an hour and forty minutes.  He omitted absolutely no argument: war and peace, religion and philosophy, art and history.  Mussolini automatically looked at his wrist watch, I had my mind on my own business, and only Cavallero, who is a phenomenon of servility, pretended he was listening in ecstasy, continually nodding his head in approval.  Those, however, who dreaded the ordeal less than we did were the Germans.  Poor people.  They have to take it every day, and I am certain there isn’t a gesture, a word, or a pause which they don’t know by heart.  General Jodl, after an epic struggle, finally went to sleep on the divan. Keitel was reeling, but he succeeded in keeping his head up.  He was too close to Hitler to let himself go as he would have liked to do.”

Things did not end well for those who attended the Salzburg meeting.  Some nine months after being dismissed from his military command, Cavallero (a confessed Freemason) was found dead in the garden of a hotel in Frascati, some 20 km (12 miles) south-east of Rome.  The case of death was a single gunshot and historians still can't be certain whether he committed suicide or was assassinated by the Italians or Germans, most favoring the latter.  After a prompting from Hitler, Ciano was executed on the orders of Mussolini (his father-in-law!) and the Duce himself was assassinated by Italian partisans.  Keitel and Jodl were tried before the IMT (International Mititary Tribunal in the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and, after being convicted on all four counts: (1) Conspiracy to wage aggressive war; (2) Waging aggressive war; (3) War crimes and (4) Crimes against humanity, both were sentenced to death and hanged.  Hitler, with his wife Eva (née Braun; 1912–1945) of a few hours, committed suicide with the tanks of the Red Army only a couple of blocks from the Berlin Führerbunker.

Sombrero

Sombrero (pronounced som-brair-oh or sawm-bre-raw (Spanish))

(1) A sometimes highly embroidered, broad-brimmed hat of straw or plush felt, usually with a high conical or cylindrical crown and a saucer-shaped brim, worn especially in Spain, Mexico, and the south-western United States.

(2) A style of automobile wheel-cover which became popular in the US during the 1950s, the enveloping design vaguely similar to the motifs associated with the hat.

(3) A mixed drink, made with coffee liqueur and cream.

(4) In ten-pin bowling, a series of four consecutive strikes.

1590–1600: From the Spanish from sombrero de sol (broad-brimmed hat offering shade from the sun) and originally "umbrella, parasol" (a sense found in English by the 1590s), from sombra (shadow; shade) from the Late Latin subumbrare (to shadow), the construct being sub (under) + umbrāre (from umbra (shadow)) + ero (the dative & ablative singular of erus, from the Proto-Italic ezos (master), from the primitive Indo-European heshós (master) and cognate with the Hittite išhāš (master)) and thus literally "shade-maker".  Sombrero is a noun and sombreroed is an adjective, (the non-standard sombrerolike & sombreroesque both used informally); the noun plural is sombreros.

Politicians are often compelled to wear sombreros in the search for votes.  Others wear them by choice.

(1) Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977).

(2) Comrade Marshal (Josip Broz) Tito (1892–1980;  Yugoslav president 1953-1980).

(3) Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965; Democratic presidential nominee 1952 & 1956).

(4) Hugo Chávez (1954–2013; Venezuelan president 1999-2002 & 2002-2013).

(5) Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974).

(6) Britney Spears (b 1981; entertainer).

(7) Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022).

(8) Barry Goldwater (1909–1998; Republican presidential nominee 1964).

1961 Lincoln Continental SS-X-100 with sombrero wheel covers, Dallas, 22 November 1963 (left) and with the (ex Continental Mark II) turbine-style wheel covers and some of X-100’s protective accessories (right).

Traces of a sombrero-like shape can be discerned in the designs used for the early post-war Cadillacs but it was in the 1950s the style became popular with many manufacturers emulating the lines.  Although less popular by the early 1960s, the coachbuilders Hess & Eisenhardt chose to use sombrero-style wheel covers from the 1957 Lincoln Premiere when the White House’s 1961 presidential parade limousine was updated in 1963 with a current model grill.  This was the famous SS X-100 (the Secret Service inventory number) in which the president was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963.  It was extensively re-modeled in the aftermath of the assassination (and again in 1967), Hess & Eisenhardt reverted to the turbine-style wheel covers from the Continental Mark II (1956-1957) with which the car had originally been fitted.  Although other presidential parade cars were built in 1968 and 1972, X-100 continued to be used by Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter until 1977 and it’s now on permanent display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

1952 Cadillac sombrero wheel covers (16 inch reproductions) (left), 1954 Packard sombrero wheel covers (centre) and 1957 Cadillac sombrero wheel cover, Cadillac by 1957 unable to resist adding embellishments.

