Capuchin

Capuchin (pronounced kap-yoo-chin or kap-yoo-shin)

(1) A notable agile, forest-dwelling Central and South American monkey (Cebus capucinus), having a prehensile tail and a cowl of thick hair atop the head, vaguely resembling a monk’s hood.

(2) Any monkey of the genus Cebus (the term ring-tailed monkey is also sometimes used and the Sapajus apella is known as the tufted capuchin.)

(3) A style of hooded cloak historically worn by women.

(4) A friar belonging to a strict and autonomous branch of the Franciscan (Friars Minor), casual use extending later to Franciscans and eventually to cowled monks generally.

(5) Among bird-watchers, A hooded pigeon.

1590–1600: From the Middle French, from the Italian cappuccino, the construct being capuche (a long, pointed hood worn by monks in many Roman Catholic monastic orders) + -in(o).  Capuchin was an Italian borrowing of the Middle French capuchin (Capuchin friar) (from the earlier from earlier capucin), from the Italian cappuccino (Capuchin friar (literally “a small capuchin)), from cappuccio (hood, cowl), from the Late Latin cappa (cape, hood); synecdochally it was used also to refer to members of orders of Roman Catholic friars generally.  The Italian suffix -ino was from the Latin -īnus, from the primitive Indo-European -inos and was comparable with the English -ine.  It was a noun-forming suffix used (1) to form diminutives, (2) to indicate a profession, (3) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin & (4) to denote a device, tool or instrument; as an adjective-forming suffix it was used (1) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin & (2) to denote composition, color or other physical qualities.  Capuchin & capuchiness are nouns; the noun plural is capuchins.

Lindsay Lohan in black capuchin, Los Angeles, October 2011.

The hooded habits worn by friars and nuns of the Capuchin order were a distinctive reddish-brown and in seventeenth century Europe capuchin was a common description of the hue.  According to histories published by the order, the robes were inspired by the vestments actually worn by Saint Francis of Assisi (circa 1180-1226) in the thirteenth century, some of which were preserved in the Abby to which his remains were taken.  Saint Francis actually wore robes which were uncolored but, apparently for no reason other than product differentiation, the Capuchins colored their fabric lest they be confused with friars of other Church orders (the Benedictines, Augustinians, Franciscans etc).

The Colombian white faced capuchin (Cebus capucinus).

The style of prepared coffee called cappuccino (pronounced kap-oo-chee-noh, kah-poo-chee-noh or (in Italian) kahp-poot-chee-naw) consists of an espresso base topped with foamed milk, often served with powdered cinnamon and (sometimes) whipped cream.  The color contrast between the foam and cinnamon makes designs possible and some baristas make these their signatures.  Although it appears in Italian documents from the nineteenth century, the word seems first to have achieved wider popularity in the immediate post-war years (1645-1948).  It was adopted originally because the color of the foam-cinnamon mix was fancied as having a resemblance to the color of a Capuchin habit.  In a trend which has shocked purists, there have long been those who prefer powdered chocolate to cinnamon.

Lindsay Lohan with a brace of takeaway cappuccinos, Los Angeles, January 2008.

Whether the cappuccino really was “invented” by an Italian Franciscan after the 1683 Battle of Vienna (when the armies assembled by the Holy Roman Empire turned away the Ottomans besieging the gates of the city, thereby saving Europe from the threat of Islamic conquest) is unknown and likely a myth but it remains a popular story and, unlike the similar attribution of the aftermath of the battle being the birthplace of the croissant, it’s never actually been disproved.  Historically, all agree the appearance of the cappuccino has changed over the centuries and the extravagance of the froth is a recent innovation.  The name certainly comes from the color of the habits worn by “Capuchin” friars which so resembled the color the beverage assumed when a small measure of milk was added to the almost black, brewed coffee and it’s at least possible cinnamon was among the herbs sprinkled but there were likely many tried.  The modern cappuccino with espresso créma and steamed milk is a twentieth century creation but innovation has always surrounded the barista’s steam and in the late eighteenth century, the Viennese used the German modification of the Italian cappuccino (Kapuziner) and, being Austrians, added whipped cream and spices although some recipe books mention egg yolks as part of the concoction, sugar apparently compulsory.  As an Italian specialty (thought to be an import from the Italian-speaking parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire barely known outside the country or the parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) it spread in the early years of the twentieth century as espresso machines suitable for use in cafés entered volume production and prices fell but outside the country it remained almost unknown until the 1930s and it was during the post-war period when the combination of an influx of foreigners to Italy and the mass-migration of Italians that the cappuccino became the latest of the nation’s many cultural exports.

