Ghat

Ghat (pronounced gat, got (Indian) or gawt (Indian) or (apparently optionally) fat/fhat for certain slang)

(1) In India, a wide set of steps descending to a river, especially a river used for bathing; a mountain pass; a mountain range or escarpment; a place of cremation (also as burning-ghat).

(2) A leaf possessing simulative qualities, chewed in Yemen, Ethiopia, Somalia, and among Yemenite Jews in Israel.  Ghat chewing sessions are social and involve playing music, smoking a nargilah (a hookah-type device for smoking) and what’s sometimes described as “other such Eastern reveries” (usually with initial capital).

(3) Among the criminal classes, a slang word for a firearm, derived from the Gat Air Pistol, a low-velocity air-powered pistol produced circa 1937-1996 which fired a variety of projectiles.

(4) An acronym standing for Give Hope And Take (away), a short series of events in which someone gives hope to another then instantly and ruthlessly takes it away.

(5) Slang for something very good or much admired (class specific with a noted ethnic bias in use).

(6) As a homophone, slang for the Gatling Gun.

(7) As the homophonic acronym GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (1947-1995), predecessor of the World Trade Organization (WTO) arrangements.

(8) In Hinduism, a certain type of temple.  A brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who acted as the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and who was regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual was known as a panda.

1595–1605: From Hindi घाट (ghāṭ) (a pier; a pass of descent from a mountain, hence also "mountain range, chain of hills," also "stairway leading up from a river" (to a shrine, temple, etc.), from the Sanskrit घट्ट (ghaṭṭa or ghattah) (a landing-place, steps on the side of a river leading to the waters).  The Sanskrit is of unknown origin but there may be a connection with the Telugu కట్ట (kaṭṭa) (dam, embankment).  In Indian use, the related form is ghaut.  Under the Raj, some language guides suggested a ghaut differed from a ghat in that the former was used exclusively to describe “a ravine leading to the sea” but this was later discredited.  The mistake probably arose in assuming a local practice was universal and it appears ghaut and ghat were inconsistently but widely used interchangeably (the plural was ghauts).  Ghat is a noun; the noun plural is ghats.

As a point of usage, it appears the slang forms of ghat should be pronounced with a hard “G” except when used in meaning 5 (above) when an “ef” or “ph” (as in fat or phat) is used.  It’s an important convention of use: If one has just been ghatted in the sense of meaning 4 (above), it’s correct to say “The bitch really gatted me” and not “The bitch really phatted me”.  That really seems just common sense.        

The Gat Air Pistol

The Gat Air Pistol was made by the Harrington company in the UK.  It was in production continuously between the late 1930s and late 1990s, except during the Second World War when the factory re-tooled for war production.  The pistol could fire .177 pellets, ball bearings, darts, corks and anything else small and light enough to suit the barrel.  A low-powered weapon with a very low muzzle velocity, the target market was hobbyists and children.  There was a time when children were given such things.  The other lucrative market was the travelling fair.  In every sideshow ally there were usually several shooting gallery stall owners who offered famously worthless prizes for anyone able to hit the target and for their purposes, the cheaply-produced, notoriously inaccurate Gat was ideal.  Anyone who could hit a target with a Gat gun was probably a pretty bad shot.

Panda

Panda (pronounced pan-duh)

(1) A black & white, herbivorous, bearlike mammal (in popular use sometimes as “giant panda”), Ailuropoda melanoleuca (family Procyonidae), now rare with a habitat limited to relatively small forested areas of central China where ample growth exists of the stands of bamboo which constitutes the bulk of the creature’s diet.

(2) A reddish-brown (with ringed-tail), raccoon-like mammal (in the literature often referred to as the “lesser panda”), Ailurus fulgens which inhabits mountain forests in the Himalayas and adjacent eastern Asia, subsisting mainly on bamboo and other vegetation, fruits, and insects.

(3) In Hinduism, a brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who acts as the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual.

(4) In colloquial use (picked up as UK police slang) as “panda car” (often clipped to “panda”), a UK police vehicle painted in a two-tone color scheme (originally black & white but later more typically powder-blue & white) (historic use only).

(5) Used attributively, something (or someone) with all (or some combination of) the elements (1) black & white coloration, (2) perceptions of “cuteness” and (3) the perceived quality of being “soft & cuddly”.