The terms “wheel cover” & “hubcap” (or hub-cap) have long been used interchangeably but the two, historically, are different.  The distinction between the two is that a wheel cover covers the entire diameter of the wheel whereas a hubcap covers only the center portion of the wheel, concealing at most only the lug nuts which secure the wheel.  The origin of the hub cap pre-dates powered-transportation and was simply a device which fitted over the hub of a wheel to prevent dirt and debris from entering the assembly and contaminating the grease which provided lubrication and some of the early versions were actually called dirt-caps or grease-caps.

1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III saloon with wire wheels with centre hub cap (left) and an unusual 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III pillarless fixed head coupé (FHC) with wheel covers over wire wheels.

As wheel designs evolved from those used on hand-carts or horse-drawn vehicles, the hubcaps were enlarged to extend protection to the lug nuts, reducing abrasion and limiting the moisture penetration which encouraged rust.  The hubcap was thus a purely utilitarian device and this functionality was extended in the 1920s when all-enveloping wheel covers (some of which had actually been seen in the nineteenth century) began to appear in volume.  These were usually covers for wire wheels (a type preferred because they were much lighter that those made from pressed steel) and served to protect both the spokes and the brakes behind from dirt and the impact of stones and rocks, an important consideration when so many roads were un-sealed.  Owners and drivers appreciated the protection, wire wheels notoriously time-consuming to clean.  One drawback however was that the air-flow to the brake drums was inhibited so the brakes were more prone to overheating, thus reducing their retardative effect but as some soon discovered, speed and economy were actually improved because the smooth wheel covers were aerodynamically more efficient, as aspect of design which continues to be exploited to this day.  In the UK, both hubcaps and wheel covers were originally called nave plates.  Nave (hub of a wheel) was from the Middle English nave, from the Old English nafu, from the Proto-West Germanic nabu, from the Proto-Germanic nabō (which influenced the Dutch naaf, the German Nabe and the Swedish nav), from the primitive Indo-European hneb- (navel) and related to the Latin umbō (shield boss), the Latvian naba and the Sanskrit नभ्य (nabhya).  The idea of it being “something central” was a development from the Latin nāvem, the singular accusative of nāvis, terms from architecture which referred to the middle section of a church (later extended to other structures & shipbuilding).

1959 Imperial Silvercrest Landau (left), 1959 Edsel Citation convertible (centre) and 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz (right).

Also exploited, for better and worse, were aesthetic sensibilities.  It was in the stylistically exuberant US of the 1950s that wheel covers became truly extravagant and heavy, the latter something that brought its own problems.  The design teams took to wheel covers with enthusiasm because changes were cheap to implement and they soon became part of product differentiation, the higher in the hierarchy a model sat, the more elaborate the wheel covers were likely to be.  The sombreros were just one style, others referencing influences as diverse as the original wire wheels, the turbines in jet engines, water fountains, the full moon (though without pock-marks) and beehives.

Dog dishes: 1966 Ford Fairlane 427 (left), 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Six Pack and 1969 Yenko Chevrolet Nova 427.

Wheel covers became part of what was typically an annual cycle of styling changes and it wasn’t unusual for those used on last year’s top-of-the-line model to re-appear on a cheaper line and just because wheel covers had arrived, hubcaps didn’t go away, fitted almost always as standard equipment on the cheapest entry-level models and those defined as heavy-duty such as the ones built for police fleets.  Simple steel stampings, they were cheap to produce and, being lightweight, were less prone to becoming detached during brisk driving, the “flying hubcap” (actually usually a wheel cover) a noted feature of many of Hollywood’s car chases and something the many film buffs delight in noting sometime escape the "continuity process", a lost wheel cover inexplicably having re-attached itself later in the sequence.  The simple pressings were sometimes dubbed “poverty hubcaps” but a more common nickname was “dog dish”, a reference to their appearance if upturned.

Mercedes-Benz 600 SWB with early, two-piece hub cap & trim ring combination (left) and the later, less pleasing, one-piece wheel cover.

The wheel cover as part of a re-style was not restricted to the US but manufacturers in the UK & Europe were more conservative (an exception to this tended to be the locally produced models from companies ultimately owned by US corporations; as in Australia, these sometimes used hand-me-downs from Detroit), hubcaps persisting longer while “trim-rings” began to be added to emulate wheel covers but designs were often carried over from one model to the next.  In this, the Mercedes-Benz 600 (M100, 1963-1981) is a footnote in hubcap history in that in its eighteen-odd years in production, the only styling change (other than the disfigurements demanded by US regulators) was to replace the two-piece hubcap/trim ring combination with a one-piece wheel cover.  This was unfortunate because the earlier style better suited the car and designers have distinguished between them, calling one the "frowning" and the other the smiling, the 600 definitely a "frowning" sort of car.

