Grand

Grand (pronounced grand)

(1) Impressive in size, appearance, or general effect.

(2) Stately, majestic, or dignified.

(3) Highly ambitious or idealistic.

(4) Magnificent or splendid.

(5) Noble or revered.

(6) Highest, or very high, in rank or official dignity.

(7) Main or principal; chief; the most superior.

(8) Of great importance, distinction, or pretension.

(9) Complete or comprehensive (usually as the “grand total”).

(10) Pretending to grandeur, as a result of minor success, good fortune, etc; conceited & haughty (often with a modifier such as “rather grand”, awfully grand” or “insufferably grand”).

(11) First-rate; very good; splendid.

(12) In musical composition, written on a large scale or for a large ensemble (grand fugue, grand opera etc) and technically meaning originally “containing all the parts proper to a given form of composition”.

(13) In music, the slang for the concert grand piano (sometimes as “concert grand”).

(14) In informal use, an amount equal to a thousand pounds or dollars.

(15) In genealogy, a combining (prefix) form used to denote “one generation more remote” (grandfather, grand uncle etc).

1350–1400: From the Middle English graund, grond, grand, graunt & grant, from the Anglo-Norman graunt, from the Old French grant & grand (large, tall; grown-up; great, powerful, important; strict, severe; extensive; numerous), from the Latin grandis (big, great; full, abundant; full-grown (and figuratively “strong, powerful, weighty, severe”, of unknown origin.  Words conveying a similar sense (depending on context includes ambitious, awe-inspiring, dignified, glorious, grandiose, imposing, large, lofty, luxurious, magnificent, marvelous, monumental, noble, princely, regal, royal, exalted, palatial; brilliant, superb opulent, palatial, splendid, stately, sumptuous, main, large, big & august.  Grand is a noun & adjective, grander & grandest are adjectives, grandness is a noun and grandly is an adverb; the noun plural is grands.

In Vulgar Latin it supplanted magnus (although the phrase magnum opus (one’s great work) endured) and continued in the Romanic languages.  The connotations of "noble, sublime, lofty, dignified etc” existed in Latin and later were picked up in English where it gained also the special sense of “imposing” (which tended often to imply “big”.  The meaning “principal, chief, most important” (especially in the hierarchy of titles) dates from the 1560s while the idea of “something of very high or noble quality” is from the early eighteenth century.  As a general term of admiration (in the sense of “magnificent or splendid” it’s documented since 1816 but as a modifier to imply perhaps that but definitely size, it had been in use for centuries: The Grand Jury was an invention of the late fifteenth century, the grand tour was understood as “an expedition around the important places in continental Europe undertaken as part of the education of aristocratic young Englishmen) as early as the 1660s and the grand piano was named in 1797.  In technical use it was adapted for use in medicine as the grand mal (convulsive epilepsy with loss of consciousness), borrowed from the French grand mal (literally “great sickness”) as a point of clinical distinction from the petit mal (literally “small sickness”) (an epileptic event where consciousness was not lost).  The meaning "a thousand dollars" dates from 1915 and was originally US underworld slang, that sum then a lot of money (the cheapest Ford Model T then listed for US$350).

The “Twenty Grand”: 1933 Duesenberg SJ Arlington Torpedo Sedan by Rollston.

Celebrating "A century of Progress" and held between 27 May, 1933-31 October, 1934 in Chicago, Illinois, the Chicago World's Fair was memorable for the stunning array of art deco architecture and being the first US-staged international fair to book a profit.  Indeed, with close to 40 million paying visitors, the event had proved so popular the scheduled closing date of 12 November, 1933 was extended by almost a year.  When the fair opened its gates, the nation still was in the depths of the Great Depression and it was less than three months since Franklin Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, POTUS 1933-1945) in his first Inaugural Address on 4 March 1933 had delivered the words “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” so, in the circumstances, after three troubled years, the success was a remarkable achievement.  Still, it was far from an ideal time to display luxury goods but despite it all, four of the nation’s most exalted automobile manufacturers showed the finest they could achieve.

The “Twenty Grand”: 1933 Duesenberg SJ Arlington Torpedo Sedan by Rollston. 

Reflecting the interest in what the industry then called “streamlining”, Cadillac showcased their Aerodynamic Coupe, a fine housing for the company’s already famous 452 cubic inch (7.4 litre) V16.  Visually, Packard’s Sport Sedan didn’t have the Cadillac’s radical lines but the coachwork by Dietrich was elegant with some styling elements which others would emulate over the remainder of the decade.  Powered by Packard’s second-generation V12, the press dubbed it “The Car of the Dome” an allusion to the exposition’s Travel and Transportation Building where it sat.  Most startling among the four was Pierce-Arrow’s Silver Arrow, the look of which often is described as “avant-garde” but in many aspects it anticipated the early days of mid-century modernism and was probably an influence on the remarkable Tatras from Czechoslovakia although, with a front-mounted V12, under the striking bodywork, it was in many ways a conventional design.  By far the most familiar in appearance was the Duesenberg Arlington Torpedo Sedan with one-off coachwork by Rollston.  While it lacked the rakish appeal of some of the Duesenberg roadsters or phaetons, of its type it was a fine expression and under the long hood of course sat the supercharged 420 cubic inch (6.9 litre) straight-8; with a 32 valve, DOHC (double overhead camshafts) cylinder head, it was rated at 320 HP and was the industry’s most powerful engine.  Although not officially revealed, rumors circulated the price tag was US$20,000 (equivalent to some US$500,000 in 2026), leading the press to nickname it the “Twenty Grand.”

The use of the prefix grand- in genealogical compounds is a special case.  The original meaning was “a generation older than” and the earliest known reference is from the early thirteenth century in the Anglo-French graund dame (grandmother) & (later) grandsire (grandfather), etymologists considering the latter possibly modeled on the avunculus magnus (great uncle).  The English grandmother & grandfather formally entered the language in the fifteenth century and the extension of the concept from “a generation older than” to “a generation younger than” was adopted in the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) thus grandson, granddaughter etc.  Grand as a modifier clearly had appeal because in the US, the “Big Canyon” was in 1869 re-named the Grand Canyon.  In the modern era grand has been appended whenever there’s a need economically to convey the idea of a “bigger or more significant” version of something thus such constructions as grand prix, grand slam, grand larceny, grand theft auto, grand unification theory, grand master (a favorite both of chess players and the Freemasons) etc.  While “grand” can be a “loaded word” in that it can be deployed to convey something positive or negative some related forms can be even more variable and often are prone to misuse.  These include “grandeur” ((1) the state of being grand or splendid; magnificence; (2) the state of being noble; (3) largeness; tallness; loftiness (archaic), “grandiose” ((1) Large and impressive, in size, scope or extent; (2) pompous or pretentious; (3) magnificent or spectacular and “grandiloquent” (of an individual, their writing or speech): given to using language in a showy way by using may obscure or long words.