A classic cappuccino.

However, unlike the practices in many places, Italians seldom took a cappuccino before ten or eleven in the morning, the cultural tradition (said to date from Ancient Rome) being that milk ingested too early in the day impedes the digestion of food for the rest of the day, thus the Italian preference for an early espresso.  In places beyond, there was no such reluctance and in US cities (where they’d been widely available in Italian restaurants since the 1930s) the breakfast cappuccino became a bit of a cult among urban sophisticates and late in the century as coffee chains became first national and then international, the cappuccino went worldwide.

The cappuccino’s place in the milky ecosystem detailed by CoffeeHow.  Sasha’s coffeehow.co is the web’s outstanding site for coffee fiends, being both comprehensive and accessible.  If there’s anything to be known about coffee, Sasha’s site has an entry.  

Making a cappuccino at home

Ingredients

1 oz dark roast ground coffee.
½ cup hot water.
¾ cup whole milk.
Sprinkle of powdered cinnamon.
Whipped cream & sugar (raw sugar or coffee crystals are best) are optional, neither of which are recommended.)

Directions

(1) Place coffee grounds in French press and add the hot water.  Allow the mix to steep (the process by which a porous solid absorbs a liquid) for 4 minutes, then push down on plunger down and pour into a mug, ideally one with an outward curl to the lip.

(2) While coffee is steeping, pour milk into a small pot and heat to 140-150^o F (60-65^o C); ideally, use a thermometer to test temperature.

(3) Pour hot milk into a large container (ideally one made from stainless steel with handle & spout and conical so opening is somewhat narrower than base) and with handheld frothing wand froth hot milk; this should take some 3 minutes.

(4) Pour frothed milk into mug atop coffee and if foaming has been done correctly it should be very foamy on top.  The sugar can at this point be added but a cappuccino is best enjoyed unsweetened.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve, if desired with whipped cream.

Smite

Smite (pronounced smahyt)

(1) To strike or hit hard, with or as with the hand, a stick, or other weapon; to deliver or deal (a blow, hit etc) by striking hard.

(2) As acts of God, to strike down, injure, or slay (influenced by the use of the word in biblical translations); to kill or injure by the exercise of divine power.

(3) To afflict or attack with deadly or disastrous effect; violently to kill; to slay.

(4) In military conflict, to put to rout in battle; to overthrow.

(5) To afflict; to chasten; to punish.

(6) To feel mentally or morally afflicted with a sudden pang.

(7) Figuratively (now (as smitten) used only in passive), to strike with love or infatuation; to affect suddenly and strongly with a specified feeling; to impress favorably; charm; enamor.

Pre 900: From the Middle English smiten (to daub, smear, smudge; soil, defile, pollute) from the Old English smītan from the Proto-Germanic smītaną (to sling; throw), from the primitive Indo-European smeyd- (to smear, whisk, strike, rub).  It was cognate with Saterland Frisian smiete (to throw, toss), the West Frisian smite (to throw), the Low German smieten (to throw, chuck, toss), the Dutch smijten (to fling, hurl, throw), the Middle Low German besmitten (to soil, sully), the German schmeißen (schmeissen) (to fling, throw), the Danish smide (to throw) and the Gothic bismeitan (to besmear, anoint).  The alternative spelling smight is long obsolete.  Smite & smiting are nouns & verbs, smited (smit is archaic except in poetic use) & smote are verbs (the latter an adjective in Middle English), smiter is a noun and smitten is an adjective & verb; the (rare) noun plural is smites.

Smitten: Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) looking longingly at Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).

Although before their eyes met in 2018, the two had exchanged such long-distance insults as "dotard" and "little rocket man", after meeting, things changed as Mr Trump would later explain: “I like him. He likes me. I guess that’s OK. Am I allowed to say that?  I was being really tough and so was he. And we would go back and forth.  And then we fell in love.  No, really.  He wrote me beautiful letters.  They were great letters.  And then we fell in love.”  Caught up in the magic of the moment, the two were clearly smitten but on substantive matters there was little progress and within a year the DPRK's highly productive news agency was releasing transcripts of the foreign ministry's statement in which it claimed Mr Trump's attitude "must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard".  Assuming both live to see the day, the only hope of a reconciliation would seem to be Mr Trump regaining the presidency in 2024.