1835: From the French (Cuvier), a name for the lesser panda, assumed to be from a Tibeto-Burman language or some other native Nepalese word.  Cuvier is a trans-lingual term which references the French naturalist and zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) and his younger brother the zoologist and paleontologist Frédéric Cuvier (1773–1838).  The term was use of any of the Latinesque or pseudo-Latin formations created as taxonomic names for organisms following the style & conventions used by the brothers.  Most etymologists suggest the most likely source was the second element of nigálya-pónya (a local name for the red panda recorded in Nepal and Sikkim), which was perhaps from the Nepali निँगाले (nĩgāle) (relating to a certain species of bamboo), the adjectival form of निँगालो (nĩgālo), a variant of निङालो (niṅālo) (Drepanostachyum intermedium (a species of bamboo)).  The second element was a regional Tibetan name for the animal, related in some way to ཕོ་ཉ (pho nya) (messenger).  The use in Hinduism describing “a learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher (and specifically of the Brahmin (a member of the highest (priestly) caste) who was the hereditary superintendent of a particular ghat (temple) and regarded as authoritative in matters of genealogy and ritual, especially one who had memorized a substantial proportion of the Vedas)” was from the Hindi पंडा (paṇḍā) and the Punjabi ਪਾਂਡਾ (pāṇḍā), both from the Sanskrit पण्डित (paṇḍita) (learned, wise; learned man, pundit, scholar, teacher).  The English word pundit (expert in a particular field, especially as called upon to provide comment or opinion in the media; a commentator or critic) entered the language during the British Raj in India, the use originally to describe native surveyor, trained to carry out clandestine surveillance the colonial borders.  The English form is now commonly used in many languages but the descendants included the Japanese パンダ (panda), the Korean 판다 (panda) and the Thai: แพนด้า.  Panda is a noun and pandalike (also as panda-like) is an adjective (pandaesque & panderish still listed as non-standard; the noun plural is pandas.

A charismatic creature: Giant Panda with cub.

As a word, panda has been productive.  The portmanteau noun pandamonium (the blend being panda +‎ (pande)monium was a humorous construct describing the reaction which often occurs in zoos when pandas appear and was on the model of fandemonium (the reaction of groupies and other fans to the presence of their idol).  The "trash panda" (also as "dumpster panda" or "garbage panda") was of US & Canadian origin and an alternative to "dumpster bandit", "garbage bandit" or "trash bandit" and described the habit of raccoons foraging for food in trash receptacles.  The use was adopted because the black patches around the creature's eyes are marking similar to those of the giant panda.  The Australian equivalent is the "bin chicken", an allusion to the way the Ibis has adapted to habitat loss by entering the urban environment, living on food scraps discarded in rubbish bins.

Lindsay Lohan with “reverse panda” eye makeup.

The “panda crossing” was a pedestrian safety measure, an elaborate form of the “zebra crossing”.  It was introduced in the UK in 1962, the name derived from the two-tone color scheme used for the road marking and the warning beacons on either side of the road.  The design worked well in theory but not in practice and all sites had been decommissioned by late 1967.  The giant panda’s twotonalism led to the adoption of “panda dolphin” as one of the casual tags (the others being “jacobita, skunk dolphin, piebald dolphin & tonina overa for the black & white Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii).  “Reverse panda” is an alternative version of “raccoon eyes” and describes an effect achieved (sometimes “over-achieved”) with eye-shadow or other makeup, producing a pronounced darkening around the eyes, an inversion of the panda’s combination.  It’s something which is sometimes seen also in photography as a product of lighting or the use of a camera’s flash.

In English, the first known reference to the panda as a “carnivorous raccoon-like mammal (the lesser panda) of the Himalayas” while the Giant Panda was first described in 1901 although it had been “discovered” in 1869 by French missionary Armand David and it was known as parti-colored until the name was changed which evidence of the zoological relationship to the red panda was accepted.  The giant panda was thus once included as part of the raccoon family but is now classified as a bear subfamily, Ailuropodinae, or as the sole member of a separate family, Ailuropodidae (which diverged from an ancestral bear lineage).  The lesser panda (the population of which has greatly been reduced by collectors & hunters) is now regarded as unrelated to the giant panda and usually classified as the sole member of an Old World raccoon subfamily, Ailurinae, which diverged from an ancestral lineage that also gave rise to the New World raccoons, most familiar in North America.  As late as the early twentieth century, the synonyms for the lesser panda included bear cat, cat bear & wah, all now obsolete.

Panda diplomacy

Lindsay Lohan collecting Chinese takeaway from a Panda Express outlet, New York City, November 2008.