The Grand Jury

Donald Trump in Manhattan Criminal Court, April 2022.

The Manhattan grand jury that indicted Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) on 34 felony counts of "falsification of business records in the first degree" was an example of an institution with origins in twelfth century England although it didn’t generally become known as the “grand jury” until the mid-1400s.  At least some of the charges against Mr Trump related to the accounting associated with “hush-money” payment made in some way to Stormy Daniels (b 1979; the stage name of Stephanie Gregory although Mr Trump prefers “horseface” which seems both ungracious and unfair) and reports at the time offered the prospect of more legal-political drama, the suggestion he'd likely have to face more grand juries hearing more serious matters.  All such possibilities were however put on hold when he again became POTUS. 

A grand jury is a group of citizens (usually between 16-23) who review evidence presented by a prosecutor to determine whether the case made seems sufficiently compelling to bring criminal charges.  A grand jury operates in secret and its proceedings are not open to the public, unlike a trial before a jury (a smaller assembly and classically a dozen although the numbers now vary and once it was sometimes called a petit jury (petit (small), from the Middle English petit, from the Old French petit, from the Late Latin pitittus, a diminutive of pit-).  It is this smaller jury which ultimately will pronounce whether a defendant is guilty or not; all a grand jury does is determine whether a matter proceeds to trial in which case it will issue an indictment, which at law is a formal accusation.  The origins of the grand jury in medieval England, where it was used as a means of investigating and accusing individuals of crimes was to prevent abuses of power by the king and his appointed officers of state although it was very much designed to protect the gentry and aristocracy from the king rather than any attempt to extend legal rights to most of the population.

The grand jury has been retained in the legal systems of only two countries: the US and Liberia.  Many jurisdictions now use a single judge or magistrate in a lower court to conduct a preliminary hearing but the principle is the same: what has to be decided is whether, on the basis of the evidence presented, there’s a reasonable prospect a properly instructed (petit) jury would convict.  In the US, the grand jury has survived because the institution was enshrined in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger.”  In England, the grand jury was thought a vital protection against arbitrary prosecutions by the government, and it was included in the Bill of Rights (1689) to ensure individuals would not be subject to unjustified criminal charges.  There is an argument that, by virtue of England’s wondrously flexible unwritten constitution, the grand jury hasn't been abolished but they're merely no longer summoned.  It's an interesting theory but few support the notion, the Criminal Justice Act (2003) explicitly transferring the functions to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) and the model of the office of  DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) has been emulated elsewhere in the English-speaking world.  Presumably, a resuscitation would require the DPP to convene a grand jury and (if challenged on grounds of validity) the courts have to concur but as late as 1955 an English court was prepared to hold a court which had for centuries neither sat nor held a hearing remained extant so the arguments would be interesting.

The “Grand Mercedes”: The Grosser tradition

Der Grossers: 1935 Mercedes-Benz 770 K (W07) of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohita, 1901–1989, emperor of Japan 1926-1989 (left)), Duce & Führer in 1939 Mercedes-Benz 770 K (W150) leading a phalanx of Grossers, Munich, 1940 (centre) and comrade Marshal Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) in 1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 six-door Landaulet (W100), Belgrade, 1967 (right).

Produced in three series (770 K (W07, 1930–1938 & W150, 1939-1945) & 600 (W100, 1963-1981)) the usual translation in English of “Grosser Mercedes” is “Grand Mercedes” and that is close to the German understanding which is something between “great”, “big” and “top-of-the-line”.  In German & Austrian navies (off & on) between 1901-1945, a Großadmiral (Grand Admiral) was the equivalent to the (five star) Admiral of the Fleet (UK) or Fleet Admiral (US); the rank was abolished in 1945 and has never been re-established.  When the 600 was released in 1963, it may have been the last time a single model could be described as "the best car in the world" but, driven to extinction in 1981 by an oil crisis and an array of regulations never envisaged when it was designed, it wasn’t replaced and the factory didn’t return to the idea until a prototype was displayed at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show.  The specification and engineering was impressive but the appearance was underwhelming, a feeling reinforced when the production version (2002-2013) emerged not as an imposing Grosser Mercedes but a Maybach, a curious choice which seemed to suggest a marque which for a century had been the choice of popes, presidents & potentates was no longer good enough.  Although dynamically a fine car (at the time the best of its type), the Maybach looked something like a big Hyundai and lingered for a slow-selling decade before an unlamented death, suggesting the MBAs (Master of Business Administration) who decided on a re-branding using a name with little resonance except among except automotive & military historians should stick to creating campaigns for washing powder.

Grand, Grand Luxe & Gran

Jaguar 420G publicity material, 1966.

Car manufacturers were attracted to the word because of the connotations (bigger, better, more expensive etc).  When in 1966 Jaguar updated the slow-selling Mark X (1961-1966), it was integrated into what proved a short-lived naming convention, based on the engine displacement.  Under the system, with a capacity of 4.2 litres (258 cubic inch) the thing had to be called 420 but there was a smaller saloon in the range so-named so the bigger Mark X was renamed 420G.  Interestingly, when the 420G was released, any journalist who asked was told “G” stood for “Grand” which is why that appeared in the early reports although the factory seems never officially to have used the word, the text in the brochures reading variously: 420G, 420 G or 420 “G”.  The re-naming did little to encourage sales although the 420G remained in production until 1970 by which time production had dwindled to a trickle, the car rendered instantly a relic when the epoch-making XJ6 (in three generations, 1968-1992) made its debut in 1968.  The use of a "G" is unusual in product names although it has appeared as a part of alphabetical sequences (bras and certain Chryslers for example) but when in 1989 the now defunct software manufacturer Lotus released a version of their 1-2-3 spreadsheet for IBM's new OS/2 operating system, it was called 1-2-3/G, the "G" a nod to the product using OS/2's Presentation Manager (a GUI (Graphical User Interface)).  Lotus 1-2-3 was one of the PC (personal computer) industry's original "killer apps" and along with WordPerfect & dBASE III was the backbone of corporate software in the 1980s but the universe shifted and all are now historic footnotes.  As IBM had for OS/2, Lotus had grand plans for 1-2-3/G but both fell victim to Microsoft's better implemented strategy for global domination.   

The tale of the Mark X & 420G is emblematic of the missed opportunities and mismanagement which would afflict the British industry during the 1970s & 1980s.  In 1961, the advanced specification of the Mark X (unitary construction, independent rear suspension, four-wheel disc brakes) made it an outstanding platform and had Jaguar fitted an enlarged version of the larger of the two superb V8s they had gained with their purchase in 1960 of Daimler, it would have been an ideal niche competitor in mid-upper reaches of the lucrative US market.  Except for the engine, it needed little change except better ventilation and the installation of a good air-conditioning system, then already perfected by Detroit.  Although the Daimler V8 and Borg-Warner gearbox couldn't have matched the ultimate refinement of what Detroit was building (by then the finest engine-transmission combinations in the world), the English pair certainly had their charms and would have seduced many.