The meaning "to hit, strike, beat" is from the mid twelfth century, derived from the Old English smitan but that’s attested only as "to daub, smear on; soil, pollute, blemish, defile", the sense also of the Proto-Germanic smitan, the Swedish smita, the Danish smide, the Old Frisian smita, the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch smiten, the Dutch smijten, the Old High German smizan, the German schmeißen and the Gothic bismeitan.  The development of the various senses is unclear but most etymologists agree that of throwing is probably the original, more than one suggesting the semantic channel may have been “slapping mud on walls in wattle and daub construction", connected with the primitive Indo-European sme- (to smear).  The sense of "slay in combat" emerged circa 1300 from the Biblical expression “smite to death”, first attested circa 1200.  The meaning "visit disastrously" is mid-twelfth century, also of Biblical origin; "strike with passion or emotion" dates from circa 1300.

It varies with the translation but there’s much smiting in the Bible, most versions having well over a hundred instances including: 

And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them (Deuteronomy 7:2)

And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence.  (Jeremiah 21:6)

 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. (Ezekiel 6:11)

And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth. (Ezekiel 7:9)

Smitten: Lindsay Lohan and husband Bader Shammas.

In its original sense (daub, smear, smudge etc), smite is close to obsolete.  In the late sense of “strike”, it’s rare except in Biblical scholarship, long supplanted in English by an array of synonyms including afflict, knock, hit, chasten, chastise, sock, defeat, visit, attack, buffet, dash, swat, smack, slap, wallop, strike, clobber, blast, whack & belt.  A noun form is smiter, the other verbs being smote, smit, smitten & smiting, all obsolete except smitten which has survived in a poetic niche, usually to describe the first, fine, careless rapture of love.

Shadow

Shadow (pronounced shad-oh)

(1) A dark figure or image cast on the ground or some surface by a body intercepting light.

(2) Shade or comparative darkness, as in an area.

(3) As “the shadows”, darkness, especially that coming after sunset.

(4) A spectre or ghost.

(5) A mere semblance of something.

(6) A reflected image, as in a mirror or in water (now rare and restricted to literary or poetic use).

(7) In painting, drawing, graphics etc, the representation of the absence of light on a form.

(8) In art, the dark part of a picture, either representing an absence of illumination or as a symbolic device.

(9) In architectural depictions & renderings (as “shades and shadows”) a dark figure or image cast by an object or part of an object upon a surface that would otherwise be illuminated by the theoretical light source.

(10) In Jungian psychology, the archetype that represents man's animal ancestors; an unconscious aspect of the personality.

(11) In pop-psychology (1) a period or instance of gloom, unhappiness, mistrust, doubt, dissension, or the like, as in friendship or one's life or (2) a dominant or pervasive threat, influence, or atmosphere, especially one causing gloom, fear, doubt, or the like (often expressed as “shadow of fear”, “shadow of doubt” et al).

(12) A person who follows another in order to keep watch upon that person (in law enforcement, espionage etc).

(13) To overspread with shadow; to shade.

(14) To cast a gloom over; to cloud.

(15) To screen or protect from light, heat, etc; to provide shade.

(16) To follow and observe (a person).

(17) To represent faintly, prophetically etc. (often followed by forth).

(18) In democratic politics, (of or pertaining to a shadow cabinet or shadow minister) a system whereby an opposing politician formally is appointed to be responsible for matters relating to a particular minister’s areas of authority.

(19) As a modifier (shadow ban, shadow ticket, shadow docket, shadow price, shadow inflation etc), something effected unofficially or without public notice; characterized by secrecy or performed in a way that is difficult to detect; a clandestine approach.

(20) In typography, the “drop shadow” effect applied to lettering.

(21) An uninvited guest accompanying one who was invited (an obsolete, Latinism).

(22) In human resource management, the practice of new appointee accompanying an incumbent during the working day, so as to learn the job.

(23) In computer programming, to make (an identifier, usually a variable) inaccessible by declaring another of the same name within the scope of the first.

(24) In computing, in the graphical Workplace Shell (the WPS, successor to the Presentation Manager (PM)) of the OS/2 operating system, an object representing another object.