Although the first pandas were gifted by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) Chinese government in 1941, “panda diplomacy” began as a Cold War term, the practice of sending pandas to overseas zoos becoming a tool increasingly used by Peking (Beijing after 1979) following the Sino-Soviet split in 1957.  Quite when the phrase was first used isn’t certain but it was certainly heard in government and academic circles during the 1960s although it didn’t enter popular use until 1972, when a pair of giant pandas (Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing) were sent to the US after Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) historic visit to China, an event motivated by Washington’s (1) interest in seeking Peking’s assistance in handling certain aspects of the conflict in Indochina and (2) desire to “move Moscow into check on the diplomatic chessboard”.  Ever since, pandas have been a unique part of the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CCP) diplomatic toolbox although since 1984 they’ve been almost always leased rather than gifted, the annual fee apparently as high as US$1 million per beast, the revenue generated said to be devoted to conservation of habitat and a selective breeding program designed to improve the line’s genetic diversity.  Hong Kong in 2007 were gifted a pair but that’s obviously a special case ("one country, two pandas") and while an expression of diplomatic favour, they can be also an indication of disapprobation, those housed in the UK in 2023 returned home at the end of the lease and not replaced.

It’s one of a set of such terms in geopolitics including  “shuttle diplomacy” (the notion of a negotiator taking repeated "shuttle flights" between countries involved in conflict in an attempt to manage or resolve things (something with a long history but gaining the name from the travels here & there of Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) in the 1960s & 1970s)), “ping-pong diplomacy” (the use of visiting table-tennis teams in the 1960s & 1970s as a means of reducing Sino-US tensions and maintaining low-level cultural contacts as a prelude to political & economic engagement), “commodity diplomacy” (the use of tariffs, quotas and other trade barriers as “bargaining chips” in political negotiations), “gunboat diplomacy” (the threat (real or implied) of the use of military force as means of coercion), “hostage diplomacy” (holding the nationals of a country in prison or on (sometimes spurious) charges with a view to exchanging them for someone or something) and “megaphone diplomacy” (an official or organ of government discussing in public what is usually handled through “usual diplomatic channels”; the antonym is “quiet diplomacy”).

Panda diplomacy in action.

A case study in the mechanics of panda diplomacy was provided by PRC (People’s Republic of China) Premier Li Qiang (b 1959; premier of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2023) during his official visit to Australia in June 2024.  Mr Li’s presence was an indication the previous state of “diplomatic deep freeze” between the PRC & Australia had been warmed to something around “correct but cool”, the earlier state of unarmed conflict having been entered when Beijing reacted to public demands (delivered via “megaphone diplomacy”) by previous Australian prime minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) for an international enquiry into the origin of the SARS-Covid-2 virus which triggered the COVID-19 pandemic.  Such a thing might have been a good idea but underlying Mr Morrison’s strident call was that he was (1) blaming China and (2) accusing the CCP of a cover-up.  Mr Morrison is an evangelical Christian and doubtlessly it was satisfying for him to attend his church (one of those where there’s much singing, clapping, praising the Lord and discussing the real-estate market) to tell his fellow congregants how he’d stood up to the un-Christian, Godless communists but as a contribution to international relations (IR), it wasn’t a great deal of help.  His background was in advertising and coining slogans (he so excelled at both it was clearly his calling) but he lacked the background for the intricacies of IR.  The CCP’s retributions (trade sanctions and refusing to pick up the phone) might have been an over-reaction but to a more sophisticated prime-minister they would have been reasonably foreseeable.

Two years on from the diplomatic blunder, Mr Li arrived at Adelaide Zoo for a photo-opportunity to announce the impending arrival of two new giant pandas, the incumbent pair, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, soon to return to China after their 15 year stint.  Wang Wang and Fu Ni, despite over those years having been provided “every encouragement” (including both natural mating and artificial insemination) to procreate, proved either unable or unwilling so, after thanking the zoo’s staff for looking after them so well, the premier announced: “We will provide a new pair of equally beautiful, lovely and adorable pandas to the Adelaide Zoo.”, he said through an interpreter, adding: “I'm sure they will be loved and taken good care of by the people of Adelaide, South Australia, and Australia.”  The duo, the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere, had been scheduled to return in 2019 at the conclusion of the original ten year lease but sometime before the first news of COVID-19, this was extended to 2024.  Although their lack of fecundity was disappointing, there’s nothing to suggest the CCP regard this as a loss of face (for them or the apparently unromantic couple) and Wang Wang and Fu Ni will enjoy a comfortable retirement munching on abundant supplies of bamboo.  Unlike some who have proved a “disappointment” to the CCP, they’ll be spared time in a “re-education centre”.