Lindsay Lohan in Sombrero.

Wheel covers remained of interest to those designing cars for competition, the trade-off between brake cooling and aerodynamic advantage weighed up according to the nature of the event.  On the circuits a premium usually was attached to cooling but those setting speed records were particularly attracted to the smoothest possible shape which meant flat wheel covers of some description were often fitted and where possible many choose to enclose the wheel to whatever extent was possible; In testing, Jaguar discovered an additional 3-4 mph (5-6 km/h) could be attained if the XK120’s (1948-1954) rear wheels were wholly enclosed by fender skirts (also called spats).  In the modern era, even with aluminum or composite wheels optimized for lightness and brake cooling, there are manufacturers which use additional wheel covers, either to produce downforce for use in competition or to reduce drag, lowering energy consumption to increase a vehicle’s range.  Like many manufacturers of EVs (electric vehicles) Tesla uses the combination of aluminium wheels (for weight-saving) and a plastic wheel cover (for aerodynamic efficiency), the latter the main reason why there have been so few EV convertibles, the inherent inefficiency of the shape imposing a significant penalty "in the drag".  When the naked wheel of a Tesla Cybertruck is revealed, many are struck by the attractiveness of the design.

The selfie sombrero, a 2014 co-development between Christian Cowan-Sanluis and Acer Inc of Taiwan.

In 2014, in one of the IT industry’s less remembered collaborations with the fashion business, designer Christian Cowan-Sanluis (b 1994) joined with Taiwanese (Taiwan a renegade province of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)) manufacturer Acer to produce a “limited-edition” (a perhaps unnecessary announcement) sombrero with an integrated tablet, able to spin through 360^o.  Said to be the ultimate solution to selfie takers who struggle to find their best angle, the wide-brimmed apparatus included an Iconia A1-840 tablet.  Listed upon release at a not unreasonable Stg£599, the selfie-sombrero was based on a hat in Cowan-Sanluis' autumn-winter 2014 collection, noted for having been modeled by Lady Gaga (b 1986).

Lady Gaga in original sparkly pink sombrero from Christian Cowan-Sanluis’ autumn-winter 2014 collection.

Technically, the design was helpful for selfie-takers because of the mounting which allowed the tablet to spin through 360^o, helping the user to determine the best angle while snapping and reviewing the results.  With an internet connection, the perfect selfie could then instantly be uploaded to the social platform of choice.  Early adopters were encouraged to place an order, the designer noting the creation of ten pink sparkly glitter cases with accompanying hats in the same style as that worn by Lady Gaga.

Malachite

Malachite (pronounced mal-uh-kahyt)

(1) In mineralogy, a bright-green monoclinic mineral, occurring as a mass of crystals (an aggregate).  It manifests typically with a smooth or botryoidal (grape-shaped) surface and, after cutting & polishing, is used in ornamental articles and jewelry.  It’s often concentrically banded in different shades of green, the contrast meaning that sometimes lends the substance the appearance of being a variegated green & black.  Malachite is found usually in veins in proximity to the mineral azurite in copper deposits.  The composition is hydrated copper carbonate; the chemical formula is Cu₂CO₃(OH)₂ and the crystal structure is monoclinic.

(2) A ceramic ware made in imitation of this (in jewelry use, “malachite” is used often as a modifier).

(3) In mineralogy, as pseudomalachite, a mineral containing copper, hydrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus.

(4) In mineralogy, as azurite-malachite, a naturally-occurring mixture of azurite and malachite

(5) In organic chemistry, as malachite green, a toxic chemical used as a dye, as a treatment for infections in fish (when diluted) and as a bacteriological stain.

(6) Of a colour spectrum, ranging from olive-taupe to a mild to deeply-rich (at times tending to the translucent) green, resembling instances in the range in which the mineral is found.  In commercial use, the interpretation is sometimes loose and some hues are also listed as “malachite green”).

1350-1400: From the Middle French malachite, from the Old French, from the Latin molochītēs, from the Ancient Greek malachitis (lithos) (mallow (stone)) & molochîtis (derivative of molóchē, a variant of maláchē), from μολόχη (molókhē) (mallow; leaf of the mallow plant).  It replaced the Middle English melochites, from the Middle French melochite, from the Latin molochītis.  Malachite is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is malachites.

A pair of Malachite & Onyx inlay cufflinks in 925 Sterling Silver (ie 92.5% pure silver & 7.5% other metals), Mexico, circa 1970.