Pre-900: From the Middle English noun shadwe, shadu, shadue, shadowe shadow, from the Old English sċeaduwe, sċeadwe & sceadu, the oblique case forms of sċeadu (shadow, shade; darkness; protection).  The Middle English verbs were shadwen, shadwe, shadu & shadue (to shade, provide shade, cast a shadow, protect), from the Old English sceadwian (to cover with shadow, protect) (all derivative of the nouns), from the Proto-West Germanic skadu, from the Proto-Germanic skadwaz (shade, shadow), from the primitive Indo-European skeh & ḱeh- (darkness).  Contemporary forms included the Old Saxon skadowan & skadoian and the Gothic (ufar)skadwjan (to (over)shadow).  Similar forms in other Germanic languages included the Old Saxon skado, the Middle Dutch schaeduwe, the Dutch schaduw, the Old High German scato, the German schatten and the Gothic skadus (shadow, shade).  Shadow is a noun, verb & adjective, shadower is a noun, shadowdy, shadowless & shadow-like are adjectives; the noun plural is shadows.

The shadow-box was a protective display case, usually in the form of interlocking squares and wall-mounted was first advertised in 1892.  The term shadow-figure was a synonym of silhouette, dating from 1851.  Eye-shadow was a term invented for the commercial products which came onto the market in 1918, providing a convenient packaged product to achieve the look women (and apparently not a few men) had been creating for thousands of years.  Shadow-boxing was first noted in 1906, an update of the earlier (1768) shadow-fight.  The verb foreshadow (indicate beforehand was a figurative form, the idea apparently of a shadow thrown before an advancing material object as an image of something suggestive of what is to come.  It’s familiar also in the forms foreshadowed & foreshadowing and was used as a noun since at least 1831.  Although the meanings were different, in Old English there was forescywa (shadow) & forescywung (overshadowing).  The adjective shadowy was ultimately from late fourteenth century shadwi & shadewy (full of shadows, shaded (and also “transitory, fleeting, unreal (resembling a shadow)”).  From very late in the eighteenth century it conveyed the sense of “faintly perceptible”.  In The Old English there was sceadwig (shady) and the modern alternative is shadowiness but unfortunately, the marvelously tempting shadowous never caught on.  The noun shadowland came from a work of fiction in 1821 and meant “an abode of ghosts and spirits”, adopted from the early 1920s to mean an indeterminate or unhappy place”.  The noun shadowless was from the 1630s and meant literally “no shadow” the implication being of things ungodly or supernatural.

In idiomatic use shadow often appears.  To be a shadow of one's self is to have suffered some trauma meaning one is a lesser person than before.  One afraid of one’s own shadow is one of a skittish, nervous disposition.  If something is beyond a shadow of a doubt it is something certain.  The old expression sanctuary in the shadow of the church was not exactly literal: to seek sanctuary from the agents of the state by entering a church meant one had to pass through the door.  It referred to the noting that church soil in England was under the authority of the pope in Rome, not the King.  To throw (or cast) a shadow over someone is to seek to deny them visibility; to keep them out of the limelight.

1969 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

In continuous production until 1980, the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow was introduced in 1965 and with over 30,000 (including the less common but substantially identical Bentley T2 variant) built, it remains the Rolls-Royce made in the greatest volume.  Although there was little about the model which was cutting-edge, it was the first truly modern Rolls-Royce, forsaking the separate chassis, drum brakes and styling which used updated motifs from the 1930s; it was the template with which the company would underpin its products for the rest of century.  Although the huge Phantom V & VI limousines would continue to use a separate chassis until 1990, their annual production was measured (usually at most) in the dozens and it was the Silver Shadow and its derivatives which were the company’s bread and butter.  The adoption of unitary construction meant the end of the line for many specialist coachbuilders and some of the relics of the industry were absorbed by the factory, the Mulliner name still used by Bentley to adorn the even more expensive “special order” vehicles the 1% need to convey the message of wealth something "off the shelf" can’t manage.

1967 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow two-door saloon by James Young (left) and 1971 two door saloon by Mulliner Park Ward (MPW) (right).

However, on the Silver Shadow platform, James Young, one of the last surviving coachbuilders, did build 35 two-door saloons before the business was shuttered in 1968.  The quirk of the James Young Silver Shadows is truly they were just the standard car with the rear-doors removed and the front units lengthened and it suffered because the competition was the two-door designed by Mulliner Park Ward (MPW) which by then was a specialist division within the factory.  With greater resources and access to all the technical data, the MPW effort was more imaginative and judged universally to be more attractive, its “cow-hip” style (nobody ever suggested using the "cokebottle" appellation Chevrolet & Pontiac had a few years earlier made a trend) carried over when the car was in 1971 re-named Corniche and listed as a regular production model.  The Corniche proved the longest-lived of all the Silver-Shadow family, the convertible (even Rolls-Royce eventually gave up calling such things drophead coupés (DHC)) remaining available until 1996.