1969 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ 428.  The use of "SJ" was a borrowing from the celebrated Duesenberg SJs (1932-1937) a breed that exerted an influence well beyond the three dozen built.

Pontiac’s memorable 1969 Grand Prix also might have gained some allure from the word.  The term “Grand Prix” still is most associated with top-level motorsport (although it originally was borrowed from Grand Prix de Paris (Big Prize of Paris), a race for thoroughbred horses staged at the Longchamps track) so although Pontiac’s rather large 1962 Grand Prix was far removed from a racing car, it was marketed on the basis of “high performance” so the tag would have made sense given the way labels were applied in the era.  However, big as it was, it got bigger and the second generation (1965-1968) morphed into something truly grand in size if not dynamic qualities.  Style returned when the third generation (1969-1972) was released, the look dominated by the elongated nose that truly was a triumph of fashion over function; although fitted with V8 engines with displacements as large as 455 cubic inches (7.5 litre), the power-plants, while relatively wide, were quite short and under that long hood (bonnet) was a compartment that easily could have housed a V16.  As a piece of packaging efficiency it was an absurdity but undeniably it was a dramatic look and sales spiked.  The 1969-1970 cars remain the most highly regarded of the third generation, the few hundred with the 428 cubic inch (7.0 litre) HO (High Output) V8 coupled with a four-speed manual transmission the most collectable.  From there, although over a further five generations the Grand Prix remained successful enough to remain in the catalogue until 2008, the best years were over and at some point in the 1970s or 1980s (opinions differ), there was little about the by then dreary Grand Prix which seemed at all grand.

Although a bit deluxe, not especially grand: 1980 TF (Mark V) Ford Cortina GL.

During the interwar years (1919-1939) “deluxe” (borrowed from the world of fashion) found to be a good label to apply to a car with bling added and sold for a premium well beyond what the adornments cost; the concept proved so profitable it remains practiced to this day.  Deluxe (sometimes as De luxe) was a commercial adaptation of the French de luxe (of luxury), from the Latin luxus (excess), from the primitive Indo-European lewg- (bend, twist).  The “deluxe” label worked so well it begat “Super Deluxe” & “Grand Luxe” both genuinely coinings of the industry.  Deluxe and Grand Luxe eventually fell from favour as model names for blinged-up creations became more inventive but the initializations L, DL & GL were adopted by some, the latter surviving longest by which time it was understood to signify just something better equipped and thus more expensive; it’s doubtful many made a literal connection to “Grand Luxe”.

1970 Plymouth Barracuda Gran Coupe Convertible in Plum Crazy (FC7).

A linguistic curiosity of the US motor industry in the 1970s was “Gran”, technically a truncation of “grand” but with no connection with “gran” as an affectionate diminutive of “grandmother” or the many uses (as Gran) as a proper noun (surnames, locality names etc).  It was Chrysler’s Plymouth Division that for years championed “Gran” (though Buick used it too) and while the Gran Fury (1980-1989) was the longest serving, more linguistically interesting were the “Gran Coupe” (1970-1971) versions of the third generation (1970-1974) Barracuda and the 1971 Fury III Gran Coupe.  The Barracuda Gran Coupe was a bit of mission creep for the word “coupe” because the model was available as both a two-door hardtop and a convertible (in 1970 only).  That was at the time unusual but not wholly without (a partial) precedent because for generations English manufacturers had referred to their larger convertibles as DHCs (drophead coupé).

1971 Plymouth Fury III Gran Coupe (which was a four-door hardtop).

However, the 1971 Fury III Gran Coupe was in the US a genuine first because it had four doors.  The notion of a “four-door coupé” was not new because in the UK, Rover (a company with a history of adventurism in engineering which belied its staid image) in 1962 released a pillared version of the 3 Litre (P5, 1958-1967) four-door saloon with a lowered roof-line and some different interior fittings; this they named “3 Litre Coupé” which puzzled those who had become used to the designation being applied to two-door machines but etymologically, Rover was correct.  Coupé was from the French coupé, an elliptical form of carosse coupé (cut carriage), past participle of couper (to cut)).  Rover did cut-down the roof of the P5 so that was consistent with the etymology but shamelessly, Plymouth, which in 1970 had offered (an uncut) two door Fury II Gran Coupe, for 1971 introduced (the uncut) Fury III Gran Coupe with four door hardtop bodywork.  So, there are (uncut) four door coupes because Plymouth said so.  The mysterious “Gran” seems to have been used for no reason other than sounding vaguely “European” and therefore imparting a more “upmarket” image than the by then common “Grand”.  It was at the time a trend which saw the adoption of “Brougham”, “Monaco”, “Cordoba”, “Monte Carlo”, “rich Corinthian leather” and such although the brutish “Grand” would make a comeback when Plymouth turned to making people movers (vans with more seats).

In the matter of Grand Theft Auto (GTA5): Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018)

In a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court, Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers (Take-Two, aka Rockstar) of the video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Concurring with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “…artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey (b 1951) wrote in his ruling.  Judge Fahey's words recalled those of Potter Stewart (1915–1985; associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1958-1981) when in Jacobellis v Ohio (378 U.S. 184 (1964) writing of the concept of "obscenity" he wrote: “I shall not today attempt further to define… and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.  But I know it when I see it…”  Judge Fahey knew a basic white girl when he saw one; he just couldn't name her.  Lindsay Lohan's lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

The game’s developers may have taken the risk of incurring Lindsay Lohan’s wrath and indignation because they’d been lured into a false sense of security by crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) not filing a writ after a likeness of her appeared on GTA 4’s (2008) Statue Of Happiness which stands on Happiness Island, just off the coast of Liberty City.  The Statue of Happiness was a blatant knock-off of New York’s Statue of Liberty and crooked Hillary became a determined and acerbic critic of Rockstar and the GTA franchise when details of the “Hot Coffee affair” were revealed.  That controversy arose after modders promulgated a code which in GTA: San Andreas’ release (2004) unlocked a hidden “mini-game” which allowed players to control explicit on-screen sex acts.  Men having sex (however defined) with women with whom they don’t enjoy benefit of marriage was a bit of a sore point with crooked Hillary, then a US senator (Democrat-New York), who embarked on a campaign for new regulations be imposed on the industry and the most immediate consequence was the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) launching an investigation, subsequently raising GTA: San Andreas’s rating from “M” (Mature) to “AO” (Adults Only, 18+) until the objectionable content was removed.  For those who wondered if the frankly frightening visage on the GTA 4 statute really was what some suspected, the object’s file name was “stat_hilberty01.wdr”.

Rockstar's Statue Of Happiness in GTA 4 (2008, left) and an official photograph of crooked Hillary Clinton (right). 