Although in wide use as a gemstone, technically malachite is copper ore and thus a “secondary mineral” of copper, the stone forming when copper minerals interact with different chemicals (carbonated water, limestone etc.  For this reason, geologists engaged in mineral exploration use malachite as a “marker” (a guide to the likelihood of the nearby presence of copper deposits in commercial quantities).  It’s rare for malachite to develop in isolation and it’s often found in aggregate with azurite, a mineral of similar composition & properties.  Visually, malachite & azurite are similar in their patterning and distinguished by color; azurite a deep blue, malachite a deep green.  Because the slight chemical difference between the two makes azurite less stable, malachite does sometimes replace it, resulting in a “pseudomorph”.  Although there is a range, unlike some minerals, malachite is always green and the lustrous, smooth surface with the varied patterning when cut & polished has for millennia made it a popular platform for carving, the products including al work, jewelry and decorative pieces.  For sculptors, the properties of malachite make it an easy and compliant material with which to work and it’s valued by jewelers for its color-retention properties, the stone (like many gemstones) unaffected by even prolonged exposure to harsh sunlight.  Despite the modern association of green with the emerald, the relationship between mankind & malachite is much more ancient. evidence of malachite mining dating from as early as 4000 BC found near the Isthmus of Suez and the Sinai whereas there’s nothing to suggest the emerald would be discovered until Biblical times, some two millennia later.

Lindsay Lohan in malachite green, this piece including both the darker and lighter ends of the spectrum.

The Malachite is relatively soft meant it was easy to grind into a powder even with pre-modern equipment; it was thus used to create what is thought to be the world’s oldest green pigment (described often as chrysocolla or copper green).  In Antiquity, the dye was so adaptable it was used in paint, for clothing and Egyptians (men & women) even found it was the ideal eye makeup.  Use persisted until oil-based preparations became available in quantity and these were much cheaper because of the labor-intensive grinding processes and the increasing price of malachite which was in greater demand for other purposes.  This had the side-effect of creating a secondary market for malachite jewelry and other small trinkets because the fragments and wastage from the carving industry (once absorbed by the grinders for the dye market) became available.  The use in makeup wasn’t without danger because, as a copper derivate, raw malachite is toxic; like many minerals, the human body needs a small amount of copper to survive but in high doses it is a poison’ in sufficient quantities, it can be fatal.  Among miners and process workers working with the ore, long-term exposure did cause severe adverse effects (from copper poisoning) so it shouldn’t be ingested or the dust inhaled.  Once polished, the material is harmless but toxicology specialists do caution it remains dangerous if ingested and any liquid with which it comes in contact should not be drunk.  Despite the dangers, the mineral has long been associated with protective properties, a belief not restricted to Antiquity or the medieval period; because the Enlightenment seems to have passed by New Agers and others, malachite pendants and other body-worn forms are still advertised with a variety of improbable claims of efficacy.

The Malachite Room of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, Russia was, during the winter of 1838-1839, designed as a formal reception room (a sort of salon) for the Tsar & Tsarina by the artist Alexander Briullov (1798–1877), replacing the unfortunate Jasper Room, destroyed in the fire of 1837.  It’s not the only use of the stone in the palace but it’s in the Malachite Room where a “green theme” is displayed most dramatically, the columns and fireplace now Instagram favorites, as is the large large urn, all sharing space with furniture from the workshops of Peter Gambs (1802-1871), those pieces having been rescued from the 1837 fire.  Between June-October 1971 it was in the Malachite Room that the Provisional Government conducted its business until the representatives were arrested by Bolsheviks while at dinner in the adjoining dining room.  The putsch was denounced by the Mensheviks who the Bolsheviks finally would suppress in 1921.

Polished malachite pieces from the Congo, offered on the Fossilera website.

Where there is demand for something real, a supply of a imitation version will usually emerge and the modern convention is for items erroneously claiming to be the real thing are tagged “fake malachite” while those advertised only as emulation are called “faux malachite”.  Although not infallible, the test is that most fake malachite stones are lighter than the real thing because, despite being graded as “relatively soft” by sculptors, the stone is of high in density and deceptively heavy.  The patterning of natural malachite is infinitely varied while the synthetic product tends to some repetition and is usually somewhat brighter.  The density of malachite also lends the stone particular thermal properties; it’s inherently cold to the touch, something which endures even when a heat source is applied.  Fake malachite usually is manufactured using glass or an acrylic, both of which more rapidly absorb heat from the hand.

Lindsay Lohan with Rolex Datejust in stainless steel with silver face (left) and the Rolex's discontinued "malachite face" (centre & right).  Well known for its blue watch faces, during the more exuberant years of the 1970s & 1980s the company “splashed out” a bit and offered a malachite face.  The Datejust is now available with a choice of nine faces but the Green one is now a more restrained hue the company calls “mint green”.