Applied with different colors in different ways, eye shadow can achieve various effects.  Lindsay Lohan demonstrates.

The archeological evidence suggests eye shadow is one of humanity’s oldest forms of make-up, worn (usually but not exclusively by women) for thousands of years, and the preparations have included oils and a variety of substances to create the desired colours including minerals & vegetable extracts although charcoal is thought to have been one of the most accessible and popular materials.  The usual rationale for applying eyes shadows is that it’s essentially the same technique as chiaroscuro, a trick used by painters, photographers & film-makers to use real & emulated light and dark to achieve the perception of depth.  Because shadows are inherent to the shape of the eye-socket, eye shadow can be use to accentuate or soften the effect and, if applied with expertise, can even alter perceptions of size and shape.  With a sympathetic choice of shade, the color of the eyes can also be used as a contrast, some taking advantage of colored contact lens to create a look impossible with their natural irises.  Done well, there's no other way to describe the combination of eye shadow and purple contact lens that "eye catching".  Eye shadow can draw attention to the eyes, most trying to make them appear larger, more vibrant, or more expressive.  Despite the name, eye shadow is a flexible product and often used to create a visual illusion on body parts such as the cheeks or décolletage.

Shadow Volumes

Example of shadow mapping with Python summarized by FinFET.

In computer graphics, shadow volume is a technique used to render realistic shadows in three-dimensional (3D) renderings which is employed primarily when dynamic, interactive real-time movement is needed, most obviously in gaming.  Essentially, generating shadow volumes involves determining those addresses in a scene which need to appear as shadows, then rendering them accordingly.  The technique relies on the concept of extruding the boundaries of shadow-casting objects to create a "shadow volume" that represents the space occluded by the object.  In static scenes this was always easy (if once time-consuming) to achieve but when objects nwere moving, until recent decades, the graphics capabilities of computers were insufficient for them to be rendered in anything close to being real-time.  The process essentially is:

(1) Determining shadow casters: The rendering engine identifies objects in the scene capable of casting shadows by calculating the object's position and shape and its relationship to the positions of light sources.

(2) Creating shadow volumes: For each shadow-casting object, the engine constructs a shadow volume based on extending the object's silhouette (defined by the address of the boundaries) in the direction opposite to the light source.  The silhouette is determined by the math of the boundaries viewed from the perspective of the relevant light sources.

(3) Intersecting shadow volumes: The shadow volumes are then intersected with other objects in the scene to determine which parts of those need to be inside or outside the shadow.

(4) Rendering shadows: The shadow volumes are assembled, rendered with darker hues or modified shading techniques to simulate the shadowed regions.

Shadow volumes can be implemented using more than one different algorithm, the most commonly used the z-pass and the stencil buffer.  All techniques are computationally intensive and have been made possible by the advances in the sheer power and complexity of modern graphical processing units (GPUs).

The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)

The handy Nirsoft Utilities includes a Shadow Copy viewer.

Microsoft introduced Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) with Windows XP (2001).  It worked in conjunction with the High Performance File System (HPFS) and allowed for the creation of point-in-time snapshots or copies of files and volumes on a disk.  What was in 2001 still something of a novelty for most users was the snapshots were taken while the files were in use, enabling access to previous versions or the restoration of files to a specific state, even if they have been been modified or deleted.  The process sequence was:

(1) Snapshot creation: VSS creates a snapshot of a volume or individual files on a disk.  This snapshot represents a "shadow" of the data at a moment in in time.

(2) Copy-on-write mechanism: As files are modified or deleted on the original volume, the VSS utilizes a copy-on-write mechanism.  It stores the original data in the snapshot, allowing users to access the unchanged version while the new changes are written to the live volume.  The lag induced by this can be measured with the appropriate but except with the largest files or on a busy network, it’s not usually something which affects the user.

(3) Shadow copy storage: The shadow copies are stored in a separate location on the disk, typically in a hidden system folder. The storage space occupied by is system-managed by the system, older copies automatically deleted as space is demanded for newer versions.

(4) User accessibility: Users can access the shadow copies through various means, most obviously the "Previous Versions" tab in file properties or the "Previous Versions" feature in Windows Explorer. These interfaces allow users to browse and restore files from a previous point in time.