Rockstar seeking vengeance was understandable because crooked Hillary’s moral crusade proved tiresome for the company.  Once the ESRB had been nudged into action, crooked Hillary petitioned the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to (1) find the source of the game's “graphic pornographic and violent content”, (2) determine if it should be slapped with an AO rating and (3) “examine the adequacy of the retailers' rating enforcement policies.”  Not content, she then announced she’d be sponsoring in the Senate a bill for an act to make it a federal crime (with a mandatory US$5,000 fine) to sell to anyone under 18, violent or sexually explicit video games; the FEPA (Family Entertainment Protection Act) was filed on 17 December, 2005 and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, where quietly it was allowed to expire, the fate of many a bill over the years.

While the bill was undergoing a slow strangulation in committee hearings (killing bills one of the great arts in the US political system), the FTC and Rockstar reached a settlement, the commission ruling the company had violated the FTCA (Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)) by failing to disclose the inclusion of “unused, but potentially viewable” explicit content” (that it was enabled by a third party was held to be “not relevant”).  The settlement required Rockstar “clearly and prominently disclose on product packaging and in any promotion or advertisement for electronic games, content relevant to the rating, unless that content had been disclosed sufficiently in prior submissions to the rating authority” with violations punishable by a fine of up to US$11,000.  In the spirit of the now again fashionable Calvin "silent Cal" Coolidge (1872-1933; POTUS 1923-1929) era capitalism, no fine was imposed for the “hot coffee incident”, honor presumably satisfied by the company already having booked a US$24.5 million loss from the product recall earlier mandated.

Photoflash

Photoflash (pronounced foh-tuh-flash)

(1) An alternative name for a flashbulb (mostly archaic), a lamp that emits a brief flash of bright light, used to take photographs in a dark environment.

(2) Of or relating to flash photography (industry use only).

(3) The precise point at which a flashbulb illuminates.

1925–1930: The construct was photo- + flash.  Photo (phot- the prevocalic) was a clipping of photograph and photo was from the combining form φωτω- (phōtō-) of Ancient Greek φῶς (phôs) (light).  The –graph suffix was from the Ancient Greek suffix -γραφω (-graphō), from γράφω (gráphō) (to scratch, to scrape, to graze), probably best known in the derived from -graphy.  Flash was from the Middle English flasshen, a variant of flasken or flaskien (to sprinkle, splash), likely of imitative origin.  In the sense used in photography, it was probably of North Germanic origin and akin to the Swedish dialectal flasa (to burn brightly, blaze) and related to flare.  The Icelandic variation from the Germanic was flasa (to rush, hastily to go).  The word photoflash has a long history as a technical term in photography and the manufacture of photographic equipment but three syllables was just too much for general use and the public used “flash” for just about all purposes, the odd necessity like “flashbulb” embraced to avoid confusion.  Photoflash is a noun; the noun plural is photoflashes.

The industry however needed to be precise so "photoflash" became a frequent modifier, required because of the modular nature of the flash equipment (originally not part of the camera apparatus proper) and even at the tail-end of mass-market analogue photography, not all cameras featured built-in flash-lamps.  A "photoflash" unit was the whole, packaged flash assembly that included the flash-lamp and its housing, the mounting bracket directly attached the unit to the camera's body.  Originally the units were designed to accommodate replacement lamps but in 1960s, single-use units were developed, styled usually as rotating cubes, thus permitting four shots; for industry and consumers it was a cheaper solution and convenient but was an example of the way in the post-war years convenience led to more plastic waste and pollution, the little cubes soon littering the environment rather like the "ring-pulls" that enabled cans of drink to be opened without the need for a tool (the so-called "church key").  Invented in 1959 by US engineer Ermal “Ernie” Fraze (1913-1989), the design was thought a helpful innovation but because they detached completely from the can, millions of the things were soon an environmental blight and, with sharp edges, a safety hazard too.  Under pressure, in the mid 1970s, the industry phased them out, replacing them with the still familiar non-detachable “stay-on tabs”.  The photoflash capacitor is used not only in cameras.  It is an electrolytic capacitor designed specifically to provide a pulse of high-voltage energy for a very short duration and as well as the use in conventional photography, they’re installed also in devices using solid-state laser power supplies including optical readers and some printers but, whatever the hardware to which they’re attached, the purpose is always a brief illumination.  Because of the requirements for feeding a very high current for a precise length of time, the greatest challenge during the development process was to ensure a reliable high discharge pulse without excessive heat generation and thus the physical expansion of components.

Three-frame spread of Lindsay Lohan being photographed at the point of photoflash.

Photoflash composition has two meanings: (1) The pyrotechnic material which, when loaded in a suitable casing and ignited, produces a flash of sufficient intensity and duration for photographic purposes and (2) the collections of techniques used by professional photographers when shooting in light conditions where the use of a photoflash is required.  This involves considering things like the available ambient light, distance, angles of surrounding surfaces & their reflective properties and the need for any filtering.  For professionals, photoflash devices (known variously as flashes, speed-lights, studio strobes and a number of other terms) are adjustable to an extent those used on consumer lever cameras typically are not, the relevant metric a product of the relationship between the distance between the subject & light source and what is called the focal length (dictated essentially by lens aperture).

RAF (Royal Air Force) 4½ inch (114 mm) Photoflash Bomb.

An example of a basic design that was "right" from day one, the RAF's photoflash was manufactured throughout World War II (1939-1945) with the only fundamental change the use of narrower fins on the Mk II version, the larger units found to be prone to inducing "lateral drift" in high winds.  The cardboard tubular body was closed at the tail by a dome while the nose was sealed by a diaphragm with a bush, into which was inserted the fuse.  A defined measure of flash composition was loaded between the front and the rear diaphragm with a central tube extending between each, filled with gunpowder.  As soon as a fused flashbomb was released from an aircraft, the fuse was operative, triggering the gunpowder at the desired height which burst the body of the photographic flash, simultaneously igniting the flash composition.

Photoflash composition was of critical importance in the photoflash cartridges used in photoflash bombs which were specialized forms of ordnance perfected during the early years of World War II.  Dropped from aircraft passing over enemy territory, they were fitted with a photoflash cartridge timed to detonate at a height chosen to optimize the spread of light over the area of interest.  The development of the devices had been encouraged by research confirmed only a small fraction of the bombs dropped by the RAF were coming within miles of hitting the target zone, despite the claims of aircrew.  For many reasons, the inaccuracy was understandable given that night bombing over distance was a new aspect of war, carried out by inexperienced aircrew in the cold and dark of night, while under fire from night-fighters and ground-based guns, all while trying to locate blacked-out targets.  In the early days, navigators could rely on little more than maps, charts, mathematics and the visual recognition of physical ground-features, the latter obviously marginal at night when cities were under restrictions making visible artifical light a rare sight.

RAF photograph taken from Vickers Wellington bomber over Berlin, 1941.  The ground is illumined by the flash while the unusual light patterns are from ground-based searchlights, the shapes a product of the camera's exposure length.