A classic UK police Wolseley 6/80 (1948-1954) in black, a staple of 1950s UK film & television (top left), Adaux era Hillman Minx (1956–1967) (top centre) & Jaguar Mark 2 (1959-1969) (top right), the first of the true "black & white" panda cars, Ford Anglia 105E (1958-1968) on postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2013 (bottom left), in one of the pastel blues which replaced the gloss black, Rover 3500 (SD1, 1976-1984) (bottom centre) in one of the deliberately lurid schemes used in the 1970s & 1980s (UK police forces stockpiled Rover 3500s when it was announced production was ending; they knew what would follow would be awful) and BMW 320d (bottom right) in the "Battenburg markings" designed by the Police Scientific Development Branch (SDB).

Until 1960, the fleets of cars run by most of the UK’s police forces tended to be a glossy black.  That began to change when, apparently influenced by US practice, the front doors and often part or all of the roof were painted white, the change said to be an attempt to make them “more distinctive”.  The new scheme saw then soon dubbed “panda cars”, the slang picked up by police officers (though often, in their economical way, clipped to “panda”) and use persisted for years even after the dominant color switched from black to pastels, usually a duck-egg blue.  Things got brighter over the years until the police developed the high-visibility “Battenburg markings” a combination of white, blue and fluorescent yellow, a system widely adopted internationally.  Interestingly, although the black & white combination was used between the 1960s-1990s by the New Zealand’s highway patrol cars (“traffic officers” then separate from the police), the “panda car” slang never caught on.

The Fiat Panda

Basic motoring, the 1980 Fiat Panda.

Developed during the second half of the troubled and uncertain 1970s, the Fiat Panda debuted at the now defunct Geneva Motor Show in 1980.  Angular, though not a statement of high rectilinearism in the manner of the memorable Fiat 130 coupé (1971-1977), it was a starkly functional machine, very much in the utilitarian tradition of the Citroën 2CV (1948-1990) but visually reflecting more recent trends although, concessions to style were few.  Fiat wanted a car with the cross-cultural appeal of its earlier Cinquecento (500, 1957-1975) which, like the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) Mini (1959-2000) was “classless” and valued for its practicality.  It was designed from “the inside out”, the passenger compartment’s dimensions created atop the mechanical components with the body built around those parameters, the focus always on minimizing the number of components used, simplifying the manufacturing and assembly processes and designing the whole to make maintenance as infrequently required and as inexpensive as possible.  One innovation which seemed a good, money saving device was that all glass was flat, something which had fallen from fashion for windscreens in the 1950s and for side windows a decade later.  In theory, reverting to the pre-war practice should have meant lower unit costs and greater left-right interchangeability but there were no manufacturers in Italy which had maintained the machinery to produce such things and the cost per m² proved eventually a little higher than would have been the case for curved glass.  Over three generations until 2024, the Panda was a great success although one which did stray from its basic origins as European prosperity increased.  There was in the 1990s even an electric version which was very expensive and, its capabilities limited by the technology of the time, not a success.

The name of the Fiat Panda came from mythology, Empanda, a Roman goddess who was patroness of travelers and controversial among historians, some regarding her identity as but the family name of Juno, the Roman equivalent of Hera, the greatest of all the Olympian goddesses.  Whatever the lineage, she was a better choice for Fiat than Pandarus (Πάνδαρος) who came from the city of Zeleia, Apollo himself teaching him the art of archery.  Defying his father’s advice, Pandarus marched to Troy as a foot soldier, refusing to take a chariot & horses; there he saw Paris & Menelaus engaged in single combat and the goddess Athena incited Pandarus to fire an arrow at Menelaus.  In this way the truce was broken and the war resumed.  Pandarus then fought Diomedes but was killed, his death thought punishment for his treachery in breaking the truce.

Press-kit images for the 2024 Fiat Grande Panda issued by Stellantis, June 2024.

In June 2024, Fiat announced the fourth generation Panda and advances in technology mean the hybrid and all-electric power-trains are now mainstream and competitive on all specific measures.  The Grande Panda is built on the new Stellantis “Smart Car platform”, shared with Citroën ë-C3, offering seating capacity for five.  Unlike the original, the 2024 Panda features a few stylistic gimmicks including headlights and taillights with a “pixel theme”, a look extended to the diamond-cut aluminium wheels, in homage to geometric motifs of the 1980s and the earlier Panda 4x4.