Shadow copies provided one of the first forms of dynamic file backups for most users and were a convenient form of data recovery without the need of third-party software or external devices.  At scale, similar processes are used by software by companies such as StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect which system administrators can configure in a way that the potential data-losses can be minimized to windows as short as a few minutes.  Combined with off-site backups on large capacity media, it’s still a pest practice approach to data preservation.

Lindsay Lohan's strangely neglected film Among the Shadows (Momentum Pictures, 2019) was also released in some markets as The Shadow Within and it's not known what prompted the change (although there was a film in 2007 called The Shadow Within).  Given the two titles under which the film was distributed have quite different meanings, presumably either the title is incidental to the content or equally applicable.  A dark and gloomy piece about murderous werewolves and EU politicians (two quite frightening species), perhaps both work well and no reviewer appears to have commented on the matter and given the tone of the reviews, it seems unlikely there'll be a sequel to resolve things.

Tumblehome

Tumblehome (pronounced tuhm-buhl-hohm)

(1) In naval architecture, an inward and upward slope of the middle body of a vessel; of the sides of a ship: To incline or slope inwards, to contract above the point of extreme breadth.

(2) A conceptually similar shape applied, in reverse, to the upper body of an automobile.

1828: A compound word, tumble + home.  Tumble was from the Middle English tumblen (to fall over and over again, tumble), frequentative of the Middle English tumben (to fall, leap, dance), from the Old English tumbian, from the Proto-Germanic tūmōną (to turn, rotate).  It was cognate with the Middle Dutch tumelen and the Middle Low German tumelen & tummelen.  Home was from the Middle English home, hom, hoom & ham, from the Old English hām (village, hamlet, manor, estate, home, dwelling, house, region, country), from the Proto-West Germanic haim, from the Proto-Germanic haimaz (home, village), from the Proto-Indo-European tḱóymos (village, home), from the root tḱey-.  The (rare and probably extinct) alternative spelling is tumble home.  Tumblehome is a noun; the noun plural is tumblehomes.

The meaning of the word tumblehome has been well understood from its first appearance in the early nineteenth century but the origin has never been obvious.  Shipbuilders had for centuries been using variations of the design for a number of reasons but the first known instance of the word dates only from 1828 and then without explanation, suggesting the term may already have been in common use, at least within the industry.  An 1848 reference from a shipwright does however hint at some sense of novelty, noting “… the upper works usually incline towards the middle line, or as it is termed “tumble home”.  The word “tumble” to refer to the sides of ships appears to have been used at least as early as 1687 but the compound tumblehome seems not to have emerged for another hundred and fifty-odd years.  The idea always summoned was of the imagery of the sides of a ship “tumbling down” the slope created but why “home” was added remains a mystery, the assumption being it was based either on (1) an association with certain domestic architectural styles of the time (2) the romantic notion of the sea, to which the tumblehome falls, being "home" for sailors or  (3) the idea of a dilapidated house in the throes of "tumbling down", fallen bits an pieces accumulating at the bottom.

Big ships and fast cars

In automotive design (upper), the term is applied when the width of the cabin (cockpit or glasshouse) reduces as the height rises.  Although curved glass in the side windows of cars began widely to be adopted in the mid-1960s, thus creating a mild tumblehome effect, the term is applied only when it is sufficiently severe to be apparent to casual viewers.

In naval architecture (lower), the geometry is reversed, a tumblehome define as a hull which flares out as the sides approach the waterline.  Although in some vessels, the effect is barely detectable by the naked eye, it’s a technical term and applies to all hulls which dimensionally qualify.  The opposite, the classic shape for ships’ hull, is called the flare.

USS Brooklyn, 1896.

Tumblehome, unless taken to extremes, was functional in that it improved stability in warships under sail; sailing ships heel (they tend to lean over when moving) and tumblehome reduced this.  At the time, the biggest contributor to a warship’s mass on the upper decks was the guns and a tumblehome design, moving the centre of gravity lower, allowed armament to be maintained or even increased without further loss of stability.  Additionally, there was the benefit of making it harder for boarding parties to climb aboard.  In commercial shipping, vessels were long taxed on the basis of the square footage of a ship’s deck and fat ships with a pronounced tumble carrying the same freight but taxed less, were attractive.  Government fiscal policy thus influenced and distorted design and engineering principles in the same way tax arrangements of windows affected architecture and those on cylinder bores (adversely) affected engine design.

Lamborghini LP500 Countach prototype, 1971.