There would later be electronic innovations such as devices designed to let bombardiers “see through” cloud but the photoflash bomb (always in the RAF clipped to “flashbomb”) was a relatively simple approach that  scaled-up existing technology, the things essentially big versions of the flashbulbs used on cameras.  Given their size, they were capable for short periods of producing intense light of sufficient dispersal and luminosity to permit either a pilot accurately to position his craft for a bombing run or for surveillance aircraft to take aerial reconnaissance photos at a safe height.  Of great utility at the time, flashbombs are no longer part of the military inventory because of improvements in night-vision optics, radar and satellite imagery.  Without them, the RAF's bombing campaign would have been much less effective although, as it was, not until late 1943 was the Anglo-American effort operating at the scale required for the offensive to be strategically significant and until the last weeks of the conflict, the losses suffered by both the RAF and USAAF (US Army Air Force) were shockingly high.

RAF photograph taken from De Havilland Mosquito (pathfinder), Hamburg, 1943.  The shape at the bottom-left is the flashbomb exploding.

The pathfinder concept was a lead aircraft that would identify a target and then drop flares indicating a target-path & target-force for the main force.  Fast, robust and built quickly and economically by virtue of the plywood frame, the twin-engined Mosquito was ideal for the role.  One of the most versatile airframes of the war, it took the Germans some time to develop a fighter than could match its pace and De Havilland responded to that threat with even faster versions.  Remarkably, the Mosquito (which first flew in 1940) remained in production until 1950, radar-equipped versions serving with the RAF until 1952, the durable platform at the time the UK's only all-weather nightfighter until versions of the De Havilland Vampire (1943-1961) and Gloster Meteor (1643-1955) became available.  Few probably think of the Mosquito as as Cold War aircraft but such was the UK's technology deficit at the time there was no alternative.  As well as the use in the pathfinder role, PR (photo-reconnaissance) versions of the Mosquito flew night-time missions over Europe, Burma and the South Pacific, all using the flashbombs with a the same basic but effective engineering and method of construction that would for centuries have been familiar to fireworks makers: A cardboard tube, capped on both ends with metal stoppers and filled a flash powder charge, the fuse set to trigger after a certain time (length of the fuse determining detonation height).  Being a camera’s flashbulb writ large, the flash lasted only around 200 milliseconds but this was ideal for aerial photography and could be enough for a pilot’s visual orientation although flashbombs often were dropped in staggered clusters, providing an extended duration of enhanced visibility.

The much re-printed photograph of Sofia Loren (b 1934, left) and Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967, right),  Romanoff's restaurant, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, April, 1957 (left) and, three months later, her eye similarly drawn, Shirley Perdew (1939-2020), seemingly unable to avert her gaze, looking at Jayne Mansfield (centre & right).  Ms Perdew had just been crowned “Miss Hollywood 1957” and, as a former “Miss Photoflash”, Ms Mansfield had been invited to afforce the voting panel.  The event had been held at Garden of Allah Hotel, built in 1913 as a private residence before in 1926 being converted into a residential hotel; it was demolished in 1959.

Ms Loren's sideways glance, one of the most famous in Hollywood's long history of such looks, variously has been interpreted as “sceptical”, “disapproving” and “envious”, the latter view perhaps most held by men.  Ms Loren herself explained things as "genuine concern" the pink satin gown might not prove equal to the occasion; on the night, there were several photographers covering the event and images shot from other angles illustrate why that concern was reasonable.  There has never been any doubt Ms Mansfield's "wardrobe malfunction" was "engineered and rehearsed", a trick suitably qualified women perfected in the age of the paparazzi.  In her pomp a significant figure in popular culture and a celebrity at a time they were less numerous and not as transitory, Ms Mansfield was a model & actress and what would later come to be known as a “multi-media personality”.  When young, she won a number of sponsored beauty contests including being crowned “Miss Magnesium Lamp”, “Miss Fire Prevention Week” and “Miss Photoflash” but it’s reported she drew the line at becoming “Miss Roquefort Cheese” on the grounds it “just didn’t sound right”, something on which she seems not to have expanded.  Reputedly, the chance to be “Miss Prime Rib” also was declined and while that sounds a missed opportunity, she was sentimental about animals.

Class

Class (pronounced klas or klahs)

(1) A number of persons or things regarded as forming a group by reason of common attributes, characteristics, qualities, or traits; kind; sort.

(2) A collection or division of people or things sharing a common characteristic, attribute, quality, or property

(3) A group of persons sharing a similar social position and certain economic, political, and cultural characteristics

(4) In educational use: (1) The period during which a group of students meets for instruction, (2) A group of students meeting regularly to study a subject under the guidance of a teacher or (3) the physical classroom.

(5) Collectively (as “class of YYYY”), all students in the institution who graduated that year, the concept extended also to politicians in an assembly all elected at the same election.

(6) A social stratum sharing basic economic, political, or cultural characteristics, and having the same social position; caste.

(7) In sociology, political science & economics, the system of dividing society on that basis; (ruling class, upper class, middle class, working class etc); of late extended to include concepts such as “political class”, “entrepreneurial class”, “creative class” etc; in Marxist theory, a group of persons sharing the same relationship to the means of production & distribution.

(8) Social rank, especially high rank.

(9) Elegance, grace, or dignity, as in dress and behavior.

(10) The members of a given group in society, regarded as a single entity.

(11) Any division of persons or things according to rank or grade.

(12) Excellence; possessing exceptional merit; in informal use, the best or among the best of its kind (sometimes as “touch of class”).

(13) In Hinduism, any of the four social divisions, the Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Shudra, of Hindu society; varna.

(14) Any of several grades of accommodation available on ships, airplanes, trains and such.

(15) In biology, the usual major subdivision of a phylum or division in the classification of organisms, usually consisting of several orders.

(16) In British and Commonwealth universities, the groups into which candidates for honors degrees are divided according to merit on the basis of final examinations or other method of assessment (first class, second class, third class and sometimes graduated (class 2A, 2B etc).

(17) In Ecclesiastical use (early Methodism, as classis), one of several small companies, each composed of about twelve members under a leader, into which each society or congregation was divided.

(18) In statistics, a grouping of data values in an interval, often used for computation of a frequency distribution.

(19) In mathematics (set theory), a collection of sets definable by a shared property, especially one which is not itself a set (in which case the class is called proper).  To please the nerds, every set is a class, but classes are not generally sets.  A class that is not a set is called a proper class.

(20) In computer programming (object-oriented), a set of objects having the same behavior (but typically differing in state), or a template defining such a set in terms of its common properties, functions etc.

(21) To place or arrange in a class; classify; to take or have a place in a particular class.

(22) As “class up” to improve the quality, tone, or status of; add elegance, dignity, style etc.