The Countach had one of the most extreme implementations, the angle meaning it was possible for only part of the side-window to be lowered but at least the Italians were more thoughtful than the Germans; in 1954, facing a similar challenge with the side-glass on the 300 SL (W198 1954-1957) gullwing, Mercedes-Benz simply fixed the panes, ventilation provided only by small quarterlights.  Neither flow-through ventilation or air-conditioning was available so driving in a gullwing could be hot and sticky experience and there's a reason they're sometimes seen being driven (at low speeds and not on public roads) with at least one door open. .  The tumblehome is used by high-performance cars because of the aerodynamic advantages it confers, reducing frontal area an allowing the curve of the greenhouse to be optimized for air-flow, lowering resistance.  Because of great advances made during the late twentieth century, refinements to tumblehomes no longer deliver the 3-5% improvements in a drag coefficient (CD) which once was possible, engineers now pursuing factional gains.  The origins in cars however lay in the quest for more interior space and for mass-market vehicles, bulging out the sides gained the odd vital inch and the technique, combined with curved side glass, has become almost universal although there has been the odd deviation.  Stylists are predicting tumblehomes are likely to become more exaggerated as sides need to be bulkier to meet more rigorous side-impact regulations and roof-lines are lowered slightly in the quest to reduce drag.

Lindsay Lohan in tumblehome blonde wig.

What professional hair stylists call “the tumblehome” is a triangulated shaping which is most cases can’t be achieved without an expert application of product and when sported by models on photo-shoots, it’s common for the angles and an illusion of volume to be achieved with engineering no more complex than a sheet of cardboard (cut to suit) being attached with hairclips to the back of the head.  The look can however be achieved with synthetics which can be persuaded sustainably to behave in a way human hair naturally resists and Lady Gaga (b 1986) made a tumblehome wig a signature feature of her “Fame Monster” period (2009-2010).  With natural hair, a tumblehome with hair a little shorter than that of Lady Gaga’s wig is sometimes technically achievable given the right hair and a generous use of product the sideways projection would be noticeably less.

Lady gaga in Fame Monster mode.

The tumblehome style with the exaggerated elongations al la Gaga is rarely seen and usually represents a lot of work.  However, many take about as much effort to avoid the similar geometry of the “pyramid head”: a triangular shape with a flat crown area which flares to a wide bushy shape at the ends.  A function of length and weight for those with curly hair, pyramids happen usually when the strands are of almost uniform length and the curls tend to “stack”, the weight meaning the roots sit flattest on the scalp while towards the ends where the effective volume (hair + space) is greatest, the curled strands move sideways, unlike the behavior of straight hair which is purely downwards.

Lindsay Lohan with pyramid head, Saturday Night Live, 2004.

Stylists recommend layers as the best tactic to minimize the triangulation, the strategy essentially to create longer, diagonal layers to frame the face, meaning the remaining curls “sit into each other”.  What this does is simply physics, the layering on the surface reducing the weight, increasing the percentage of the volume on the crown area and although some are resistant, the best results will probably be achieved if the hair is cut dry because it will be presented at its natural weight.  When wet, the moisture content will disguise the extent of the left-right movement and exaggerate the up-down.  The shorter the layers of course the more effective the amelioration but this can be too radical for some so clients need to be turned into realists.

Cockade

Cockade (pronounced ko-keyd)

(1) A rosette, knot of ribbon, etc, worn usually on the hat as part of a uniform, as a badge of office, or the like.

(2) A feather or ribbon worn on military headwear, the colors of which served as unit identification.

(3) In (mostly military) aviation, an emblem of concentric circles of different colours, identifying the country to which an aircraft belongs (often called a roundel).

1650–1660: As cockade, an eighteenth century adaption of the earlier cockard, from the French cocarde (a knot of ribbons), from the Middle French cocquard (boastful, silly, cocky), the construct being coc (rooster, cock) + -arde (-ard).  The French suffix –arde was the female equivalent of –ard and was from the Middle French, from the Old French –ard & -art, from the Frankish -hard (hardy, bold), from the Proto-Germanic harduz (hard), from the primitive Indo-European kert- & kret- (strong).  It was used to form pejoratives, diminutives, and nouns representing or belonging to a particular class or sort.  The French cockade gained its name from the resemblance of the devices to a cock's crest, being from cocarde (feminine of cocard (arrogant, strutting) and thus cocquard (boastful, silly, cocky) which was an allusion to the behavior of the strutting rooster which appears so arrogantly boastful).  Cockade is a noun and cockaded is an adjective; the noun plural is cockades.

A gothic flavored Lindsay Lohan in Chanel with white rosette, MTV Studios, New York City, December 2005.

The companion (an now more widely used) term rosette describes a rose-shaped thing which may be an ornament, a fitting or any number of circular things, the best known of which are those with many small parts in concentric circles, especially when formed from a bunch or knot of ribbons and worn as a decoration or award.  Dating from 1790 from the French rosette (a diminutive of rose), rosette has a wider range of application than cockade and in the abstract is a generalized term referring to any number of stylized items which to one degree of another, are vaguely rose-like.  Rose was from the Middle English rose & roose, from the Old English rōse, from the Latin rosa, of uncertain origin but it may via Oscan be from the Ancient Greek ῥόδον (rhódon) (rose), from the Old Persian wṛda- (flower) and Middle Iranian borrowings including the Old Armenian վարդ (vard) (rose), the Aramaic וַרְדָּא‎ (wardā) & ܘܪܕܐ‎ (wardā), the Arabic وَرْدَة‎ (warda) and the Hebrew וֶרֶד‎ (wéreḏ)), from the primitive Indo-European wr̥dos (sweetbriar).  The –ette suffix was from the Middle English -ette, a borrowing from the Old French -ette, from the Latin -itta, the feminine form of -ittus.  It was used to form nouns meaning a smaller form of something.

Girl with Cocked Hat (1925), oil on canvas by Walt Kuhn (1877–1949), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.  It’s an example of early American Modernism.

Cockades fulfilled the function of maintaining the shape of a hat and were usually formed as a bow or knot of ribbons.  Inherently ornamental whetever their intended functional purpose, cockades quickly came to be used to signify the wearer’s identification with a political party, a particular military unit, or a household (in the form of livery).  They could be a matter of life or death during the French Revolution (1789) because the revolutionaries wore blue, white, and red cockades adopted from the colours of the royal family and the city of Paris.  The royalist forces and other reactionaries adopted white, orange, or black and yellow cockades (depending upon the nationality of the army in which they were serving), the French émigrés apparently preferring white.  The military often retained the colors but the use of cockades as such ceased for all but a handful of ceremonial uniforms when first armies and later navies ceased wearing cocked hats.  They’re still seen as a fashion item and a few of the surviving royal households have maintained their use in the leather cockades on the headgear of liveried coachmen and chauffeurs.

Although it seemed an early call, Nylon, after surveying the frocks at the 2023 Golden Globes, declared that rosettes were not only back but trending, noting the catwalks at the European spring shows were lush with floral themes.  Their conclusion: when roses bloom, rosettes surely follow.  If so, the fashion cycle is following the usual routine although the rapidity of cyclical churn does seem to have accelerated; whereas for most of the period since the seventeenth century when mass-produced rosettes first became a thing, the gaps between their splashes of popularity could be measured in decades, now they seem to be showing up every second generation.  Widely used in the 1980s (often as a bolt-on to the dreaded scrunchie), they re-appeared early in the new millennium and now Nylon says they’re back.

Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) with Conservative Party rosette and Lord Toby Jug (Brian Borthwick, 1965–2019, leader of the Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire branch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party until expelled in 2014 at which point he founded the Eccentric Party of Great Britain) wearing Eccentric Party rosettes, UK general election, 2015.

Still used around the world as (mostly amateur) awards in sporting and other competitions, rosettes displaying party affiliations were once a feature of elections in much of the English-speaking world but never really caught on in the US where badges, buttons, banner and latterly, stickers were preferred.  In the modern age, their use has faded just about everywhere except in the UK where they remain an essential part of atmospherics of campaigning and New Zealand where they’re still sometimes seen.  In the UK, they’re now more standardized than they were during much of the twentieth century when the sizes could vary greatly and there was no such thing as an official party color, some candidates even switching colors between polls, either at whim or in the quest for electoral advantage.  The advent of color television changed that and the party leaderships insisted on a consistent theme.  The electoral authorities also impose restrictions on the text which can be displayed and limit the size of rosettes which can be worn at polling places.  The convention of use in the UK evolved into:

Red: Labour
Blue: Conservative
Amber: Liberal Democrats
Green: Green Party
Yellow: Scottish National Party
Red, white and blue: Democratic Unionist Party
Green and orange: Plaid Cymru
Light blue: Reform UK
Purple: UK Independence Party

Nylon could be onto something.  The sequined lace column gown by Valentino Lindsay Lohan wore for the Falling for Christmas premiere (New York City, November 2022) was embroidered with a floral motif.  The reaction was generally positive.