1590–1600: From the earlier Middle English classis (plural classes), from the fourteenth century French classis, from the Latin classis (a class or division of the people, assembly of people, the whole body of citizens called to arms, the army, the fleet, later a class or division in general, the singular form a back formation from the plural), from the primitive Indo-European kele- (to call, shout).  Classis displaced the Old English ġecynd.  The original use in the late sixteenth century was of a “group of students” (ie number of pupils in a school or college of the same grade) and that in North America became the standard form, enduring to this day.  The Latin classis was most used in military matters (of the army and the sea-fleet) and applied particularly to “a class, a division; army, fleet”, especially “any one of the six orders into which Servius Tullius (sixth king of Rome, reigning 578-535 BC) divided the Roman people for purposes of taxation” (traditionally, originally “the people of Rome under arms” (a sense in use in English by at least the 1650s), and akin to calare (to call (to arms)), thus the link with the primitive Indo-European kele- (to call, shout)).  Class is the standard abbreviation of classification and sometimes is used also for “classical” and “classified”.  The word is for many purposes used as a modifier and there are more than a hundred including asset class, business class, closed class, economy class, first class, leisure class, middle class, night class, professional class, school class, social class, working class. class action, type class, cruiser class, cattle class, class A, classable, class-based, class-conscious, classicide, classism, classist, class warrior, creative class, criminal class, high-class, low class, pseudoclass, ruling class, working-class, class enemy, class struggle and class reunion.

The 19BB (“Barrier Boat”, though sailor's slang is “Boomin’ Beaver”) is a specialized class of miniature tugboat used to deploy and maintain port security booms surrounding Navy ships and installations in port.  The smallest vessels on the USN's (US Navy) active list, the story Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) wanted to rename the BBs “Biden Class” (after Joe Biden (b 1942; VPOTUS 2009-2017 & POTUS 2021-2025)) apparently apocryphal.

Borrowing from the concept of classifications in educational & military use, the adoption in science for taxonomy (group of related plants or animals) dates from 1753 and has since been much expanded.  Dictionaries, perhaps surprisingly cite the 1870s as the origin of class being used with the meaning “high quality”, despite the sense of “a division of society according to status” (upper, lower, etc.) being in use since the early 1700s and the idea in societies of a “class-consciousness” will be ancient although it was only in 1903 the term entered English, from the German compound noun Klassenbewusst.  Special adaptations include the nouns classeme (in semiotics a generic or contextual seme, denoting a group of objects) & classitis (in web design, a critique of authoring stylesheets with redundant and semantically unhelpful classes).  Classy endures as an adjective (meaning “elegant; stylish) but the noun classy (also as clashee & clashy) is long obsolete.  Under the Raj, a classy (from khalasi) was an Indian worker at a port or dockyard, traditionally employed in pulling vessels out of the water for maintenance and repair and returning them to the water upon completion; the anglicized forms came ultimately from the Hindi ख़लासी (xalāsī), from the Classical Persian خلاصی (xalāsī).  Class is a noun, verb & adjective, classism & classer are nouns, classist & classful are nouns & adjectives, classable, classy, classless & classlike are adjectives, declass is an adjective, classed is a verb, classing is a noun & verb, classwide is an adjective & adverb and classward is an adverb; the noun plural is classes

Classy look: Lindsay Lohan rendered in the style of nineteenth century Impressionism by Gemini.ai.  The digital version was based on a photograph of her in a Jil Sander (b 1943) gown while attending the Disney Legends Awards ceremony, Anaheim, California, August, 2024.  On the day, although the environment was not optimized for photography, the light and even the breeze cooperated, the gown’s fabric swishing in a way the Impressionists would have painted, even had the air been still.

In the context of a group of people sharing the same social, economic, or occupational status, the term “class” implies usually a social and economic hierarchy in which those of higher class standing have greater status, privilege, prestige, and authority. Western societies traditionally have been divided into three classes: the upper (or leisure), middle (bourgeoisie) & lower (working) class (for Marxists, the significant classes were the bourgeoisie and proletariat although neo-Marxists have for decades adjusted the theory to accommodate changes).  Most associated with the writings of English-born US sociologist Michael Mann (b 1942), classicide (the construct being class + (hom)icide) describes the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of a social class through persecution and violence.  In that it may be compared to genocide (envisaged originally as the mass killing of defined ethnic or religious groups).  Between the two there can be overlap (such as in the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge regime in Democratic Kampuchea) but the emphasise in classicide is on the premeditated mass killing of a group based on their (perceived) social status; in that its similar to politicide (in which the targets are defined by their political activity) but in that case, the critical factor was what people do rather than what they are.  Very much at the heart of the French Revolution (1989), classicide was a feature of the “terrible twentieth century” and events able to be classified as such occurred in the Soviet Union under comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in the PRC (People's Republic of China) under comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) & paramount leader of the PRC 1949-1976) and in Kampuchea under Pol Pot (Saloth Sâr; 1925–1998; dictator the communist (Maoist) state of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) 1975-1979).  The related “social cleansing” (the removal of certain classes from certain places but (in theory) not involving mass killing) has the same relationship to classicide as ethnic cleansing has to genocide.

USS Defiant, the lead ship in the proposed Trump Class of guided missile cruisers to enter service in the 1930s.

The design has little in common with the historic battleships of the twentieth century but it's believed President Trump is drawn to the word "battleship" because they were the "biggest warships" he calls the Trump Class "battleships".  The future of surface fleets and their configurations is currently the subject of much discussion on the basis the likelihood of threats from massed swarms of autonomous or controlled UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles (drones)) may render them too vulnerable to risk.  

With machines, “class” came to be used of a “type” or “run” of units of similar (though not necessarily identical) units.  The practice pre-dated mass-production of consumer goods (on the model Henry Ford’s Ford (1863-1947) Model T (1908-1927) made famous) and most influential was the UK’s Royal Navy that in the 1870s & 1880s standardized the use of “class” for designs of capital ships, the convention being the name adopted was the first laid down (and usually, though not always, launched).  By the time of the coming of the upsurge in warship construction that marked the naval “arms race” of the early twentieth century, naval architects in many nations had adopted the scheme of designation.  The “class” referred not to a ship’s “type” but the set of design parameters (dimensions, weight, firepower, propulsion etc) distinguishing the ships from others.  With the smaller warships (destroyers, light cruisers etc), there might be a dozen or more of the class while the big ships (battleships, battlecruisers etc) typically were built in batches of no more than four and the occasional class did consist of a single vessel.  Because it was an “arms race”, ships could be approaching obsolescence not long after being launched and succeeding classes incorporated new innovations and, in the case of the battleships: more of everything, the most famous example being the Royal Navy’s Dreadnought, the first “all big-gun” battleship that rendered obsolete every battleship then afloat (including all others in the British fleets).

HMS Temeraire at anchor, 1909.  She was one of three Bellerophon-class Dreadnought battleships built between 1906-1909, all of which survived World War I (1914-1918) and were scrapped in 1921-1922.

Before navies crystallised the system of “class” warships had tended to be described by “rate” or “type” (first-rate ship of the line, frigate, corvette, etc) but individual names were invoked, phrases such as “ships of the Iron Duke type” or “the Majestic battleships” being common in oral use and routine in Admiralty documents.  So the concept of “classes” had crept in before the system was formalized and, in the late 1800s, it was three factors that encouraged the shift: (1) Industrialised naval construction (steam power, iron and steel hulls and increasingly capable machine tools made designs expensive meaning a run of standardized units was a way to amortize the investment), (2) Serial production (with an arms race in progress, navies were ordering more warships and, as Henry Ford soon would demonstrate, batches of machines with identical (or near-identical) specifications could be produced faster and more cheaply than bespoke creations and (3) Navies were becoming more bureaucratic (as the fleets expanded, so did the establishment & dockyard facilities and, with ships becoming more complex and maintenance intensive, Admiralties needed precise accounting, training, logistics, and doctrinal categorisation.  “Class” already had a long history in engineering (especially in railway workshops) and taxonomy so was the natural administrative solution and at the time, Britain was the world’s leading naval power so, as went the Royal Navy, others followed.

Classes on four wheels

BMW promotional shot of 1964 BMW 1800 Neue Klasse.

The monument in the background is the Siegestor (Victory Gate), located on the on the boundary between the districts of Maxvorstadt & Schwabing in Munich, Bavaria Germany.  Completed in 1852, it was commissioned by Ludwig I (1786–1868; King of Bavaria 1825-1848) to honor the Bavarian army but after suffering severe damage in World War II (1939-1945), it only narrowly avoided demolition.  BMW stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works) and the company has been based in Barvaria since formation in 1910.

As body types and other forms of differentiation proliferated in the twentieth century, cars were often sorted into “classes”, variously by manufacturers, dealers, registration authorities or reviewers.  The categories used from time to time numbered in the dozens but literal use of the word “class” has been rare in formal nomenclature although terms like “the 1.5 litre class” or “the family car class” were and remain common.  BMW’s Neue Klasse (1962-1970) became well-known outside Germany as the company’s first “mainstream” product on four wheels BMW and although always appearing in English as “New Class”, the literal translation of Neuse Klasse is “new cash register”; given the significance of the range in restoring the company to profitability (in 1960 it was a loss-making concern on the verge of being sold to avoid a declaration of bankruptcy) and ensuring its survival, the true meaning wholly is appropriate.  BMW’s Neue Klasse’s range was neither innovative or especially distinctive but was well-executed and the specification was perfect for the a point in the Wirtschaftswunder (the post-war “economic miracle” experienced by the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany, 1949-1990))) at which a critical mass of the middle class had become sufficiently prosperous to trade in their Volkswagen Beetle for something “a class above”, just as a decade earlier they’d shifted from a motorcycle to one of the “microcars” built by BMW and others that had in the 1950s “put Germany back on wheels”.

BMW 1800 TI/SA, 1965 24 Hour Race, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Francorchamps, Stavelot, Wallonia, Belgium.

The Neue Klasse tag was never used by BMW; the cars always given a designation based on engine displacement (1500; 1600; 1800; 2000) and the range was important also as the ancestor of the 3 Series, since 1975 the model that internationally has been the backbone of the company’s sales.  The model was noted too for it being the first time a “Hofmeister Kink” appeared on a BMW; although the motif had been seen for more than a decade in both Europe and the US, it became such a brand signature it came to be named after Wilhelm Hofmeister (1912–1978), BMW’s design chief 1955-1970.  Although in the 1960s the company never Neue Klasse part of its corporate language, so enduring did it become that in the 2020s it’s its latest generation of EVs (electric vehicle) is now officially the BMW Neue Klasse.  With Chinese manufacturing of EVs seemingly a juggernaut and thus facing troubles potentially as serious those the original Neue Klasse surmounted, the Bavarians hope history repeats itself.

Mercedes-Benz W116, the first S-Class: 1976 450 SEL 6.9.

Unlike BMW, Mercedes Benz did with the release of the W116 (1972-1980) sedans formalize use, the S Class (Sonderklasse, sometimes abbreviated as S-Klasse and translated as “Special Class”) the first instance of what would later became a convention (S Class, E Class, C Class etc).  The new name also encouraged retrospective use, the earlier “big” sedans (W111/112 (1959-1968) & W108/109 (1965-1972)) also sometimes referred to thus although this was never adopted by the factory.  A landmark achievement in its time, the original S-Class was the first recognizably "modern" Mercedes-Benz sedan and its design elements would be carried forward for two decades.

Mercedes-Benz advertising.  Although never explicitly labelling previous models as "S-Class", the factory does like to to hint and frankly, by 2026, the past was looking better than the future.

Despite that, Mercedes-Benz has in S-Class advertising (the model now in its seventh generation, the W223 introduced in 2020) often shown an array of previous generations of its “big” sedans including models like the W111/112 & W108/109 which, in period, never carried the designation and even the 600 (W100, 1963-1981), a model in the Grosser rather than S-Class lineage.  Although as early as 1968, a distinct range of smaller sedans had augmented the W108/109, (the range expanded further in 1983 by an even more compact model), the now familiar nomenclature (C Class, E Class, S Class) wasn’t standardized until 1993 when the alphanumeric names were inverted (500E becoming E500 etc), a change necessitated by the proliferation of models rendering the old system (dating from the 1920s) so prone to ambiguity it has become unmanageable.

Newspapers, advertisers and readers

Before the internet did what it did, for centuries it was print publications (newspapers, magazines and other periodicals) that were the prime vector for the distribution of news, information and entertainment; film, radio and television all had their effects (television notably contributing to the extinction of most afternoon newspapers) but generally, much of the established print media and what was then the “new media” managed a form of peaceful co-existence that was sometimes synergistic, newspaper proprietors and editors quickly expanding their coverage of what appeared on television because that was what their readers wanted, some buying the copies for no other reason.  In those jurisdictions that allowed the same corporation to publish newspapers and operate television stations in the same market, the techniques of cross-promotion became highly refined.

Unlike many mass-produced products, selling more newspapers did not necessarily increase profits; it was a matter of what class of readers were attracted.

Newspapers and magazines were historically unusual because the cover (or even subscription) price charged often would not be enough to pay for the paper alone, let alone the overall cost of production & distribution.  What covered the costs and provided centuries of sometimes vast profits was advertising revenue and although readers tended to think of themselves as buying “a product”, in reality they were the product being delivered to advertisers, exactly the same strategy that works so well for Facebook, TikTok etc.  However, an additional layer of complexity for the print media was that unlike a manufacturer of widgets, increasing sales did not always translate to greater profits.  It’s true the accountants at the widget factory also had to calculate if the extent of additional demand made worthwhile an investment in increased production (ie a night shift, an additional production line or factory etc) but one simplicity was that every dollar paid by a widget buyer (rich or poor) translated on the balance sheet in the same way.  What made print titles unusual was not all buyers were created equal and while the dollars paid by poor people for their newspapers were banked in the same way and had the same nominal value, they weren’t of necessity “worth having” because selling newspapers to the poor (ie of a lower socio-economic class) could be counter-productive for the business model (ie the more you sold to them, the greater the loss).

In the West, mainstream newspapers by the mid twentieth century had become polarized, the “popular” (ie tabloid) titles at one end and the “quality” press (ie broadsheet) at the other.  Because commercial success depended on being able to deliver to advertisers the “right” readers, an industry of market research emerged to perfect the analysis of working out which titles delivered the “right audience at the lowest cost”.  This research was both quantitative & qualitative because it mattered much to advertising agencies whether a title’s buyer lived in the south east, owned two cars, played golf on Saturdays and took an annual overseas holiday or lived in the north, took the bus to a football match on Saturdays and never left the country.  In many ways, they were separate populations and while both demographics might be attractive to those wishing to advertise products, in many cases they’d be different products and in some, exclusive to each.  By combining this data with advertising rates, agencies were able to work out for their clients which media (print, radio, television etc) could deliver the desired market segment at the cheapest rates.  In the case of national newspapers, the segmentation that mattered most was social class and what evolved in the UK was a metric to handle these calculations.  Developed by the industry collective, JICNARS (Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys, a body owned jointly by publishers, advertisers & agencies), because the occupation of a household’s main breadwinner (chief earner) largely determined the spending pattern of that household, social class was determined primarily the their jobs and for this purpose there were six classes:

Class A: The upper middle class (by the mid 1970s in the UK around 20% of all households) with the chief earner (head of the household) typically a successful businessman, professional (lawyer, doctor, chartered accountant etc) or senior civil servant, living in a large detached house or high-priced apartment.  At the time, that class included headmasters of large public (ie private) schools, executives near board level in large companies, leading figures in local government, newspaper editors, senior journalists, professors and Church of England bishops.  As that list indicates, by the 2020s, the composition of Class A shifted a bet.  For the JICNARS’s purposes, the “upper class” (the so-called “1%”) were included in Class A.

Class B: The middle class, then some 10% of households.  These were often people holding “senior” positions who were financially stable and living lives of “quiet respectability” and although with neither the incomes or accumulated wealth (or, not infrequently, debt) of the Class A members, the significance was that in manners and cultural matters, their tastes and habits often overlapped, meaning their attention was sought by the same advertisers.  The Class B membership included vicars, headmasters of smaller schools, senior executive officers in the civil service, university lecturers, matrons of smaller hospitals, pharmacists, directors of smaller companies and qualified librarians in charge of smaller libraries.

Class C1: Just over 15% of households, the C1 families were the lower middle class, trades-people (employed or self-employed) and non-manual workers, “white-collar” workers such as articled clerks, owners of small businesses, clerks, typists, telephonists, curates and nurses.  A recent trend has been a marginalisation of the white collar component of the C1s by a number of factors, most obviously technology although this is spreading upwards to B and even A more than downwards.  Of the trades, despite recent rises in their economic value to advertisers, they’re considered culturally static so while their purchasing power has increased, they don’t identify with AB tastes.

Class C2: Intriguingly, many of those in Class C2 (about a quarter of households) enjoyed higher incomes than many in the C1 cohort and this was because, as the skilled working class, their economic value was higher because they contributed directly (and measurably) to productivity in a way an accountant’s clerk did not.  The C2 membership included foremen, fitters, knitters, plumbers, shop assistants with supervisory responsibilities, pastry-cooks and prison officers.

Class D: Although it probably wasn’t true statistically, for the purposes of the JICNARS, those is Class D were considered all manual workers, semi-skilled or unskilled; that didn’t mean the latter had no skills, it meant to an economist those skills could be quickly learned and required no formal education or structured training.  Some 20% of households were in Class D and typical employment profiles would include labourers, fishermen, bus conductors, traffic wardens and window cleaners.

Class E: Some 10% of households, the Es operated at the “lowest level of subsistence” and survived through precarious, low-paid employment, petty crime and transfer payments; they would now be classed as “welfare-dependent”.  Although the membership was diverse, the JICNARS for illustrative purposes listed migrants, those with substance abuse issues, families of old age pensioners, widows and those dependent on social security.

Predictably, the 30%-odd of the population in Class A & Class B tended to buy the “quality” papers, titles like the Financial Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian collectively drawing almost half their readership from the ABs, this declining to around 40% for the Sunday editions.  What this affluent readership did was attract high-priced advertising, enabling the titles to remain profitable despite a low cover price and circulations that were tiny compared with the mass-market tabloids.  Of note too is that it was these publications (along with The Economist (a newspaper that looks like a glossy magazine) that were most read by decision makers in government and industry.  So, it was the quality newspapers that tended to provide informed discussion on public issues, political affairs, business and the arts; although the record of their influence on public policy was patchy, what they tended to do was “set the agenda”, another attraction for advertisers.

What made the pre-internet newspaper business unusual was that there was sometimes a conscious attempt to reduce sales, a discussion usually not heard in boardrooms or among members of management committees.  In 1968, The Times had embarked on a major promotional drive and, using conventional techniques, sales indeed did spike and that was most pleasing until the research revealed some 60% of its readers were now in the undesirable C1, C2, D & E classes, something the advertising agencies to quick to notice.  Accordingly, the paper’s editorial direction shifted back, ensuring as many as possible of the intruders were shed and the bias towards the AB was restored.  Profitability was thus also improved because with each copy of The Times sold at a nominal loss (based on the cost of production & distribution), selling more made sense only if the rising readership attracted more high-value advertising.  With the less desired classes forming a majority of the leadership, not only were the traditional advertisers less attracted, those seeking to reach the C1, C2 and D classes (few except tobacco companies and their ilk chased the E class) were not willing to pay the high-rates charged by the Times.  The Times did not repeat the mistake and that different news appeared in different papers to attract different audiences was hardly surprising for as Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) put it in Scoop (1938): “They all have different policies, so of course they have to give different news.”

Nye Bevan and his wife Jennie Lee (1904–1988), London, 1934.

Waugh’s point of course can be considered as a matter of both cause and effect because whatever might happen on a publications profit & loss statement, there are also political consequences.  Until scared off, more than one government in the post-war years proposed increasing public expenditure in a way that would increase the burden only on taxpayers earning 2-3 times the national average and, without exception, these have been criticized by the “quality” press, usually on the basis not of such a fiscal package being “unfair” but that it would “alienate the political centre”.  As the JICNARS understood, in electoral terms, this was highly improbable because only about 10-12% of the population would lose out in such a redistribution but that sliver of the electorate was in the AB Class at the centre of the quality press’s readership and this dictated the response.  In his book In Place of Fear (1952), the Welsh Labour Party politician Aneurin "Nye" Bevan (1897–1960) pondered: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.”  As political parties came to understand, it was possible to convince the poor to vote against their own economic interests if the “culture wars” dangled before their eyes could be made to seem enough of a threat, thus the weaponization in the US of guns, God, pickup trucks, trans rights, abortion, gay marriage and much else.